Two defender guides + info for mage and priest in party with def

http://forums.aeriagames.com/viewtopic.php?t=353024
http://forums.aeriagames.com/viewtopic.php?t=226973

Here is a guide that can provide you with more information about this class. However guides aren't written in stone, feel free to try (other) things for yourself and in the end choose what you think is best. All the karma goes to the maker of this guide.

And yes I know we have only have one defender in the guild
The second guide also provides information for mages and priest who party with a defender.

I will sooner or later make a HM Defender, not UM though just for plvling and pting with others when i am bored with my other UMs/HMs

Hehe I have played/ tried all the classes in shaiya now except defender, I think I wouldn't be patient enough to say to people over and over again to wait for taunt.

This part I found very intresting, after you have read it you will recognize it in the game:

4.1.3 Aggroing : a theory in question...

What a confusing subject this is. For a long time, I and many defenders I've know have tried to find an answer to the peculiar behaviour of some mobs when it comes to aggroing. I, after an extensive career as a defender, have made some very interesting discoveries and formulated my own possible theory for the "aggro system". First, let me explain my theory.

As most people have discovered, Rec DOES in fact cause aggro upon attacking mobs. However, what system actually causes them to aggro off? Here is my theory :

From what I've seen, it's a type of point system, where each attack you successfully land on a target (misses do not add any aggro at all) add "aggro points" to this mob depending on your Rec. It also seems to be a 1:1 ratio with your Rec. Simply put, if I taunt a mob with 400 Rec, I place 400 "aggro points" on this mob, causing it to attack me. Now, lets take a mage with, say, 20 Rec. Each attack this mage successfully lands on the mob adds 20 "aggro points" directed to that mage. If this mage is weak, for example, and takes a long time to kill this mob, after 20 attacks, he will have accumilated 400 aggro points, and upon the 21st successful hit, he will have hit 420, causing the mob to aggro to him (assuming the defender does not use any debuffs or attacks).

Taunt and Arouse Blow : my theory --> Skills like Taunt and Arouse Blow add extra aggro points on a mob depending on the level of the skill. For example, a 400 Rec defender uses lvl 2 Taunt, and adds 400 + 150 aggro points on a mob. However, another 400 Rec defender, uses Taunt lvl 3 and adds 400 + 250 aggro points.

Mob colour : My theory on higher mob colours is that the Rec:Aggro points ratio is simply deviated from 1:1 depending on the colour of the mob. For example, if you attacked a white mob, your ratio would be 1:1.2. If the mob was green, you would have a 1:1 ratio. If the mob was red, you would have a 1:0.7 ratio (there are only invented numbers, no tests have been made however, it is ture that mob colour does effect the effectivness of aggro).

My supporting expample on this theory : I normally duo in desert with my training partner, a mage. I have 574 Rec and my partner aproximatly 70. When I duo wihtout a priest, he takes about 7 hits to kill all the mobs. In desert, all debuffs fail and mobs, so no aggro points are added upon using debuffs, so the only skill in play is Taunt. I inflict 574+X amount of aggro points using taunt. After 7 hits, no mobs aggro off. In theory, my partner adds 490 aggro points after those 7 hits, showing a sign of credibility to the theory. However, I do occasionally party with a priest, which adds +40 Rec (with prayer) to both of us. The mage jumps to 110 Rec, and I jump to 614 Rec. After about 7 hits (some die in 8, occasionally, depending on how much he crits), mobs begin to aggro off. In theory, I inflict 614+X aggro points, but with the increased Rec, the mage inflicts an additional 40 points per hit. After 7 hits, he inflicts 770 points. If X was less than or equal to 156 points, this scenario would occur in theory thus, increasing the credibility of my theory once more.

Before I move on to Pulling and Taunting Strategies, here are some extra discoveries I've made on some questions about mobs.

Q : I pulled a bunch of mobs and Taunted, but when the mage attacked, some mobs ran back to their initial positions! What happened?

A : The mob actually aggroed off. It wanted to attack the mage however, the mage was most probably very far away from the initial position of them mob. You know, of course, that at a certain distance, the mob gives up chase (a particularly important thing to remember when kiting that I will speak of later). The mage, in this case, was beyond the maximum distance of that mob, so as soon as the mob selected a spot beside the mage to run to, the system realizes that the mage is too far and thus, the mob runs back to it's initial position.

Q : So if your theory is correct, does that mean that when a priest heals before taunt, it inflicts aggro points on a mob?

A : NO!! Priest inflict NO AGGRO WHATSOEVER on mobs. Then why does a mob aggro off when a priest heals/dispels, you ask? I have the answer! The makers of the game realized that priest would never be attacked by a mob since aggro points are only inflicted upon attacking a mob. So, they made a special system. Have you, by any chance, realized that when the priest aggros a mob, it is always the mob you have currently selected? Well, this is the actual reason why it aggros to the priest. Since the makers of the game realized that a mob would never be able to kill an opponent that is constantly being healed, they made a system so that the selected mob of the player being healed will have his aggro points reversed (so : aggro points of player being healed = aggro points of healer), causing the mob to attack the priest. This aggro points reversing buisness is ONLY A THEORY, however, the fact that the selected mob aggros off is tested and true! So be carful of this when pulling. Avoid selecting a mob if it is not necissary (should you be in a party with a priest).

I found this topic very interesting, I have never played a defender in a serious way, and there for don't have any playing experience. but I do have a lot of experience playing in the highest level parties with defenders who have a lot of skill controlling lots of really hard hitting mobs. I have also learned a lot from watching how a good defender controls the mob pack, using a healer, and also kiting when they don't have a healer. until I started watching how good defenders work, I never appreciated how much they bring to the game.

Well, bull, you mostly have played solo character like ranger and fighter. Therfore you havent really need any defender to help you at lvling like a priest or mage very often need.
I myself have played Defender on Etain, and i enjoyed playing it, and since its a party character, you will easily find new friends and thast could also help the guild get new recruitments

Back when I was nm I saw a nm rec/dex def defender take on mait mobs without a healer when they were purple and red to him

He didn't even die once in 2 hours

One our Alliance's better pker's (Jack Sparrow) is a nm defender...I watched him charge into a group of PI's and corr's, and it took a good 10 seconds for them to kill him and he is only nm.

HM Defenders have 9 aoe debuff attacks(many with 75%-100% set accuracy no matter your dex) and about 40 seconds of immortality massive health and defense. UM defenders have over a minute and a half of immortallity/reflection damage as well as massive health, defense, and resistance to back that up when it fails.

Defenders are most definatly the strongest late game characters. I just don't have the patience to get one that high lvl

If you are talking about the Jack Sparrow i know, like i think. I actually look at him as a friend in game. And can talk to him like any other friends in game. Nice guy and a great defender ^^

Lol it is funny watching the chat between him and the darkies

Snip you should Know JackSparrow he was in The Lost Nine when we had that guild going, and I still party with him now on a regular basis. I wont knock Jack for his Def skills, but I have seen some a lot better, but ! when I say better, I don't mean because they are NM, HM, or UM I mean there whole technique is better, any one can stand in the middle of a big bunch of mobs and be smashed to bits, and still come out a live if they have enough defence and HP, the real skill comes when there's no healer present and you can take on hard hitting mobs and come out of it time and time again, unscathed and your party all safe.

Tree-Doc wrote:

Snip you should Know JackSparrow he was in The Lost Nine when we had that guild going, and I still party with him now on a regular basis.

Thats the one!
I kept contact with him after stew left, means he left right after stew left =( And he have good Soccer-team taste, he likes Liverpool too

Well looks like i am one of the only ones that has the mind setting for a defender. yes this is me our guilds only defender. Dustin-aka Xiochung

I got to ask could someone take a screen shot of my 46 NM defender an post it on the defenders part of the forums plz thx. Xiochung

Zyrgel made a defender, so you are not the only one.
And I am willing to help you make a screenshot of your defender and post it, but it is also a good idea to read the post about posting pictures so you can learn to do it yourself as well so you can make and upload the next screenhots yourself.

For a screenshot: You can use F11 to remove the health bars and things like that. That will make the picture look nicer. You can also remove your name and other peoples name in the game settings to make the picture look better. If you press F12 you will make a screenshot and it will be saved in your shaiya folder.

Here you can read about uploading a picture to the forum.
http://lostnine.ogameteam.org/general-discussion-f14/need-a-favour-snip-t8.htm

your Cool White and I'm proud that your always the first person to offer help. your the pupil that's become the teacher.