No Flexibility with New Aggro Changes...(LU 37 Feedback)

[mcavellero]

<p>I can see where aggro changes were necessary...hold scouts more accountable for their aggro, give coercer a place on raids however there's just a little problem...there's no flexibility.</p><p>By nerfing the coercer hate buff from 49 to 15%, you are mandating that a dirge is a MUST for a mt group.  A MT group can no longer function without a dirge as it once did.  Now for a hardcore raiding guilds this is not a problem because attendance is required but for smaller raiding/family guilds this gives them no flexibility.  IE this Friday my guild has a raid but the dirge cannot make it...we have a coercer but with a 15% hate gain, and people parsing 3k+  there's gonna be some problems...  The raid might be canceled because of one class missing(Is this balanced? [no sarcasm])...that's 23 people disappointed because the lack of one class.</p><p>If the hate cap is 50% why bother nerfing the coercer buff all the way down to 15%?  At least make it equal to that for the dirge so there's some room for flexibility.   If the coercer was kept at the original hate gain % with that transfer component...you would effectively reach your goals of A) giving a coercer a place on raids B) allowing flexibility C) also ensure dirges are placed in the MT group.  and the cap would still not be exceeded.</p><p> However I could be wrong...and your goals are to do exactly that provide no flexibility, no back up plans...  Only the guilds that have the right classes and are "hardcore raiding guilds" will be sucessful.  I do not think those are the goals as this does not suit the majority of the player/customer base.  So please SoE do something about this....</p>

[miliskel]

im suprised u only had 1 dirge but u also had a coercer..our guild has alot of dirges but only 2 coercers and we have had the biggest struggle getting a coercer at all lol....there raiders alts.

[mcavellero]

<p>Aye hence the need for flexibilty.</p><p> Raids can continue without a defiler (mystic can sub) without a templar(inquis can sub)...Defiler and templars are preferred but it's still doable without them.  Without a coercer, you can pop a hate transfer in there(but now it's makes more sense to use a coercer if one is available) However without a Dirge, do not expect sucess with a 15% hate gain ability...simply not balanced to have a raid force rely on one class so much.</p>

[Zantinium]

Don't forget the fact that there is now a transfer on the coercer hate gain buff.  You get the 15% hate gain and a 14% hate transfer, at adept III, so its not just the 15% that you were quoting.   I can't speak for the way your coercer plays but i know I'm normally towards the top of hate list so the MT is still getting more than just the straight 15%.   I'll admit that the 15%/14% doesn't appear to be the same as the 43% that the adept III was at before.  I've only raided once since the change and yes you could see a small difference on certain encounters, but at the same time there were other changes made that could also affect that.  I'm going to wait and pass judgment on the change until after i've had a reasonable amount of time. In my opinion I wouldn't cancel the raid, but instead hold the raid and see exactly how the change affects your setup.

[DMIstar]

<p>NP what we can do is nerf Dirge to 15% as well and all will be fixed =P</p><p>On side note havent raided much since patch will be real soon, So am deffenetly going to check out aggro differences that took place.. so far im just seeing a little on the scouts end but cant base to much on that. will be interesting.</p>

[mcavellero]

Zantanium@Crushbone wrote: <blockquote>Don't forget the fact that there is now a transfer on the coercer hate gain buff.  You get the 15% hate gain and a 14% hate transfer, at adept III, so its not just the 15% that you were quoting.   I can't speak for the way your coercer plays but i know I'm normally towards the top of hate list so the MT is still getting more than just the straight 15%.   I'll admit that the 15%/14% doesn't appear to be the same as the 43% that the adept III was at before.  I've only raided once since the change and yes you could see a small difference on certain encounters, but at the same time there were other changes made that could also affect that.  I'm going to wait and pass judgment on the change until after i've had a reasonable amount of time. In my opinion I wouldn't cancel the raid, but instead hold the raid and see exactly how the change affects your setup. </blockquote><p> My problem is not so much that coercers do not bring anything to the MT group but more along the lines of the inflexibility of these new changed.  Simply a coercer+transfer would equal to  a 35% loss in hate gain...  However a dirge+assa/swash would work therefore making Dirge the most important class in a raid and have no equivelant or backup.</p><p> Furthermore my guardian friend just informed me with his AAs, it's still about equal (hate wise) tu use the DIrge+ swash/[Removed for Content] combo because his AAs provide him a 10% bonus to hate gain.  Therefore 36+10=46+18% transfer from a swashie....just food for thought.</p>

[Tandy]

I still find it funny that the dirge being a bard and therefore 'jack of all trades, master of none' and having the flexiability of doing LOTS of things....is the master of raw hate gain over the coercer..who well...is supposed to COERCE.

[schmee]

<p>The other thing is the change to the coercer is extremely confusing. It used to be you could spec specifically for DPS, or specifically for raid MT (heal crit & non-fighter deaggro). Now it seems, to be ideal for MT, you have to be DPS spec'd to generate enough hate to make the enraged demeanor (the hate buff turned hate transfer in LU37) work to anything remotely useful. </p><p>This really sucks for coercer's who aren't geared up with DPS gear. And it also means respeccing away from the enchanter AA line that confered those MT group benefits. Now it's going to be largely pointless for a coercer to spec for anything other than for DPS (probably agi/int). Spec'd that way, good luck to any coercer's without much in the way of proc gear and +subj gear cause eveything you do will get resisted, and your healer's diety pets will out-parse you.</p>

[Lord Montague]

<cite>schmee wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>The other thing is the change to the coercer is extremely confusing. It used to be you could spec specifically for DPS, or specifically for raid MT (heal crit & non-fighter deaggro). Now it seems, to be ideal for MT, you have to be DPS spec'd to generate enough hate to make the enraged demeanor (the hate buff turned hate transfer in LU37) work to anything remotely useful.</p></blockquote> Speaking from my experiences last night, this is not entirely true.  My coercer is not DPS specced, and still generating plenty of hate to transfer to the tank to make a difference.

[Etchii]

<cite>mcavellero wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I can see where aggro changes were necessary...hold scouts more accountable for their aggro, give coercer a place on raids however there's just a little problem...there's no flexibility.</p><p>By nerfing the coercer hate buff from 49 to 15%, you are mandating that a dirge is a MUST for a mt group.  A MT group can no longer function without a dirge as it once did.  Now for a hardcore raiding guilds this is not a problem because attendance is required but for smaller raiding/family guilds this gives them no flexibility.  IE this Friday my guild has a raid but the dirge cannot make it...we have a coercer but with a 15% hate gain, and people parsing 3k+  there's gonna be some problems...  The raid might be canceled because of one class missing(Is this balanced? [no sarcasm])...that's 23 people disappointed because the lack of one class.</p><p>If the hate cap is 50% why bother nerfing the coercer buff all the way down to 15%?  At least make it equal to that for the dirge so there's some room for flexibility.   If the coercer was kept at the original hate gain % with that transfer component...you would effectively reach your goals of A) giving a coercer a place on raids B) allowing flexibility C) also ensure dirges are placed in the MT group.  and the cap would still not be exceeded.</p><p> However I could be wrong...and your goals are to do exactly that provide no flexibility, no back up plans...  Only the guilds that have the right classes and are "hardcore raiding guilds" will be sucessful.  I do not think those are the goals as this does not suit the majority of the player/customer base.  So please SoE do something about this....</p></blockquote>Invite a bruiser!  Bruiser - Brutality: It also increases taunt and detaunt amounts.

[mcavellero]

<p>this conversation is swaying a bit off topic but I could not help but to respond...DPS is not the primary way coercers generate hate...stuns are, one of my stuns roughly equals 2.8k damage...  </p><p>The hate transfer component is genious(although yes a little confusing because all of a coercer's hate cannot be parsed) but the hate gain % IMO should get a boost  By doing this the tanks would still be at the 50% hate gain cap even with a dirge/coercer there but would also allow a raid to function without a coercer and/or dirge.  However the setup of a (coercer+Dirge) would still be ideal at the same time...</p>

[Zantinium]

<cite>mcavellero wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>My problem is not so much that coercers do not bring anything to the MT group but more along the lines of the inflexibility of these new changed.  Simply a coercer+transfer would equal to  a 35% loss in hate gain...  However a dirge+assa/swash would work therefore making Dirge the most important class in a raid and have no equivelant or backup.</p><p> Furthermore my guardian friend just informed me with his AAs, it's still about equal (hate wise) tu use the DIrge+ swash/[I cannot control my vocabulary] combo because his AAs provide him a 10% bonus to hate gain.  Therefore 36+10=46+18% transfer from a swashie....just food for thought.</p></blockquote> I'm not sure I agree with things being completely inflexible.  There are still options out there.   As another post above stated you could place a bruiser to get the benefit that they now have a buff that increases the taunt and detaunt amounts.    you could also run a coercer and a assassin/swash in the mt group if you didn't have the dirge available. None of these may equal the  dirge hate gain + other class, but can that be said for sure, I doubt it.  In theory the transfer has the ability to add more hate to the tank than a straight hate gain, but since we can't parse hate gain it couldn't really be proved.   Using your same example above, if you did the coercer + swash/assassin  you  would have a 15 + 10 = 25 for hate gain and you have 14 + 18 = 32 % for transfer ending up with a 25% hate gain and a 32% hate transfer.    So have you really lost as much as you think without having the dirge?  Would there be that much difference from the dirge + swash/assassin. 

[Bewts]

<p>Guard, Temp, Mystic, Warden, Coercer and I think a swashy?  That was our MT group until the final boss in Lycem last night - granted its not EoF and we aren't dumping massive dps.  We had zero issues with aggro minus a random spike here and there.  We switched the Dirge to the MT group for only the final boss.  Overall, I'd say that the sky isn't falling - at most you just have to adjust group setups and make room for different classes in different groups.</p><p>Sanctum</p>

[Khurghan]

1) Recruit more dirges (many guilds raid with 3 dirges in the raid these days). 2) Force all your Coecer(s) to repec to DPS if you are going to use them in the MT group .

[Muraha]

<p>It's kind of a silly arguement if you ask me. Your raid CAN function without a dirge, but your dps will have to be lower as people go a little slower due to the reduced hate on the MT. You arguement is like saying you cannot function without a troub for hate <b><u>reduction</u></b> in the "so-called" mage group so many of you are fond of. Or perhaps if you are missing a brigand you could argue that without dispatch you cant raid. </p><p>There are 24 classes in the game to choose from and in an ideal world you would have the perfect raid setup for every encounter. In reality you dont, so get over it and adapt, like everyone else. We had no rogue on an MMIS raid one week so we had the necro respec to the Ooze pet for debuffs - lol - That raid took forever but we got there <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p> Ps. They cant increase the hate gain on the coercer buff or the Coercer will just put the increased hate gain on the assassin/swashy like we did before resulting in more hate generated and transfered to the MT </p>

[miliskel]

<cite>mcavellero wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>this conversation is swaying a bit off topic but I could not help but to respond...DPS is not the primary way coercers generate hate...stuns are, one of my stuns roughly equals 2.8k damage... </p></blockquote>how do u figure out that? and how do u stun an epic? ..

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

Enchanter stuns (and all other crowd control abilities) work on Epics in reduced fashion. It's reduced to a third of the duration and the Epic gets an immunity of 3x the original duration (or something.. been a while that i checked my spells for that). Also, Coercer single target Stun includes a fairly high damage (for damage spells) in power drain. This counts for hate too, so you can treat it as straight up hate increase on top of that. However, most likely there was testing done, basically along the lines of casting the spell and seeing how much pure taunts were needed to pull aggro back. This wouldn't be a purely accurate number due to hate decay and initial hate numbers being totally unknown, but you could get a ballpark figure in how much hate the spell is pulling. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Stun was doing in the 2.5k range of hate. So yeah, just because a Coercer is parsing 1k or lower, doesn't mean they aren't pulling down over 2k in Hate. Buffs, power heals, crowd control, mob debuffs, etc.. there's a lot more than pure damage being done to give a Coercer hate.

[Binford]

<p>This is ENTIRELY UNTRUE.  My first impressions when considering how this would affect raids was scary.  Last night we hit HoS and mt grp with an assasin and Coercer (guaridan) was able to hold agro against a 17k-28k raid dps without any problems.  Yes, I lost agro a couple times but nothing more than normal, AND we are NOT a hardcore raid guild.  </p><p>So far so good I think the changes will not affect raiding or grouping as bad as thought,  Might help weed out some "less than efficient" players though.</p>

[Encantador]

<p>2.8K damage equivalent for a stun? No way. If it did I would be ripping aggro off the MT on most fights. No deaggro for me, permanent power drain, stuns, dazes, debuffs, and DPS which can exceed 1K? The only time I get aggro is when Spell Scourge fires too often too soon [hate those courtesans].</p><p>But lets put that aside and get to the point ... If you work through the figures you will find that for aggo control in the MT group an assassin = a swashie >= a dirge >= a coercer. With the drop off being very small. If you add a dirge or a coercer to an MT group that has an assassin or swashie then the amount they add their own boost plus increase the scout's aggro boost and thus are greater in affect than a scout but not by much.</p><p>So yes the dirge's place in the MT group remains solidly in place. Where a guild is getting by with no dirge and a buffbot coercer in the MT group they are now worse off. Much worse off. Where they have a dirge but no coercer then they are a little worse off. Where they had both they are better off.</p><p>So assuming I read the OP correctly. For casual raiders this will not make much difference. Previously you wanted a coercer or a dirge or both in your MT group. Now you still do. </p><p>With a dirge plus coercer you will be better off.</p><p>With a dirge and an ashie (<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> my shorthand for an assassin or a swashbuckler) you will do fine.</p><p>If you can't get a dirge then a coercer plus ashie will not be a lot worse.</p><p>The only real difference is for raids which relied on a single dirge or a single coercer or a pair of ashies for aggro boosts. These cannot be too common. </p>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<cite>Encantador wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>2.8K damage equivalent for a stun? No way. </p></blockquote> Deep Focus does 1695 average power damage over 8 seconds. If it's ticks go faster from reduced duration on Epics, we are looking at under 3 seconds. If not, then it's closer to 850 average power damage. Add in the stun aggro with it, and I wouldn't be surprised if this one cast did over 2k aggro. Keep in mind it's on a 30s recast... so aggro per second isn't that high, just the single cast of the spell.

[mcavellero]

<hr /><p>2.8K damage equivalent for a stun? No way. If it did I would be ripping aggro off the MT on most fights. No deaggro for me, permanent power drain, stuns, dazes, debuffs, and DPS which can exceed 1K? </p><p>The Way I tested this was I Stunned a mob with my coercer, turned off all my guardians auto taunts/attacks...the guardians taunts..and used his single target taunts(985-1205).  Of 11 tries, in 10 of them it took 3 single target taunts to pull the mob off my coercer... 2.8k is not right on the dot but it's very accurate figure.</p><p>"If you can't get a dirge then a coercer plus ashie will not be a lot worse.  The only real difference is for raids which relied on a single dirge or a single coercer or a pair of ashies for aggro boosts. These cannot be too common."</p><p> I just don't understand the rationale here lemme break it down.</p><p>Dirge's Hate Buff=36%</p><p>Coercer's Hate Buff=15%(Good Luck finding master as it's a level 52 spell) 14% Hate Transfer Component too</p><p>Now I am sure we all know that Hate Increase is better than a hate transfer (IE A Swashie parsing at 2000 will only generate 360 extra hate IF they have the master version).  That's over a 50% difference in hate gain, how can that make a little difference, how are they balanced?  So I am not sure what rationale there is behind that statement because there is no support provided.</p>

[mcavellero]

" <p>This is ENTIRELY UNTRUE.  My first impressions when considering how this would affect raids was scary.  Last night we hit HoS and mt grp with an assasin and Coercer (guaridan) was able to hold agro against a 17k-28k raid dps without any problems.  Yes, I lost agro a couple times but nothing more than normal, AND we are NOT a hardcore raid guild.  </p><p>So far so good I think the changes will not affect raiding or grouping as bad as thought,  Might help weed out some "less than efficient" players though.</p><p>"</p><p>This is very nice to hear.  Will see how it works on tonight with Halls of Seeing than Freethinkers tomorrow night with a coercer and assassin.  My guild usually parses 20k to 28k, we've had no trouble in the past holding aggro, we'll see how it works out.  My coercer is usually the second or third to die if the MT goes down so if all that you say is true (crossing fingers) then it'll be fine.</p>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

Yeah, even though my Coercer isn't parsing as high as the Swashy or Assassin, my aggro must be right up there.. since I'm usually close to the top on people to pull aggro when the MT dies. And considering the Swash/Assassin transfer is 18% (or so I've been told, correct me if I'm wrong), and the Coercer transfer is 14% at adept 3 (17% at master 1) WITH a 15% hate gain increase... and the Coercer brings other things to the MT group than just hate... well, not sure why Scouts are still considered #1 over dirge/coercer anymore...

[Encantador]

<cite>mcavellero wrote:</cite><blockquote><hr /><p>2.8K damage equivalent for a stun? No way. If it did I would be ripping aggro off the MT on most fights. No deaggro for me, permanent power drain, stuns, dazes, debuffs, and DPS which can exceed 1K? </p><p>The Way I tested this was I Stunned a mob with my coercer, turned off all my guardians auto taunts/attacks...the guardians taunts..and used his single target taunts(985-1205).  Of 11 tries, in 10 of them it took 3 single target taunts to pull the mob off my coercer... 2.8k is not right on the dot but it's very accurate figure.</p><p><span style="color: #000099">-- Nice to hear. I think it is great people actually test these things instead of guessing. But I presume this was for a Heroic mob maybe a solo one? and probably a green or grey one? On an Epic ticks do not go faster. So one could guess epic hate effect at around 0.9K done in 2.7 secs (from memory).</span></p><p>"If you can't get a dirge then a coercer plus ashie will not be a lot worse.  The only real difference is for raids which relied on a single dirge or a single coercer or a pair of ashies for aggro boosts. These cannot be too common."</p><p> I just don't understand the rationale here lemme break it down.</p><p>Dirge's Hate Buff=36%</p><p>Coercer's Hate Buff=15%(Good Luck finding master as it's a level 52 spell) 14% Hate Transfer Component too</p><p>Now I am sure we all know that Hate Increase is better than a hate transfer (IE A Swashie parsing at 2000 will only generate 360 extra hate IF they have the master version).  That's over a 50% difference in hate gain, how can that make a little difference, how are they balanced?  So I am not sure what rationale there is behind that statement because there is no support provided.</p><p><span style="color: #0033cc">Not sure how to read what you say. Take an MT group of MT plus 3 healers. Now add a dirge what is the change in hate? answer 36% of the MTs DPS+taunts. The MT DPS will go up a bit from dirge buffs. So say 1200 * 36%. Instead add a coercer, now its 1400 * 15% + 1500 * 14%, instead add a swashie its say 2500 * 18%</span></p><p><span style="color: #0033cc">Why these number for coercer and swashie? Well they are guesses. Based on adding to the DPS of a coercer a hate value from all his stuns and debuffs, and extra to the swashie for their debuffs AND a swashie could use their taunt.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0033cc">You can fiddle around with the numbers a bit but they will keep working out at around the same.</span></p></blockquote>

[nirate]

<cite>mcavellero wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Aye hence the need for flexibilty.</p></blockquote> Thats one of those really easy concepts the devs never will grasp