To the devs: GREAT JOB [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Ocello

01-09-2009, 03:36 AM

I have seen nothing but people on these forums acting like the sky is falling over this next GU. Guess what? DOn't say a WORD until you actually get off your lazy hands and get on test yourself. The devs have actually done a fantastic job in making these stances reasonable.It is clear that they have separated tanks in a way they see fit. Sorry paladins, no more easy mode. Get over it, it was easy mode. Now you have to use your taunts and actually work. Want to see some of you try tanking on a Monk.The Stances are basically making fighters single target or aoe, and in most cases a better offensive or a defensive tank: Monk is single target DPS tank. Bruiser is AoE defensive tank. Zerker is AoE Offensive. Guard is ST Defensive. Pally is ST Defensive and SK is AoE Offensive.I don't agree with it all, but they pulled it off pretty well. My monk's Offensive stance is NUTS, almost as nuts as teh bruiser Defensive stance. The Zerker Offensive is dam good too. But that's not to say each tank's "other" stance isn't good. But there is definite class differentiation, which everyone can agree is FTW.Do I wish my monk could do more AoE aggro? Of course. Do I wish my Zerker could take a beating like a Guard? Yup. But yknow what? They will be jealous of me too <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Morale of the story: DO NOT get on the forums and start posting doomsday material unless you have physically tested out the changes. If you want to tank, be prepared to Taunt like a champ. If you want to DPS, get ready to rock.

Full_Metal_Mage

01-09-2009, 04:12 AM

Wow. You obviously don't know anything about this game.

toric

01-09-2009, 05:10 AM

Theonly change I cant live with is the -50% auto attack damage in defensive stance, thats just eff re tar ded considering we already lose 30 odd points in our ability to hit the [Removed for Content] targets to begin with.

Faelgalad

01-09-2009, 10:29 AM

Job for mediocre Tanks: Great, Tauntvolume is so high that you can easily hold mediocre DD's.Job for highend: Horrible, taunts are linear, damage scales exponential.= Ocello = CluelessGuard ST Defensive > Paladin ST Defensive = No reason for PaladinsAnd Amend wasn't easymod! It was a different approach. And no, healing is more then ever outdated on Paladins, as you will decrease your Aggro.Zerker AOE Offensive vs. SK AOE Offensive, Zerker will win!Reason, Zerks need only 3x Attributes, not 4 like SK, have better Surviveabilty, Zerks Solo-Damage Typ, SK = Hybrid Damage. Hybrid Itemisation allways lacking -> Zerk wins.

Vulkan_NTooki

01-09-2009, 10:47 AM

<cite>Faelgalad wrote:</cite><blockquote>Job for mediocre Tanks: Great, Tauntvolume is so high that you can easily hold mediocre DD's.Job for highend: Horrible, taunts are linear, damage scales exponential.= Ocello = CluelessGuard ST Defensive > Paladin ST Defensive = No reason for PaladinsAnd Amend wasn't easymod! It was a different approach. And no, healing is more then ever outdated on Paladins, as you will decrease your Aggro.Zerker AOE Offensive vs. SK AOE Offensive, Zerker will win!Reason, Zerks need only 3x Attributes, not 4 like SK, have better Surviveabilty, Zerks Solo-Damage Typ, SK = Hybrid Damage. Hybrid Itemisation allways lacking -> Zerk wins.</blockquote>Well put..OP= un-informed at best..

Noaani

01-09-2009, 10:50 AM

<cite>Faelgalad wrote:</cite><blockquote>And Amend wasn't easymod! It was a different approach.</blockquote>Amends was a different approach? So... putting a buff on someone and turning auto attack on to hold aggro is "an approach" and not easy mode?As to scaling taunts... other than resist debuffs seemingly not having any affect on taunts (which should be addressed), I have no idea what your talking about.Things are not perfect on test yet (which is why its not on live, cunny that), but with these changes a paladin still has better single target aggro than a guardian, a single taunt that can do 40k+ tends to do that.

Junaru

01-09-2009, 10:51 AM

Pins

01-09-2009, 11:06 AM

People who said Amends wasn't easymode are dumb.

Maveric_LOL

01-09-2009, 11:25 AM

<cite>Ocello wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have seen nothing but people on these forums acting like the sky is falling over this next GU. Guess what? DOn't say a WORD until you actually get off your lazy hands and get on test yourself. The devs have actually done a fantastic job in making these stances reasonable.It is clear that they have separated tanks in a way they see fit. Sorry paladins, no more easy mode. Get over it, it was easy mode. Now you have to use your taunts and actually work. Want to see some of you try tanking on a Monk.The Stances are basically making fighters single target or aoe, and in most cases a better offensive or a defensive tank: Monk is single target DPS tank. Bruiser is AoE defensive tank. Zerker is AoE Offensive. Guard is ST Defensive. Pally is ST Defensive and SK is AoE Offensive.I don't agree with it all, but they pulled it off pretty well. My monk's Offensive stance is NUTS, almost as nuts as teh bruiser Defensive stance. The Zerker Offensive is dam good too. But that's not to say each tank's "other" stance isn't good. But there is definite class differentiation, which everyone can agree is FTW.Do I wish my monk could do more AoE aggro? Of course. Do I wish my Zerker could take a beating like a Guard? Yup. But yknow what? They will be jealous of me too <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />Morale of the story: DO NOT get on the forums and start posting doomsday material unless you have physically tested out the changes. If you want to tank, be prepared to Taunt like a champ. If you want to DPS, get ready to rock.</blockquote>People that dont understand gameplay mechanics but still make rant posts make me sad.But lets go with your logic for a second. If the SK's are the new offensive aoe crusader tanks fine but answer me a question.1. How many MT slots are there in raids, and by who are they currently filled?2. Are those guardians that are currently holding MT slots likely to loose them to a paladin any time soon. keeping in mind that the paladin is being turned into a single target tank as you clain, but yet lacks the survivability tools that have been given to guards.3. If we are meant to compete with guards as single target tanks now then where are all the massive class changing buffs and abilities we should be getting to put us on par with them? I havent see any, have you? All i see is, heals and a ward that still cast too slow and get intrupted and is too small anyway, a stoneskine that is glaringly unreliable when compared to guards, a death save that even in its fixed state is...debatable... at best (and with amends gone now is almost useless), a defensive stance that lacks parry which makes it the only defensive stance without 2 avoid atributes if i recall correctly, way too many spells/ca's that cant be cast when moving a mob...the list goes on.4. Why is it that paladins unlike the other plate tanks have to hit the mob to be able to get our hate proc to fire? Given that we now HAVE to tank in defensive as there is no choice in the matter any more, and there are still skill penalties to slash etc on that stance, which means that we are going to hit less than we were when tanking in offensive before, how often is our hate proc going to go off with a decreased hit rate? Why is it that it does not proc on spell attacks which is kinda important, seeing as how you know we have a mix of ca's and spells.5. Amends is gone, but where is the passive hate. In case you diddent realies, the entire reason for amends was passive hate so that we could keep agro while using wards and heals. Because, we were given those abilities to make up for not having temporary mit buffs etc and they take a while to cast, are interuptable and generate very low hate. How about while stunned, other tanks can taunt while stunned, we cant so...with amends as a hate source gone, explain how we keep hate while stunned.6. Warriors have the ability threw their wiz line to remove the penalties from their stances, granted its a POS line, or so im told but its there. We have no such option.7. If you accept the guardian as raid MT plate tank theory then thats fine. But if thats the case, the other three plate tanks should be able to compete equally for the OT role. Im not saying nerf zerks and sk's nor am i saying make pallies OP and im certainly not saying make them the same except for class name. What i am saying is find a way to make them equall but different. It should come down to player skill. But as it presently is things may well be so dire that even AFTER taking skill into account the class just lacks the tools so badly that there is no room for them in a raid ever.

Azurro

01-09-2009, 11:37 AM

The OP is clueless and obviously has never played a pally past the island. Any smart tank knows that tanking comes down to making choices of how you are going to spend the time between your auto attack swings. For most tanks this isn’t a huge issue because you really don’t have a lot of choices and your casting times are so fast it doesn’t matter. For crusaders and Pally’s especially it’s a lot harder because 1 our casting times are a lot longer (in some cases longer then the Auto Attack refresh) and 2 we have a lot more things to manage. Amends was originally intended to free up pally’s from having to taunt or use combat arts as much so that we could use wards and heals to make up for our lower Mitigation and Avoidance (Heals do NOT equal mit/avoidance btw). Amends never has been a easy button. Amends made it possible for me to use the extremely long casting times on my wards without losing agro. I might have been ok with this change if SOE had also addressed our mind-boggling poor excuse for heals and given us a way to match guardians in short term defensive abilities but they didn’t. They nerfed amends, left our casting times the same, lowered what is already the lowest dps of any tank class, and did nothing to close the defensive gap between us and the class we are now suppose to directly compete with. How else should I feel about this then I am paying $30 a month for the privilege of being kicked in the balls?

Detor

01-09-2009, 12:06 PM

I've been on test, and my opinion is:Normally I try to be optimistic, but this GU is turning me into one of those people I would previously have said "oh, they just have a bad attitude." I have a very negative view of the game at the moment.I don't want to demoralize Aeralik, and I know he's probably spent a lot of time on this; but at this point I'd prefer they just load an older version before any of this was done and leave hate as it was. Threat is a very core part of the game, and was originally done by an entirely different group of developers. There are a ton of little things that counterbalanced each other that the current team doesn't know about. Take paladin's amends for instance. They had that because they had to cast heals, they didn't have ANY "when target is hit increase threat" spells because they had amends, they weren't the top of the dps, nor the top of the survivability ladder but hate was their specialty, and you know what? Now they don't have amends, but the other considerations weren't taken into account so they don't have things like "when target is hit increase threat" spells, not even on their new defensive stance, they don't have things like parry on their defensive stance they don't have new spells that give defense or mitigation buffs, and they don't have the ability to cast any taunts through control effects. That's just one class, one ability, yet numerous oversights can occur from it. Threat/hate is just incredibly complex, and can really break numerous things all over the place.The idea of balancing tanks as being able to hold single target aggro or multitarget aggro is at its base - illogical. If a tank can hold the aggro of 5 mobs, why would he have any trouble holding the aggro of 1? If a tank is designed to hold the aggro of 1 mob though that same thing doesn't work the other way - that's no guarantee he can hold the aggro of 5 mobs.Then there are the unrelated to hate nerfs that don't make much sense. Why reduce warlock power regeneration for instance? People can argue if it was any good or even worth arguing against the nerf to it, but in the end it comes down to why nerf power regen when the GU is suppose to be about making it harder for tanks?Threat is the kind of thing you refine over the course of developing a game for 1-2 years, everything else for tanks revolves around it, not something you decide to overhaul in just 2-3 months work and put in without extensive changes to every other aspect of tanks at the same time.

Ocello

01-09-2009, 12:13 PM

Amends was easy mode, I've played one. You werent responsible for your aggro, now you are. Just like the rest of us, but tbh the new spell isnt much worse. OMG I'm a paladin and now I have to CAST something to keep aggro!!!The offensive penalties in defensive stance are harsh I will admit, no question. I have already feedbacked this, especially the negative crushing/slash/pierce...no need for this mod with the lessened autoattack mod. BUT you knew this was about to happen, you just have to roll with the punches. And remember, a tank gets super-[Removed for Content] buffed when he is MT to make up for these changes. I feel like that is the main reason it got changed. Well that and I RARELY ever used my defensive stance before, which is just plain silly. Now I have a way to control aggro better when using it.Flame on, but they are doing a good job so far with the changes that needed to happen.

Ocello

01-09-2009, 12:16 PM

<cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>The idea of balancing tanks as being able to hold single target aggro or multitarget aggro is at its base - illogical. If a tank can hold the aggro of 5 mobs, why would he have any trouble holding the aggro of 1? If a tank is designed to hold the aggro of 1 mob though that same thing doesn't work the other way - that's no guarantee he can hold the aggro of 5 mobs.</blockquote>Still, I couldn't agree more with this statement. :/

Maveric_LOL

01-09-2009, 12:22 PM

<cite>Ocello wrote:</cite><blockquote>Amends was easy mode, I've played one. You werent responsible for your aggro, now you are. Just like the rest of us, but tbh the new spell isnt much worse. OMG I'm a paladin and now I have to CAST something to keep aggro!!!The offensive penalties in defensive stance are harsh I will admit, no question. I have already feedbacked this, especially the negative crushing/slash/pierce...no need for this mod with the lessened autoattack mod. BUT you knew this was about to happen, you just have to roll with the punches. And remember, a tank gets super-[Removed for Content] buffed when he is MT to make up for these changes. I feel like that is the main reason it got changed. Well that and I RARELY ever used my defensive stance before, which is just plain silly. Now I have a way to control aggro better when using it.Flame on, but they are doing a good job so far with the changes that needed to happen.</blockquote>You still ignore the lack of every other survivability tool that we need to compete with guards on the single target level.

liveja

01-09-2009, 12:30 PM

<cite>Ocello wrote:</cite><blockquote>Flame on, but they are doing a good job so far with the changes that needed to happen.</blockquote>They're also doing a poor job with other changes that didn't need to happen -- or, at best, a very poor job explaining what those changes actually are.Swarthy Chaos proc on Swashy epic, for example: is it an "all targets in AOE" -- which would not be good -- or is it an "all targets in ENCOUNTER", which would be somewhat better? We're not being told, & the ONLY reason it's being changed is that it used to proc a hate transfer bonus. I don't mind it being changed ... but the change we've been given is, IMO, poorly conceived.I note, also, that they're apparently not doing anything to improve Sleight of Hand, our level 80 "defining" spell that no Swashy of whom I'm aware uses for anything serious. You know how utterly useless this spell is? When the M1 version dropped for me a week ago, I almost told the group to Greed it, because I didn't want the POS, & it's not even worth my time to try & rob some poor clueless n00b who thinks a T8 Master has to be worth the money <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> In the end, the ONLY reason I kept it is that it's only the second Swashy M1 to ever drop for me <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />So, yea, be happy with your class's improvements, but understand that other classes have little reason to be pleased.

Sir Longsword

01-09-2009, 12:34 PM

<cite>Ocello wrote:</cite><blockquote>Amends was easy mode, I've played one. You werent responsible for your aggro, now you are. Just like the rest of us, but tbh the new spell isnt much worse. OMG I'm a paladin and now I have to CAST something to keep aggro!!!The offensive penalties in defensive stance are harsh I will admit, no question. I have already feedbacked this, especially the negative crushing/slash/pierce...no need for this mod with the lessened autoattack mod. BUT you knew this was about to happen, you just have to roll with the punches. And remember, a tank gets super-[Removed for Content] buffed when he is MT to make up for these changes. I feel like that is the main reason it got changed. Well that and I RARELY ever used my defensive stance before, which is just plain silly. Now I have a way to control aggro better when using it.Flame on, but they are doing a good job so far with the changes that needed to happen.</blockquote>Let's start a crusade then to end easy mode. My first suggetion is to start with feign death. That's an easy mode deaggro (and easy mode shiny hunting). OMG I'm a Monk and I can't flop myself around zones anymore! It needs to be nerfed to maybe a position drop with xxxx hate drop. Then the FD'er will have to be more responsible for their own hate loss.

habby2

01-09-2009, 12:37 PM

<cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've been on test, and my opinion is:Normally I try to be optimistic, but this GU is turning me into one of those people I would previously have said "oh, they just have a bad attitude." I have a very negative view of the game at the moment.I don't want to demoralize Aeralik, and I know he's probably spent a lot of time on this; but at this point I'd prefer they just load an older version before any of this was done and leave hate as it was. Threat is a very core part of the game, and was originally done by an entirely different group of developers. There are a ton of little things that counterbalanced each other that the current team doesn't know about. Take paladin's amends for instance. They had that because they had to cast heals, they didn't have ANY "when target is hit increase threat" spells because they had amends, they weren't the top of the dps, nor the top of the survivability ladder but hate was their specialty, and you know what? Now they don't have amends, but the other considerations weren't taken into account so they don't have things like "when target is hit increase threat" spells, not even on their new defensive stance, they don't have things like parry on their defensive stance they don't have new spells that give defense or mitigation buffs, and they don't have the ability to cast any taunts through control effects. That's just one class, one ability, yet numerous oversights can occur from it. Threat/hate is just incredibly complex, and can really break numerous things all over the place.The idea of balancing tanks as being able to hold single target aggro or multitarget aggro is at its base - illogical. If a tank can hold the aggro of 5 mobs, why would he have any trouble holding the aggro of 1? If a tank is designed to hold the aggro of 1 mob though that same thing doesn't work the other way - that's no guarantee he can hold the aggro of 5 mobs.Then there are the unrelated to hate nerfs that don't make much sense. Why reduce warlock power regeneration for instance? People can argue if it was any good or even worth arguing against the nerf to it, but in the end it comes down to why nerf power regen when the GU is suppose to be about making it harder for tanks?Threat is the kind of thing you refine over the course of developing a game for 1-2 years, everything else for tanks revolves around it, not something you decide to overhaul in just 2-3 months work and put in without extensive changes to every other aspect of tanks at the same time.</blockquote>Threat did develop over the beginning of the game, and it is nothing like it is currently on Live. Taunts actually used to matter when it came to holding aggro, but as the devs have stated, they didn't scale taunts up like DPS scaled up, rendering them almost useless as an aggro control tool. The basic changes they are making are moving things back to the way the vision has always been, before DPS became the be all and end all of aggro control.

Couching

01-09-2009, 12:44 PM

There are two issues of lu51 for all fighters:First, solo capability is lowered for every fighter since we have +5% more of incoming damage in offensive stance. It didn't make any sense and it should be removed. As long as fighters can't hold agro, it's enough for fighters to use defensive stance to tank mobs.Second, 0.5 mutiplier on auto attack in defensive stance is unfair for guardian, zerker and monk. For guardian, zerker and monk, auto attack is about 65%-70% of our total damage. However, look at sk, bruiser and pal, it's different. The extreme case is sk. Auto attack damage is only 40% or even less of sk's total damage for raiding sk. Sk dps is already on top of all fighters. With this change, the gap of sk damage and other fighters are even larger. It didn't make sense at all.

Azurro

01-09-2009, 12:44 PM

You make it sound like pally’s can engage a mob, walk away from the keyboard and hold agro. That might work in a crappy group where one dps class is putting out most of the hate and the tanks autoattack damage is enough to keep them top of the list but in a decent group with multiple dps classes amends by itself is not nearly enough. There is a reason my taunts and shield bash with threat increase are front and center on my hot bar. Because I need to use them all the time to hold agro in high dps groups. Believe me if I didn’t have to use my taunts I would much rather use the time for dps. As it is now unless I am ignoring auto attack timing I have more abilities up at any one time then I can possibly use before the recast timers are back. I remember what is was like for a pally before amends came out. There was a very rough period where our ability to hold agro and our ability to survive the agro we could hold made this game extremely unfun to play. Many a pally quit the game or switched classes because of that. Even once we did get amends and our agro control abilities improved our survivability really didn’t make any improvements until EOF AA’s came out. You do realize we only have four CA/damage spells with less then a one second casting time right? Compared to how many on other tanks? Again I will say if this change came along with a careful look at Pally short term survivability buffs and the casting times of our spells I might be ok with it. Heals do NOT equal Avoidance/Mitigation and the casting time on those heals is way to long to be able to “make us responsible for our own agro”. Do you know how long the casting time is on the one AOE they put hate on? I honestly can’t think of a more unused spell on my hotbar because of the low dps and long casting time then that AOE.

RafaelSmith

01-09-2009, 12:50 PM

Kegofbud

01-09-2009, 04:09 PM

<cite>Pinski wrote:</cite><blockquote>People who said Amends wasn't easymode are dumb.</blockquote>This was exactly what I was thinking.

Ocello

01-09-2009, 04:53 PM

<cite>Hammerfist@Blackburrow wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ocello wrote:</cite>Let's start a crusade then to end easy mode. My first suggetion is to start with feign death. That's an easy mode deaggro (and easy mode shiny hunting). OMG I'm a Monk and I can't flop myself around zones anymore! It needs to be nerfed to maybe a position drop with xxxx hate drop. Then the FD'er will have to be more responsible for their own hate loss.</blockquote>When you start playing a class with leather mitigation, come see me about nerfing feign death. If that is all you have to say brawlers are good at, then brawlers DEFINITELY need a boost. Either way, I wouldn't care if they did nerf the life out of FD. I'm not a shiny hunter, it's only real use is for exploring areas and questing, and then what? It's not like 9/10 brawlers can FD around a zone and then actually BEAT a T8 name! If that's what it would take to get us some mitigation and AoE DPS/Aggro, I am 100% for it.

liveja

01-09-2009, 05:05 PM

<cite>Ocello wrote:</cite><blockquote>When you start playing a class with leather mitigation, come see me about nerfing feign death.</blockquote>Apparently you think that Brawlers are the only people who have Feign Death.

Ocello

01-09-2009, 05:06 PM

<cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite> </cite>So they are doing a good job implemented the really bad and flawed concept of dividing tanks into single target -vs- multi target?Thats awesome...for the AE and Offensive tanks considering that is who TSO is built for.Like others have said...your clueless.</blockquote>It's not like this concept is new, my man. It sucks, no doubt, but this is not new. However, saying this expansion is better for Offensive tanks: What crack are you smoking? These mobs hit harder than any mobs ever have. They crit, DA, focus damage, aoe, and control effect you to death. You will be in defensive stance for this, and the defensive tanks' DStances are better! The only difference is that you can blame your DPS for taking aggro instead of blaming your healers for letting you die.As far as it being built for AE tanks, what can I say? I'm the league leader in complaints on this subject. Their supposed brawler AoE "fix" includes giving us a whole 16% aoe auto attack on our AA lines. At least be happy you Pallies and Guards have 40%. And let's make this clear: I am not a fan of defensive stance. But forcing us to tank in DStance is what they are doing, and what they have done to make this desireable is nothing short of miraculous. OH, and normally I don't play grammar police, but when you try to insult me by saying "your clueless" you look like an idiot. Grats on that!

Ocello

01-09-2009, 05:10 PM

<cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ocello wrote:</cite><blockquote>When you start playing a class with leather mitigation, come see me about nerfing feign death.</blockquote>Apparently you think that Brawlers are the only people who have Feign Death.</blockquote>Apparently you think we are comparing anyone but the fighters O.o Go away.Oh and btw SKs have FD as does any Tinkering class. But he specificlaly mentioned Monks and shiny farming.

Morrias

01-09-2009, 05:25 PM

<cite>Hammerfist@Blackburrow wrote:</cite><blockquote>Let's start a crusade then to end easy mode. My first suggetion is to start with feign death. That's an easy mode deaggro (and easy mode shiny hunting). OMG I'm a Monk and I can't flop myself around zones anymore! It needs to be nerfed to maybe a position drop with xxxx hate drop. Then the FD'er will have to be more responsible for their own hate loss.</blockquote>If they FD they lose dps, how the hell is that easy mode? its not like monks are the only class with FD either..

liveja

01-09-2009, 05:29 PM

<cite>Ocello wrote:</cite><blockquote>Oh and btw SKs have FD as does any Tinkering class. But he specificlaly mentioned Monks and shiny farming.</blockquote>Yes, I know that plate-armor wearing SKs have FD. So do -- if they AA spec correctly -- chain-mail wearing Rogues. & guess what? All three of those classes can make very good use of FD while shiny farming -- especially the Rogues with Stealth.I couldn't care less what anyone else was comparing anything to. I was merely pointing out the fallacy of implying that a nerf to FD would only affect Brawlers.In any event: way to defend your own "ez mode", while bashing others.

Sir Longsword

01-09-2009, 05:32 PM

<cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>In any event: way to defend your own "ez mode", while bashing others.</blockquote>Bingo.

Aule

01-09-2009, 08:49 PM

I think it would be more fair to say that instead of there being tanks for aoe hate and tanks single target hate, which as pointed out if you can hold aggro on 5 you can hold aggro on 1, it _should_ (keyword should) be: Opt 1 - SK/Ber - Multi mob hate high Opt 2 - Pal/Gua - Survivability high Recognize that SK's and Berserkers will have an easier time holding aggro on multi mob fights, but that on those single mob fights that hit really hard a Pally or Guardian has better survivability. Granted it does look like Pally's get the worst end of the stick here being that the vision apparently has them in Opt 2 there, yet doesn't include anything like the tools guardians have available for boosting their survivability.

Full_Metal_Mage

01-09-2009, 09:06 PM

<cite>Pinski wrote:</cite><blockquote>People who said Amends wasn't easymode are dumb.</blockquote>And yet still know far more about this game than you can ever hope to achieve.

Noaani

01-09-2009, 09:19 PM

<cite>Full_Metal_Mage wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Pinski wrote:</cite><blockquote>People who said Amends wasn't easymode are dumb.</blockquote>And yet still know far more about this game than you can ever hope to achieve.</blockquote>Your funny.

Tsunai

01-09-2009, 10:24 PM

There some good constructive stuff in here and some.. not so good. Let's start leaning more to the former instead of continuing down the path of the latter.Thanks. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Faelgalad

01-09-2009, 10:37 PM

Easy to go to the former.Convince the Devs to post their calculations used to rebalance the taunts vs. the old transfer system.I would really like to see that all aspects have been included.Spell resists, DPS drops for healing, reactiv passiv gain, hate gain in different groups.Promising, everything under 50 pages will be read and everything under ten pages would make me suspicious.So, let the official calculations come! It's only mathematic.

Noaani

01-09-2009, 10:42 PM

So, as a paladin, you don't think a ~35k taunt over 20 seconds, along with your other taunts and your DPS, is enough for you to hold single target aggro?

Irgun

01-09-2009, 10:54 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>So, as a paladin, you don't think a ~35k taunt over 20 seconds, along with your other taunts and your DPS, is enough for you to hold single target aggro?</blockquote>No - and I am not going to explain this to you because someone else did that somewhere on these forums.

Detor

01-09-2009, 10:56 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>So, as a paladin, you don't think a ~35k taunt over 20 seconds, along with your other taunts and your DPS, is enough for you to hold single target aggro?</blockquote>What if they want to hold multitarget aggro (which is a much larger percentage of encounters in TSO than it ever was in RoK)? They certainly could do so before. ESPECIALLY important considering warlocks and I believe swashbucklers just lost their hate transfers too. Not looking like a paladin will be able to hold aggro after the change because encounters can have 4-5 mobs and the new ability that uses the old name of amends has a recast of 1 minute so it isn't like they can use it on one mob, target another mob, use it on that one, etc. Unless you're saying a paladin shouldn't be able to hold aggro on multiple targets - doesn't sound entirely fair unless you offer a way for them to betray to shadowknights and keep the same number of master spells they had before - afterall they never signed up to be the tank that does less dps, has less survivability than the guardians they are trying to now claim paladins are in the same category as, and now can't hold aggro.

Tandy

01-09-2009, 10:58 PM

Paladins should have group taunt and one blue AoE that they added taunt to. They also have about 6 more AoE's. I honestly dont think they will have as much problems as people think on multi mob encounters.

Hirofortis

01-09-2009, 11:22 PM

I just want to say, teh devs have done a great job. I have been testing on test server and I really love the changes tehy have made. Kudos on the great work.

Detor

01-09-2009, 11:36 PM

<cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>Paladins should have group taunt and one blue AoE that they added taunt to. They also have about 6 more AoE's. I honestly dont think they will have as much problems as people think on multi mob encounters.</blockquote>Here's the numbers I see, Adept IIIs for them all:Shadowknight Encounter Taunt - 3,647 - 4,457Paladin Encounter Taunt 1,367 - 1671Shadowknight Single Target Taunt - 2,030 - 2,482 + 900dmg (900 more threat?)Paladin Single Target Taunt 3,249 - 3,971SO, crunch the numbers and this is the result for two classes from the same subtree, one now classified as multitarget, one classified as single target: (this is JUST the taunts, there are numerous other things, like paladins have a long reuse taunt, shadowknights have a massive threat increaser everytime they are hit, etc.)Single Target EncounterPaladin: up to 5,642 threatShadowknight: up to 7,839 threatMultitarget encounter:Paladin: up to 5,642 to one target, ONLY up to 1671 versus other targets in encounterShadowknight: up to 7,839 to one target, but up to 4,457 to every other mob in encounterGuess it comes back to the whole thing that a multitarget tank that can hold aggro on 5 targets will be able to hold aggro on 1 just as easily, whereas a single target tank can't suddenly become able to hold aggro on 5 targets. Only way I know to fix that might be to make the encounter taunt unusable unless the encounter has at least a certain amount of mobs alive.

Noaani

01-10-2009, 02:30 AM

<cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>Guess it comes back to the whole thing that a multitarget tank that can hold aggro on 5 targets will be able to hold aggro on 1 just as easily, whereas a single target tank can't suddenly become able to hold aggro on 5 targets. Only way I know to fix that might be to make the encounter taunt unusable unless the encounter has at least a certain amount of mobs alive.</blockquote>Totally agree with this.Single target tanks are able to hold single target aggro without issue. Multi target tanks are able to hold multi target aggro without issue.Single target tanks have issues with multi target aggro, as their single target taunts simply do not cut it for multi target fights. Multi target tanks are able to hold single target aggro using their multi target taunts.My suggestion to deal with this is to cut the hate of all AE taunts for the AE tanks in half of what they are now, but make it so that these taunts increase in damage based on how many targets they hit.Or make it so that the AE taunts are "for each target hit, increases hate by XXX amount to all targets in area of effect".

tiger911

01-10-2009, 02:40 AM

<cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>Paladins should have group taunt and one blue AoE that they added taunt to. They also have about 6 more AoE's. I honestly dont think they will have as much problems as people think on multi mob encounters.</blockquote>Here's the numbers I see, Adept IIIs for them all:Shadowknight Encounter Taunt - 3,647 - 4,457Paladin Encounter Taunt 1,367 - 1671Shadowknight Single Target Taunt - 2,030 - 2,482 + 900dmg (900 more threat?)Paladin Single Target Taunt 3,249 - 3,971SO, crunch the numbers and this is the result for two classes from the same subtree, one now classified as multitarget, one classified as single target: (this is JUST the taunts, there are numerous other things, like paladins have a long reuse taunt, shadowknights have a massive threat increaser everytime they are hit, etc.)Single Target EncounterPaladin: up to 5,642 threatShadowknight: up to 7,839 threatMultitarget encounter:Paladin: up to 5,642 to one target, ONLY up to 1671 versus other targets in encounterShadowknight: up to 7,839 to one target, but up to 4,457 to every other mob in encounterGuess it comes back to the whole thing that a multitarget tank that can hold aggro on 5 targets will be able to hold aggro on 1 just as easily, whereas a single target tank can't suddenly become able to hold aggro on 5 targets. Only way I know to fix that might be to make the encounter taunt unusable unless the encounter has at least a certain amount of mobs alive.</blockquote>Thank you for posting the numbers. Single target tanks...what? Wait a minute, maybe that's why Paladins got amends to begin with. To make up for their lack of taunts....no, no, that can't be it.I also don't understand making Paladins the single target tank when we have more AOEs than SKs. If anything, Crusaders should be the multi target tanks and Warriors should be the single target tanks. Brawlers should just be a dps class that could tsunami and hold aggro for a certain amount of time to rez the MT/OT and then go back to dpsing.

Tandy

01-10-2009, 02:42 AM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>Guess it comes back to the whole thing that a multitarget tank that can hold aggro on 5 targets will be able to hold aggro on 1 just as easily, whereas a single target tank can't suddenly become able to hold aggro on 5 targets. Only way I know to fix that might be to make the encounter taunt unusable unless the encounter has at least a certain amount of mobs alive.</blockquote>Totally agree with this.Single target tanks are able to hold single target aggro without issue. Multi target tanks are able to hold multi target aggro without issue.Single target tanks have issues with multi target aggro, as their single target taunts simply do not cut it for multi target fights. Multi target tanks are able to hold single target aggro using their multi target taunts.My suggestion to deal with this is to cut the hate of all AE taunts for the AE tanks in half of what they are now, but make it so that these taunts increase in damage based on how many targets they hit.Or make it so that the AE taunts are "for each target hit, increases hate by XXX amount to all targets in area of effect".</blockquote>I really dont see it working like this on my SK. I can hold an encounter of 6 mobs WAY WAY easier than I can 1 single triple up. Almost all tanks who play AOE tanks say the same thing too. Give it a try I am sure you will find the same thing to be true. When I get that single up and the assassin goes all out its gonna almost always turn. When I have that huge swarm of mobs they can do whatever they want and odds are...its glued to me. Dont ask me to explain it, maybe its something behind the scenes but I SWEAR thats the way it is.

tiger911

01-10-2009, 02:45 AM

It is easier to hold aggro on multiple mobs, especially from the same encounter. Currently, when you hit a mob's ally, they get [Removed for Content]. So the more AOEs you hit them with the more [Removed for Content] off they get. ([Removed for Content] = Threat)

Faelgalad

01-10-2009, 03:33 AM

I'am interested how soon we will see Swash-Tanks and Assa-Tanks...

forge32

01-10-2009, 04:08 AM

I kinda like the changes with the only exception being the .5 deal on def stances.Other then that i think things are alot better then currently on live.Although as a guard im fine with having low dps as long as i can hold agro like a pro.

Elanjar

01-10-2009, 04:45 AM

Irgun

01-10-2009, 10:01 AM

There are encounters where you need more dps as usual (i.e. classadds, special curse where only you can damage a target) in order to kill these fast.Defstance does not provide you this option, neither does offstance because you deaggro too much and your add will kill people and you have to chase it to get it back.So there are only 3 options remaining:- you tank without any stance- you bring more tanks to a raid- you adjust these encounters so even low dps is enough to kill themIt should never be the case that you have to choose you tank neither with def nor with offstance.More tanks on a raid will never happen, filling these spots with real dps while you`re killing trash / any other named without mentioned scripts is more efficient.And I have very low faith that every encounter in game will be adjusted properly so they are killable in time while being def.Conclusion: get rid of the 0.5 weapon modifier - its necessary and the easiest way to solve issues in this matter

Mulethree

01-10-2009, 10:02 AM

My first reactions :Yuck - noisy. Why take a simple buff like 'increase stats for self by xxxx' and remove it only to add it as a line to all the 2 or 3 stances a fighter has? It just clutters up the stance descriptions which are already 2 pages long in the examine effects.Whats the difference - besides being uglier? One less quick buff to cast? No way to get the stat effect if you try to go without a stance at all? Using stances always forced you into some tradeoff or another( except perhaps the monks spider medium stance), but now going without any stance is just plain penalty - you loose whatever effects were in those buffs that merged into the stances.One side effect, was to get rid of the monk haste buff that always cost 1% of HP every 6? seconds. The haste is still there - copied into all 3 stances - but the recurring health cost is now gone.Decrease Melee Damage Multiplier of caster by 0.5? I've seen this described as reducing autoattack damage by half. Its quite visible parsing my monk. But parsing my guardian its not clear that this is having the same effect. Just setting the proper stance then autoattacking mobs to death :Monk is hitting 97% in offensive for 640 DPS, hitting 71% in defensive for 322 dps - thats almost exactly a 50% reduction, 25% is from missed swings so another 25% attributable to this melee damage modifier?Guardian is hitting 100% in offensive for 800 dps, hitting 80% in defensive for 625 dps Thats a 28% reduction, 20% is from missed swings so another 8% attributable to the damage multiplier?Of course this is a mythical guard in vp gear and such, compared to a 77 mastercraft/legendary monk but i'd expected to see a coorelation in the new stance damage multiplier effect.Its also not clear what the 'increase base amount of taunts by 8%' means. I switch from no stance to defensive and my guardian's taunts increase by 28% and my monk's by 16% but I'm not sure what other factors are being applied. I had expected to see an 8% increase on both toons with the base amount increasing it should be affected proportionatly by whatever modifiers are applied after the base?I played tug of war with these two - to watch how the new red hate bar on the mobs works. Throw 20k of taunts at the mob then watch the bar on both screens as the other fighter throws taunts till it switches targets. Basically its solid red as long as you are number1 hate but for dps you see it yellow, orange and growing so you can tell how close you are to pulling agro. It does squat for the tank - if its not solid red then you've already lost agro - no indication that someone else is close to ganking. Maybe you'll learn just how orange it can be to pull agro back with a taunt vs needing a hate-position based tool? But now nobody will have any excuses when they do pull agro - its spelled out pretty clear. I suppose it will let some cautious dps do quite a bit more damage, but takes a lot of the finesse out of dps'ing as far as putting out high numbers without pulling agro.For fighters I see 2 main effects ....Fighters as a DPS class - we have an SK and a Monk that can do 8 and 10k - but they die pretty fast when they inevitably pull agro. Now they will have hate reducers, negative taunts etc. on their offensive stances and will be able to do 9 and 12k dps or more. They don't even need the finely tuned agro-senses of a wizard to be able to push that little bar up to 80% orange but no higher. Stances - no more tanking the start of the zone in offensive, then switching to no-stance later as the mobs hurt more, and using defensive just for the bosses. Now you can't tank in offensive stance at all - and take penalties if you use no-stance. So basically use defensive for tanking, offensive for dps'ing and then blow more power on taunts if agro strays or if the dps tell you they need it. Seems to me it takes a bit of finesse out of tanking too. Fewer options and dials = less skill?. Well maybe now its defensive stance for tanking but dual wield the beginning of the zone and pull out the shield as things start turning orange.

Irgun

01-10-2009, 10:21 AM

<cite>Mulethree wrote:</cite><blockquote>My first reactions :but now going without any stance is just plain penalty - you loose whatever effects were in those buffs that merged into the stances.</blockquote>/agreeBuff consolidation just narrowed down the flexibility of this game, either you take it all or you get nothing - definitely the wrong way of a games evolution.Thought consolidation of abilities was abandoned long ago as this was planned for healers debuffs - and got cancelled in the end. (thank god, no another easy mode...)

Antryg Mistrose

01-10-2009, 10:58 AM

<cite>Irgin@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote>There are encounters where you need more dps as usual (i.e. classadds, special curse where only you can damage a target) in order to kill these fast.Defstance does not provide you this option, neither does offstance because you deaggro too much and your add will kill people and you have to chase it to get it back.So there are only 3 options remaining:- you tank without any stance- you bring more tanks to a raid- you adjust these encounters so even low dps is enough to kill them</blockquote>Actually there is a 4th - cast your taunts while in defensive stance, spend the rest of the time in offensive stance. Hard to tell how well it works as there is a 20% + unparsable hate gain difference between the two stances, but its what I'm playing with on Testcopy

liveja

01-10-2009, 11:43 AM

<cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>I believe swashbucklers just lost their hate transfers too.</blockquote>We didn't "lose" our hate transfer, but it's been radically changed: it used to be an "until cancelled" buff that could only be cast on someone within our group. Now, it's a 30-second duration temp buff with a 1-minute recast timer that can be cast on raid-wide.

Boli32

01-10-2009, 01:19 PM

FYI amends may have been slightly overpowered somewhat; but it was PASSIVE hate gain which was NEEDED when paladins needed to heal and use abilities and amde up for low dps, no utility in raids and we coud use our heals to supliment our tankign in order to help close the defensive gap betwene us and guards.now with LU51 it works out it that amends took a 90% nerf (goes from 4,000 hate per second - amending a 10k dpser to 400)Our proc was changed from dps to a taunt proc; which hits for less and does not crit as as much which works out to aprroixmatly 40% reductionAs with every other fitgher paladins took a 30% reeduction in autoatatck... and trust me.. autoattack for apaldins was sometimes 60%+ of parsesSo ... that's a *lot* of hate lost and waht have we gained?

Irgun

01-10-2009, 02:23 PM

<cite>Boli32 wrote:</cite><blockquote>FYI amends may have been slightly overpowered somewhat; but it was PASSIVE hate gain which was NEEDED when paladins needed to heal and use abilities and amde up for low dps, no utility in raids and we coud use our heals to supliment our tankign in order to help close the defensive gap betwene us and guards.now with LU51 it works out it that amends took a 90% nerf (goes from 4,000 hate per second - amending a 10k dpser to 400)Our proc was changed from dps to a taunt proc; which hits for less and does not crit as as much which works out to aprroixmatly 40% reductionAs with every other fitgher paladins took a 30% reeduction in autoatatck... and trust me.. autoattack for apaldins was sometimes 60%+ of parsesSo ... that's a *lot* of hate lost and waht have we gained?</blockquote>/agreePaladins healing capabilities and amends was the perfect example that there is a balanced symbiosis between two different abilities. Its almost a shame something working so reliable got entirely destroyed, even if some people claim it was OP - even if it was A BIT its the ONLY thing paladins had which defined their class - after all it was NECESSARY for them.Change it back, maybe nerf the transfer-amount a little and leave it alone.Furthermore its not a great job splattering huge amounts of threat to short reusable ca`s.Look at the guards kick: 5-6k threat every 9seconds or so. And every 45 seconds about 8k threat from the TSO end-ability within 20seconds. Its out of line that you have to spend so many aa-points in order to get 8k threat if you can have almost the same every 9seconds for free.I`m very disappointed the last couple of days.

Faelgalad

01-10-2009, 02:58 PM

I've stood with a Guardian (Squishy) SK (Llort) and a Zerk on the Trainingswall in Kunzar. The new ACT version installed for Aggro +/-We talked via VC, as we came from different servers and experimented a lot.Result:Guardian parsed highest DPS in Defense, SK highest in Offensive, my Paladin was most of the time place 3, but I wouldn't count the Zerk to much, that was more on personal ability.Aggro: The Guardian ruled us! Even with full Sigil, Rescue...Usual scores for Aggro, Guard 100.000, SK 70.000, Paladin 50.000, Zerk 40.000. This Result was quite stable on a dozen fights.Guards Reinforcement, this battered us down!Unhappy:Really annoying is the switch for taunts to deaggro in Offensive stance. There is now no "pushing", not enough Aggro in Defensive? Change to offensive, go a bit further, risk more hits, stabalise Aggro. That is gone!With the end of Amend, depending factors have to be changed.1. Passiv Aggro generation, a buff that brings hate for getting hit.So gone with Amend as an Taunt, welcome Amend as an Hit and Strike Buff, generating Aggro while getting hit and hiting things. Why an passiv and activ buff? Because other Tanks have either or, and Paladin needs the "better Aggro Role" vs. the Guardian.2. A more tank suitable healing system for Paladin, conclusions are stated in the Paladin board and on eq2flames a lot. 3. An 40-50% increase on Spells and Combat Arts on Paladin. The low DPS was justified by the hate transfer from Amend. End of Amend, End of low-DPS Paladin. Remember, Paladin has to outright dominate the Guardian on Aggro, as vice versa, the Guardian dominate on Mitigating/Absorbing Damage.4. A buff like the Shield buff from Guards, Stamina 2 for SK and Paladin would be nice!All Tanks:Generally, all "pure" Taunts should be castable while Stunned/Stifled, to circumvent Aggro-Drop while beeing stunned/stifled. Without Transfers from Swash/Assa, these Zero-Aggro phases can become highly dangerous.

Azurro

01-10-2009, 04:06 PM

One thing that occurred to me yesterday was this little line in the notes means almost certain death to healers.“Area of effect spells and combat arts will no longer spread hate to encounter members when damage is applied”Without hate being applied from AOE’s that means Pally’s and Guardians are going to have a really hard time holding agro off healers in large encounter fights especially when fighting more then one group.What tools has SOE given use to deal with this? For Pally’s it’s one encounter wide taunt, sigil of hero’s, and one slow casting speed AOE with a anemic amount of hate on it? Our encounter taunt won’t help when we have multiple encounter adds, Sigil takes to long to be effective as a snap tool, and the hate on our AOE is to little on to long a casting/recast timer to make a difference.

Hirofortis

01-10-2009, 09:11 PM

<cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've been on test and I can say that I dont think any tanks, with the possible exception of brawlers, will be positively effected by these stance combinations. (I dont play a brawler, but from what i've heard these changes are actually good-ish for them) A tank is a tank is a tank. Tanking is about holding agro and surviving. Offensive stance now REDUCES hate... A tank with a non-tanking buff... This makes no sense. They've tied our survivability and our ability to hold agro all into the stances. Theres no choice anymore. A tank should be able to hold agro in either stance (the issue before was that we could in offensive and couldnt in defensive). all they've done is turn this around... Agro control should not be tied to stance, only survivability. This allows the tank to determine what skills/buffs need to be used in what situation.</blockquote>A tank is a tank is a tank, sure. then lets get rid of ofensive stance completly, as offensive stance is about doin more DPS. Not about getting more agro. Offensive stance is so when you have to many tanks that wanna go some where, they can at least contribute. A tank is about keeping agro and surviving. The combining of Stances does this admirably. It ups our taunts, ups our survivasbility and in no way reduces our ability to tank. Even the lowering of the DPS is not a big deal as it is compensated by upping taunts. Stop thinking in DPSand start thinking like a tank and you can see that this really does help us keep agro. Even better, with the changes, you no longer have to worry about oh, is that assasin online that I need to have enough hate to do my job? No, now it is on your merit of how well you can control your taunts and your agro, not on how well someone else can play there toon.

Maroger

01-10-2009, 09:47 PM

<cite>Krunck@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've been on test and I can say that I dont think any tanks, with the possible exception of brawlers, will be positively effected by these stance combinations. (I dont play a brawler, but from what i've heard these changes are actually good-ish for them) A tank is a tank is a tank. Tanking is about holding agro and surviving. Offensive stance now REDUCES hate... A tank with a non-tanking buff... This makes no sense. They've tied our survivability and our ability to hold agro all into the stances. Theres no choice anymore. A tank should be able to hold agro in either stance (the issue before was that we could in offensive and couldnt in defensive). all they've done is turn this around... Agro control should not be tied to stance, only survivability. This allows the tank to determine what skills/buffs need to be used in what situation.</blockquote>A tank is a tank is a tank, sure. then lets get rid of ofensive stance completly, as offensive stance is about doin more DPS. Not about getting more agro. Offensive stance is so when you have to many tanks that wanna go some where, they can at least contribute. A tank is about keeping agro and surviving. The combining of Stances does this admirably. It ups our taunts, ups our survivasbility and in no way reduces our ability to tank. Even the lowering of the DPS is not a big deal as it is compensated by upping taunts. Stop thinking in DPSand start thinking like a tank and you can see that this really does help us keep agro. Even better, with the changes, you no longer have to worry about oh, is that assasin online that I need to have enough hate to do my job? No, now it is on your merit of how well you can control your taunts and your agro, not on how well someone else can play there toon. </blockquote>This is more of WOW mode for EQ2. In EQLIVE tanks learned to hold aggro through skill - stance didn't exist. I think stances were the worst thing that happened to games. Just click a button and it solves everything. Personally I think they should give players a choice between Buffs or stances -- But player should not lose their buffs -- but they should get a choice. We really don't need this.They could improve the AA lines and get a lot of the same affect but still leave choice in the game. They are basically eliminating CHOICE. And these games should be about choice not uniformity.This is shaping up to be the EQ2 version of Star Wars NGE.

Antryg Mistrose

01-10-2009, 11:45 PM

<cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>I believe swashbucklers just lost their hate transfers too.</blockquote>We didn't "lose" our hate transfer, but it's been radically changed: it used to be an "until cancelled" buff that could only be cast on someone within our group. Now, it's a 30-second duration temp buff with a 1-minute recast timer that can be cast on raid-wide.</blockquote>You effectively did lose it - 3 threat procs per 30second <<<<< a percentage transfer.The only class left with a threat transfer is coercer, and its down to single digits.

Noaani

01-11-2009, 12:08 AM

<cite>Irgin@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote>There are encounters where you need more dps as usual (i.e. classadds, special curse where only you can damage a target) in order to kill these fast.</blockquote>There are three encounters in the game that come to mind here. Chel'Drak, Byzola and the snake in Tomb of the Mad Crusader.Chel'Drak no one cares about so I have nothing to say.Byzola, no one but fighters is damaging the mob, so all you need to do is generate enough aggro to hold it off your healers. Even if you are in offensive stance, the damage you do is more than enough to do this... just don't use straight out taunts that have no damage component. If you are unable to deal enough damage to these mobs to keep it from aggroing your healers, then you don't need to worry as much about the aggro as you do about the fact that you can't kill the mob fast enough.The snake, these mobs do not need to be tanked. This mob is desinged with adds that do not need to be tanked in any form. If you, as a fighter, are attempting to tank them, I guarentee you are failing (at tanking the adds, not at killing the mob). if you go full offensive and just kill them instead of trying to tank them, there will not be any issues. The mages may have aggro on them for a bit... but who do you think has aggro when no tanks have the curse?I seriously can't believe people can not see any of the above, and I hope they are using situations like this as an excuse, as opposed to actually thinking they may cause issues.

Tandy

01-11-2009, 12:32 AM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>This is more of WOW mode for EQ2. In EQLIVE tanks learned to hold aggro through skill - stance didn't exist. I think stances were the worst thing that happened to games. Just click a button and it solves everything. Personally I think they should give players a choice between Buffs or stances -- But player should not lose their buffs -- but they should get a choice. We really don't need this.They could improve the AA lines and get a lot of the same affect but still leave choice in the game. They are basically eliminating CHOICE. And these games should be about choice not uniformity.This is shaping up to be the EQ2 version of Star Wars NGE.</blockquote>Way back in the day in EQ live tanks (warriors) did next to no damage...were near impossible to solo without terrible downtime...and generally almost unfun to play. If you want a return to that you got more to cry about than 2 buffs that honestly I dont see why you are so worked up about. One dmg proc buff and one small damage shield cant be so important to you that its making you be so venomous in wanting to keep them. Considering you get versions on both stance that do the same thing...and if you honestly have THAT much problems soloing a plate wearing heavy mit having SK in offensive stance that one measly solo con mob TOTALLY kills you...then there is nothing I can say that can help that. This is very far from the NGE, which if you were around for you would totally and completly know. This is almost nothing like the war in Iraq or making the game like WoW or the myriad other anolgys you have used bashing this update on the forums.Change has to happen to the tank classes. This isnt that bad considering what they COULD have done to balance things out.

Maroger

01-11-2009, 04:04 PM

<cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>This is more of WOW mode for EQ2. In EQLIVE tanks learned to hold aggro through skill - stance didn't exist. I think stances were the worst thing that happened to games. Just click a button and it solves everything. Personally I think they should give players a choice between Buffs or stances -- But player should not lose their buffs -- but they should get a choice. We really don't need this.They could improve the AA lines and get a lot of the same affect but still leave choice in the game. They are basically eliminating CHOICE. And these games should be about choice not uniformity.This is shaping up to be the EQ2 version of Star Wars NGE.</blockquote>Way back in the day in EQ live tanks (warriors) did next to no damage...were near impossible to solo without terrible downtime...and generally almost unfun to play. If you want a return to that you got more to cry about than 2 buffs that honestly I dont see why you are so worked up about. One dmg proc buff and one small damage shield cant be so important to you that its making you be so venomous in wanting to keep them. Considering you get versions on both stance that do the same thing...and if you honestly have THAT much problems soloing a plate wearing heavy mit having SK in offensive stance that one measly solo con mob TOTALLY kills you...then there is nothing I can say that can help that. This is very far from the NGE, which if you were around for you would totally and completly know. This is almost nothing like the war in Iraq or making the game like WoW or the myriad other anolgys you have used bashing this update on the forums.Change has to happen to the tank classes. This isnt that bad considering what they COULD have done to balance things out.</blockquote>Let me explain something to you in simple language.GRIM STRIKE - as a buff I get 431-718 damage and heal of 224-374GRIM STRIKE merged into offensive stance I get 307-511 damage and healt for 175-229 _ I CALL THAT A NERF TO GRIM STRIKE. I don't care what you call it I call it a nerf.Also there is no reason why spell damage should be reduced in Defensive mode -- A SPELL IS A SPELL IS A SPELL - what does your stance have to do with spells? SHouldn't have anything to do with it.IN Offensive mode the increase to Physical Damage of 5% is made worse by the nerf to Grim Stike. So you are not going to do the damage even in OFFENSE that you could do it the buffs were not merged.MERGING BUFFS INTO STANCES IS THE LAZY TO MAKE A CHANGE TO AGGRO - NOT THE INTELLIGENT WAY. I repeat this is the EQ2 version of the NGE. This is a change designed by spread sheet not by human intelligence and reason.You are right it could be worse but then everything in life could be worse then it is - THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT IT IS GOOD OR IDEAL OR THE BEST METHOD. Just saying it could be worse is an intellectual cop-out and gives cover to development for a perfectly poor change. THIS SHOULD NOT GO LIVE. They need to go back to drawing board and try again in a few months.

Anestacia

01-11-2009, 04:21 PM

The problem is that they let tanks stay unbalanced for FAR too long. These changes should have been made years ago when they retooled all the classes for the second time. Tanks that know what they are doing, which I've been lucky to group with some great tanks over the years, can EASILY hold agro on the mob AND top the parse or come in close behind your highest dps classes; this is in just normal groups btw, not refering to raids. Bottom line is this; there has to be balance in games like these and thats something that SOE has always had trouble in obtaining and mainataing. A tanks job is to hold the mobs off the other 5 members in a group, allowing them to do the required dpsing, healing etc. I think it sucks to take a set of classes and change them so completly this late in the game, but if its allowed to go on forever then the balance problems in EQ2 will never get any better. In the line of things, tanks should only be outparsing the healers in a group; not hitting the top everytime AND being able to perform thier tanking duties as well. Sorry.

Maroger

01-11-2009, 04:24 PM

<cite>Anestacia wrote:</cite><blockquote>The problem is that they let tanks stay unbalanced for FAR too long. These changes should have been made years ago when they retooled all the classes for the second time. Tanks that know what they are doing, which I've been lucky to group with some great tanks over the years, can EASILY hold agro on the mob AND top the parse or come in close behind your highest dps classes; this is in just normal groups btw, not refering to raids. Bottom line is this; there has to be balance in games like these and thats something that SOE has always had trouble in obtaining and mainataing. A tanks job is to hold the mobs off the other 5 members in a group, allowing them to do the required dpsing, healing etc. I think it sucks to take a set of classes and change them so completly this late in the game, but if its allowed to go on forever then the balance problems in EQ2 will never get any better. In the line of things, tanks should only be outparsing the healers in a group; not hitting the top everytime AND being able to perform thier tanking duties as well. Sorry.</blockquote>Their are other way to correct the aggo problem than what they are doing. They are taking a sledge hammer to a minor problem. Oh and by the way SK's are NOT MTs. So treating us like MT's is hardly an intelligent approach.Also not everyone in this game raids and groups - they have to consider more playstyles than just raiding. These changes are the whiney raiders and because of the design flaws in TSO. It TSO had never come out you would not be seeing this NERF and change to stances.

Anestacia

01-11-2009, 05:51 PM

I never said I was refering to raids and as a matter of fact I said that I was refering to regular groups and NOT raids. In regular groups SKs certainly are the MTs and in solo situations your offensive stance is adequate enough for what you are supposed to be soloing. A tank, or any other class tbh, should not be soloing anything even-con heroic or above and anything bellow should be just as doable for a tank than it might be for a bard or low dps healer for example. TSO situations may have prompted these actions, and I do not necesarily agree with everything being done, but I stand behind my opinion that changes to the fighter classes are long overdue. We still have time before this hits Live and Im sure we will see some adjustments to it. I hope they keep what is necesary to place fighters on thier apropriate dps tier as well as increase thier agro and tanking capabilities.

Trojenn

01-11-2009, 06:08 PM

<cite>Faelgalad wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'am interested how soon we will see Swash-Tanks and Assa-Tanks...</blockquote>WoOoT...I am all for tanking on my Swash.. It would be ineresting but hell, we got SoH to get agro back, we have 2 Taunts and loads of DPS. Give me a dirge and coercer and I am sure I can hold agro . <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Maroger

01-11-2009, 06:13 PM

<cite>Anestacia wrote:</cite><blockquote>I never said I was refering to raids and as a matter of fact I said that I was refering to regular groups and NOT raids. In regular groups SKs certainly are the MTs and in solo situations your offensive stance is adequate enough for what you are supposed to be soloing. A tank, or any other class tbh, should not be soloing anything even-con heroic or above and anything bellow should be just as doable for a tank than it might be for a bard or low dps healer for example. TSO situations may have prompted these actions, and I do not necesarily agree with everything being done, but I stand behind my opinion that changes to the fighter classes are long overdue. We still have time before this hits Live and Im sure we will see some adjustments to it. I hope they keep what is necesary to place fighters on thier apropriate dps tier as well as increase thier agro and tanking capabilities.</blockquote>what you seem to saying is that tanks only job is to hold aggro and hate and has no business soloing anything other than green mobs. Is that your narrow-minded view of tanks? And why shouldn't a good plate class be able to solo even-con heroics - what is wrong with that? Is some sort of mortal sin?People should be able to spec their character according to their playstyle. This limits your ability to customise your class to fit your play style. I am not interested in being in a group as a MT --- Tanking is for Guardians. They should make this change via AA and upgrades to the taunt line -- not by nerfing every class in sight.This also has a greater effect on lower level players with fewer AAs but It looks like development is looking at only level 80 with all the AA's -- again this is no narror minded on the part of Development. They are just trying to fix a problem in TSO so they should not be killling every other class to do it. Development is NOT LOOKING at the broad spectrum of players, levels, and playstyles -This will do for EQ2 what the NGE did for STAR WARS.

Tandy

01-11-2009, 06:19 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Anestacia wrote:</cite><blockquote>I never said I was refering to raids and as a matter of fact I said that I was refering to regular groups and NOT raids. In regular groups SKs certainly are the MTs and in solo situations your offensive stance is adequate enough for what you are supposed to be soloing. A tank, or any other class tbh, should not be soloing anything even-con heroic or above and anything bellow should be just as doable for a tank than it might be for a bard or low dps healer for example. TSO situations may have prompted these actions, and I do not necesarily agree with everything being done, but I stand behind my opinion that changes to the fighter classes are long overdue. We still have time before this hits Live and Im sure we will see some adjustments to it. I hope they keep what is necesary to place fighters on thier apropriate dps tier as well as increase thier agro and tanking capabilities.</blockquote>what you seem to saying is that tanks only job is to hold aggro and hate and has no business soloing anything other than green mobs. Is that your narrow-minded view of tanks? And why shouldn't a good plate class be able to solo even-con heroics - what is wrong with that? Is some sort of mortal sin?People should be able to spec their character according to their playstyle. This limits your ability to customise your class to fit your play style. I am not interested in being in a group as a MT --- Tanking is for Guardians. They should make this change via AA and upgrades to the taunt line -- not by nerfing every class in sight.This will do for EQ2 what the NGE did for STAR WARS.</blockquote>HA! found the reason your so upset now....soloing even con heroics is possible with great gear / skill yes, but it is not the norm most times. You have admited you had very low quality gear and only soloed, never mentioning the fact you were soloing mobs designed for groups.And just because you say tanking is for gaurdians doesnt make it any more true than me saying the sky is green. Reality is what reality is regardless of what you might perceive. Tanks are TANKS, and for better or worse you picked a tank...stop crying cause your choice (even when you made it) is a class designed to hold mobs from the fighter archtype. They hold a mob and they do it well in groups. Solo they can solo orange con solo mobs easier than most classes can solo white con ones I think. They should be able to do some heroic content soloing by their very nature if your persistant and work hard at it, but it should never be easy or the norm to balance things againsts other classes.

Irgun

01-11-2009, 06:26 PM

Please let this thread die, I`m afraid devs will actually believe the shidty thread title.

Maroger

01-11-2009, 06:42 PM

<cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Anestacia wrote:</cite><blockquote>I never said I was refering to raids and as a matter of fact I said that I was refering to regular groups and NOT raids. In regular groups SKs certainly are the MTs and in solo situations your offensive stance is adequate enough for what you are supposed to be soloing. A tank, or any other class tbh, should not be soloing anything even-con heroic or above and anything bellow should be just as doable for a tank than it might be for a bard or low dps healer for example. TSO situations may have prompted these actions, and I do not necesarily agree with everything being done, but I stand behind my opinion that changes to the fighter classes are long overdue. We still have time before this hits Live and Im sure we will see some adjustments to it. I hope they keep what is necesary to place fighters on thier apropriate dps tier as well as increase thier agro and tanking capabilities.</blockquote>what you seem to saying is that tanks only job is to hold aggro and hate and has no business soloing anything other than green mobs. Is that your narrow-minded view of tanks? And why shouldn't a good plate class be able to solo even-con heroics - what is wrong with that? Is some sort of mortal sin?People should be able to spec their character according to their playstyle. This limits your ability to customise your class to fit your play style. I am not interested in being in a group as a MT --- Tanking is for Guardians. They should make this change via AA and upgrades to the taunt line -- not by nerfing every class in sight.This will do for EQ2 what the NGE did for STAR WARS.</blockquote>HA! found the reason your so upset now....soloing even con heroics is possible with great gear / skill yes, but it is not the norm most times. You have admited you had very low quality gear and only soloed, never mentioning the fact you were soloing mobs designed for groups.And just because you say tanking is for gaurdians doesnt make it any more true than me saying the sky is green. Reality is what reality is regardless of what you might perceive. Tanks are TANKS, and for better or worse you picked a tank...stop crying cause your choice (even when you made it) is a class designed to hold mobs from the fighter archtype. They hold a mob and they do it well in groups. Solo they can solo orange con solo mobs easier than most classes can solo white con ones I think. They should be able to do some heroic content soloing by their very nature if your persistant and work hard at it, but it should never be easy or the norm to balance things againsts other classes.</blockquote>I made this choice when the game launched -- I have always had an SK. SKs have historically done great DPS - no we are not in the scout class who does theirs by virtue of positional attacks. But given a good weapon, spells and armor there is no reason an SK should not be able to do better than average DPS.Personally I have always thought that every class should be able to solo and I believe CLASS BALANCE is some sort of unachievable nirvana which causes developers to make changes which end up destroying games. They are chasing a Chimera. And personally I have never thought that class balance an important goal. The goal should be to make the game FUN for everyone regardless of playstyle or character -- not to chase a pie in the sky.Developers in this game have treated SKs like they don't know what they are. First we are always considered part Necromancer -- well they decided no one would notice so they got rid of our skelly pet. We were supposed to be capable of dealing impressive physical damage. Now development feels that they can change the definition of a Shadow Knight and that most people won't notice but will be like you, roll over and play dead while they kill the class.They are taking away from the class all that makes a Shadow knight and are reducing them to wimps. I would like to get a refund on 5 years of money to SOE if my class is destroyed through thoughtless changes.The problem is that we have a new team of developers who have lost sight of what the class was meant to be. THey need to go back and learn more about the class and how it was designed. They are destroying buffs we have had for years --- for what fOR NOTHING.

Tandy

01-11-2009, 06:49 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>I made this choice when the game launched -- I have always had an SK. SKs have historically done great DPS - no we are not in the scout class who does theirs by virtue of positional attacks. But given a good weapon, spells and armor there is no reason an SK should not be able to do better than average DPS.Personally I have always thought that every class should be able to solo and I believe CLASS BALANCE is some sort of unachievable nirvana which causes developers to make changes which end up destroying games. They are chasing a Chimera. And personally I have never thought that class balance an important goal. The goal should be to make the game FUN for everyone regardless of playstyle or character -- not to chase a pie in the sky.Developers in this game have treated SKs like they don't know what they are. First we are always considered part Necromancer -- well they decided no one would notice so they got rid of our skelly pet. We were supposed to be capable of dealing impressive physical damage. Now development feels that they can change the definition of a Shadow Knight and that most people won't notice but will be like you, roll over and play dead while they kill the class. </blockquote>Sk's do better than average DPS. Sk's can solo better than most classes. Shadowknights have the same existing tool set on test as they do on live. Sk's can solo better than a LOT of the other classes. Sk's have NOT I repeat NOT had their defination changed. They are and were and will always be TANKS. Just because you refuse to believe that does not make it any less true. For the love of all thats holy take a look at launch material. SK's were listed as TANKS I am not making this up!!! You picked a TANK!If you dont think classes need some sort of balance then you have a situation where everyone plays the overpowered class....and thats the population of the game. If you want to play a game wher Tankhealermage is the uber class and everyone has it and everyone solos in their own bubble then maybe this isnt your game.

Full_Metal_Mage

01-11-2009, 06:51 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>They are taking away from the class all that makes a Shadow knight and are reducing them to wimps. I would like to get a refund on 5 years of money to SOE if my class is destroyed through thoughtless changes.The problem is that we have a new team of developers who have lost sight of what the class was meant to be. THey need to go back and learn more about the class and how it was designed. They are destroying buffs we have had for years --- for what fOR NOTHING. </blockquote>You'll need to stand in line behind all of the Paladins. Thanks.

Tandy

01-11-2009, 06:55 PM

<cite>Full_Metal_Mage wrote:</cite><blockquote>You'll need to stand in line behind all of the Paladins. Thanks.</blockquote>Paladins by far need a 2nd and 3rd look before this goes live. I hope they get brought up to what other tanks are on threat generation.

Gisallo

01-11-2009, 07:10 PM

<cite>Azurro wrote:</cite><blockquote> Amends was originally intended to free up pally’s from having to taunt or use combat arts as much so that we could use wards and heals to make up for our lower Mitigation and Avoidance (Heals do NOT equal mit/avoidance btw). Amends never has been a easy button. Amends made it possible for me to use the extremely long casting times on my wards without losing agro. </blockquote>Here's the problem with that argument. WAY too many Paladins said (at the high end and they are the ones that post the most here as I see it) "NO ONE invites a Paladin to a raid for utility. They don't want our heals or our wards, they just want up to hold aggro. Other classes get invited for heals and wards."Now when this is the chorus that the devs hear AND the character dev is in a high end raiding guild watching same said mind set, do you think this argument is going to be part of the calculus when determining how to change tanks? Heck no. They are going to say "Amends is easy mode because the only thing the pally is doing is slapping amends on the biggest dpser in his group and timing his auto attack. He's not healing not warding, thats what his healers are doing."Also I think these changes CAN work (not will) but its going to require EVERYONE to consider aggro management. In the past aggro management was this: SLAP hate stuff on tank (a good tank btw). Tank attacks first and holds aggro. Everyone else just burn burn burn.Now in closing I am not saying this is right or wrong, just sorta my thought as to how it can work. Now its going to be about dpsers paying attention to their own hate tools and using them. Its going to be about making sure debuffers are cycling through their debuffs to make sure the tank in defensive stance can hit the mob more effectively, etc. IF EVERYONE in the group/raid steps up and uses all of their tools it can work and I think that was to point, to make aggro management everyones job and not just the tanks. Is this a HUGE change after 4-5 years? Heck yeah but regardless of whether the whole theory is right or wrong we have to deal with it. IF everyone steps up it will be dealable, just everyone needs to step up and now you will see who really knows how to play a class all the way around, not just in one narrow facet.

Trojenn

01-11-2009, 08:27 PM

I have to throw in 2 cents about amends.. Palli - 41% Hate from target Swash 19-27% Hate to target. Do the math, 60- 68% Transfer of hate. 11K parses from Swashis with amends from Palli, well will almost meen that the palli doesn't hardly have to do jack to hold agro. Amends equaled the only was Palli's could hold agro. Easy Mode maybe, Are they any good without it NO.

Full_Metal_Mage

01-11-2009, 11:40 PM

That's the core of the problem with the change to Paladins. They've turned Amends into a completely ineffective taunt, but they have not replaced it with anything useful. I've read a few posts recently comparing LU51 to the SWG NGE. I don't see this as the NGE of EQ2, but it looks considerably like the SWG CU.

Faelgalad

01-12-2009, 06:59 AM

<cite>Trojenn@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have to throw in 2 cents about amends.. Palli - 41% Hate from target Swash 19-27% Hate to target. Do the math, 60- 68% Transfer of hate. 11K parses from Swashis with amends from Palli, well will almost meen that the palli doesn't hardly have to do jack to hold agro. Amends equaled the only was Palli's could hold agro. Easy Mode maybe, Are they any good without it NO.</blockquote>If you have no knowledge of Aggro-mechanisms, don't post.That would be easy mode.Transfers are normalised on 50%. So an 41% Pali with an Swash get 50% of the Swash, with roughly 2/3 Pali and 1/3 Swash.In extreme an Pali (41) with Swash (19)+ Assa (16) + Warlock (4) don't get 80%, he get's 50% with roughly Pali 25,6 % Swash 11,8% Assa 8% Warlock 2,5%.Only Sigil of Heroism breaks this rule for 20 seconds and honestly I don't know it for the Trak-Shield, as I don't own one yet.

Vulkan_NTooki

01-12-2009, 08:23 AM

If duo, the Amends was easy mode if you say grouped with a swashy..You'd get 50% of that swashies hate, so u only had to do like 1dps or taunt now and then to keep aggro from him.Lets say you are in a group of 6. U have 3 dps 1 healer and 1 utility.The 3 dps does 8,9 and 10k dps each..You do for lets say 1k dps and 2k hate per second(from taunts) in defensive. = roughly 3k hate per second.Put amends on the 10k dps, and you'll get 5k aggro from him.. add in your 3k dps(hate) and your at 8k dps.. which means the aggro will bounce..Lets say you get a KB.. then the closest one to mob will get aggro no matter who has amends.Lets say you get stunned. uh oh.. your at 5k hate per second now.. for the duration.Lets say you try to heal, interupt, continue trying, interupt, continue trying, 5 seconds later its completely interupted and you been at 5k dps the whole time. U surely wont have aggro anymore.Lets say you add in a bruiser or a monk, which seem to be able to pull through amends no matter how much dps they do.. grrrr... (Im never grouping with those again unless they tank<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" />).Now change that 5k hate per second from Amends and turn it into 400 hate per second from the replaced amends in GU51 and tell me how pala's are going to hold aggro in any group with 3 dps doing 8-10k+ on parses?I did a lil number crunching for the combined taunts for a paladin with maxed out aa's for and it equalled about 4-5000 hate per second.. To be able to keep up I would have to do 5-6k dps in defensive stance. Sure.. I have 3-4 abilities to get me instant aggro back, but it would only work for a few seconds before one of the dps has it back.Now.. u can of course say.. there are plenty of classes that can feed u 3-5k hate right? But then.. why remove amends if your still reliant on other classes to keep hate?oh well.. just my rant

Feydakeen

01-12-2009, 09:40 AM

I will try to be constructive...You know what... f-word amends... the devs removed (''changed''<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> it and no matter what we do or whine we won't get it back, i have been here in this game for 4 years and have seen the hated LU13 and all the other crap, trust me the devs never admit mistakes. It's lost. I'll get over it.BUT what we do need now is something that defines the pally class now we lost our number one speciality...And please don't go whining about us getting a second rescue, cause that won't cut it, as we have far less other abilities to actually HOLD aggro or suck up damage...We need well....something...anything...So........1 Get us parry in defensive stance too, or explain us why SK get it and we don't.2 Give us a faster casting ward that generates hate over time and also has a damage shield aspect to it and can be casted while stunned, this will help holding aggro, while we lose time on casting the ward and cant taunt'3 Make our heals faster and less interrupted4 If we are to become the single target tanks, make all our aoes change in defensive stance, so they cost less power and do a bit more damage on the single targetJust a few ideas...

Kiljoi

01-12-2009, 03:39 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Krunck@Everfrost wrote:</cite>This is more of WOW mode for EQ2.</blockquote>Was thinking the same thing. The dumbification of the game continues. LU51 WILL do more harm than good.

Gisallo

01-12-2009, 04:39 PM

LygerT

01-12-2009, 04:40 PM

a pally calling it dumbification? hehtry playing a warrior with no dirge, no coercer, no swash, no assassin and see how well you hold aggro(yes it sounds dumb, but honestly i think we've all had to deal with it at times, moreso lately than in the past). all you need is 1 decent DPS player, yes you still may have to work but i bet you still will have all your hair at the end of the night.this allows all fighters to be more dynamic, yet we pay for it by kicking our DPS to the curb(and why would a pally hate that anyways?). i'm sure you need fixes to heals and some in survivability still but address those instead of calling this WoW(the current trend) just because you dislike a change.a number here are acting like grade school kids.

OutcastBlade

01-12-2009, 05:42 PM

DPS has become too much of a focus for defining yourself as a player imho.... This change is going to force us to swallow our pride and drop down the dps ladder out of necessity. But slowly we're going to find the happy medium and from there we will discover the optimizations to allow us to squeeze out more dps without ripping.I think these changes are going to make the game better in the long run because of the increase in challenge. I know for a fact that there are going to be a lot of changes in the future to stabilize everything, lots of hotfixes and LUs, but I, for one, already have several ideas on how I am going to keep the hate off of me. Not the least of which is dusting off Sleight of Hand and I'm looking forward to seeing how well I can do in this new environment.

Hirofortis

01-12-2009, 06:53 PM

<cite>Kiljoi@Blackburrow wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Krunck@Everfrost wrote:</cite>This is more of WOW mode for EQ2.</blockquote>Was thinking the same thing. The dumbification of the game continues. LU51 WILL do more harm than good. </blockquote>If your gonna Quote someone, do it write. I never stated this and do not appreciate someone misquoting and really don't like when people decide to add something. Fact - EQ has gotten some things from WoW.Fact - WoW has gotten some things from EQ.Fact - We have a large community that likes diferent things.If you don't like the agro meter, turn it off, hide it, whatever. If you think combining a few buffs together dumbs down the game. Get real. You would cast the buffs with one click or 3 clicks. It does not matter. As a guard you always had enough concentration slots to run everything so don't give me that this is gonna make it to easy to pick buffs or anything like that. Peeps have been complaining forever about tanks doin to much DPS and that they are tanks, not DPS. Now SoE is trying to make tanks into tanks and the tanks are whining because, whoa, your gonna be a tank. The changes need to be made so that taunts are where they should be. We are not a DPSclas, so get over it. If you wanna DPS, go play a DPS class. After all, tank spots are already limited and if you go to a DPS class because you wanna dps, then the rest of us can tank becasue we want to tank. With that being said.Taunts have never kept up with DPS classes. Thank you to the devs for brigning our taunts in line with DPS so we can do our job and hold agro.Combining the stances, Meh, no big deal. As long as I can hold agro and take the hits, that is what I am there for. Thank you for giving the guards a proc in off stance. As it was off stance was nothing more than a weak buff. Now we can DPS some in off mode while soloing and tank in groups and such as a tank. With dual wielding, and a shield we have a ton of options that everyone will have to decide on for how they will run there toons. With 9 different combinations for tanking I think we have enough to keep us making a decision. I am curious as to if the DPS classes will be getting enhanced dethreats. Right now from what I saw, it appears that a tank in off mode would have better deagrro than a dps class. Something to look at.Looking forward to seeing more of how things work out. Back to the test server to test some more.

Raidyen

01-12-2009, 07:12 PM

Wow the pally hate is amazing. You know if people would worry more about thier own classes and how to play it rather then complaining about others maybe i wouldnt have to avoid PUG's.The paladin i run with HATED amends, and we both think its awesome they are changing it. That said, it is obvious that the OP did not go to test, for if he did, instead of cheering about an ability that has nothing to do with his own class, he would have realized that the new changes are not a good thing for real groups, or raids. But way to go dude, your hate meter vs that paladin is holding strong at 100 red.

Faelgalad

01-13-2009, 12:44 AM

To compensate on current Paladin, without any passiv Hate Generation (and I hope for SK you new stay as it is, good for you), an Paladin has to produce 4000 Threat/Second with Taunts!DPS 4000 + 50% Hategain = 6000Threat 4000 + 50% Taunt Inc. = 6000Why 12k? To keep a 10k Assa in Check with some gain in Aggro. And the DPS of Assassins is not at it's Peak now, as TSO is just out of store, we will see more in 3-4 months. And 10k Assa's are not soo rare nowadays.1. Because we need more Aggro then Guard, otherwise, Guard makes Paladin worthless2. We need an buffer in Aggro, to throw in a Heal, as we are mitigating less then Guard.Paladin has long survived without many shiny skills, as he was King in Aggro. So without being the best in this Area, we can reroll. And many Paladins will choose to reroll into other Games.BTW, could a Vanguard Dev design on the Paladin, Vanguard Paladins are awesome! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />And I will lough, when Monks, Bruisers and SK's will become the new Top DDs, because they can go full DPS, while Deaggroing in Off-Stance better then every DD-Class.

Hirofortis

01-13-2009, 01:24 AM

How much hate do wards and heals generate on a pally? I am not sure, so I am curious as I know that they generate a fair amount on similar healer abilities. Thoughts?

Feydakeen

01-13-2009, 04:48 AM

<cite>Krunck@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>How much hate do wards and heals generate on a pally? I am not sure, so I am curious as I know that they generate a fair amount on similar healer abilities. Thoughts?</blockquote>Our ward and heals are not big enough to generate much hate and while we try to cast them and get continuously interrupted we lose hate cause we can't DPS or taunt, that is the main problem really... <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Sir Longsword

01-13-2009, 11:07 AM

<cite>Krunck@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>How much hate do wards and heals generate on a pally? I am not sure, so I am curious as I know that they generate a fair amount on similar healer abilities. Thoughts?</blockquote>Each heal point generates .5 points of hate. So my Pally's ward generates about 750 hate.I would be happy to keep amends as is if the Pally could get some survivability. The difference in survivability between a guard and a Pally is a very large gap indeed.

Glerin

01-13-2009, 12:01 PM

<cite>Faelgalad wrote:</cite><blockquote>Paladin has to produce 4000 Threat/Second with Taunts!</blockquote>just thought i'd chip in, after doing about 60fights on the wall in KJ, selfbuffed i cannot break 3,5k TPS, usually average out at 3,2k TPS, this is with M1 stance, M1 taunts and app1 "new amends", I tried just using taunts once to kill the wall and same deal; TPS around 3,2k

Antryg Mistrose

01-13-2009, 12:37 PM

The devs will only have done a great job, if we see howls of outrage from the guardian forums over one of the 2 key tanking aspects when compared to paladin - survivability or hate management. We are after all direct competitors now.

DngrMou

01-13-2009, 12:49 PM

<cite>Kanolth@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>DPS has become too much of a focus for defining yourself as a player imho.... This change is going to force us to swallow our pride and drop down the dps ladder out of necessity. But slowly we're going to find the happy medium and from there we will discover the optimizations to allow us to squeeze out more dps without ripping.I think these changes are going to make the game better in the long run because of the increase in challenge. I know for a fact that there are going to be a lot of changes in the future to stabilize everything, lots of hotfixes and LUs, but I, for one, already have several ideas on how I am going to keep the hate off of me. Not the least of which is dusting off Sleight of Hand and I'm looking forward to seeing how well I can do in this new environment.</blockquote>There is no challenge in reducing DPS. It's easy, don't hit as often. The challenge has always been to maximize dps, while reducing/eliminating pulling aggro off the tank. As a swash I have, (for the time being), tools that facilitate those goals. Even with hate transfer, I can pull aggro, and have to use other abilities to shed hate. I already have that challenge, thank you. They're not making things better for every other class that's being changed as part of this 'fighter rebalancing', and in all likelihood will make things worse in many cases, as we should'nt have to learn how to play our characters at level 80.