New Zerker Changes (kinda big pic)

[victer]

<p><img src="http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc255/victer_p/NewZerker.jpg" width="515" height="1023" /></p>

[LygerT]

<p>doesn't look as bad as i feared, still looks like you can tank offensively as long as you don't taunt.</p><p>defensively speaking, i think will still be a problem, a big one, but i will need to see it for myself. i'm still unsure what the "melee damage multiplier" effect will do, if it means all of our damage is halved, then this will be a HUGE problem. i want to see what happened to transfers though, but if we have to raid tank in D stance, doing 2k damage, with scouts still parsing 15k then there is no freaking way we can make up for that gap with the changes i see to taunts, taunt crits and taunt modifiers.</p>

[victer]

<p>i would really like some sort of explaination of what the 0.5 multiplier modifier is acutally doing</p><p>i hate doing dev calls cause they never answer them but please give us an explanation of it somewhere if not in this thread please.</p>

[victer]

<p>Here are some sugestions:</p><ul><li>No more negetive crush/slash/pierce on D stance. The hit rate loss in d stance is still present and that is the main problem we have with it on live.</li><li>Bloodshower needs to be made 1 sec cast or lower to be castable without slowing down autoattack. Especially now that it is a taunt. Same should be applyed to our barrage.</li><li>Jeering onslaught (tso AA) needs to be a true "blue" AE where you do not require a target. Much like the way gibe works. I do not know of any other blue ae that require targets.</li><li>I would also like to suggest looking over the Warrior AA STR final ability because right now it does nothing while healers are healing you.</li></ul>

[Xalmat]

<p>Not that it matters but Rouse got changed to cost 2 concentration slots.</p><p>The AoEs got a HUGE taunt component attached to it. But it's not exactly like we need another AoE taunt unless you don't have your mythical.</p><p>8% hate gain in addition to a 0.5 damage multiplier (which I'm presuming cuts melee damage in half), in <em>addition</em> to slash/pierce/crush decrease, is not going to cut it as over half of our aggro seems to be from auto-attack. But we'll have to see how it plays out.</p><p>I'm a little concerned about two things:</p><p>1. The offense stance doesn't increase our damage enough to justify us being present for DPS unless there's a lot of AoE mobs and another AoE class will tank it.</p><p>2. It looks like they're consolidating spells<span style="text-decoration: line-through;">. Several of my spells are Master I, but my stances are Adept III. How will that be resolved? (I'll have to log on to test to find out).</span> Logged onto test, my Stances got upgraded to Master I since the other spells were already Master I but the stances aren't. That removes one concern.</p>

[victer]

<p>i was suprised to see the spells get merged and nothing to replace them.</p><p>What happeneds to the people that have those masters up for sale? Or the people that spent money on them and now they poofed?</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>OK, so the DPS drop isn't too bad, but it's still a drop.</p><p>Naked (0 DPS mod) with Mythical:No stance: 125-710 weapon damageDefensive: 96-541 weapon damage (30%-31% less auto-attack damage)</p><p>Relentless Rage (24 DPS mod, 26% DPS) with Mythical:No stance: 159-898 weapon damageDefensive 121-685 weapon damage (31%% less auto-attack damage)</p><p>Full armor on test (68 DPS mod, 67% DPS) with Mythical:No stance: 299-1695 weapon damageDefensive: 228-1291 (31% less auto-attack damage)</p>

[firewolf]

<p>Looks like this will make wisdom end line ability much more useful</p>

[Airbornee]

<p>Did they take crit from us in the str line or hate increase?  I get those spells mixed up all the time.</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>Copy/paste from EQ2Flames. Should answer just about all the questions you guys might have..</p><p>I did some honest to goodness testing on Test server. One thing that wasn't mentioned is that our kick now has a rather large taunt component now, and I don't know if anyone else noticed but Bellow is now a 10 second recast instead of 20. Group berserk and stance berserks BOTH stack, but to a point. If both group berserk and stance berserk are up, it'll take the higher of the DPS/Haste mods (ie: if defense stance and group berserks are both active, you'll gain the hate mod from stance berserk, and dps/haste from group berserk. if O stance and group berserks are active, you'll take the dps/haste from the O stance berserk as well as the base CA damage.) The new berserks trigger Adrenaline/Juggernaut so no need to worry about it. A quickie on the berserks: * Clicky berserk from EOF tree is still the weakest of the berserks. * Defense stance berserk raises hate gain and DPS/Haste. * Group berserk raises DPS/Haste higher than stance berserk. * Offense stance berserk raises base CA damage, and DPS/Haste higher than group berserk. The auto-attack reduction in Defense stance is approximately 30% of whatever you normally do. IE if your auto-attack does 500-1000 in no-stance and O-stance, in D-stance it will do 350-700ish. This is including modifications by DPS mods and your STR. This penalty does NOT affect CAs, only autoattack. Combat logs now show how much hate you generate from taunts and such, as well as positional moves (doesn't show how much hate is gained from a positional move, just the number of positions). Taunts can now critical, but there is no known method of increasing critical taunt rate besides STR4 AA that I'm aware of. Nothing that I could see, stat-wise, increases taunts either (STR, INT, CA, nada). I heard that Dirge and Coercer hate buffs are getting nerfed, and I know for a fact that swashy/assassin hate xfers are now changed. Offense stance, as it says, turns all taunts into detaunts, which means if you plan on tanking in Offense stance you'll have to do without them. Interestingly, Cry of the Warrior AA still forces the mob to target you in Offense stance, but also drops you 3 hate positions in Offense stance! WIS endline does NOT remove the auto-attack penalty, and the damage penalty, from Defense and Offense stances. At least not at this time. Several of the spells got merged into the stances. When that happens, if one of those merged spells was M1 before, then the new stance becomes M1 as well, even if it was Adept 3 on Live. Our concentration cost went down from 5 to 3, fully self buffed. That frees up some concentration slots for us (not that it matters unless you have some specific items out there). The thing that WILL need to be addressed is the severe penalty to Slashing/Piercing/Crushing in Defense stance. Even combined with the 8-16% hate mod from D-stance and D-Zerk, combined with the huge drop-off in slashing as well as the 30% penalty to auto-attack, means our overall hate gain is probably lower without a stacked group or unless you have some very uber gear. We can't hold aggro if we can't hit the mob, after all.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p>Not to be debbie downer,</p><p>but i think it is straight stoopid that offensive stance reduces hate gain. I'm sorry but no, fighters dont reduce hate. screw that. I can say I am exceptionally angry with that change, and i dont usually get angry about a video game</p>

[Mephistophelese]

<p>for those wandering what the scout changes for agro xfer were and will answer a few other questions i seen here. if you wanna know what changes were made just check test updates.</p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=440462">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=440462</a></p>

[Bremer]

<p>Looks like a lot of need for adjustments, I don't see me holding aggro with these changes.</p>

[Aull]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Not to be debbie downer,</p><p>but i think it is straight stoopid that offensive stance reduces hate gain. I'm sorry but no, <span style="font-size: small; color: #00ff00;">fighters dont reduce hate</span>. screw that. I can say I am exceptionally angry with that change, and i dont usually get angry about a video game</p></blockquote><p>Agreed. If there are two fighters in a group/raid I feel that both either in offensive or defensive need to be fighting for aggro. Now if tank #1 is in defensive is holding aggro and tank #2 is in offensive for dps purposes but tank #1 gets slaughtered fast then tank #2 might have a difficult time getting back up on the hate list....maybe.</p><p>I think that the threat reduction should be removed from offensive stance and just increase the incoming damage another 5% to compensate.</p>

[hieronym]

off tanking looks like its going to be a nightmare, someone gets aggro so i need to drop my offensive, then put on my defense and by the time thats happened a mob is running round your raid smacking everyone!! once i got the mob i take it back to the MT and wait for him to get aggro then turn off defense, put offense back on and carry on until the next time...sounds a whole load of fun!!

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Combat logs now show how much hate you generate from taunts and such, as well as positional moves (doesn't show how much hate is gained from a positional move, just the number of positions). The thing that WILL need to be addressed is the severe penalty to Slashing/Piercing/Crushing in Defense stance. Even combined with the 8-16% hate mod from D-stance and D-Zerk, combined with the huge drop-off in slashing as well as the 30% penalty to auto-attack, means our overall hate gain is probably lower without a stacked group or unless you have some very uber gear. We can't hold aggro if we can't hit the mob, after all.</p></blockquote><p>I'm going to love this. Everyone's yelling about the damage reduction killing ability to hold aggro, but I haven't found that to be the case tanking in defensive post-TSO. Now there are hard numbers. I can parse two runs, one in offensive and one in defensive, and compare the exact hate numbers I'm generating against the DPS classes and tell exactly which is more effective at letting me stay #1 on the hate parade. The only question will be whether ACT adds hate parsing quickly enough that I don't end up hacking up my own quick-and-dirty parse program for the job.</p><p>When figuring hate, remember the other change that TSO put in: 1 point of damage is no longer 1 point of hate, it's more like 1/2 a point of hate. We'll be able to confirm exactly how much in the parse too, I hope, if the logs include hate generated by damage. I'm looking forward to tonight.</p>

[Vanderlay]

<p><cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Combat logs now show how much hate you generate from taunts and such, as well as positional moves (doesn't show how much hate is gained from a positional move, just the number of positions).The thing that WILL need to be addressed is the severe penalty to Slashing/Piercing/Crushing in Defense stance. Even combined with the 8-16% hate mod from D-stance and D-Zerk, combined with the huge drop-off in slashing as well as the 30% penalty to auto-attack, means our overall hate gain is probably lower without a stacked group or unless you have some very uber gear. We can't hold aggro if we can't hit the mob, after all.</p></blockquote><p>I'm going to love this. Everyone's yelling about the damage reduction killing ability to hold aggro, but I haven't found that to be the case tanking in defensive post-TSO. Now there are hard numbers. I can parse two runs, one in offensive and one in defensive, and compare the exact hate numbers I'm generating against the DPS classes and tell exactly which is more effective at letting me stay #1 on the hate parade. The only question will be whether ACT adds hate parsing quickly enough that I don't end up hacking up my own quick-and-dirty parse program for the job.</p><p>When figuring hate, remember the other change that TSO put in: 1 point of damage is no longer 1 point of hate, it's more like 1/2 a point of hate. We'll be able to confirm exactly how much in the parse too, I hope, if the logs include hate generated by damage. I'm looking forward to tonight.</p></blockquote><p>I'm usually not one for figuring numbers and all, but let me get this right (and someone correct me please if I'm wrong)</p><p>If I taunt the mob for say 3500 hate gain, that is essentially like me hitting them for close to 7000 damage?</p>

[Obadiah]

<blockquote><p><cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><p>I'm usually not one for figuring numbers and all, but let me get this right (and someone correct me please if I'm wrong)</p><p>If I taunt the mob for say 3500 hate gain, that is essentially like me hitting them for close to 7000 damage?</p></blockquote><p>I've never seen anything in-game or posted by a developer that indicated any change of the 1pt damage = 1pt hate formula. I guess we'll know for sure now.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p>The other issue I have with all these changes that didnt make it out due to my little anger flare up in that last post.</p><p>IS, that with these changes the zerker isn't going to have anything significantly special about them anymore. Correct me if I'm wrong but we were/are special because we had a clear advantage in AoE agro/dps and we could do a significant amount of damage while tanking. A lot of people liked having us as OT because they could get a tank and some extra dps all in one slot.</p><p>With these changes since we'll have to be in defensive to stay high enough on the hate list we wont bring that extra dps, (this effects groups too since we have to tank in defensive) and they've given all the other tanks enough aoe agro tools that, although we still have some advantage it is not nearly as great or perceptible. If a guard can do the job just as well as us then people are gonna take the guard. I see this revamp be RoK revisited...</p>

[LygerT]

<p><cite>hieronymus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>off tanking looks like its going to be a nightmare, someone gets aggro so i need to drop my offensive, then put on my defense and by the time thats happened a mob is running round your raid smacking everyone!! once i got the mob i take it back to the MT and wait for him to get aggro then turn off defense, put offense back on and carry on until the next time...sounds a whole load of fun!!</blockquote><p>if someone is yanking aggro like that with a big hate meter in front of them, let them die and the others, and when people get mad they can get mad at the one who yanked the mob. sure, it will happen sometimes but if it happens as often as you're making it sound then your raid has issues it already needs to work out.</p><p>yes, zerkers could do a fair amount of AE damage and still can in a dps role. in some zones you will still need an AE tank not for the dps or offensive role but out of necessity, that will not change so you can quit with the conspiracy theory that zerks will be shelved again.</p><p>Jrral, 1 point of damage still equals one point of hate. i'm not sure who is peeling aggro from you, if it's a wizard then that is a bad example because hate isn't parsed over a duration but over a period of time. ACT can give you a rough estimate, but say a wizard for example doing 1k dps and hits bolt of ice which crits for 25k and he dies doing 1.2k while you are at 1.5k, it simply is because he broke your threshhold temporarily to draw aggro before he died which the parser couldn't pick up quickly enough. ACT refreshes every few seconds, which is still not quick enough to pick up on big hits from DPS classes. some other classes like brignads love to mess with your head and use their "top of the hate list" taunt to get aggro to use their big hits to parse better. there is a number of examples of this as to how you may misinterpret hate for not being 1 to 1, but i can assure you it still is. fairly often i run groups with no transfer so i see myself holding aggro to DPS doing 20% more than me or more and i know it's not my invisible 100 hate per second of taunts that are doing 1/2 of my aggro generation because i rarely taunt at all.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p>I don't think that we will retain enough of an AE tank advantage. Maybe we can do the job better, by a little, but if one of the "single target" tanks can handle AE situations fine then why would they choose to use the less defensive zerker. And were still gonna have poor hit rates in defensive.</p>

[LygerT]

<p>what single target tank are you referring to? if it's guardians then i hope you are joking.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p>It is indeed. I'm not mythical'd so with these changes I don't see myself having enough AoE or dps advantage over a guard to be chosen as a TANK instead of them.</p><p>Unrelated to that I just hate being told i have to tank a certain way. I'm the one playing the game, I pay money each month, I like being able to choose how I play at least a little.</p>

[Mephistophelese]

<p>Area of effect spells and combat arts will no longer spread hate to encounter members when damage is applied.</p><p>does this mean aoe's will no longet peel away mob encounters that arn't directly targeted? if so we lost our biggest advantage over a guard which is holding the entire encounter better than a guard  do to our being an aoe tank. will be no point in worring about being an aoe tank if aoe's won't pull agro. mabe i just understanding it wrong</p>

[Soul_Dreamer]

<p>Your understanding it wrong....What the notes describe is the below.4 mob encounter, warlock AOE nukes for 1000k to each mob.Mob 1) Takes 1k damage. Mobs 2/3/4 also got hit so mob 1 gets 20% of each of the hate from those mobs as well. You attacked his "Buddy" after all. 1600 hate in total.Mob 2) Takes 1k damage. Mobs 1/3/4 also got hit so mob 2 gets 20% of each of the hate from those mobs as well. You attacked his "Buddy" after all. 1600 hate in total.Mob 3) Takes 1k damage. Mobs 1/2//4 also got hit so mob 3 gets 20% of each of the hate from those mobs as well. You attacked his "Buddy" after all. 1600 hate in total.Mob 4) Takes 1k damage. Mobs 1/2/3 also got hit so mob 4 gets 20% of each of the hate from those mobs as well. You attacked his "Buddy" after all. 1600 hate in total.So instead of the nuke from gaining 1000 hate to each mob it gained 1600, THIS is why Warlocks are such agro [Removed for Content]<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />If anything us Guards got his worst because we now generate NO hate to the encounter when on 1 mob in the encounter, where as before we where generating 20% of the hate gained from damage to each of the other mobs in the encounter. Guards will be having to tab a whole lot more. Zerks/SK's are still ok because their AOE hate got reduced by exactly the same amount as any AOE DPSer.</p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Lyger@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Jrral, 1 point of damage still equals one point of hate. i'm not sure who is peeling aggro from you, if it's a wizard then that is a bad example because hate isn't parsed over a duration but over a period of time..</p></blockquote><p>I know all about ACT. It still, after the fight's over, gives me a fairly accurate picture (especially combined with hit-by-hit checking).</p><p>As for damage hate, we had a long discussion about this in the beta forums (so I can't point to the threads anymore). What I got there, and at Fan Faire, was that indeed with TSO hate from damage had been scaled back relative to hate from taunts, hate procs and other direct hate-generation things. I proceeded to test that in beta: take on the same mobs with a warlock trying to peel aggro off me, tank some encounters trying to hold aggro only with damage and some by only using taunts, then compare after it was all over which set saw me losing aggro the most. The damage-only set saw the warlock peeling the mobs off me with one or two nukes. The taunt-only set saw the warlock pulling aggro only very occasionally, when he hit with several of his biggest nukes in succession while catching me with all my taunts down. Then we went back to live and used the same characters, same gear, against the same mobs and did the same thing. There we saw exactly the opposite: using taunts only I couldn't hold aggro for more than a few seconds, while using damage only I could hold aggro against him consistently. And yes, I've checked and the results from the TSO beta continue to hold now that it's gone live. So, do you have an explanation for the differences other than the amount of hate damage generates changing?</p>

[Hardain]

<p>So if we're forced to tank in defensive, we will need warden everytime we do so, we still need to be able to hit the mobs after all.</p>

[Grimmly]

<p><cite>Hardain@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So if we're forced to tank in defensive, we will need warden everytime we do so, we still need to be able to hit the mobs after all.</p></blockquote><p>Or you can offset the reductions with gear that increases your stats.  I personally have this already with my "tanking" gear vs. my DPS gear.</p>

[Harvash]

<p>Through out all these changes, I have been thinking one thing.</p><p>Why?</p><p>I mean, really, why on earth did any of this need "a fix" - [Removed for Content] was broken?</p><p>As far as the taunt/detaunt - for crying out loud, just make it work like the new player made weapons - if your behind the mob it detaunts - if your in front, it taunts (or maybe for O stance just doesnt do anything). </p><p>All this looks to be colossally dumb.</p><p>Meh,</p><p>G</p><p>side note: as a swash, I am not doing any better - they took the Always on Xfer for myth bonus and the standard xfer and turned them into temp/procs - how the heck is that a replacement?  Always On Vs. Temp/Proc???</p><p>Let the (un)balance begin!</p>

[LygerT]

<p><cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Lyger@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Jrral, 1 point of damage still equals one point of hate. i'm not sure who is peeling aggro from you, if it's a wizard then that is a bad example because hate isn't parsed over a duration but over a period of time..</p></blockquote><p>I know all about ACT. It still, after the fight's over, gives me a fairly accurate picture (especially combined with hit-by-hit checking).</p><p>As for damage hate, we had a long discussion about this in the beta forums (so I can't point to the threads anymore). What I got there, and at Fan Faire, was that indeed with TSO hate from damage had been scaled back relative to hate from taunts, hate procs and other direct hate-generation things. I proceeded to test that in beta: take on the same mobs with a warlock trying to peel aggro off me, tank some encounters trying to hold aggro only with damage and some by only using taunts, then compare after it was all over which set saw me losing aggro the most. The damage-only set saw the warlock peeling the mobs off me with one or two nukes. The taunt-only set saw the warlock pulling aggro only very occasionally, when he hit with several of his biggest nukes in succession while catching me with all my taunts down. Then we went back to live and used the same characters, same gear, against the same mobs and did the same thing. There we saw exactly the opposite: using taunts only I couldn't hold aggro for more than a few seconds, while using damage only I could hold aggro against him consistently. And yes, I've checked and the results from the TSO beta continue to hold now that it's gone live. So, do you have an explanation for the differences other than the amount of hate damage generates changing?</p></blockquote><p>if so then they balanced it well enough that it was hardly noticable when TSO hit live, i still have a hard time seeing it being true by watching parses during raids.</p><p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It is indeed. I'm not mythical'd so with these changes I don't see myself having enough AoE or dps advantage over a guard to be chosen as a TANK instead of them.</p><p>Unrelated to that I just hate being told i have to tank a certain way. I'm the one playing the game, I pay money each month, I like being able to choose how I play at least a little.</p></blockquote><p>you should be competing with guards on AE even without your mythical, albeit the buffs only come up so often we have more AE snaps than they do, more AE CAs and buffs dedicated to AE damage.</p><p><cite>Grimmly@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Hardain@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So if we're forced to tank in defensive, we will need warden everytime we do so, we still need to be able to hit the mobs after all.</p></blockquote><p>Or you can offset the reductions with gear that increases your stats.  I personally have this already with my "tanking" gear vs. my DPS gear.</p></blockquote><p>most "tank" gear does not have offensive stat bonuses on them, generally only endgame items <em>may </em>give you some from time to time, it is still an issue for us that hasn't yet been resolved.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p>Oh I'm not saying that I can't compete with a guard in AE. I am more than capable of better agro control in that department. What I'm saying is that even with the few AE agro tools they will now have, they may not be able to do the job as good as us, but they will be able to do it just fine. WITHOUT issue.</p><p>Zerk holds agro best, but dies easier</p><p>Guards holds agro fine, but stands up a little longer</p><p>who do you think they choose, the one that CAN do the job just fine but dies less, or the one thats slightly harder to heal but does a spankin good job</p><p>** i guess i should clarify I'm looking at this from a grouping standpoint (on the tougher instances). Although I can see it being applicable to raiding as well.</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>There is no heroic content in the game that a Guardian will have a significant advantage over a Berserker on, if equally geared and skilled.</p>

[Hasad]

<p>So ... how are you guys feeling about no stance?</p><p>Any chance Stance Mastery will allow us to hit the mobs enough justify an AA change?</p><p>I'm hoping the changes will still allow you to be sucessful in either or no stance. I'm getting the impression that most of the negative comments are based on the belief that we will be locked into a single stance or game play style.</p><p>Seems safe to say that in Def stance mobs will die more slowly than before and there will be fallout from that. Offensive stance fights will be (initially at least) more chaotic and as other people in group make adjustments (find the safe DPS levels) it will also result in mobs going down more slowly.Did the devs do this in order to not have the content become trivialized as people steadily gain AA points and better gear?</p><p>There might be some fun to be had in making new game play adjustments but if Sony doesn't end up with the right fun/frustration ratio they'll see the subscriptions take a dip. To their credit of course they are not playing it safe. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></p>

[LygerT]

<p>stance mastery helps but i'd have to see how low the dps from defensive tanking now is to justify dropping the int line, last time i tried it the change from int to wisdom was a pathetic change(for me in my gear) and i swapped back as quick as i could.</p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Ellygee wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So ... how are you guys feeling about no stance?</p></blockquote><p>I've been trying it on test. Leaving stances off cuts off about half my berserk procs and reduces my damage output by about 35-40% compared to live (which isn't quite as bad as defensive stance but nowhere near good). Aggro's also noticeably more of an issue, since I'm now lacking a really big chunk of the intended aggro-control tools that're attached to the defensive stance. I don't consider it feasible, in the few situations it might be useful (duoing with a warden for writs or quests) I'm going to either rope in a couple damage types so I can run in defensive without it being a slog killing things or find something that's less of a headache to do.</p>

[LygerT]

<p>so no stance/offensive stance you are losing aggro to your healer? i wouldn't think it would be that bad unless you are hitting your taunts still out of habit which are now detaunting.</p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Lyger@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>so no stance/offensive stance you are losing aggro to your healer? i wouldn't think it would be that bad unless you are hitting your taunts still out of habit which are now detaunting.</p></blockquote><p>In offensive stance, the active hate reduction going on makes it hard to hold aggro against even a healer (who doesn't have hate reduction on them). It's doable, but it's a chore. Against solo content it's just not worth the hassle. It's not like the healer will be at any risk if they pull aggro, not against green and blue solo mobs. All it is is aggravating.</p><p>With no stance running I've no trouble holding aggro, but I take almost as much of a hit to my damage output as I do running in defensive stance. Again there's no real challenge here, any good healer can keep me solidly in the green the whole time, it just makes for a tedious slog.</p><p>I think that pretty much sums up the changes. They're great if you're soloing. They're great if you're running in a full group or a raid with a single tank. But if you're a casual player running in a duo or trio with friends because you aren't hooked up well enough to get a full group consistently these changes don't add any challenge to the solo content you'll be running, they don't encourage you to pay attention and learn new tricks, they don't add any risk, they just make things aggravating, annoying and not very much fun at all. And that's bad for the game, because there's a lot of those casual players running around in twos and threes. And it doesn't have to be that way, it's entirely possible to make the dev-desired changes for full-group/raid mechanics <em>without</em> making it aggravating for the duo/trio casuals in the process.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p>I've been on test and been thinkin about the changes and though I am almost completely opposed to all of them as a compromise I think it would be fair.</p><p>Defensive Stance: No to-hit penalty (+skills), sure leave the damage modifier even though I think its rediculous, the buff that got rolled into it (aggressive defense) needs to have the proc rate increased to 30% and proc the hate/dmg on the entire encounter.</p><p>Offensive Stance: Remove the "10% reduced hate generation", increase the proc rate on our AoE dmg proc (to make up for not being able to run aggressive defense), instead of taunts being detaunts, just reduce base taunt amount by 25%-35% ish.</p><p>So then in offensive taunts dont hit as hard and perhaps it would also modify positionals, rescue would only move you 2 spots or somethin.</p>

[cr0wangel]

<p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>1. The offense stance doesn't increase our damage enough to justify us being present for DPS unless there's a lot of AoE mobs and another AoE class will tank it.</p></blockquote><p>My concern also.</p><p>What they will do with the WIS AA line? I am using that line and VERY disappointed to see that the ability doesn't remove the penalty. What's the point?</p>

[RafaelSmith]

<p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>There is no heroic content in the game that a Guardian will have a significant advantage over a Berserker on, if equally geared and skilled.</p></blockquote><p>Thats been my feeling ever since TSO came out..</p><p>Seems that with the exception of a small % of the games content...Zerkers/SKs have a very significant advantage over the other 4 fighter types.  </p><p>GU#51 seems to further enforce that.</p><p>Pallys/Brawlers seem to be the worst hit.</p><p>Just my observations thus far....but will be some time before can actually test things out under real group/raid situations.</p>

[Hasad]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've been on test and been thinkin about the changes and though I am almost completely opposed to all of them as a compromise I think it would be fair.</p><p>Defensive Stance: No to-hit penalty (+skills), sure leave the damage modifier even though I think its rediculous, the buff that got rolled into it (aggressive defense) needs to have the proc rate increased to 30% and proc the hate/dmg on the entire encounter.</p><p>Offensive Stance: Remove the "10% reduced hate generation", increase the proc rate on our AoE dmg proc (to make up for not being able to run aggressive defense), instead of taunts being detaunts, just reduce base taunt amount by 25%-35% ish.</p><p>So then in offensive taunts dont hit as hard and perhaps it would also modify positionals, rescue would only move you 2 spots or somethin.</p></blockquote><p>This would seem to be the ideal. There is just no way taunts should de-aggro.</p><p>Again, seems like mobs will die more slowly as tanks taunt more while Heal and DPS classes spend less time healing and DPSing to manage their aggro. I'm pretty sure a collective "WTFs" will rise up from every class when the fighter update hits and groups start wiping on mobs that use to be cake.</p><p>I like the changes but disagree with the degree the devs are implementing it. Taunts that don't taunt. Sheesh. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p>