balance? sounds boring to me. check your user manuals.

[Juk]

<div></div>i posted an hour for very long message on this but screw it up so heres the short version.. open page 14 and check what they promise, no balanced tanks or scouts doing more dps then zerks, bruisers or monks. only guardian is said to be the pure tank, all other fighters are damagedealer tanks.. before you whine about balance remember that this game should have 24 different classes and thats the reason i bought it. if you choose fighter at ior you arent going tank, you are going tank when you choose guardian at lvl 20, otherwise you are going damagedealer that can tank or utility class that can tank. everyone knew it when they opened their manual before deciding what class to play. scouts knew they will be scouts, nothing said that they will be dealing more damage then all fighters. i have 2 level 50 characters and loads of lower level toons. i have been at over 150 raids. neither of my lvl 50's are my first character and i knew exactly what my task is for all 50 levels when i made them.. other is assasin who isnt doing near the damage of berserkers but my debuffs make 23 other players in raid make a lot more damage. i enjoy playing it and never got rejected from group or raid cos of my class. other is guardian and i have been rejected from raids and groups cos there is allready too many guardians and guardian is allmost the worst spot filler, make every tank equal at tanking and what purpose does guardian have? i know guardian is overpowered tank atm and tanking epics is boringly easy but it will chance after defence caps. if other fighters can tank everything allso why take even 1 guardian to group/raid? user manual didnt say anything about other classes then guardian beeing tanks anyways. if you balance too much its the same as making max lvl 9 and adding raids to ior. fighter priest mage scout there allready, then we dont even have to think of what class to choose but we can get to play balanced game. <div></div><p>Message Edited by Jukis on <span class=date_text>06-19-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:39 PM</span>

[Maeldir]

<P>EverQuest is a growing game. The Manual is already outdated compare to today's game.</P> <P>What people complained about is that Berserkers (as an exemple only) are good tanks, granted not as good as Guardians, but a hell lot better than my Dirge. But Berserkers can also outdamage Rangers and Assassins that are supposed to be pure DPS classes.</P> <P>I've seen a SK with a good Fabled weapon being VERY close in DPS to a Wizard (parser to prove it over many fights). Wiz / Warlocks are supposed to be DPS champions. They cant even take 1 hit from mobs, so they are balanced for that exemple. Scouts can take more hits than Wizs, but do a bit less damage. This is balanced for this exemple. Berserkers can do more damage than scouts, and tank pretty well too. This is unbalanced.</P> <P>Monks / Bruisers are less a problem as they cannot tank well in Raid situations, but in a group they are able tanks. They also do lots of damage. Probably need a little rebalancing there.</P> <P>Balance in EQ2 doesnt mean everyone being 100% the same, but means no one is overpowered and no one is totally useless. No one should be more useful, or be totally not wanted by anyone even in dire need. EQ2 have a lot of work to do there, and they are working on it very seriously.</P>

[Juk]

ok i made my post a bit too short then.. the point was that what everyone is yelling for that they want will make this game less fun, its not that fun for me now either tho as theres not much challenge in raids and i can solo white heroic mobs with my guardian.. i have royal great flail myself and i outdamage every wizard in raids, i outdamage everyone else but warlocks and conjurors, with my guardian! with my assasin i can do max 180-220dps or i get aggro.. if i'm not tanking with my guardian i can just keep slamming my damage attacks and do 250+ dps without taking aggro from mt. that must be nerfed but imo monks and bruiser damage shouldnt be nerfed that much and they shouldnt get more tanking ability either. <div></div>

[xfbishop]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Maeldir wrote:<BR> <P>I've seen a SK with a good Fabled weapon being VERY close in DPS to a Wizard (parser to prove it over many fights). Wiz / Warlocks are supposed to be DPS champions. They cant even take 1 hit from mobs, so they are balanced for that exemple. Scouts can take more hits than Wizs, but do a bit less damage. This is balanced for this exemple. Berserkers can do more damage than scouts, and tank pretty well too. This is unbalanced.</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>i have a huge issue with this comment.</P> <P>this sk had a fabled weapon, what was the rest of his gear like? then what was the wizards gear like? his stats? what lvl were his/her spells at ad1? app4? do you know? in my opinion things should be balanced at a lvl that they are equally equipped, not just a wiz should be able to out dps anyone just because they are a sorcerer.<BR></P> <P>as far as berzerkers are concerned their dps is crap against a single target, its just they have something like 5 aoe's on seperate timers that push them up so high. those will have to be nerfed to near useless to lower thier dps by any number that is significant.</P>

[Thesp]

<P>So I open up my manual to page 14, and its a profile on high elves. I figure theres different versions so I skip to the part about fighters and this is what they say first about <STRONG>all</STRONG> fighters:</P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr> <P><EM>Fighters enjoy the thick of the fray, <STRONG>often absorbing the brunt of attacks</STRONG> while taking the battle to the enemy directly. Fighters can wear a variety of armor, and employ a host of weapons and combat arts to defeat the enemy.</EM></P> <P><EM>Key Attributes: Strength</EM></P> <P><EM>Fighters use brute strength and sturdy weapons to deal physical damage to their enemies. Always at the forefront of combat, Fighters stand toe-to-toe with opponents while <STRONG>keeping their allies from harm</STRONG>.</EM></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>Pay special attention to those bolded lines, it seems to indicate to me that Fighters are supposed be tanks. Call me crazy but "absorbing the brunt of attacks" and "keeping allies from harm" sounds like manual talk for tanking to me.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As for what "was promised", recall that even before the unveiling of the archetype tree, we were told that archetypes would have core roles and that all members would in some way fill those rolls, ie all priests can serve as main healer, all fighters can tank, etc. This was to be a change from what most of us experienced in eq1 where clerics were the only "real" healers, druids and shaman, although technically they had heal spells, could not be the main healer for a group in most situations. There was also a great dichotomy in the tanking responsibilities in eq1 as well. If you remember back to pre-kunark, pallys and sks were inferior tanks to even rangers. Warrior <STRONG>was</STRONG> the only tank in that game until they buffed the knights, thus creating that whole argument of knights vs warrior.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Lets apply this to grouping. IMO, groups should not need to look for a specific fighter subclass to be main tank, any appropriate level fighter class should do just fine be it monk, bruiser or guardian. Fighters deal some damage, but should not be forced to give up tanking abilities to have increased damage, instead, fighter classes that lack damage dealing should get buffs/debuffs or utility abilities. Afterall, fighters should come behind mages and scouts in terms of overall damage output so giving up core role abilities for secondary ones should not be an option.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Ok, so on to raiding. In a raid, especially now that raid size is limited, stackability is what you need to think about first and foremost. As with group roles, the role of the fighter in a raid is to tank. Now, you can have main tank ability and off-tank ability, and I think off-tanking should be made a viable tactic in raids (this may or may not be the current situation, but with upcoming combat changes it could be). As I also stated in regards to group, fighters get utility/buffs/debuffs to balance out damage abilities, not tanking abilities. The actual abilities that each sub-class gets will vary and stackableness is the key to balancing the fighter classes, IMO.</DIV>

[Juk]

so thespar you're saying it would be ok to have max lvl 9 and only 4 classes.. every other rpg has damagedealer fighters that outdamage utility classess ie. <div></div>

[Juk]

<div></div>i know many zerkers monk and bruisers that have allways concentrated on increasing their damage capabilities, they tank sometimes if no one else to tank but usually they want to just keep on dealing damage. allso i know paladins that are very happy at their hybrid ability to deal some damage and heal+revive others in raids and still tank some not so hard encounters. in exp groups i've noticed many players dont consider ie zerker as damagedealer and if group needs some damagedealer they dont invite zerker. its totally different in raiding with guild tho as all know what other players are able and want to do. i'm not saying take off every other tanks tanking ability. atm its pretty good that zerker or crusader can give up on their 2 hander and get shield and tank for exp group ie but for raiding guardian should have little extra defense compared to crusaders and zerker. i know allso bruisers that have only focused on defense and they can tank allmost every encounter as it is. if some player has made a damagedealer fighter and then notices that cant tank something its not a reason to get every fighter to tank everything as easily. if every fighter would be able to tank darathar without any other tank to support them.. or whatever mob will be hardest after expansion.. would that be good? it shouldnt be like that, not even with best equipment. <div></div><p>Message Edited by Jukis on <span class=date_text>06-20-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:39 AM</span>

[Thesp]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Jukis wrote:<BR>so thespar you're saying it would be ok to have max lvl 9 and only 4 classes.. <BR>every other rpg has damagedealer fighters that outdamage utility classess ie.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>thats not what I said, having all fighters have the ability to be the full time tank does not reduce things down to 4 classes. Their playstyles are completely different, they're skills are completely different, that makes them unique classes, just because they're all tanks doesn't negate that. And they've said that the intended damage output ranking based on archetype is supposed to be mage < scout < fighter < priest so lets hope that the combat update reflects that.

[Tarindel]

<div></div><div></div><span><blockquote><hr>Thespar wrote:And they've said that the intended damage output ranking based on archetype is supposed to be mage < scout < fighter < priest so lets hope that the combat update reflects that.<hr></blockquote>This is why a lot of fighters are either [Removed for Content] off or scared.  Originally (back in beta days), Moorgard stated that fighters were supposed to be the best long term dps in the game (the recent line about mage < scout < fighter < priest being the way it's always been is revisionist history).  In relationship to scouts, I believe Moorgard's specific quote was: "but in our game, fighters do greater overall melee damage".  That's the primary reason I picked a fighter class instead of a scout.Okay, so time warp to now.  The game evolves over time for necessary reasons, and philosophies change based on both design decisions and in-game balancing.  That's reality, and we have to deal with it.In terms of this specific change, reordering of the DPS heirarchy means fighters are essentially losing their ability to be DPS classes.  If you want DPS, you'll get a scout or a mage.  Scouts and mages need _something_ to do in a battle, and if DPS is all they can come up with to give them, so be it -- everyone should be useful in some way.</span><span>There are 3 sides to the combat equation: DPS, Tanking, and Utility.  Classes need to be balanced on all 3 -- all fighters should all have good tanking.  As for the dps/utility side of the equation, that should be primarily what differentiates the fighers from each other.  Fighters with significant utility (eg. paladins), should not have high DPS.  Fighters with lower utility _should_ have significant DPS. The second thing that needs to be considered is stackable roles.  DPS is always stackable with DPS.  Tanking is rarely stackable, unless you need an offtank (which is rare).  Utility is sometimes stackable, depending on what it is. </span><span> </span><span>Here's the crux of why a lot of fighters are worried.  If the fighters primary roles is to tank, well... tanking doesn't stack.  You generally only need one tank per group, and not many for raids.  Suddenly we're heading down the slippery slope back to EQ1-land, where groups wanted a warrior to tank, and then filled up the other 5 slots with non-tank classes.  In numbers, that means 1/4th of the class archetypes are getting only 1/6th of the group spots.  In terms of actual players, fighters are the most popular class, so it's probably more like 1/3rd of the players getting 1/6th of the group spots.  This is especially true for the fighter classes that do not have significant utility because they were originally given higher DPS instead.</span> <span>Given this, I don't understand why they need to have strict guidelines on how much DPS the archetypes should do.  mage < scout < fighter < priest doesn't make sense to me.  Why shouldn't a fury (offensive priest) do more damage than a paladin (defensive fighter)?  Why shouldn't a berserker do more damage than a bard?  Why shouldn't an assassin do more damage than an enchanter?  I think they should.  That's the tradeoff these classes make for having utility or lack thereof.And that's why a lot of fighters, especially the DPS fighters, are scared.  If they take away DPS (our only stackable ability, since DPS fighters typically have little to no utility), a lot of us fighters are afraid we're going to be left without a stackable role in groups.  Because once you have that first fighter to tank, there's no reason to get another one.  You'd be better off getting a scout or mage for added DPS, or (maybe) another priest for the healing/utility buffs (alongside low DPS).  And that's just not a good place to be. </span><span><font color="#ff0000"></font></span><div></div><p>Message Edited by Tarindel on <span class=date_text>06-20-2005</span> <span class=time_text>08:23 AM</span>

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<P>Ok i just have to interject.</P> <P>Main point of my post here: to have a strong building you must first have a strong foundation and build upon that foundation. </P> <P>Just beacuse a mage goes enchanter does not mean they give up their role as a damage class! Far from it, they should mearly not improve in damage as well as a soceror is on account they have mor fexability to perform more roles than a soceror, hence "utility". Also, damage comes in many forms, and if they added a power drain to ever enchanter'd nuke, made them cost same as a soceror's nuke, with 80% of the damage a soceror would do, then they are in effect still a damage dealing mage, only dealing damage ina different way. If an enchnater is nukeing a Healing monster, that 20% less damage they do might actually return a higher benefit if it drains vital healing power from the mob, such as if the nuke drains 50 power from target, and that target could heals 400 hp from that 50 power, then in a sence the enchanter has done 400 more damage from using the power drain attached to their nuke.  As for summoner, using their DPS pet it needs to have spells = to 60% of the damage capacity of the soceror, and a nuke+DOT spell that in 30 seconds can make up the remaining 40% of the soceror's damage ability (make this dot also greatly lower resist of target, alowing soceror to deal more damage, meaning that they will work best when together).</P> <P>As for the problem with mage vs Scout,a new equation needs to be writtin! Mage=Scout>Fighter>Priest! The only reasion Scouts get slightly (and lets be honest, it is very slight) more defense than a mage is that to perform their = damage they are forced into melee range of mobs.</P> <P>[as a side note i think it would be fun to add Touch spells that require caster to be with in melee ranged but an added benefit of doing more damage for less power using this line of spells]</P> <P>To sum it up ina  simple prase, balancing needs to be done amongst the archetype! not cross archetypes! no overlaping!</P> <P>And to thoughs nay sayers that say "[Removed for Content] an Echanter cant be outdamageing my UBAH ZEKER! this is completely BS!" then you should make and enchanter and not complains so much!! just kidding, but yes, enchanters SHOULD be outdamaging  a berserker as a mage > fighter.</P> <P>There needs to be a simple mentality when thinking about the classes, it's all VERY symetrical:</P> <P>1/2 are ment for offense and 1/2 are ment for defense. Mage=Scout in damage because they are the damageing 1/2 of the spectum, while fighters and priest make up the deffensive 1/2. It's that simple when u get down to it. </P> <P>Now for the topic that allways seems so difficult, RAIDING</P> <P>"But Mr. , ima fighter, but im not the main tank, so ineed uber DPS or im worthless! Dont take my role from me!" Nope, sorry dude, fighters arent mentor for offense capabilities of mage/scout or else ever thing fall out of wack. Would you feel good if a priest took your role as MT for a raid? It's the exact same concept. Theirfor, what do u do the thoughs 5 more fighters who are "doing nothing now" in a raid??</P> <P>Easy..........so very easy that it should have been decided long ago.....so easy that it's partialy done in game now.... allow them to forma  fighting unit, sugested named : Battalion or a Phalanks<yes i spelled it wrong...to late at night to care :smileywink: ></P> <P>Ok here is my imaginary raid set up: 6 fighters,priest,mage,scouts (hey what do u know, thats all of the classes..24 classes...max of 24 people in raid...makes u go hmmm doesnt it?)</P> <P>Allow the group of 6 fighters to disperse the damage ammongst themselves. This makes the job of healing easier, as lighter armored brawlers wont take a full forced blow if they dont avoid it, lets say this:</P> <P>Random_uber_epic_mob_3125 does a attack that deals 2000 damage. as part of the "penalty" for banding together and dispersing damage, the total damage incoming is +25% more, so thats 2500 damage being divided among 6 players, which is 416, then that registers against mitigation and avoidance chance. If say a Brawler avoids it, thats 2500-416 so the hit's total is only 2100 or so, if a warrior has 60% mitigation, he only takes 166 damage, cuting off even more of the total, and all together it would be more effective than a single tank tanking.</P> <P>But what of valuably needed priest buffs that the tanks need?? Also simple, a right clickable option on ANY group wide buff that allows it to be spred accross the entire raid, but at the cost of 5 concentration. This alows priest/mages/bards to buff raid wide, but it will only be one buff per player.</P> <P>Another solution would be to make certain raid mobs more easly tankable by different tanks.</P> <P>Accurate heavy spike damage scout raid mobs would be best handled by warrior, heavy spike damage casters would be best handle by crusaders ( providing they give them a self ward that absobs a lot of spell damage) and finaly brawlers tanking fighter mobs that have unaccurate flurry attacks that negate targets mitigation, they hit up to 5 times increaseing power by 50% each hit (devistating to anyone who cant dodge them). </P> <P>Infact, i have posted on a different post about how a epic fight could contain the boss using ALL 4 archetypes in his fight depending on how he's doing, like if he is feeling confident since he's at full HP, the raid mob would focus on powerfull and accurate physical strikes (scout) but at 75% hp he relises physical just inst cutting it, so he switches to devistating magical damage (mage) which would require a crusaders knowlege of spell withstanding to survive, then at 50% hp the mob notices he's in trouble and would begin healing himself (this is when an enchanter's power drain would be needed, and i think powerdrains SHOULD be a viable raid tactic) - at this stage the devs need to trow in something fun and new, like say a stationary weapon that must be reached quickly to shoot the raid mob who has now flow up into the sky to heal himself and cause raid wide smiteing holy damage, to get to this weapon, someone would have to clime a wall dovered with tiny spiders that try to knock u off, mkae it so that the climer needs protection by ranged attackers to pick off the spiders so the climer can get to the weapon before the mob heals up to 74% (no going back to diferent modes for mob) perhaps make scouts faster climers, allowing them to get to the weapon the fastest and prevent the mob from regenerating to much hp. The mob would loose 10% hp from the weapon, and would resume fighting on group for 2 minutes after bing shot down before he flies up and needs to be shot down again. the weapon cant drop the mob below 25%. At this point (25% hp) the mob is desprit and frantic to survive! so he becomings a fighter, focusing primarily on defense, and his once accurate  single attacks are frantic flurries that negate armor (aka u need a brawler at this point to calmy avoid the raged blows) Also, at this point the mob would do devistating personal AOE attacks that would crush scouts, so they must fall back and rely on ranged damage (also, back when mob was a Mage, scouts could do exceptional damage, but casters coudlnt land spels since it was focusing on magic, but when mob was focus on physical strike (scout) the mages did excelent damage while scouts wernt quite as good, and when mob is a fighter the scouts would all perform poorly while mages would gain the uperhand in damage)</P> <P>This multi stage of fighting makes it feel more dynamic and realistic (though i know this wouldnt work with all mobs, such as mobs that are considered casters only, but on dragons and the like this would be very realistic, as we all know fighting styles can changes as battles progress and desperation takes hold)</P> <P>I want more interactive raid like this that require stratagy beoind simple buttion mashing, knowing when and what to do at crusal moments is important</P> <P>Took look further at some problems some might find with my design:</P> <P>Q: "nice and all, but how would you switch aggro between tanks without looseing one or having the raid wipe?" </P> <P>A: have each 25% stage render mob invulnerable, and wipe all prievious aggro, then the first one to reattack the mob will be first on aggro list (this would require cooperation form raid to hold there buttions!!)</P> <P>Q: Well if we can powerdrain raid mobs by the time they are 50% they wont have power to heal themselves, wont that make it trivial?</P> <P>A: at each 25% mark, the mob regains all power, and there power shouldnt be endless like nagy and vox of eq1, if we have limits (like the recient changes to certain items that need not be mentionsed) to ensure power is not a endless resource, so should mobs be subjegated to this rule.</P> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>To sum it all up:</DIV> <DIV>A) make mobs have same benefits/restrictions of players</DIV> <DIV>B) diversify mobs and tanking types</DIV> <DIV>C) Balance within the Archetype (and DPS isnt the end-all of balancing either, giving one sub-class offensive buffs and other defensive or enimy determental buffs that lower incoming damage is better than giving one more raw defense or offense)</DIV> <DIV>D) Allow tanks to combine their defensive purpose and disperse high damage attacks</DIV> <DIV>E) make staged raid fights that require different tactics at different times</DIV> <DIV>F)make raids more interactive than your normal "buttion masher"</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>**G) I have not discused this in this post, but allow quests with aqequit reuse timers that grant app3/adept1/adept4/master2 quality of skill upgrades, high quality tougher fight (adep4 require x2 raid and master 2 a HARD x4 raid, that require a ton of thinking and puzle solveing to complete)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE reply to my ideas..they get skimmed over so many times it seems and it makes me feel like all this work goes down the drain :smileywink:</DIV>

[Auron_ff10]

<P>I think eyes of truth just gave my exact same thoughts on the matter,</P> <P>Tanks tank, not DPS, otherwise what do scouts and mages have to offer other than utility spells that are normally useful only outside of combat...</P> <DIV><Edit> I did read ur whole post eyes, i didnt skim over it ^^   and i have to say that those are nice ideas, the only problem is seeing if SOE will ever read them <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>(maybe post it for nearly 6 months like that dreaded robe that someone mentioned and it could drum it into their heads  <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  )</DIV><p>Message Edited by Auron_ff10 on <span class=date_text>06-21-2005</span> <span class=time_text>06:08 AM</span>

[Crotal]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Thespar wrote:<BR> <P>There was also a great dichotomy in the tanking responsibilities in eq1 as well. If you remember back to pre-kunark, pallys and sks were inferior tanks to even rangers. Warrior <STRONG>was</STRONG> the only tank in that game until they buffed the knights, thus creating that whole argument of knights vs warrior.</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>SKs were never inferior tanks to Rangers.</P> <P><BR>Ever.<BR></P>

[Deadjest]

<P>Heh sombody smoking some crack.</P> <P>SK/Pallys sucked in many ways pre kunark and tanking was one of them <STRONG>EVEN </STRONG>compared to rangers.   I remember the overhall that happend to push SK/Pallys tanking wise above Rangers and how defensive for warriors spelled the doom of any form of tanking balance ever going to be achieved for many expansions to come.</P>

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<P>omg ty Auron, realy nice to hear nice replys like that. And i agree, i get skimmed over alot and i doubt a dev will ever read this post (which is why i sometimes go on test and dropa  afew hints durring active testing sessions ^_^)</P> <P>BTW i loved FF10/10-2 despite what the majority thinks i love that storyline</P> <P>Personaly i think the only aspect of "tanking" a guardian should be superior at  is hidden inside their name...GUARD :smileywink:</P> <P>They should have the best protection skills that can be used ina pinch with minimal negatives for using them (currently the guard's doesnt take into account their mitigation, but i thinkit should take intoaccount 50% of the guard's mitigation at app1 and increase from there, ranging as high as a normal mitigation as if the mob had hit the guardain completely insted of the target)</P> <P>Also, no tank shouod ever have a tuanting advantage. Also, damage and healing (this goes for all classes) should generate no aggro, but rather each individual spell needs a + or - no null to aggro. This opens a new field of spells and such, like "Touch of Nil", high damage and low powercost spell that requires the WArlock to be with in melee range to "touch" the mob and deal awsome damage, BUT this could also generate x3 the normal hate, so it would require coordination amongst tank and Warlock. Like say normal nuke (nil distortion) provides 30+ aggro, and a fighters taunts at that level generate 100+ aggro, but this touch spell generates 90+ aggro. This Warlock must make sure that the fighter gets off atleast 2 taunts before he can use this awsome spell. the better the tanks taunts, to more damage the warlock can safely do.</P> <P>Lets say nil distortion does 1300 (app1 at 37 i think did this much) for +20 hate for 50 or so power if it lands-17 sec recast</P> <P>then touch of Nil does 2000 app1 for 50 powerfor 200+ hate-30 sec recast</P> <P>so for 1300x10 you would gain same hate as one cast of Touch of Nil, but cost alot more power, so if tank has super taunts, your max dps and dpp(damage per power) will dramaticaly rise</P> <P>keep in mind i dont expect a 2k nuke at 37... just as an example in power vs damage :smileywink: </P> <P>And yes... im going to copy and past my thred (the complete complied thoughs of Eyes = P  )  on every possible board that this could relate till SOMEONE important reads them! lol</P><p>Message Edited by Eyes_of_Truth on <span class=date_text>06-22-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:57 AM</span>

[Crotal]

<P>Rangers could never approach the AC of Sk/Pallys, Rangers had chain, SK/Pally/War had plate.  The only thing Kunark gave them that put them at an advantage (for a few seconds) was weaponshield.  Rangers were good DPS, and became great later on.  But they never had the ability to mitigate damage or gear that was HP/STA oriented.</P> <P>One star away, but the facts are the facts.</P>

[Encantador]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Eyes_of_Truth wrote:<BR> <P>.............................</P> <P>And yes... im going to copy and past my thred (the complete complied thoughs of Eyes = P  )  on every possible board that this could relate till SOMEONE important reads them! lol</P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>OMG stand back from the fire when you do. </P> <P>Let me give you a hint .... what stops the warlock using this while soloing? What will the scouts think about mages running in and out to do their 'death touch of doom' ? LoL can you image the whines from the SKs? ... When you have thought things through then you might get some sensible replies.</P> <P> </P>

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<P>I don't want to EVER hear someone tell me to "think things though" that is one of the WORST insults i have ever had! YES i think everything though... and as i said "a new field of spells" which implies a new TYPE of spell/ca. This means a new type of DAMAGE spell/CA that do high damage, for generous recast, but grant A LOT of hate, aka more RISK for the mage/scout using them, but  amuch greater reward for performing them as they will be very power efficant and powerfull. </P> <P>This is not a "death touch" but like a powerful nuke that has a taunt and longer recast to balance out the risk of using it. For scouts it would function the same way but be a very potient and deadly strike that also increases hate dramaticaly (which scouts would ACTUALLY have the advantage on said skill since they can lower their hate afterusing it or prior to)</P> <P>So... about SK, their Harm Touch should be better than a normal nuke but weaker than this touch/strike. Granted that theirs has a long reuse, it should be irresistable. Keep in mind that SK a re still fighters, and they should not be out damaging mages or scouts, and should think of HT line of skills to be a last resort or a  last ditch attempt to kill off that healer mob before it can heal it self.</P> <P>And currently i havent had much "fire" except your little smolder, but i respect your reply and ideas no the less, and i encourage you to post more concerns.</P> <P>BTW, the "Touch of ----" line of spells wasnt realy my main focus in that second post, i just got off topic after the guardian thing hehe... </P> <P>Anyway, if u want to see a post of my complied ideas on Raiding fixes/improvments, Archetype balancing, and more interactive fighting, as well as a detailed Raid that grants adept4 skills (and how to get app3/adept1/adept4/master2 from doing "training quests"</P> <P> click here: <A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=testfeed&message.id=19712" target=_blank>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=testfeed&message.id=19712</A></P> <P>Please reply to any ideas you have to make this a better post!</P> <P>PS: afterthought, "what keeps a warlock form doing this while soloing?" ...........little thing called mean mob who can crush a warlock for 90% of their HP with a little skill called Barrage..... trust me when at 37 i had 1300 (more or less..think less) hp self-buffed, when u get hit for 600 crushing damage from Crushing Blow, are stuned for 4 seconds, then are followed up by a barrage for 600+ (think solo hit me for 700 almost) it's not "wise" to be in melee range solo, thats what roots are for ! :smileywink:</P> <p>Message Edited by Eyes_of_Truth on <span class=date_text>06-22-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:34 AM</span>

[Weizen Heimer]

Don't forget that Warlocks also get 9-10.7 second unbreakable stun during which the mobs do not attack at all, so then they could stun the mob, walk up and do your PimpSlap of Nil, then step back and do normal rooting/nuking of whatever HP the mob has left.

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<P><FONT color=#33cccc>Here is a direct copy/paste of one of my other posts that would alot scouts to do the same thing as the halariously dubbed "Pimpslap of Nil" lol... Using my newly created idea of "Distractions!" (or the easier to impletment Flashbombs, but my distraction idea is cooler :smileywink<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc>" Thanks for agreeing with my "all classess should not be balanced across archetypes but within archetypes" statement!</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc>Though, let me rephrase my statement, scouts should still = mage in dps <EM>in groups.</EM></FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc>When soloing the mage should and more than likely will have higher dps than a solo scout for 2 reasions</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc>A) Much less risk for scout vs risk for <EM>some</EM> mages (enchanter and soceror is risky solo because it's based upon roots and stuns and carefull timing, but conjuror should be safer, but slightly slower sense they will have to watch aggro from pet and they wont get to use their damage pet,  also imo the current aggro is too low for my adept3 soldier <IMG height=16 src="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-sad.gif" width=16 border=0>....</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc>B) The majority of scout's damageing attacks are positional, stealth, or long and easily interuptible casting (bard nukes), compaired to soceror/enchanter using any of their spells (except dots that run a high chance of braking root)</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc>A solution to problem B would be to add a new skill line for scouts !</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc>My whole ideal for making scouts a viable solo class can be summed up in one awe-inspiring word!!!!</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc size=4>Distractions! (or Slips/Flashes)</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc size=3>Yup, Distraction skill line. Imagine if your a solo rogue taking on a single solo mob. While fighting, the mob will focus on you and only you, so u cant get to that oh so sweet kink in his back's armor.... but wait! You cause a distraction, confusing the mob, making it turn the opposit direction for a brief time, allowing u to score a strong hit! Such a dirty trick for your cunning scout is it not?</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc size=3>As far as mechanics, this would be simple, make this skill "summon" a wisp modle on the opposit side of the mob your fihgitng (or possibly always on mobs back) that taunts the mob for highest able taunting value, and this wisp has 1 hp, and when killed, stuns mob for 5 seconds. This skill would have a 30s or 1 min reuse (depending on how the devs see fit) costing a low amount of power.</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc size=3>Another type of skill that could be implemented fairly easily is a Bomb or Flash technic that stuns mob momentarily (simular to a upgrade to Cheepshot) that automaticaly possitions the scout behind the mob for a attack!</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc size=3>Both of these should not be to incredibly hard to implement, and would greatly increase scouts solo abilty with out making it trivial.</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc size=3>Make this not work on heroics and epics so the 5 second stun isnt abused, or maby heroics but certainly not epics.</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc size=3>As allways PLEASE REPLY with any suggestions revisons blah blah blah you know the drill <IMG height=16 src="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-wink.gif" width=16 border=0> "</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc size=3>For my exact complete post, go to : <A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=testfeed&message.id=19712" target=_blank>here</A>!</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc size=3> if here doest work, copy and paste this to your browser </FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#33cccc size=3>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=testfeed&message.id=19712</FONT></P>

[Gorkk00]

<span><blockquote><hr>Tarindel wrote:<div></div><div></div><span></span><span>Here's the crux of why a lot of fighters are worried.  If the fighters primary roles is to tank, well... tanking doesn't stack.  You generally only need one tank per group, and not many for raids.  Suddenly we're heading down the slippery slope back to EQ1-land, where groups wanted a warrior to tank, and then filled up the other 5 slots with non-tank classes.  In numbers, that means 1/4th of the class archetypes are getting only 1/6th of the group spots.  In terms of actual players, fighters are the most popular class, so it's probably more like 1/3rd of the players getting 1/6th of the group spots.  This is especially true for the fighter classes that do not have significant utility because they were originally given higher DPS instead.</span><span></span><span><font color="#ff0000"></font></span><div></div><p>Message Edited by Tarindel on <span class="date_text">06-20-2005</span> <span class="time_text">08:23 AM</span></p><hr></blockquote>Oh yeah... Why do you think there is so much fighters? The main reason is they can do both tanking and DPS very well. Where's the point here to make a mage for DPS, when you can make a Zerk to achieve nearly the same DPS, and don't need to worry about taking aggro as you can tank the mob very well anyway? Currently, Zerk is the second best tank after guardian, and can still be one of the best DPS. Do you think it's fair? For the general Mage >= Scouts > Fighters > Healers DPS wise, it's a general idea. For example, and from waht you can read in scouts and mages forum, they ask bot for something like: sorcerors > DPS scouts (not too much, but still as scouts has much better avoidance and mitigation) > conjurors and versatile scouts > bards and chanters (here again, chanters over bards for mitigation and avoidance considerations, and also because bards utility is still higher than chanters utility, given that CC is rarely needed in EQ2). This should be the same for Tanks/Healers, with offensive healers like Furys doing more damage than defensive Tanks (Guardians), but all in all there still should be Mages and Scouts over Fighters and Healers because it's their CORE ROLE, and Fighters core role is Tanking, Healers core role is Healing. Add in there low mitigation tanks (monks, bruiser) around low DPS scouts and mages (but still lower), and all other fighters with less damage. The archetype system states that every sub-class should be able to do well at his archetype core role (eg. DPS for mages and scouts, tanking for fighters), and that implies that no sub-class from another archetype should be better at this than they are (eg. best DPS tank should never get higher DPS than lower DPS scouts and mages). What would you say if a mage had better tanking ability than your Zerk? You'll whine and call this unfair, even if they had lower DPS than you. Now you whine because SoE might change the current state of game where Zerk are one of the best tanks, and better at DPS than several mages and scouts sub-class, that's laughable. Guess what, i'm an illusionist, and in open air area, any group will take a Zerk as DPS over me, because his DPS is much higher than mine, he can buff HP, and can stand aggro easily if he gets him, where i will die in 2 hits if I get aggro and I get aggro alot with Breeze.</span><div></div>

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<P>OMG ty finaly some has the same view as me ^_^</P> <P>Gorkk, would love u to post some replys on my post i hyperlinked, would realy love some feed back from you.</P> <P>I have ben saying for a while that they need to balance within the Archetypes with no overlaping.</P> <P>Mage>=Scout>Fighter>Priest is a very good equation, because in "groups" the scout is = to mage, but in solo, they are nowhere close (with, as allways, the ranger kiteing lol...which i fear is doomed to die, but we'll see with Revamp coming)</P> <P>As for damage hierarchy of tanks, they need to all be within a small range of eachother in pure CA damage. The difference needs to come from secondairy effects, be it buff or debuff, that define and give flavor toa  class. Give the "offensive" tanks buffs that increase groups damage or low targets ability to take damage (Zerker group damage buff, Bruiser enemy damage absorption ability debuff) and give the defensive tanks buffs that lower groups hate gain (monk) or decreases mobs attack speed(guardian). Paladins should keep their heals, and give shadownight a group life tap proc (more damage but less healing, perfect for a offensive tank) and increase the potiency of life tap of shadowknight. If a pally using adept1 heal can heal for 300, let the shadownight's life tap do 100 damage (about an average combat art for a fighter perhaps) but return a higher heal, such as 200 or 150 hp to the shadownight. That way they still get the healing power tha tthey need without gaining a unfair offensive boost.</P> <P>Tanks need to each have a mob they tank the best also. Warrior's high mitigation vs a Scout mobs. fewer attacks and higher spike damage makes them best . Brawler vs Fighter mobs that use attacks that bypass mitigation and come in 5 hits tha tincrease in damage by 50% of previous hit would make a brawler best (if 1 of the 5 hits is blocked/evaided, the chain of blows stops, simular to a brawler's Rapid Swings attack) Give Crusaders perdonal Wards that greatly reduce casting damage on them (and later on when paladin and SK split, give Paladin Divine, Magic, Fire and Ice, and give SK Poison Disease and Mental, would like it to be even but u can't split 7 resists... hope im not forgeting any)</P> <DIV>Each tank needs something the excell in to set them apart. Guardian needs best "guard PC" ability (make it grant guardian increased hate everytime the "block" for their friend, helping them regain and maintain aggro, Berzerker needs best Riposte buff (this will increase their damage a little, but only when tanking) Monk needs to have best single player anti-aggro buff (trying to think of a better one), Bruiser needs to have a guard ability that grants them a chance to damage foe when that person is struck (could be placed on MT ina  group, giving them slight bonus to damage in situations, still trying to think of a better one, possibly the intemidation skill they use could be beefed up) Paladins have LOH (SOL life saver :smileyvery-happy: ) SK have HarmTouch (SOL DIE U BASTAGE!! skill :smileyvery-happy:  )</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Ill try to think of better class defining skills that match their class later, right now the Guardian's and Zerkers are only decient ones currently.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Well i gtg now, ina  rush or i would go into more detail and double check myself, please reply with sugestions but go easy on the flames as i may have stated something inncorrect (ill check it later but still PLEASE REPLY :smileywink:  )</DIV>

[Deadjest]

<P>The facts are its was the Kunark time period that really seperated Chain from Plate, there was really very little difference between them except AC.</P> <P>I remembe when it happend and tons of plate wearing class's basicly jumped for joy.  </P> <P>And THOSE are the facts.</P> <P>Which reminds me, what wisdom made the game base everything off of heavy armor?</P> <P>Medium Armor was the avg armor of most tanks all through history that was used, not many people could afford heavy armor.</P> <P>Basing it on heavy tends to over do the dmg vs med and light and very light armors.</P> <P>Unless you are facing a God, not even a mage should die in one hit.   After all if you are a mage out adventuring you are NOT going to be like the sissy mage's that spends all day in the tower reading books and wondering what a women would be like and hoping one of those books has one with a picture.</P>

[Tarindel]

<div></div><span><blockquote><hr>Gorkk00 wrote:<span> ah... Why do you think there is so much fighters? The main reason is they can do both tanking and DPS very well. Where's the point here to make a mage for DPS, when you can make a Zerk to achieve nearly the same DPS, and don't need to worry about taking aggro as you can tank the mob very well anyway? Currently, Zerk is the second best tank after guardian, and can still be one of the best DPS. Do you think it's fair?</span></blockquote></span> <blockquote><hr></blockquote> I think you completely missed my point.  It has nothing to do with class envy or the current balance of classes in the game. It has everything to do with ensuring that, post-rebalancing, ALL classes end up with a viable, stackable role. Right now (depending on how big the DPS spread is between the classes), tank classes and healer classes are not looking like they are going to have that, post-rebalancing. The thing I am trying to prevent is groups saying "Sorry, we're not going to take you because we already have a tank", or "Sorry, we're not going to take you because we already have a healer".  The DPS classes (mages and scouts) will be just fine post-balancing.  Rarely do you hear "Sorry, we're not going to take you because we already have too much DPS".  That's why my focus is largely on fighters (and healers).  Not because I think they need improvement now (they don't) -- but because I want to make sure they remain viable into the future. Am I being clear? <span><span></span></span><div></div><p>Message Edited by Tarindel on <span class=date_text>06-23-2005</span> <span class=time_text>09:22 AM</span>

[Redag]

<font size="3">              I agree with the original poster that all classes are not created equal and they shouldn't be. You can't look at DPS as the end all of class balancing and break it down as if it is.                          I think the original thoughts on DPS breakdown was:                                               fighters = best sustained group or single mob DPS based on archetype                                               scouts   = best single mob burst DPS                                               mages  = Best group burst dps  They where all somewhat equal under different circumstances. Utility is a major part also.               So scouts and mage's want the best DPS, that's what they are suppossed to do? So I guess they should give them the best DPS and take away any non combat abilities they have. Most fighters have NO arts usefull outside combat. they can't sneak or invisible or Pathfind or SOW among others.              If you want EQ1 go play it. Don't try and make this game the same. </font><div></div>

[salerene]

to be honest why worry about how much damage you as an individual does? If someone in the group can out damage you So what or is it an ego thing? <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Even in EQ1 I could never understand why everyone was so upset about thier character not doing enough damage in a group. SOE shouldn't be worrying about making classes so different, but they should be giving the players ways to make thier classes different.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thats one thing I havent seen in any MMO, instead of the gaming company trying to balance all the classes, they make the players responsibilty to make thier character more powerfull. Also people shouldnt be comparing caster class with melee classes. those two class types are completely different.  A magic users power(dps) is in thier spells and spells should always out damage any melee no matter what.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>nothings going to change when and if they put in the combat revamp, people will still complain that thier character isn't doing the damage they think it should be doing. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Just give us players the tools we need to make our characters better and stop messing with everything. stop making the armor and items,weapons the same. the same bland colors, same bland stats, same path as everyone elses. each characters/player should be able to go down different paths in game, but we don't,  why because the game was made that way.</DIV> <DIV>Everyone wants the the most powerfull character in the game. everyone wants to do the best damage in the game. well everyone can't be the best or do the most damage. someone will always be better and be able to more damage then you. </DIV> <DIV>Just like in the real world theres always someone thats better at something then you are.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Encantador]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> salerene wrote:<BR>to be honest why worry about how much damage you as an individual does? If someone in the group can out damage you So what or is it an ego thing? <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <HR> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>   Within a group I could give a rat's [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] who does the most damage, PROVIDED I have a role which others in groups that is appreciated by others AND is a fun role. Being a buff bot is not a fun role.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   So think about what each class does in a group. If your answer is buff others then think again.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>There are currently only 3 roles, tank, heal, and DPS. If any class can do two of these then they will push others out. Or put this another way. If I cannot heal and I cannot tank then I [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] well better do enough DPS to be appreciated in a group.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>    Further, all classes should be able to tackle roughly the same level of mobs when solo. What fun is it when people proudly show off a drop from a named mob they soloed, when your class can't even take the mob when it is 15 levels below you?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<P>Redagar..... your post is very blunt and rude. You are flaming needlessly and your view seems distorted. Let me clarify somethings for you.</P> <P>Mage and Scout  are damage classes.</P> <P>Fighter and Healer are defensive classes.</P> <P>This game is made that way for mant reasions. </P> <P>If you boil it down to it's simplest form, any RPG is Deal damage or Defend against it (by healing or tanking)</P> <P>If the Defenders overtake ANY of the the Offense people, it all falls to Chaos.</P> <P>In each of the two areas, their are differnet kinds of each.</P> <P>Dealing Dealing damage spilts into 4 forms: </P> <P>Physical Damage / Casting damage / Abiltiy to Augment Damage / Lowering Defense</P> <P>Scouts provide physical damage, mages provide spell damage, and anything that increases power regeneration or increases damage are Abilities to prolong/increase damage- wich both archetpyes can provide</P> <P>Mage classes: all would have a base nuke that all 3 classes get, wich only differs in damage type (resist)</P> <P><STRONG>Soceror</STRONG>- is best at pure <STRONG>Casting Damage</STRONG>, low in augmenting  damage (think their power heals should be lowest of the mages) No Physical damage, weak at lowering defense</P> <P><STRONG>Summoner</STRONG>-is 2nd best at Casting Damage(dps pet included), best at <STRONG>Lowering Defense</STRONG>, moderate physical damage from Scout type pet if not using mage pet, moderate ability to augment damage</P> <P><STRONG>Enchanter</STRONG>- weakest at pure Casting Damage (unless you count power draining potiential) . moderate at lowering defense, best in <STRONG>Augmenting Damage</STRONG> (breeze allows for more damage from others, and more Defense) No physical damage</P> <P>Scouts classes: all have a basic backstab that all 3 classes get, each having different side effects</P> <P><STRONG>Predator</STRONG>-Highest Pure <STRONG>physical damage</STRONG>, no casting damage, low abiltiy to augment damage, worst at lowering defense</P> <P><STRONG>Rogue</STRONG>- medium pure physical damage, no casting damage, medium ability to augment damage(mess), best at <STRONG>lowering defenses</STRONG> (allowing preds to deal even higher damage)</P> <P><STRONG>Bard</STRONG>- worst at pure damage, medium casting damage, best at <STRONG>Augementing Damage</STRONG>, medium at lowering defense</P> <P>As you can see, each has a class that is best in one of the 4 parts, both mage and scout. Predator is = to Soceror, Rogue is = to Summoner, and Bard is = to Enchanter</P> <P>Croud control is part of the ability to augment damage, ad realy is almsot a form of defense. Ill add defense later as each of these classes gets a smal amount of that too.</P> <P>I have to go now, il be back alter to finsh with fighters and priests.</P>

[Redag]

I'm sorry if it seemed like a flame, it was not intentional. My main point is referring back to the original post. Many people made berserkers not intending to be the best tank but wanting to play the character as described in the manual and based on descriptions from Beta testers. Many would prefer to wear medium armor and do medium DPS.There has to be something to seperate the tanks from one another. And the changes as described seem to be making the berserker a useless class. One of the reasons many people even moved from EQ1 to EQ2 was the diversity in character development. If you take that away there is not much difference between the games other than locked encounters and some graphics. As a player I just want to have the options. I think SOE should concentrate on fixing all teh broken arts before they start tweaking anything else. Then see what changes may need to be made <div></div>

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<DIV>Well... if u read my post ( i know it's a long one but i think i have atleast a few good points) Berserkers and guardianse can have same armor same weapons and still be different enough to merit seprit sub-classes. Problem with people going from eq1 to eq2 making a berserker is they feel taht they should have massive personal damage. But thats when warrior and berserker were completely different classes in eq1. In eq2 berserker is an extension of the warrior, not a different class. Dont think of your sub class as being the huge defineing part, think of the most to least defineing being your archetype-class- then sub class.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Basicaly when you choose your archetype. your choosing the set of roles u want to be for the rest of the game. Thats your biggest choice. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Want to do magical damage and augment? Go Mage <all mages need one nuke that does the same damage: power  ></DIV> <DIV>Want stealth and physical damage and augment? Go Scout <all scouts need one attack that does same damage: power></DIV> <DIV>Want to beable to take a hit and to some extent dish it out too? Go Fighter < all fighters need same taunting power></DIV> <DIV>Want to heal and protect with buffs? Go Priest <all priests need the same generic direct heal></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The <> bracets discribe a constant that will be the same for any class or sub class. Every mage will have a generic nuke that is based upon the element they chose (mental/elemental/magical), every priest will have an equivillant direct heal with differing cure effects (druid's will heal then cure elemental, cleric will heal then cure mental/divine,  shaman's will heal then cure noxious) every fighter's tuant will increase hate y same amount (warrior's increases their mitigation for short time, brawlers increases their avoidance for short time, and crusaders provides a small self heal<or it could add a small ward verses casting damage&gt<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> each scout wil get a back attack (Bards lowers mental/magical mitigation, Rogue lowers mitigation of target(slipoff armor), and predator's lowers targets avoidance (cripples) )</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So you chose Fighter, then bam your 10 in no time, now the next step in your question:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Want to beable to take a hit by mitigateing damage and to some extent dish it out too? Go Warrior</DIV> <DIV>Want to beable to take a hit by Avoiding damage and to some extient dish it out too? Go Brawler</DIV> <DIV>Want to beable to take a hit by Resisting spells and to get some of your own? Go Crusdaer</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So you chose Warrior, you choose to wear medium armor till 20, and then you move to heavy armor. </DIV> <DIV>Your defense is mitigating damage with your armor, and the price you pay for that is you can hardly dodge a blow.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So bam now your 20...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now you choose your final character customization of class:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Want to beable to take a hit by mitigate damage and to some extent dish it out too while beingable to guard your allies? </DIV> <DIV>Go Guaridan</DIV> <DIV>Want to beable to take a hit by mitigate damage and to some extent dish it out too while inspiring rage in your allies? </DIV> <DIV>Go Berserker</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>That is the kinda of class tree we need, where subclass does not affect the total game play of a character. </DIV> <DIV>"I chose berserker because i didnt want to tank" </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Wrong, you chose Warrior so you do want to tank, but inspire your allies with ralling Crys of victory and increase their attack potiential, rather than protect them with your body as a shield like a Guardian would. You can still protect them, as all warriors should do, but you focus more on providing rally and fury for your group.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Same could be done for mage classes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Want to do magical damage and augment a minon's power? Go Summoner</DIV> <DIV>Want to do devistating magical damage and augments? Go Sorceror</DIV> <DIV>Want to do mental damage and befuddling augmentations? Go Enchanter</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So you chose sorceror</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Want to do devistating elemental damage and augments? Go Wizard</DIV> <DIV>Want to do devistating noxious damage and augments? Go Warlock</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So you chose summoner</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Want to do magic/elemental damage and augment a Elemental minon's power? Go Conjuror</DIV> <DIV>Want to do Noxious damage and augment an Undead minon's power? Go Nercromancer</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So you chose enchanter</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Want to do mental damage and empower your alies and confuse and mislead foes with your augmentations? Go Illusionist</DIV> <DIV>Want to do mental damage and hasten your allies while controling and coersing foes to your whim? Go Coercer</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Class diffinition needs to start at Archetype and narrow at the sub-class (btw, sub means lower or more specific, aka not switching roles from defensive (fighter) to offensive (scout) , but you can still have a higher total dps without having a different base attacks. Depending on the situation, a Berserker can provide more damage toa  group than a Wizard could (group full of scouts) but only if the devs give classes damage boosting buffs, not just haste.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Main goal is there will be NO best tank, but rather a tank that is better in situation A but poor in situation B. Guardiant will be only mildly effective with a group consiting of Fury, Assassin, Swashbuckler, Brigand, and Dirge , where as a Berserker would improve upona  allready high damage group to make devistating damage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I dont want groups that are" well you can tank untill x tank come along then your secondairy tank or we may have to boot you" but insted " your main tank, if x class shows up we could use these set of skills together to pull off something good"</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>People need to know that your Archeytype is what you are at your core, not your sub class. You ARE a fighter, you defened people. How you defend people is up to you. Though defense you can find a good offense.</DIV>

[Deadjest]

<P>  I am curious how on earth that anyone got the idea that a Bezerker is a sub class of Guardian?   No where in history are Bezerkers shown like they are in EQ2.  A Zeker with a Tower Shield is as farfetched as you can get.</P> <P>On a fantasy lvl I don't have a issue with Zekers wearing Plate, the issue is balance.   I play a Shadow Knight and in my personal opinion Zerkers should do a nice bit more DPS then I do.</P> <P>The issue is Zekers should have a choice in how they choose to do their DPS.</P> <P>If they want to tank, their DPS falls just above a Guardian since their tanking falls just below a Guardian.</P> <P>If they want to go full DPS I think they should do a tad more dmg then monks do but jus like how when most of us Tanks Self Buff and it drops our DPS some, they should have the same effect and it drops their Defence rating a good deal so that they are between Scouts and Monks in Tanking ability.   And as a side not Zerkers should be next to immun to metal attacks, they are R tarded Fury, just cant stop them. </P> <P>That is balance.  For every action an equal and opposite reaction.</P> <P>THAT is a Bezerker.   And now you have a tanks that is totaly different and still above monks and wearing plate but below the Guardian and Crusader in Tanking.   DPS at a heavy price just like RL where most Zerkers went into battle either naked or light armor and were so nuts that if their side won many a time they would just drop dead after a battle cause they didnt even know they were wounded they were so savage and out of it.</P> <P>And that is how all the Tank Class's should be done but in their own way.   Draw a line where tanking should be, THEN add on top of that what it takes to make them above and different from each other.</P> <P>Guardian, Heavy physical self and group buffs.</P> <P>Paladin, medium physical self and group buffs and medium magic self and group buffs and healing</P> <P>Shadow Knight, Medium self physical buff and heavy self magic buff with speical attacks with crippling effects.</P> <P>Brawlers, Heavy avoidance vs physical and special attacks with extra speical attacks on top of it.   Weakness would be magic.</P> <P>And that is just a simple version, it can be broken down alot more then that but I think you get the idea.</P> <P>There is nothing wrong with Tanks buffing, debuffing and some even being a lesser scout in DPS as long as it stanks with the other class's out there and some things come at a prices such as the simple idea I wrote for the zerker.</P> <P>And now you would have some tanks </P> <P>And fix the Shields.   It seems so many people are cluess as to how they work.   They work on two ideas, <STRONG>Avoidance</STRONG> and <STRONG>Mitigation</STRONG>.</P> <P>To throw out numbers as a example of Shields.</P> <P>Tower Shield would be 10% avoidance and 500 mitigation</P> <P>Kite Shield would be 20% avoidance and 300 mitigation</P> <P>Round Shield would be 25% with 200 mitigation</P> <P>Buckler Shield would be 30% with 100 Mitigation</P> <P>How anyone can think a Tower Shield would add alot of avoidance is clearly somebody who has never uesd or seen one in action.  Its like a whale dodging a bullet, NOT gona happen but its gona take a ship load of bullets to take it down.   And its not a steady progession either, a Tower Shield takes a big jump in Mitigation and a Kite would take a big jump in Avoidance in comparsion.   It just the way it is.</P> <P>Think about this when you start bashing what tanks should be on top or how they should be different.</P> <P> </P>

[Chog]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Jukis wrote:<BR> i posted an hour for very long message on this but screw it up so heres the short version..<BR><BR>open page 14 and check what they promise, no balanced tanks or scouts doing more dps then zerks, bruisers or monks.<BR>only guardian is said to be the pure tank, all other fighters are damagedealer tanks.. before you whine about balance remember that this game should have 24 different classes and thats the reason i bought it. if you choose fighter at ior you arent going tank, you are going tank when you choose guardian at lvl 20, otherwise you are going damagedealer that can tank or utility class that can tank. <BR>everyone knew it when they opened their manual before deciding what class to play. scouts knew they will be scouts, nothing said that they will be dealing more damage then all fighters.<BR><BR>i have 2 level 50 characters and loads of lower level toons. i have been at over 150 raids.<BR>neither of my lvl 50's are my first character and i knew exactly what my task is for all 50 levels when i made them.. <BR><BR>other is assasin who isnt doing near the damage of berserkers but my debuffs make 23 other players in raid make a lot more damage. <BR>i enjoy playing it and never got rejected from group or raid cos of my class. <BR><BR>other is guardian and i have been rejected from raids and groups cos there is allready too many guardians and guardian is allmost the worst spot filler, make every tank equal at tanking and what purpose does guardian have?<BR>i know guardian is overpowered tank atm and tanking epics is boringly easy but it will chance after defence caps.<BR>if other fighters can tank everything allso why take even 1 guardian to group/raid?<BR>user manual didnt say anything about other classes then guardian beeing tanks anyways.<BR><BR>if you balance too much its the same as making max lvl 9 and adding raids to ior. fighter priest mage scout there allready, then we dont even have to think of what class to choose but we can get to play balanced game.<BR> <P>Message Edited by Jukis on <SPAN class=date_text>06-19-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>11:39 PM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>You misunderstand the concept of balance. Balance does not mean everyone is the same. It means every class is equally viable. For example, if your class is a DPS class, and a non-DPS class does more DPS, that's out of balance. It doesn't mean that all classes should have the same DPS.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You also put too much stock in a user manual. That is just a guide written by some guy in documentation. Long before there was a user manual, Sony had been saying that all fighters should be viable as tanks. They are still saying it.</DIV>

[Yrield]

Wait a sec... page 14 of my manual is about High elf  ? You dont talk about the prima guide dont you ? if yes, all i can say is they could have saved a lot of trees with this one <span>:smileyvery-happy:</span> <div></div>

[pharacyde]

<DIV>Well, it seems people forget one more thing about the dps ...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Fighters have the swing which use no power ... When a fighter is oop he can just keep swinging and just keep on doing dps ...</DIV> <DIV>When the mage is oop ... Well there he goes, no more dps. That's why fighters can outdps the mage class. And not because they have better dps. Mages just have to learn to play their class, and watch their power regen. Basicly what would just fix the unbalance right now, would be a uber mana regens weapon for mages ... So they can keep doing more dps. And btw the only pont where the berserker can outdps a mage also is on Very long fights and when he has some fabled two handed weapon.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So even if you nerf the fighters like you think you can nerf them lol, they still outdps a mage, cause the swinging doesn't use any power. I still dont get it how people dont see that ... It's not the spells a fighter gets that make him so uber, it's the hast and and the weapon he has <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>But then again it's my two cents </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sybryn</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Lvl 50 zerker on Guk</DIV>

[Daran]

<div></div><div></div>Eyes, great posts and great ideas....I think someone needs to be hired as an EQ2 design consultant....with a finders fee for yours truly. I've always had a pretty good idea that wouldnt have been too far from what they have now. The easiest and simplest description for this is in the mage tree Have a line of spells thats shared between all the mages and upgrades each teir Line 1. single target Mez Line 2. single Target Magic DD Line 3. Short Duration Pet DOT Now each mage subclass would by extention have the same base utility and damage. Then we start to specialize Mage -> enchanter, in addition to having its Teir 2 Mage-Mez the enchanter gains additional Mezzing capabilities, group mez, single mezz on seperate timers, etc Mage -> Sorcerer, in addition to its Teir 2 Mage-Nuke the sorcerer gains additional AoE and DD spells on a different timer Mage -> Summoner, in addition to its Teir 2 Mage-Pet the summoner gets Pets that are more stable and can exist for longer periods of time before dissapating as well as their pet buffing capabilities. Likewise, a sorcerer gets the base Mage-Mez and base Mage-Pet, and the summoner gets the base Mage-Mez and the base Mage-Pet, the enchanter gets the Base Mage-Pet and the Base Mage-nuke. essentially my idea is not that you end your carreer as a mage by becomming a sorcerer, but rather you would be a Mage, with your basic knowledge of all schools of magic, yet your focus was on Sorcerer DD and AoE nukes and both these schools would continue to grow in power over time. In this way the core uses of the mages can be easily defined without making them cookie cutters of eachother. I couldn't imagine any mages complaining about gaining a smidgen of the specialty of the other classes while keeping all their own strength.....but I'm sure someone will. In addition this would make mez a more acceptable strategy as it is right now very under used. Which is actually quite understandable considering that they likely wanted to avoid the mandatory enchanter problem of EQ1 because instead of 2 classes (illusionist and coercer) being the only mezzing casters (I know there are some other mez spells for the other ones but I dont think any others have a line of them like the enchanters do, i could be wrong though) you would have 1/4 of all the classes in the game able to do some mez related crowd control. Do I think any of this would happen? Not a chance in Hades. <p>QUOTE: I am curious how on earth that anyone got the idea that a Bezerker is a sub class of Guardian?   No where in history are Bezerkers shown like they are in EQ2.  A Zeker with a Tower Shield is as farfetched as you can get. ********** And there in lies the biggest problem. They named subclasses after things that people allready had preconceptions about,<u><i> not your fault</i></u> for the preconception of course as you are absolutly right. In RL they weren't high defense (this aint RL) and in EQ1 they weren't high defense (technically this aint EQ1) but still the preconceptions are there and the silly descriptions in the manual and in Beta didn't help the issue any. I bet if the character classes all had completely unique subclass names, say Warrior becomes Guardian and Rager, we wouldn't be having half the discussions we have now on the subject. <span class="time_text"></span></p><p>Message Edited by DaranHB on <span class=date_text>07-06-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:54 PM</span>

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<P>Realy like your idea as well :smileywink:</P> <P>One the subject of mezzing, it would be nice if all mages could do it, and to give enchanters the edge, give them group mezz and un-interuptible single target mezz (for less power). Also, giving each mage "instant" pets that are basicaly dots in a sence would be nice too, of curse making summoner's the strongest and giving them the seprit pet lines (just like enchanter get's seprit mezz lines and stuns) Giving soerceror's burn-out nuke capabilities would be nice too, like x3 damage of the generic mage nuke for x4 the power of the mage nuke. If 50 damage for 15 power was the mage nuke , then the burn-out would be 150 for 60 power. Also i like that extra AOE idea.</P> <DIV>well got to go to bed...ill follow up on this later.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Toodles</DIV>

[Feaw]

<DIV>I checked page 14 of the user manual that came with my copy of EQ2 and it was a stat page on high elves.   So I went to my pima guide (just incase that was the manual you were talking about) and that page 14 is a bio on frogloks.   So... um.. what manuel are you refering to?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>:smileyindifferent:</DIV>

[Deadjest]

<P>Haha Frogloks!</P> <P>Back to Zerks a sec, even without preconceptions, the logic for that class is still not there unless you want to use, <STRONG>Because.</STRONG></P> <P>Main problem is that Tanks should all Tank pretty much on par and let their role set them apart.  It should be utility vs dps and leave it at that.</P> <P>I forgot where I read this but sombody said Guardians, Guard.   That through me for a loop for a moment, is that for some odd fantasy reason some how different then what a Knight does?</P> <P>If I remember my fantasy right ( not sure if I want to include history ), Knights were the biggest Guardians of them all.   But then going by any of that will start seperating tanks on a tank lvl which is what got us into this mess.</P> <P>Lack of Tanking roles that stack is the problem.   One the farfetched idea's, is of one Tank per group.  That  is as normal and a 3 legged dog.   Give tanks some Utility roles along with their tanking and you might find some of this going away.</P> <P>Give each one a seperate Utility where Guardians Mitigation physical damage better,  Knights Mitigate Spells heavily and have supierior Shield Skills, Brawlers dodge special attacks.    Or what ever.</P> <P>But add that ON TOP of standard tanking.   Just add some roles, and from there you can work on the other class's since tanking is the foundation of gaming.   </P>

[L1m]

<div></div>Id wish people would stop forming opinions about other peoples classes just because they think they know there own. I have played most classes and finally found one i enjoy playing in the monk and now thanks to "enter explicit in here" its probably going to get ruined and ill probably end up with a toon i dont enjoy, heres the brawler description:  Brawlers specialize in physical  combat styles that bring them face-to-face with the enemy. Favoring LIGHT armour and hand-to-hand battle tactics, brawlers have honed there bodies into potent weapons. Does that say tank? Tanks carry shields? We dont even have a buckler skill. My taunts do about 150-200 agro and <u>interrupt </u> As the first poster said why make 6 different subclasses if we all fill the same job! I signed up for mediocral tanking abilities with decent dps and im tired of people in general whining about there classes because they dont know how to play them. I have adept 1s and adept IIIs on my charecter so i expect myself to do damage. Scouts whine at me when they dont come close then i tell them to use poisons, you would be surprised at the amount of scouts out there who dont. Every archetype has a dps class lets break it down. Mage- Sorceror Priest-Druid Scout-Predator Fighter-Brawler Now i know what to do lets forget about the fighter class and all the people who want to do melee dps without being a scout just because all fighters are tanks. Well now what skills does a brawler have? I have wisdom of zephyl a dps buff my only group buff at level 31 wow great utility there. Mages have group buffs, scouts have pathfinding tracking and group buffs, priests have group buffs. So lets nerf the fighter dps class that has no buffs for the group and make it into a guardian with light armour no shield crap taunts and 0 buffs. GJ GUYS <div></div><p>Message Edited by L1m3y on <span class=date_text>07-08-2005</span> <span class=time_text>02:50 AM</span>

[Deadjest]

Being listed under fighter might be a clue

[Gorkk00]

<span><blockquote><hr>L1m3y wrote:<div></div>Every archetype has a dps class lets break it down. Mage- Sorceror Priest-Druid Scout-Predator Fighter-Brawler<hr></blockquote>As said several times: every archetype has a core role that any of its subclass should be able to fulfill, and should not being beaten up in this role by any subclass of other archetypes. Mage - DPS Priest - Healing Fighters - Tanking Scouts - DPS Now you have indeed for each archetypes subclasses that are more offensively and DPS oriented than the others, but still, it's not a "DPS subclass". As for the idea of mez/nuke/pet being shared by all mages with further specialization in one depending on your subclass, why not. But it would need to increase greatly the need of CC in game, and thus would need to change a lot game mechanics, so it prolly won't happen. More likely we'll have mezz still useful only 5% of the time and completely useless or hurting gameplay 90% of the time, and have mage with DPS in the same range, with different ways on getting them, with sorcerers gettings them by big nukes, summoners with pet and medium nukes, and enchanters with powerful dots (something like that). All of them being above non DPS archetypes subclasses.</span><div></div>

[L1m]

<div></div><div></div>I know lets take your class lets say if its a mage and make it buffs only, yes now  everyones happy thats your role every mage is now buffs only. Fun isnt it? Oh you want to dps? Yes go scout. I dont want to go bloody scout im tired of it i have a ranger and its just not me.  As for "fighter might be a clue" wow when i bought this game it was because it had the most variety in classes and subclasses. If you havent noticed theres a rogue class in every set for scouts its Rogues they have taunts and can take more hits than the average scout, for mages its summoners and for priests its druids (mainly furys) now for fighters its brawlers so why dont we make every single one of those classes the EXACT THING that class did not want to be. FUN, im pretty sure if you asked a fury if he wants his dps taken away hed say "if i wanted complete healing i would have gone cleric." If you asked a summoner " if i wanted complete dps i would have gone sorceror." Now for the sake of repitition because so many of you are hard headed " if you asked a brawler, hed say i would have gone bloody guardian if i wanted a tank." What do you think this game is based around 4 classes? No it REVOVLES around 4archetypes x 3classes = 12 x 2subclasses = 24  Different types of charecters. Lets just scrap that and make it 4? Lets all just go back to the isle of refuge....................... Oh btw just another points bruisers dont get a group taunt GREAT TANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you people spent half the time that you would spend on  these forums mastering your class, you might just do what your class is meant to do. Dont tell me "im a wizard i should out dps a monk 5 levels higher than me who has adept 3 spells while i only have app1" Do not tell me that. <div></div><p>Message Edited by L1m3y on <span class="date_text">07-08-2005</span> <span class="time_text">07:41 AM</span></p><p>Message Edited by L1m3y on <span class=date_text>07-08-2005</span> <span class=time_text>07:42 AM</span>

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<P>Im sorry to burst your bubble L1m3y (is that suposed to be a wicked spelling of Limey? :smileywink:  ) but when you brake the game down to it's simplest forms youget offense and defense. Fighters and priests make of the defenseive 1/2, and Mages and Scouts make up the offensive 1/2. Their is not a single class in this game that does not have some form of utility so that facter is nullified. Granted that in it's current state, some classes are viewed as having "more utillity" than others or are branded "utility class" ala enchnters. Let me brake it down for you:</P> <P>Forget and predjustice knowlege of any game prior to or in the future. Dont let lables and names of sub-classes drive your opions.</P> <P>Mages provide the magical offense</P> <P>Scouts provide the physical offense</P> <P>Fighters provide both physical and magical defense (granted that brawlers or crusaders get magical tanking abilities aver combat revamp which they should to make them better tanks in some areas)</P> <P>Priest provide healing</P> <P>You cant have a equill geared fighter out damageing a mage or scout it just screws the whole balance of the game.</P> <P>As for utility classes... do a who all /enchanter 50 and see how many you get.... it will be very few, and pop them a tell and say "do you like the state of the enchanter class? ... 1 plat says they say hell no im about to amke a warlock</P> <P>Is that nota  hint that their "utility" is not a big enough crutch for having terribly low dps?</P> <P>My warlock at 30 using adept3 and adept1 has a higher dps than an Coercer level 50 spaming all his master/ adept3 nukes/dots</P> <P>It's just not right.</P> <P>But to make it right, give each class in the sub class the same set of skills but make one class better than the other two. Give one universal skill that is exactly the same strength as other classes in the archetype but with different side effect/damage type.</P> <P> </P> <P>Give a generic mage nuke for mages at 10, 60 damage 15 power and it's resistance is based on class.</P> <P>Generic flank attack for scouts 60 damage 15 power and a debuff different for each class.</P> <P>Give fighters the same taunting power but with different side effects. Give them all equal power GROUP taunts as well</P> <P>Give priest the same generic heal witha  different type cure attacted to it that is based on class</P> <P>Build the class uniqueness from there. at 10 each class gets a skill, ca, or spell unige to them.</P> <P>Soerceror gets a burn out nuke for high power cost that does 150 damage for 80 power with a long recast. Enchanter their <STRONG>cant</STRONG>-be-interupted mezz,  and summoner gets their tank pet.</P> <P> </P> <P>Cleric gets reactive heals, druid get regen, shaman get ward</P> <P> </P> <P>Rouges get a heavy AC debuff+ piercing DOT, Bards get a powerfull group haste+ CA/Spell damage increase of 25%, and predator get's their powerfull stealth attack 130 damage for 20 power with a 1 min reuse, but this attack is very much affected by target's mitigation</P> <P> </P> <P>Crusaders get the skill Magical Fortitude, which increases their chance at resisting spells (like a parry for spells if you will) and they get a self ward that protects aginst magic. Brawlers get deflection, a skill that has a high cnace to block physical blows that arnt mento to be accurate (fighter mob's Crushing blow for example) and they get a skill that momentarikly increase their dodge chance. Warriors get a skill called Physical Fortitude that give them more AC from wearing heavy armor compaired to other classes, and they get Withstand Assult that icnreases their mitigation even more for a short time.</P> <P>Now, in each archetype let one class be supierior in one skill that they all get, like warrior's being the best at Protection wich intercepts attacks for your allies, crusdaers the best at offering their armor to others, make brawlers best at lowering/increaseing players aggro buffs (later on monk lowers and brusier increases) Each of the 3 classes all get these skills but the one that is "best" at them gets another side skill tact on or a higher effect.</P> <P>For mages this would be the same. Enchanter best at mess(group mess that doesnt stun enchanter) , sorceror witha  higher damage/more efficant AOE nuke, and Summoner having the best summoned swarm pets. Each class would also get these. Enhcanter's summoned pet would be the construct of -----, summoning more at a higher quality, soerceror would summon tiny fireballs (whisp animation) and Summoner would summon many tiny wasps (since cant use elemental yet) summoner would summon more andthey would do best damage. Summoner and Soerceror's mess would be single target and havea  20 second recast, and their aoe mess would take 3 concentration and stun them for the duration. Summoner and Enchanter's AOE would be dots rather than nukes, and have a longer recast than sorceror's AOE nuke.</P> <P>Priests would be hard to balance that way. I for one was a fan of the origonal idea in beta of each priest getting all three type of healing but one being far superior. So ill stick with that. Templar geting weak wards, medium regen, best reactive, Druid geting weak reactive, medium ward, best regen, and Shaman geting weak regen, medium reactive, and best ward. Each differeing by 20% each tier, so a druids reactive is only 60% of a clerics. so if a cleric's reactive was 60 hp each hit, a druids would only be 36, and shaman's would be 48, all for the same power cost. Each could get a buff that increases a certain kind of tnaking ability better. Give druids a Summer's Breeze that icnreases a single target's avoidance, give Shamans a Seal of Acients that reduces magical damage on a single target, and give cleric Armored Resolve that increases mitigation.</P> <P>With scouts, they are also simi-difficult to balance fairly. give eacha  type of debuff, magical avoidance and magical ac debuff for bards, heavy avoidance debuff for predators (thing of ensare <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ) and heavy mitigation debuff for rouges. Give bard the best personal attack buff that also increases groups offense, give pred/rouge the beasic one they have currently, give rouges the best stun that can interupt epics(give them a seprit line that can be used as a single target mess also) and give bard a group mess that takes 5 concentration, and give predators a single target fear(fits the class am i right :smileywink:&nbsp<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Plenty of ways to have balance of the core role without loosing diversity. Dont be lulled into names/fighting styles that you prieviously thought about. Have an open mind (what i wouldnt give for more of thoughs in the world:smileysad: ) and adapt. That is one of the key characteristics of man kind is that they can adapt to situations. If you find you dont like the tanking role and you choose not to adjust, then die (mediforicaly speaking) and beging life anew as the role that you wanted to do in the first place (damage if im not mistaken? of the physical variety, so go scout and preobly predator)</P> <P>Anything SOE has done up to this point may change with this combat revamp, just hope it's for the overall best, and get's rid of the multitudes of problems in the more noticible broken and out of balanced classes. Here is my sum of what i have noticed in the classes:</P> <P>Enchanter(utility doesnt jsutify damage that low), Summoner(dps and overall dps increadibly low), Brawler(need opportunity to tank some areas better than others), Shaman(many issues with wards and direct heals), Shadowknight (life taps are sooooo terrible right now) Fury (heals are way less than their sister class for a low damage increase [imo having played both classes, i think they should heal the same ammount but give fury more offensive proc buffs and warden more defensive reactive buffs like their Tranquilising Spores]) slightly wizards (mainly pertaining to raiding encounters and out of wack spell power costs) Berserkers (im not screaming for nerf for you guys because i currently group with a berserker but you shouldn't be outdamging anyone in mage/scout tree including bards and enchanters [not adding their utility into that damage] ) Bards (need higher personal damage or extreamly better group buffs AND they need poison... alll scouts should beable to equip poison) Rouges (need a better functionable benefit to group to warent a lower DPs tier than a pred, sugestion for this si increasing their ability to greatly lower mitiagtion fo target and providing a epic-able interupt) many Fighters need equll taunting ability, noticible in brawler/crusader area, and these classes need opportunites where they are the optimal tank.</P> <P>Thats all that i could think up in a short time frame.</P> <P>Hope this would clerify a few things for you L1m3y (i swear, if that is Limey that that is coool lol )</P> <P>PS hahaha incoming, prepair to insert foot into your mouth Limey:</P> <P></P>22.6<A href="http://eq2.ogaming.com/db/abilities/Jeer.php" target=_blank><B>Jeer</B></A>  (<SPAN><FONT size=1>Experience</FONT></SPAN>) Physicality 1.0s 0.5s 30.0s 0 <P> Fears the target and increases hate of all enemies towards the bruiser.</P> <P>If that is not a group taunt i dont know what is. If the group taunt portion isnot working then that is a bug. That game strait from the eq2.ogaming database. and monks get one at same level, Handclap.</P> <P>Anyway, goodluck to you all and lets hope for a good revamp!</P> <P>Toodles!</P><p>Message Edited by Eyes_of_Truth on <span class=date_text>07-08-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:25 PM</span>

[Deadjest]

Nice Eyes very nice.   Its good to know that sombody else out there understands.

[L1m]

aye, i have no problem with the majortiy of changes, im just saying you cant make all fighters tanks when thats not what we signed up for and what we were told. If youd put time into a charecter and liked it how it was you wouldnt want it changed would you? All i care about is having a future in the game, being made into a tank with few group buffs and crap taunts as well as 0 life vs casters because you cant avoid magic and no shield just doesnt give me much group life. <div></div>

[Deadjest]

<P>The problem is.  If you going by what the game advertised, and if you read the descripitions then you would understand Fithers = Tanks,  signing up for anything other then what was said does not make sense.</P> <P>No matter what you want your fighter to be, that is what they were ment to be ACCORDING to how it was advertised which is what MOST of us signed up for.</P> <P>I left EQ and a High Level Chars with 500 AA to come here due to what was said prelaunch and according to what the sites said.   Even with what they say now, it all  says TANK with any amount of reading comprehension.</P> <P>Now I know Moorguard said its just story lore.   But from a logical stand point, a business stand point it does not work out.    If you sold a product like that here in Florida you would be under a lawsuit in no time.   Its no different then advertising a car with a ton of options for 500 down and 200 a month and going there and finding out the car they had in the picture is not the car they are talking about, its the Yugo's on the lot behind the building that you don't see till you come in and ask for what was advertised.</P> <P>Lets get real a moment, does anyone here actualy have that low of a reading compreshension and lack of gaming experience that they couldnt figure out, that FIGHTER = TANKING?</P> <P>Because if your class is not ment to tank, it should not be under FIGHTER.   If you didnt want your class to tank, you shouldnt pick a char under FIGHTER.  Unless you join a casual group that doesnt care about the make up, people will expect a Tank to Tank and the rest to be DPS, HEALING and UTILITY and they wont want a FIGHTER for DPS when they can get a TRUE DPS CLASS.   </P>

[L1m]

<div></div><div></div><div></div>Ok let me make this clear to you. I am a medical student i do not lack the brains to comprehend simple descriptions, you seem to not understand that if you read someones post from beginning to end then you might understand what they are talking about. By all means READ the manual please be my friking guest. DOES IT ANYWHERE ON THE MANUAL SAY ALL FIGHTERS ARE TANKS? No it doesnt, the only class with a description of tank is guardian. Heres the description "Guardians don heavy armour to protect themselves in combat and aid in the defense of their allies. They will stand firm against any threat and lead their party to victory." Your point about the law suit is very true, thankyou for bringing up a point that defends my arguement it describes my charecter as it is on the EQ 2 site and thats how it plays in the game, changing it would mean i am not getting what i was promised. You speak about comprehension, now listen to this fighter what word does that describe  "One who fights, such as a soldier or boxer."    "A pugnacious, unyielding, or determined person." Going on your arguement about comprehension, that would mean everyone who attacks with melee is a fighter, so therefore scouts are tanks as well. As for the latter description that came under fighter and i think that describes you pretty well.  "Unless you join a casual group that doesnt care about the make up, people will expect a Tank to Tank and the rest to be DPS, HEALING and UTILITY and they wont want a FIGHTER for DPS when they can get a TRUE DPS CLASS.  " That exact situation will occur, so who will want a brawler class that cant tank properly and cant dps anymore........ Im not telling you things shouldnt change plz read my posts, what im saying is people feel as strongly about there classes as you do about yours so dont expect them to just " LIVE WITH " the changes that are happening when they did not sign up for what they are becoming. I knew perfectly well while creating my charecter that guardians are the best tanks, if i had wanted an MT i would have made one. I took time making my monk knowing agility counts and strength i can build up in a while, hence dark elf. I knew what i was signing up for then and thats why i made the charecter. Changing it will ruin the class that i love because its unique and after the change there wont be a class like it. Quote from a dps related post <span>Monks and bruisers probably get the biggest shaft -- with so many DPS classes above them, and a large number of players playing group 4 heavy tanks, there's not much reason to take one.</span> Any typos, errors or insults sorry but i like my class and i dont want to have to reroll a new charecter when  ive put so much time and effort into this one and find it the class that suits me the best. <div></div><p>Message Edited by L1m3y on <span class=date_text>07-09-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:24 PM</span>

[Deadjest]

<P>Well it seems comprehension was a NO on this one.   You took Fighter out of the context for which it was written here.</P> <P>And if you go by discriptions, it says Crusaders are the Juggernoughts.    You can't really get a bigger word then JUGGERNOUGHT when you describe a Tank.  Well maybe a GOD will work but is not a option.<BR>We know that is not the case here.</P> <P>As for defending class's, I have not defended any one class in all this but all the class's involved in general.   Anything listed under Fighter can only mean one thing.   </P> <P>Tanking, pure and simple.</P> <P>The problem is you cannot have different types of tanks, tanking equally.   Since we do have 6 Tanks.    They all need to Tank First on par and then specialize from there for diversity sake.    In the present idiot system which is a carry over from last incarnation of one tank per group needed,  only one tank is needed and added tanks add very little.</P> <P>If you add Combat Utility Specialization on top of their basic tanking you will have situations where you can have Tanks actually add and complement each others seperate abilities in single groups.   But DPS alone won't do it specialy in face of the posted combat changes.</P> <P>I am talking all tanks, not just the one I play.    To fight for my class alone is absured as sending a division of the Salvation Army to supplement the next round of troops needed in IRAQ.    Last thing we need is a Top Dog tank like in EQL which was the cause of so much tension.    The sheer joy of fighting along side another tank with different abilities then my own and covering each others backs depending on the situtations with our different abilities shinning from moment to moment is what I and many I know are looking for.     Not Clone Wars.</P> <P>So if you take logic and understand that Fighter = Tank, its much easier to balance us as we were ment to be balanced so the rest of the class's such as Healers, Mages and Scouts can in turn be balanced properly and shine in their own way.   But you cant have any class's stepping on each others toe's in a heavy manner as some of us do now, it just doesnt work.    And its bad for the game in the end result, people have to have pride in their chars to enjoy them and they can only do that if they are done correctly and according how it was advertised pre and post launch.</P> <P>For that is the bases many will come to this game and will be the bases of many who will leave this game if the expectations of the advertisment is not met.</P> <P>As for those who can't figure out the context as it was written or just plain never read it and just bought the game for the cool cover, well nothing can be done there.   And don't have alot to say for that end of it, it is what it is.    I am just fighting for the game that I was lead to believe in do to their own pre and post advertisment.</P>

[Gorkk00]

L1m3y, you forget one thing when looking at the descriptions in the manual: THEY ARE ALL FIGHTERS. And here is fighters description: "Fighters use brute strength and sturdy weapons to deal physical damage to their enemies. Always at the forefront of combat, fighters stand toe-to-toe with opponents while keeping their allies from harm. No matter the risk, fighters never back down from a challenge." As you can see, it's not said they do MASSIVE damage, but only that they use brute strength and sturdy weapons to deal their damage and that their damage are physical. Secondly, it clearly states that fighters are TANKS. Thus, any fighter sub-class, being still a fighter which has specialised in some way, IS A TANK. Add description of classes which will give informations on classes orientations, and then sub-classes description which will tell the wannabe player in which the sub-classe has specialized. It is and has always been meant like that by SoE with the archetype concept. And it has always been stated this way, even in the days of the beta. So no, no fighter can say that given what SoE said they didn't sign for tanking, or they had simply misunderstood. What they can say is that, <u>given the state of the game</u>, they had signed up to be miserable tanks with good DPS. But then Zerkers will say they have signed up for <u>great tanking ability</u> AND <u>great DPS</u>. If combat changes do what they are announced to do, SoE will just at last make the archetypes and subclasses work like they intended to (at least said that they intended to) be: 4 archetypes, each having a core role, and each subclass of which being able to fulfill their core role, and not being overruled in it by a subclass of an archetype with different core role (core roles being: fighters = tank, priests = healers, scouts = melee DPS, mages = magic DPS). <div></div>

[L1m]

<div></div>Ive never fighters being tanks, what i have argued id that just because someone chooses fighter doesnt mean they have to tank. 2 completely different things.  Rightly said about crusaders being juggernauts funny how it doesnt say that about brawlers o_O. Im not saying i dont want balance i do, the point im making is you cant change whats meant to be the most dps oritenated fighter class into a simple tank, because why would anyone choose that tank when they can have a platemail class that holds agro better. And then why would you choose that class when other people will dps better. Is that simple enough? One of you has misunderstood my point at the very start and it has all just carried on. I am not against balancing and i am not against other classes. As for comprehension, the summary of a "Fighter" class includes that of the main tanks paladin and guardian, so of course naturally its going to unclude part of there job. To reiterate that point myself being a monk this would have no bearing on my situation but a bruisers description is: "Bruisers are Powerful thugs who use raw physical force to Pummel there opponents into submission. They have transformed their bodies into Brutal weapons designed to inflict suffering upon their enemies." Main tank? i think not............ Margen wrote: <p>Please understand, I have no problem with rouges, warlocks, wizards, and predators or summoners even, out damaging me by quite a bit.  But to be 15th, means that our DPS will be poor, consider we are on the same tier as guardians/paladins, just a step above. </p> <p>Compare Shadow Knights with bards and chanters, they bring some VERY nice buffs to a group, If I group with a chanter, the power regen alone is awsome, and while mezz may not be the huge issue it was in EQ1, it does make both tanking and healing much easier and orderly when pulling multi mob groups.  I grouped with a Bard today and had my prim str alone was raised by 80 points, plus mana regen there also.  Saying these abilities don't mater is what I find hard to swallow. </p> <p>Plus yes I can produce a short burst of pretty significant damage, but whe I go into dps mode, my power drops like a rock.  And to be blunt I 've never grouped with a scout or mage (exception of chanters and maybe bards) where they didn't out damage me significantly.  I have a heck of time maintain aggro when grouped with a warlock or assasians, and yes I am taunting, spam buffing etc, why if their dps is so bad.  Also there is the issue when I see scout classes in kiting heroic mobs, which would smash my head in, before I got them to 50 pct.  Or warlocks nuking a mob to death before it even get within range, not to mention root/nuke.</p> <p>Tanks have to have something to bring to the party if they are not filing the tank role and at this time all we have is dps (oh from what the Beserker's are saying their HP buffs don't stack with Guardians hp buffs, when they let the stacking bug/change out for short period).  So yes, I think we should be able to tank and provide good (not wizard/warlock) dps.  Cause I am not improving stats, I am not making the wizards spells more powerful, I am not regen power, I am not stealing power from the mob, I am not mezzing, transfer power to healers etc..  All these things DPS classes can do (isn't that a bit on the powerful side).</p> <p>you all can 1 star me all you want, but it still doesn't change the fact that with only ONE role for fighters in the future and that role not stacking (while dps does stack well), there is trouble in mudville.</p> <div>Oh and WHAT top dog (ROFL), we are the last heavy tank chossen for actually tanking, considering Paladins are now with Guardians as top tank, your attitude is a bit hypocritical.  Are you losing your heals?  Are you losing aggro ability?  Being on told your on top makes it easier to take changes , considering we where suppose to provide good dps, yes I am ticked.  Heck beserker wher told they would provide large amount of damage.</div> <div> </div> <div>Oh well enjoy, I will try fighting my way through this mess, maybe they will make lifetaps actually worth casting >>>> RIGHT LOL</div> <div> </div> <p>Message Edited by Margen on <span class="date_text">07-01-2005</span><span class="time_text">11:00 AM</span></p> <div></div><p>Message Edited by L1m3y on <span class=date_text>07-10-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:57 AM</span>

[Deadjest]

<P>Which is why Combat Utility is the key to my talks about Tank Balance.</P> <P>DPS alone is a very tiny arena of game balance and is very lack luster in actualy effect with so many class's.   I don't have a problem with another Tank doing more damage then me and I think some should such as Zerkes and Brawlers,  its part of the fantasy setting and its great.   What I am talking about is somthing BESIDES all that, somthing that with multi tanks in a group that their efforts can STACK.</P> <P>Even if a system where 2 and 3 tanks would be needed in a single group, there would still be plenty of ecounters as you dungeon crawl where it would not be so and the off Tanks would just be DPS and Special Abilities.   But the Combat Utilities would be stacking so as not to just make any one tank obsolete in view of another DPS class.   Basicly you would have some group make ups where they are extreamly tough with 3 Tanks with Stacking effects and some groups that are fast Killers with only one or two Tanks in the group and some DPS class's mixed in.   All are viable, one is real tough, other is fast on the kill ratio but has to be more cautions on big pulls.</P> <P>And this effect would really add up in a Raid situation where as you progress you might have to switch main tanks depending on what major mobs you would encounter.</P> <P>In the revamp Brawlers are still going to be on Tier up above my class in DPS which I think is correct though I would add Zerkers on that Tier or one Higher even with some Tanking disabilitys while they are DPSing.  </P> <P>But Combat Utility is where its at, only such much DPS balancing can be done, its a very limited area to play in game wise with so many.</P> <P>As a simple idea for change that could really be worked out in more detail:</P> <P>Guardians:  Extra Mitigation,  Self and Group.  Better Protection line for other group members.</P> <P>Zerkers:  DPS mode and group haste.</P> <P>Paladins:  Healing and  Mitigation vs Magics, Self and Group and Speical Shield Attacks.</P> <P>Shadow Knights: Debuffing, Life Taps, Heavy Single Buff vs Magics and Special Shield Attacks.</P> <P>Bralwers: Stifles, Extra Avoidance vs Speical Attacks, Better combos of HOs</P> <P>Thats the simple version but I think it would start giving Tanks a Role vs some Encounters and naturaly provide certain strengths and weakness's.</P> <P>All can Tank Well they just have a nice edge in their field.</P> <P>Some Tanks are very group friendly such as Guardians, Zerkers, and Paladins and provide there.</P> <P>Some Tanks are very self centered in nature and have heavy self buffs but lack for group protection, they do what they can by effecting the enemy more be it debuff or blunting the mobs attacks  which in turn in its own way lessens what dmg the group will take in return and if you get a Group Tank and a Self Centered Tanks in the same Group or Raid even more so, you have a strong combo of effects going off.</P> <P>And it will help the survivability of your Scouts, Mages and Healers in return.</P> <P> </P>

[L1m]

Aye that sounds interesting, but ya gota understand how am i meant to solo ^^. I think balance can be achieved without ruining other classes. Know what i mean? Still think i should out dps bards and enchanters tho <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <div></div>

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<P>Very simple concept to add...the one main quality of a fighter is to tank, just as healers heal , mages magical damage and scouts physical damage. Whats wrong with this you ask? all of these currently stack EXCEPT fighter's tanking ability...so lets not strain our brains too much my fellow fights...but lets..ugg...it HURTS..thinking...hard...wheeeeww!! Allowing TANKING to stack!</P> <P>.......................... but HOW would we do that! It cant be done it's hopeless and impossible!! /puts fingers in ears "lalalalala im not listing to you"...................................:smileywink:</P> <P>na........ it's  r e a l l y  e a s y..................</P> <P>Allow tanks to band together and divide incoming damage.</P> <P>SO </P> <P>Simple :smileyvery-happy:</P> <P>By staying within a set radius of eachother, tanks who choose to should beable to divide and incoming direct damage amongst them, and their aggro should be linked as a unit. Mob will see them a Band_of_fighters001, and all their aggro generation will go to this. AOE damage will afect them all as normal. 2-6 fighters must do this, can be out of their group in raids, as long as they stay within the radius. This is allready semi-implemented into the game via the Intercept-line of skills but this inst nearly as good as the system ihave developed.</P> <P>This allows for tanks that would normal be 1 hit wondered (brawlers to be specific) to actively tank in raid situations. If you have 1 of the 6 tank classes in game tanking, it would be the strongest defense imaginable for a raid force, as each of the fighter's tanking abilities and buffs would benefit eachother more rather than haveing 6 of the same exact sub-class.</P> <P>Imagin a blow that deals 10000 damage. Thats about 1667 per fighter if there are 6 fighters. then that is mitigaded/avoid chanced. If a bruser gets unlick and misses a dodge, they only get about 1000-1200 damage, where as they would have recived a wopping 8000 probly if alone. But if they avoid this attack, they just save the ehalers a wopping 1667 points of healing. and that 1000-1200 would be easily fixed with a ward taking the brunt of it and a regeneration patching up the overflow of the ward. the Mitigation tanks would only recive about 500-800 damage (i dont know what a good raid warrior's mitigation is. If a berserker had a skill that auto ripostes any physical attack for the next 10 seconds, they might avoid this damage AND score an extra attack. Reactive heals would take most of that blow a warrior/crusader woudl recieve. IMO warrors should get 15% more mitigation from their armor than any other heavy wearing class. This means while they would take mroe damage form this hit, a lifetap and heal to restor their hp to get even less damage total then warriors, but they have to use power to do this. I envison crusaders being better agisnt magical damage. </P> <P>As a side note remeber, all tanks have same hp regardless of class. Warriors get a +hp group buff but if in same group as other fighters, then they all get this.</P> <P>As another side note, i think allowing raid buffs would be as simple as rightclicking a group buff in your maintained window and choicing option "raid buff" would making it cost 5 concentrationbut would give it to the entire raid. This would remove the nessessity of having the "best buffs" in the main tank(s) group.</P> <DIV>Toodles!</DIV>

[Deadjest]

<P>Lim3y</P> <P>I see your point.   Naturaly if tanks were done that way, all tanks could tank, it shouldnt hurt your solo ability.   For you would actualy gain in some areas that previously you did not have.</P> <P>And personaly I agree, I think you should do a tad more dmg then Bards and really excell with a Bard as for Enchanters, well thats a tricky one.   As of now Enc don't do as much dmg as they should and they don't have nealy the same value as they once did in EQL.   Personaly I think they should have their nukes upgraded one step and be able to charm mobs.    But the mobs each keep their own speical attacks but fight one grade down from what they once were.   After all they are charmed, they shouldnt be able to fight with their full facalties.     And it would prevent the problems we had in EQL, since mobs worked on a set of uber rules, if you charmed one, you had a God Pet and suddenly out of whack DPS compared to the other class's not to mention a hasted pet with mage weapons.    And we all know mobs don't work on the same rules as we do here.</P> <P>Eyes</P> <P>I will have to think about what you said, somthing seems right and wrong with it at the same time.   I will think about it some, I don't want to jump the gun and sprout stuff off till I understand it better and think about the pros and cons in more detail.</P>

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<P><FONT color=#ff0000>**no insults within**</FONT></P> <P>TY for no rash desisions, please take time to mule it over:smileywink:. If we had to add a negative side to this, increase all incoming damage by 25%, then spred it among the fighters, sototal damage would be 12500 rather than 10000 on one tank... but what ever you deside, make it well thougt out and give a counter sugestion please :smileyvery-happy:</P> <P>Toodles!</P> <DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>**no insults within**</FONT></DIV><p>Message Edited by Eyes_of_Truth on <span class=date_text>07-11-2005</span> <span class=time_text>08:13 AM</span>

[L1m]

Aye jester that sounds about right. eyes im just going to ignore you, obviously you lack the intelligence to realise that fighters are not played by the bumb brutes that they appear to be in game. And as you can see jester and myself are now way past insults <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <div></div>

[Eyes_of_Truth]

<DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>**I will say NOTHING in this post as an insult.**</FONT></DIV> <P>hahahahahahaha... wow...now i have to add WARNING labes in my post that say "no insults contained within"...</P> <P>WHEN HAVE I EVER SAID THE FOLOWING:</P> <P><FONT color=#339999>" fighters are played by dumb brutes".........</FONT></P> <P>would that include myself? and my 35 paladin?</P> <P>Insults? show me one derogitory statment in my prievious post please.. no REALY...im to dumb to know...well at least by your other statement i am...........</P> <P>ok then, prove to me my "lack of intellegence", and if you cant back up what you say then just shut yo mouth...</P> <DIV>I see what your trying to do.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Your trying to "defend" yourself when there is no need to be defensive...im not trying to destroy anyones class, but trying to balance things out and give them a role besides DPS. It is not my choice that your lossing your grossly overpowered dps (thats my opinion and the devs apparently), thats the devs balancing, and i have no control in the matter. But what i AM doing is trying to present fighters a role that DOES stack with other fighters, by allowing them to group-tank  and divide any incoming damage between themselves. It's like your trying to bite the theropist for trying to help you though a problem, it makes no sense.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>12 classes for defensive and 12 for offensive, thats how the archetype system works. Up till now, there has been no stackable role that fighters provide, and your solution is to strip the entire archetypal system in favor of allowing your berserker to strip his role as a Fighter and have a higher offense then offensive classes such as enchanters in bards(mage/scout). The thing about the archetype is you never give it up to advance. It's mearly a sign of defenition as you progress down the classes and sub-classes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>my conjuror and warlock and illusionsist are still mages even at 50. No matter what i do, unless i reroll, they are mages, magical damage dealers, and there is nothing about that i can change, not that i would want to anyway, because thats what i chose at level 3, magical damage dealer.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>They should never loose their mage role of DPS, no matter what they gain. The Summoners and Enchanters should in no way lag behind Sorceror to a point that fighters and priests can EASILY beat them or match them in damage. Insted, they should still have the average mage's offensive might, and the sorceror just another step a head of them for damage. And they should complement the sorceror's damage so they all deal better damage stacked together, but thats a different post :smileywink:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Your...a...fighter...and .... you...will...ALLWAYS...be...on...the...tank...side ... no matter what you SUB-class choice. Ok, you choose Berserker, the more offensive fighter. So that means you should get to strip butt naked and start murdering things faster than a bard or enchanter simple because you "give up" your defense? It doest work that way. YOU my friend are a warrior. Your sub class mearly adds definition NOT a full 360 into other archetypes' roles</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Warrior = tank. Well, Fighter= tank. By that logic how did you think that at level 19 your warrior would go into a cacoon, and emerge a Berserker who's role is DPS? Can you honestly say you chose fighter to kill when even at the Isle they said mages and scouts deal more damage while you hold off the foes? So then what was all that Warrior and fighter part about? Just a speed bump in becoming your SUB-class that you think defeines your character? You cant say you made your berserker for offense, because that means you should have taken the first avalible options for offense,  mage or scout.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>EQ2 is very different from alot of games, your Archetype stays with you your entire playing experiance. That is what you quintessentailly WANT to do in this game, and here are your options:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Mage= Magical Offense</DIV> <DIV>Scout=Physical Offense</DIV> <DIV>Fighter=Tank Defense</DIV> <DIV>Priest=Healing Defense</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>At 20 you dont get to flip flop to a damage dealer role you make that choice at level 3 when that guard gives you the details of your archetype. You cant "step on others archeytpe's toes". that means no matter what, none of the archetypes should overlap (with exception for mage damage = scout damagejust of different types</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You probly didnt read a word of what he said and just chose fighter be cause you new it was the way to berserker and you had it in your head that berserker is the damage god. Same at level 10 when you chose the armored and tough warrior class. Im wiling to bet a plat you didnt read though all the dialoge and just insted went "click click click" on the words to just get it done fast because hey, im going berserker, all this talk about armor and protecting others blah blah blah ill leave that up to guardians i dont wana protect people... and you probly tryied to level to 20 as fast as you could, you probly didnt tank much in that time period, and if you did you probly tried to DPS insted of taunting, gettng aggro and keeping it. But hey, thats all speculation and i wont accuse you of anything...but it is a strong possibility. That was not an issult, just speculation. Again, that was NOT and insult.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>**I have said NOTHING in this post as an insult**</FONT></DIV>

[Margen]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Deadjester wrote:<BR> <P>Lim3y</P> <P>I see your point.   Naturaly if tanks were done that way, all tanks could tank, it shouldnt hurt your solo ability.   For you would actualy gain in some areas that previously you did not have.</P> <P>And personaly I agree, I think you should do a tad more dmg then Bards and really excell with a Bard as for Enchanters, well thats a tricky one.   As of now Enc don't do as much dmg as they should and they don't have nealy the same value as they once did in EQL.   Personaly I think they should have their nukes upgraded one step and be able to charm mobs.    But the mobs each keep their own speical attacks but fight one grade down from what they once were.   After all they are charmed, they shouldnt be able to fight with their full facalties.     And it would prevent the problems we had in EQL, since mobs worked on a set of uber rules, if you charmed one, you had a God Pet and suddenly out of whack DPS compared to the other class's not to mention a hasted pet with mage weapons.    And we all know mobs don't work on the same rules as we do here.</P> <P>Eyes</P> <P>I will have to think about what you said, somthing seems right and wrong with it at the same time.   I will think about it some, I don't want to jump the gun and sprout stuff off till I understand it better and think about the pros and cons in more detail.</P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>They would have to be VERY VERY careful on Charm, they way they did it in EQlive made the chanters at end game EXTREMLY powerful.  Having the ability to have a pet that had the ac and hps of a warrior and the DPS of a rogue was extreme IMHO.  </P> <P>Not saying that EQ2 Chanters dont' need some love, but lets not bring back the trinity.  But the question is how much dps should they get as a utility class, don't have easy answer.  </P> <P>Blackoath</P>

[Gorkk00]

<span><blockquote><hr>Margen wrote:<p>They would have to be VERY VERY careful on Charm, they way they did it in EQlive made the chanters at end game EXTREMLY powerful.  Having the ability to have a pet that had the ac and hps of a warrior and the DPS of a rogue was extreme IMHO.  </p> <p>Not saying that EQ2 Chanters dont' need some love, but lets not bring back the trinity.  But the question is how much dps should they get as a utility class, don't have easy answer.  </p> <p>Blackoath</p> <div></div><hr></blockquote>1. Charm is already in game, you know? Troubadours have one. And some chanters already have one, it's called Beguile and it's what we could call the class defining ability for coercers. But even if they at last fix it (currently the charmed mob keeps group buffs at the end of spell, and debuffing it will debuff group), it'll be as it is now very situational. Give a charm to illusionists too? Most illusionists don't want that, specialy of a gimped version of charm... Rumors tend to say that we would get a charm with no duration using a concentration slot with chances to break anytime... Great, another Damocles sword upon our head, we already have our roots that have high chance to break when each single damage land (so each time we do 60 damage to a mob with our DoT...). If they really give charm to illusionist, they may as well make only one class with illusionists and coercers... 2. "Utility class"? I'm afraid the term is no longer valid for enchanters (if it ever was). The few utility we had is slowly nerfed or useless: Haste? Well it only haste autoattack, which represent according to parsers less than 15% of melee damage, so that's not a great group increase. Group invis? They are nerfing it, making impossible to go through a zone without fighting even with invis :/ CC? Oh yeah, sorcerers, who are the DPS mage, have a much more efficient CC tool for like 90% of the time with their AoE unbreakable root, allowing them to keep mobs in the distance to protect casters (mages, healers) and still nuking them and kill them, and they usualy kill a few before the root ends with their DPS. Our CC tool, mezz, is useful max 10%, and even then it's more useful than an unbreakable root only when you need to park the mob somewhere to kill it later. So what is chanters utility? Breeze. And yes it's good. Still all other classes have good utility too, and we have not much greater utility than them, no point in calling us a "utility class", just to "justify" we do close to no damage. There's no such thing "utility class" in EQ2. There's Tank, Healer, (melee/magic) DPS classes, some having slightly more utility than others...</span><div></div>

[Margen]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gorkk00 wrote:<BR><SPAN><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Margen wrote:<BR> <P>They would have to be VERY VERY careful on Charm, they way they did it in EQlive made the chanters at end game EXTREMLY powerful.  Having the ability to have a pet that had the ac and hps of a warrior and the DPS of a rogue was extreme IMHO.  </P> <P>Not saying that EQ2 Chanters dont' need some love, but lets not bring back the trinity.  But the question is how much dps should they get as a utility class, don't have easy answer.  </P> <P>Blackoath</P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>1. Charm is already in game, you know? Troubadours have one. And some chanters already have one, it's called Beguile and it's what we could call the class defining ability for coercers. But even if they at last fix it (currently the charmed mob keeps group buffs at the end of spell, and debuffing it will debuff group), it'll be as it is now very situational. Give a charm to illusionists too? Most illusionists don't want that, specialy of a gimped version of charm... Rumors tend to say that we would get a charm with no duration using a concentration slot with chances to break anytime... Great, another Damocles sword upon our head, we already have our roots that have high chance to break when each single damage land (so each time we do 60 damage to a mob with our DoT...). If they really give charm to illusionist, they may as well make only one class with illusionists and coercers...<BR><BR>2. "Utility class"? I'm afraid the term is no longer valid for enchanters (if it ever was). The few utility we had is slowly nerfed or useless: Haste? Well it only haste autoattack, which represent according to parsers less than 15% of melee damage, so that's not a great group increase. Group invis? They are nerfing it, making impossible to go through a zone without fighting even with invis :/ CC? Oh yeah, sorcerers, who are the DPS mage, have a much more efficient CC tool for like 90% of the time with their AoE unbreakable root, allowing them to keep mobs in the distance to protect casters (mages, healers) and still nuking them and kill them, and they usualy kill a few before the root ends with their DPS. Our CC tool, mezz, is useful max 10%, and even then it's more useful than an unbreakable root only when you need to park the mob somewhere to kill it later. So what is chanters utility? Breeze. And yes it's good. Still all other classes have good utility too, and we have not much greater utility than them, no point in calling us a "utility class", just to "justify" we do close to no damage. There's no such thing "utility class" in EQ2. There's Tank, Healer, (melee/magic) DPS classes, some having slightly more utility than others...<BR></SPAN> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>ok from reading your 1st paragraph, you are saying you want an unbreakable charm, and you don't think this is over powered.  Mobs at higher levels provide awsome dps with awsome ac/hp's.  That will make chanters the ubber class in heart beat.  </P> <P>As for your complaint about illusionists and coercers becoming the same, well us fighters can use the same complaint from what the casters community wants us to become .... all Guardians.  </P> <P>Do chanters need upgrades yep, but if you want, what would basicly be power free dps (cast charm every 10 mins recast, send in supper pet) sorry thats way overpowered. <BR></P> <P>Blackoath</P>

[Encantador]

<P>Margen wrote:</P> <P>-----------------------------------------------</P> <P>Do chanters need upgrades yep, but if you want, what would basicly be power free dps (cast charm every 10 mins recast, send in supper pet) sorry thats way overpowered. <BR></P> <P>-------------------------------------------------</P> <P>You really have no clue about charm in this game do you?</P> <P>Making charm last 10 mins as it is currently implemented would indeed be overpowered. Why? and the answer is NOT that a single mob in EQ2 is powerful. </P> <P>Why is everyone in this game so frightened of charm? This is not EQ1.</P> <P>Making charm last 10 minutes for a single pet would roughly triple coercer DPS. Is 200 DPS overpowered?</P> <DIV>Given a 10 minute charm, coercers would still need some boosts. At the very least they would need a root that lasted more than a few seconds and something to do in a raid other than cast clarity.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Gorkk00]

<span><blockquote><hr>Margen wrote:ok from reading your 1st paragraph, you are saying you want an unbreakable charm, and you don't think this is over powered.  Mobs at higher levels provide awsome dps with awsome ac/hp's.  That will make chanters the ubber class in heart beat.  <p>As for your complaint about illusionists and coercers becoming the same, well us fighters can use the same complaint from what the casters community wants us to become .... all Guardians.  </p> <p>Do chanters need upgrades yep, but if you want, what would basicly be power free dps (cast charm every 10 mins recast, send in supper pet) sorry thats way overpowered. </p> <p>Blackoath</p><hr></blockquote>You should have read with more attention. I said most illusionists don't a charm at all. And if we are really supposed to have one, then not have a no specified duration but who can break at any time one but rather a time limited one (such as current coercer's beguile) which would have a more predictable behaviour. What people ask for fighters (not only casters ask for it) is not that you all become guardians, but that you all are able to tank as efficiently (this DOES NOT MEAN tank in the same way), and that none of you could outdps a dps class, eg. what the devs stated they had initialy planed for their game (4 archetypes, each having a core role, with each of its subclass being able to fulfill this core role, and none of the other archetype's subclasses being able to outwork one of them in their core role), nothing more. Giving illusionist a charm would be imo like making all tanks guardians. Whereas what's suggested by the community for tanks is more like: all tanks can tank well, some of them will be better against some kind of mobs (scout mobs, mage mobs, fighter mobs, etc.), with some of these classes focusing on taking some damage the group should have taken - like guardians currently do - and other focusing on improving themselves only in order to be more efficient against the mob and thus save his group (eg. here better DPS than other tanks, but still less than DPS classes), some tanks will be better at single target taunts, others at AoE taunts, etc. Nothing near what you pretend casters ask for... Let my summarize this again and repeat after me: - each archetype has a core role - each subclass of the archetype can fulfill decently this core role, but will do it differently (but as efficiently) => same efficiency, different ways to achieve this efficiency. - no subclasses of an archetype with another core role can be better at a role that any of the subclasses of the archetype of which it's core role. Oh, and repeat after me too: "illusionists don't want a charm"! Hope this time the message has been clearer...</span><div></div>

[madwhack]

<DIV>Holy crap, all I did was get more and more frustrated as I read these posts. The arcetype system is fine the way it is. No changes need to be made. Players understandings of how the archetype system was meant to be implimented needs to be changed. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It was stated that no mater what class and subclass your arcetype becomes, he or she can still fufill their arcetypes primary roll. Equality is never mentioned, because each subclass is purely situational in its effectivness. Just because all of the fighters subclasses can fufill the role of tank in a group, does not mean they will fufill the role equally. Nor does it say that they have to fufill the arcetypes primary role at all. But someone does need to fill each role in a group, and if your the only one in the group that can fufill the role, then your it, reguardless of what subclass your character is. Most people grasped this concept until they hit level 10. Now your arcetypes 3 classes, slowly but surely, start to become more and more situational. I personally play a priest, 41 templar. When I gained my first few levels as a cleric and I learned Bestowal of Vitae, our first reactive spell, I loved it. At that time (few days after release) all I knew about the 3 priest classes is they each learn a type of healing. Clerics got reactives, shamans got wards, and druids got regens. I simply took that as 3 different ways to cure the same problem. I quickly found out that I was very wrong. These 3 different ways of healing give each priest a situational increase in effectiveness. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>When In situations where your group is fighting a group of enemies, a cleric will fufill its primary role far better than the shaman or the druid, due to the way a cleric fufills its role, which is reactive heals. This doesnt mean that a shaman or a druid couldnt fufill his or her role, it just means that it will be harder for them to fufill their role when compared to a cleric. However, If our group is attacking a single, strong mob, then a shaman would have a far easier time fufilling his role than a cleric or a druid.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The reactives, wards, and regens also have 1 more situational attribute - which class you cast the reactive, ward, or regen on. Clerics reactives dont heal brawlers very well becuase brawlers dont have high damage mitigation. Reactives fire off after the brawler has been hit, and heals a set amount of damage. Since they have low damage mitigation, they will take more damage from enemy attacks, which makes the healing effect from the reactives less effective, requiring the cleric to either fire off instant heals, which is very power consuming, or cast strength debuffs on the enemy so they hit for less damage. The cleric is having to suppliment the reactives hes casting to make up for their poor effectivness in that situation. If it were a shaman fufiling the healing role, he would cast his ward on the brawler. A ward simply shrugs off a set amount of damage. The ward has a clear advantage over the reactive heal due to the fact that brawlers avoid attacks. This means that the ward will get hit less and stay on the brawler longer, protecting him, which is a big power advantage for the shaman. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>These basic rules of situational effectivness applies to every arcetypes classes. Grouping adds a whole other level of situational effectiveness. I saw lots of people on here talking about whos dps should be higher. Factoring how much damage anyone class does is going to greatly depend what buffs and debuffs are up. When my templar casts reproach, it lowers the enemies physical damage mitigation by 420. I would usually only cast that spell on a strong heroic mob. Tanks and scouts would recieve an immediate boost to their damage output, while casters would still be doing the same damage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> A tank getting stunned in battle is in effect having his overall dps reduced, giving a scout or mage an edge when determining whos doing more damage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> If a berserker, a assassin, and a warlock, all level 40, attack a group of 4 enemies, the berserker and the warlock are going to outdamage the assassin by a great deal, due to their area of effect attacks. Once again, its the situation that determines damage output. If those same 3 people attacked a level 40 double arrow, the assassin would deal more damage. And any situation can become completely different depending on the buffs and debuffs that are effecting those 3 characters.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Most people dont look at the situation they will be most likly facing, or the situation they are currently in. If the group is a Shadowknight, a Monk, a Swashbuckler, and a Dirge, then a enchanter would add far more dps to the group than a wizard, due to the situation based on groupmates. A wizard would still fufill his role of dealing large amounts of damage, but in this situation a enchanter would simply do it better. Both the enchanter and the wizard are balanced since they can both fufill their roles.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And if you ever want to compare damage with another class, dont even bother unless you are both the same level. Your level greatly determines how much damage the enemy will absorb from you, and how often you hit the enemy. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I guess what Im trying to do is put an end to this thread once and for all. Im not meaning to be mean or anything, but there are way to many mindless posts that have to do with the dps of their class and "what its sopposed to be" or "im sopposed to do more damage than this class". There is so much more to your characters effectivness other than dps. I dont like the word utility, since technically every skill in the game is a utility, meaning the skill helps you. Replace the word "utility" with "situational" and you should look at your skills in a different way. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And this is where the true balance of the game can be seen. The balanced part is every priest can be the main healer, every fighter can be the main tank, every scout has extreme situational damage and have great situational skills, like evac and invis, and can manipulate the heroic opportunity wheel. Those who know of the wheel know how much they can greatly speed up a groups progress, and there ability to flip the wheel to benefiet their current situation (hmm scouts seem to be based around certain situations) makes the wheel far more reliable. This is the very foundation that the arcetype system is based on. The amount of damage your character does or the effectivness of your character in a battle is irrelavent and has nothing to do with the balance of the game. Unless your taking the current enemy situation, your groups situation, buff and debuff situation, and what situation your class naturally performs well in....not to mention what equipment your character has, how much youve upgraded your skills, and what level you and the enemy is ALL into consideration.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Hopefully Ive explained it to the best of my ability. No more fighting over dps, because its all pointless in the end, since everything is situational. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sorry for the long post.</DIV>

[Jeridor]

There isn't a MMO out there that holds true to its manual after launch.  Heck, you'd be hard pressed to find any that hold true to the manual even AT launch.  Now oddly enough while I do understand your concerns and the premise you're presenting here, I bet there's been a lot of changes they've put in since the manual that you -do- like, and, well, you have to accept both sides of change. <div></div>

[Deadjest]

<P>You failed to show how the Tanking Class can Tank Situationaly therefore foreful their roles in a manner befitting your post.</P> <P>Class Balance was not achieved.</P>

[Trollb]

<DIV>"other is assasin who isnt doing near the damage of berserkers"</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Scout... just basically sucks to play. Not great at soloing unless you kite alot. Not necessary for groups.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Guardian, not great for soloing but dont die much. Sure it takes longer for a kill, but you dont die unless you do something severely stupid, like tank a yellow heroic encounter, and hey sometimes I come out on top. Also guardian is necessary for groups.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Two archetypes are necessary for a group, tanks and healers.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The archetype "fighter" everyone in it should be able to tank. However, the difference in tanking ability should be somewhat proportional to their damage capacity.... that or they have skills which adjust them for tanking, or dps.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If you think guardian is getting the shaft, look at the light tanks; their dmg is getting severely nerfed. What they get in return is that in some situations they will tank well.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In the end it looks like for solo leveling, scout will be fun. Fighter will be teh suck. Therefore im getting my fighter up to par now.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV><p>Message Edited by Trollboy on <span class=date_text>07-22-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:36 AM</span>

[RaptorBite]

<P>Boring? :smileyindifferent:</P> <P>If i remember correctly, they said all the fighter classes would be able to tank just as well as the next, as an SK, actually being able to tank doesn't sound boring to me :smileysad: , is it just that you dont want SK's and other fighter classes cutting in on your raid effectivness?... Boring is I am sick of seeing posts like YOURS saying "my guardian can tank raid mobs and outdamage wizards, but i dont want anyone else to be equal to me."</P> <P>It is your right to post this if you want but do not expect any support for unblanced classes coming from any non-guardian fighter classes.</P>