Need help with my Knoc build

[Hiko]

So for those that don't know me, I have always loved to tank the big bosses. That said, I've been designing my tier V armor around complete defense, and need to figure out where to go with my defense techs on jewlery.

My armor is pretty much filled with +armor on everything, +dex and health wherever it can go, then 1hs, str and power to fill in the gaps. Helm and shield have sockets for defensive crystals. 2 of each of the shining armor crystals that give melee wards

Jewlery is all health jewlery with similar stats, but on earings, rings and braclets I have a free tech for a defensive skill. My longterm goal is to have 3 sets of these pieces, each with slash/pierce/crush defense techs. For the timing being, I shall split up though.

My question is this: Do I go with ward or resistance? Fully buffed I should have (just guessing) around 2500 armor anyhow. Will the extra 240 be better than adding 96 resistance? I was thinking that the wards would be great to add on top of my melee ward III.


More info on specing:
100 KNOC
100 Mage
100 Cleric
82 BTLM (88 planned for shimmer field II)
Level 1 weaver (100 planned for dexterity)

Training Points:
600 health
300 shield
not sure how the rest of them are spent atm. A few in flame and energy I know, some in evasion I'm sure.


I was also planning on adding druid to 56 for detoxify self. Though at this point I am wondering if I might be better off taking shaman up for detoxify, so that I also get blight spells (lesser str, dex etc as well as ward/resist). The benefit of druid is of course at 80 you mastor the vigor ability which gives somewhere around 40 of each melee resist. Then MAYBE conjurer to 100 for the extra ice and summoming skills (but I am trying to minimize my adv rating while maximizing the gains!)


Any input on the resist vs ward question and druid vs shaman would be great

[tramsan]

Resists, definitely. They are armor, while wards are evasion. As we all know evasion is pretty weak at the upper levels due to silly weapon skills of mobs. If you're going to rely on evasion you need to be built for it ground-up. Resistance/armor is always there, however, helping you on every strike.

I don't quite understand what you mean by "Will the extra 240 be better than adding 96 resistance?" though.


(Ps, 45 armor reduces incoming damage by 1 DPS... Or was it straight damage?)

[Hiko]

Resists, definitely. They are armor, while wards are evasion. As we all know evasion is pretty weak at the upper levels due to silly weapon skills of mobs. If you're going to rely on evasion you need to be built for it ground-up. Resistance/armor is always there, however, helping you on every strike.

I don't quite understand what you mean by "Will the extra 240 be better than adding 96 resistance?" though.


(Ps, 45 armor reduces incoming damage by 1 DPS... Or was it straight damage?)

Yes I've noticed that the weapon skills are rediculously high. Kinda making me worry about this build, which relies on my high shield skill and the ability to land warped perception IV.

so the question is 240 armor vs +96 "evasion" (sorry bout the typo)

[tramsan]

Ah. Definitely armor/resist, then. Like I said, if you wish to rely on evasion you need to build for that from the ground up. 96 more evasion won't do diddly squat in the end.

[Hiko]

Ah. Definitely armor/resist, then. Like I said, if you wish to rely on evasion you need to build for that from the ground up. 96 more evasion won't do diddly squat in the end.

What do you mean "from the ground up"?

[tramsan]

I mean you need to take a monk school* up to 100, get all the evasion/dodge buffs you can and tech with dex. Wards are optional, since they only work against a specific damage type. It should be noted that even built from ground-up for evasion, it is a poor substitute for armor.

Druid 60 is a must for evasion. You simply can't get by without forest mist.

* Berserker also gets 10 evasion, but only 7 dex and no dodge/evasion abilities except the basic Dodge.