if hate is now the responsibility of tanks.....

[irvisscott]

<p>If hate is now solely the responsibility of tanks, and they can recieve no help from other classes, when will dps classes recieve the same treatment? I dont know many assasins that can rip off 14k+ parses solo on a training dummy. Dps classes are very dependant on buffs to make them able to do their job, why are tanks different?</p>

[Aeralik]

<p>I think you are misunderstanding what was said.  Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro.  Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities and not somone else going all out with little risk because their threat is being transferred to another player.  So when we say its the responsibility of the tank that means more emphasis is placed on what they do to achieve aggro but that doesnt mean other players still can't help them achieve it through buffs.  In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p>Hate gain mod still affects agro generated by damage dealt if I'm not mistaken. So increasing the hate gain in my defensive stance by 8% does not make up the old difference since my damage has also been reduced by at least 30% if not more. And if I'm now supposed to hold agro without the massive transfers I used to have then I have even less agro generation. I know we still get hate gain mod buffed by other classes and I'm assuming it and taunt crit will start appearing on gear, but the damage mod in defensive just has to go.</p><p>PS I am refering to warriors, berserker specifically in my case</p><p>I've also found on test that holding agro is significantly more difficult and when duoing or trioing things it is much harder to kill since I do precious little damage anymore. I have /feedbacked agro issues. I must say I dont understand the agro reduction though. Plate tanks should be able to do low T2 dps if played and geared right...</p>

[Valphine]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think you are misunderstanding what was said.  Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro.  Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities and not somone else going all out with little risk because their threat is being transferred to another player.  So when we say its the responsibility of the tank that means more emphasis is placed on what they do to achieve aggro but that doesnt mean other players still can't help them achieve it through buffs.  In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>Ok. "Ninja too another subject" Why don't Paladins get parry on the Defensive stance when now all other tank classes do?</p>

[Spe]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think you are misunderstanding what was said.  Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro.  Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities and not somone else going all out with little risk because their threat is being transferred to another player.  So when we say its the responsibility of the tank that means more emphasis is placed on what they do to achieve aggro but that doesnt mean other players still can't help them achieve it through buffs.  In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>So, prior LU51 tanks should have some skill to tank mobs reliably and hold agro firmly, such as timing autoatack, using CA in some proper order etc., than after LU51 tanks become afk class - just hit 3 or 4 buttons with larger hate gain and do not care about autoatack, CAs? Right?</p>

[Trojenn]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think you are misunderstanding what was said.  Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro.  Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities and not somone else going all out with little risk because their threat is being transferred to another player.  So when we say its the responsibility of the tank that means more emphasis is placed on what they do to achieve aggro but that doesnt mean other players still can't help them achieve it through buffs.  In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the <span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>revamped swashbuckler transfer</strong></span>, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>Sorry but this kinda made me LOL in RL. Its not a transfer, and its definately not that great of a help.</p><p>Increases hate of targets current target by 6k-9k if class is fighter decreases by 4k-7k if other then fighter.</p><p>30 sec duration with 3 triggers on a 1 minute recast. There is no hate position increases or decreases added on this, just a taunt of detaunt, this by no means will save anyone if they pull agro. For all the scouts out there, its kinda like Baffle, how many times has that made you drop agro if you pull it. ( for me, never ). To drop agro, I have always had to use something that made me drop a threat position. Ugh...</p>

[Prrasha]

<p><cite>Valphine wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Ok. "Ninja too another subject" Why don't Paladins get parry on the Defensive stance when now all other tank classes do?</p></blockquote><p>1) Please don't do that, bad forum behavior reflects poorly on other paladins who are trying to get things fixed.</p><p>2) Have you been on test any time in the last 18 hours or so?  Paladins <em>do</em> get parry on Defensive stance, now.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Spetz@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think you are misunderstanding what was said.  Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro.  Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities and not somone else going all out with little risk because their threat is being transferred to another player.  So when we say its the responsibility of the tank that means more emphasis is placed on what they do to achieve aggro but that doesnt mean other players still can't help them achieve it through buffs.  In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>So, prior LU51 tanks should have some skill to tank mobs reliably and hold agro firmly, such as timing autoatack, using CA in some proper order etc., than after LU51 tanks become afk class - just hit 3 or 4 buttons with larger hate gain and do not care about autoatack, CAs? Right?</p></blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p><p>With the reduction to DPS in defensive stance if you DONT do those things you will be parsing somewhere with the auto attacks of the templar between heals.</p><p>The good tanks will figure out how best to operate with the changes...and I know a few guardians right now who are excellent tanks who will STILL be excellent after the changes and still pull off some decent DPS because they know their class well.</p>

[Spe]

<p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Spetz@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think you are misunderstanding what was said.  Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro.  Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities and not somone else going all out with little risk because their threat is being transferred to another player.  So when we say its the responsibility of the tank that means more emphasis is placed on what they do to achieve aggro but that doesnt mean other players still can't help them achieve it through buffs.  In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>So, prior LU51 tanks should have some skill to tank mobs reliably and hold agro firmly, such as timing autoatack, using CA in some proper order etc., than after LU51 tanks become afk class - just hit 3 or 4 buttons with larger hate gain and do not care about autoatack, CAs? Right?</p></blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p><p>With the reduction to DPS in defensive stance if you DONT do those things you will be parsing somewhere with the auto attacks of the templar between heals.</p><p>The good tanks will figure out how best to operate with the changes...and I know a few guardians right now who are excellent tanks who will STILL be excellent after the changes and still pull off some decent DPS because they know their class well.</p></blockquote><p>In pure defence mode (not DW and off-stance) I'm parsing about 3-4K, maybe up to 5K. Mainly it is from autoatack - something about 60-65% or even higher. In offstance with DW dps is like 7-8K with the spikes up to 9K - a good option for trash.</p><p>Now lets take a look at changes in LU51:</p><p>Defensive stance: with the 0,5 autoatack penalty dps will be 2-3K - you can call this DPS? If you waste your time to time autoatacks - it will be 10% higher. Not even worth an efforts. Lot of items with damage procs have about the same efficiency.</p><p>Offencive stance: my god! If you going to parse you going to be at the bottom of the hate list - not an option at all. If only taunts are got changed to detaunts - it will be acceptable to dpsing tanks. But someones smart a*** decided to put taunts (and detaunts in offensive!) in several CAs. There are no options to tank using dps - just taunts and nothing else.</p><p>LU51 removes possibility for MT to do dps even on trash - just hit taunts and do nothing. Wanna do dps? Go to no stance mode, cause in offensive you will be at the bottom of the hate list all the time. And lose all buffs merged to stances!</p>

[Mentalep]

<p><cite>Spetz@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Spetz@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think you are misunderstanding what was said.  Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro.  Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities and not somone else going all out with little risk because their threat is being transferred to another player.  So when we say its the responsibility of the tank that means more emphasis is placed on what they do to achieve aggro but that doesnt mean other players still can't help them achieve it through buffs.  In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>So, prior LU51 tanks should have some skill to tank mobs reliably and hold agro firmly, such as timing autoatack, using CA in some proper order etc., than after LU51 tanks become afk class - just hit 3 or 4 buttons with larger hate gain and do not care about autoatack, CAs? Right?</p></blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p><p>With the reduction to DPS in defensive stance if you DONT do those things you will be parsing somewhere with the auto attacks of the templar between heals.</p><p>The good tanks will figure out how best to operate with the changes...and I know a few guardians right now who are excellent tanks who will STILL be excellent after the changes and still pull off some decent DPS because they know their class well.</p></blockquote><p>In pure defence mode (not DW and off-stance) I'm parsing about 3-4K, maybe up to 5K. Mainly it is from autoatack - something about 60-65% or even higher. In offstance with DW dps is like 7-8K with the spikes up to 9K - a good option for trash.</p><p>Now lets take a look at changes in LU51:</p><p>Defensive stance: with the 0,5 autoatack penalty dps will be 2-3K - you can call this DPS? If you waste your time to time autoatacks - it will be 10% higher. Not even worth an efforts. Lot of items with damage procs have about the same efficiency.</p><p>Offencive stance: my god! If you going to parse you going to be at the bottom of the hate list - not an option at all. If only taunts are got changed to detaunts - it will be acceptable to dpsing tanks. But someones smart a*** decided to put taunts (and detaunts in offensive!) in several CAs. There are no options to tank using dps - just taunts and nothing else.</p><p>LU51 removes possibility for MT to do dps even on trash - just hit taunts and do nothing. Wanna do dps? Go to no stance mode, cause in offensive you will be at the bottom of the hate list all the time. And lose all buffs merged to stances!</p></blockquote><p>You are just making up numbers.</p><p>I don't know exactly what the 0.5 multiplier means mathematically, but on test, my autoattack damage decreases by about 25% in defensive stance as compared to no stance.  Other fighters have reported similar numbers.  If we use your 65% figure for autoattack damage, and if the 25% value holds true for whatever gear you're equipped with, that means you will lose about 16% of your current defensive stance dps, and autoattack will work out to about <strong>58%</strong> of your new total.</p><p>So 65% from autoattack is awesome and well worth the effort to exploit, but 58% is a total waste of time easily outweighed by the procs on your gear?</p><p>If you're currently parsing 3-5k in defensive stance, with 65% from autoattack, the new defensive stance penalty will leave you with 2520-4200.</p>

[Melli]

<p>It sounds like this is exactly what needs to be done to try and balance things back out and fix some of the unintended effects that have crept in over the last two expansions.  Things have been ungodly out of whack, made worse by the crusader revamp (I'm sorry but SKs doing Assassin damage every fight is not "fixed"). Having a raid full of folks wearing hate generating gear without fear of ripping, tanks standing up to the new content in offensive and hitting 14K (I've actually seen higher) parses, all of that is way out of balance.</p><p>Fighters wanted more damage to solo easier, but it also helped them hold hate so then it became a NEED in order to hold hate.  As tanks do more damage, they have to up the damage done by the actual DPS classes because honestly, if all our tanks can do Teir 1 DPS (which currently a couple can), why even bother playing a squishy dps person - just form a raid of tanks, healers and some utility. The first time we cleared the trash in Palace, we all sat their groaning and complaining because they had so many hitpoints for trash, it took so long to kill them, what a pain... but that's what happens when we get into the DPS death spiral.</p><p>And I do have to admit, it kinda cracked me up when I heard a wizard I know bemoaning the soon-to-be lost Signet of Betrayal.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Spetz@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Spetz@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think you are misunderstanding what was said.  Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro.  Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities and not somone else going all out with little risk because their threat is being transferred to another player.  So when we say its the responsibility of the tank that means more emphasis is placed on what they do to achieve aggro but that doesnt mean other players still can't help them achieve it through buffs.  In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>So, prior LU51 tanks should have some skill to tank mobs reliably and hold agro firmly, such as timing autoatack, using CA in some proper order etc., than after LU51 tanks become afk class - just hit 3 or 4 buttons with larger hate gain and do not care about autoatack, CAs? Right?</p></blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p><p>With the reduction to DPS in defensive stance if you DONT do those things you will be parsing somewhere with the auto attacks of the templar between heals.</p><p>The good tanks will figure out how best to operate with the changes...and I know a few guardians right now who are excellent tanks who will STILL be excellent after the changes and still pull off some decent DPS because they know their class well.</p></blockquote><p>In pure defence mode (not DW and off-stance) I'm parsing about 3-4K, maybe up to 5K. Mainly it is from autoatack - something about 60-65% or even higher. In offstance with DW dps is like 7-8K with the spikes up to 9K - a good option for trash.</p><p>Now lets take a look at changes in LU51:</p><p>Defensive stance: with the 0,5 autoatack penalty dps will be 2-3K - you can call this DPS? If you waste your time to time autoatacks - it will be 10% higher. Not even worth an efforts. Lot of items with damage procs have about the same efficiency.</p><p>Offencive stance: my god! If you going to parse you going to be at the bottom of the hate list - not an option at all. If only taunts are got changed to detaunts - it will be acceptable to dpsing tanks. But someones smart a*** decided to put taunts (and detaunts in offensive!) in several CAs. There are no options to tank using dps - just taunts and nothing else.</p><p>LU51 removes possibility for MT to do dps even on trash - just hit taunts and do nothing. Wanna do dps? Go to no stance mode, cause in offensive you will be at the bottom of the hate list all the time. And lose all buffs merged to stances!</p></blockquote><p>Again I say this will make tanks who know their roles and take time to have good casting order / timing auto attacks show against the tanks who do nothing but taunt.</p><p>I guess we know where you will be.</p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Spetz@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So, prior LU51 tanks should have some skill to tank mobs reliably and hold agro firmly, such as timing autoatack, using CA in some proper order etc., than after LU51 tanks become afk class - just hit 3 or 4 buttons with larger hate gain and do not care about autoatack, CAs? Right?</p></blockquote><p>No, what he's saying is that with LU51 they want tanks and damage classes to actually have to pay attention to hate and actively generate/shed it. Currently on live you set up the hate transfers and put hate on auto-pilot: pay attention only to damage and let the hate transfers take care of the rest. With LU51 they want fighters to pay attention to how much hate they're generating (which is in the logs and ACT's been updated to parse and display it) and work on which hate-generating abilities need used in what order and how they have to be integrated into the rotation, and damage types to pay attention to how much dethreat they're generating and when and how they need to use their dethreat abilities to help keep the mobs on the tank (again parsed by ACT, and there's the threat meter window to help too).</p><p>Myself, I've added the hate numbers to the standard parse reporting in ACT so my display shows not just how much damage everybody's doing but how much hate/dethreat everyone's generating.</p>

[Spe]

<p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Spetz@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Spetz@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think you are misunderstanding what was said.  Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro.  Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities and not somone else going all out with little risk because their threat is being transferred to another player.  So when we say its the responsibility of the tank that means more emphasis is placed on what they do to achieve aggro but that doesnt mean other players still can't help them achieve it through buffs.  In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>So, prior LU51 tanks should have some skill to tank mobs reliably and hold agro firmly, such as timing autoatack, using CA in some proper order etc., than after LU51 tanks become afk class - just hit 3 or 4 buttons with larger hate gain and do not care about autoatack, CAs? Right?</p></blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p><p>With the reduction to DPS in defensive stance if you DONT do those things you will be parsing somewhere with the auto attacks of the templar between heals.</p><p>The good tanks will figure out how best to operate with the changes...and I know a few guardians right now who are excellent tanks who will STILL be excellent after the changes and still pull off some decent DPS because they know their class well.</p></blockquote><p>In pure defence mode (not DW and off-stance) I'm parsing about 3-4K, maybe up to 5K. Mainly it is from autoatack - something about 60-65% or even higher. In offstance with DW dps is like 7-8K with the spikes up to 9K - a good option for trash.</p><p>Now lets take a look at changes in LU51:</p><p>Defensive stance: with the 0,5 autoatack penalty dps will be 2-3K - you can call this DPS? If you waste your time to time autoatacks - it will be 10% higher. Not even worth an efforts. Lot of items with damage procs have about the same efficiency.</p><p>Offencive stance: my god! If you going to parse you going to be at the bottom of the hate list - not an option at all. If only taunts are got changed to detaunts - it will be acceptable to dpsing tanks. But someones smart a*** decided to put taunts (and detaunts in offensive!) in several CAs. There are no options to tank using dps - just taunts and nothing else.</p><p>LU51 removes possibility for MT to do dps even on trash - just hit taunts and do nothing. Wanna do dps? Go to no stance mode, cause in offensive you will be at the bottom of the hate list all the time. And lose all buffs merged to stances!</p></blockquote><p>Again I say this will make tanks who know their roles and take time to have good casting order / timing auto attacks show against the tanks who do nothing but taunt.</p><p>I guess we know where you will be.</p></blockquote><p>I see no use in polishing casting order in LU51 environment.</p><p>I have tanked with maximum 1 hate transfer in MT group (no coercer at all), in LU51 I have to put dirge and coercer and with their hate buffs/transfer tanking going to be absolutelly easy mode.</p>

[Spe]

<p><cite>Mentalepsy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Spetz@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Spetz@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think you are misunderstanding what was said.  Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro.  Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities and not somone else going all out with little risk because their threat is being transferred to another player.  So when we say its the responsibility of the tank that means more emphasis is placed on what they do to achieve aggro but that doesnt mean other players still can't help them achieve it through buffs.  In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>So, prior LU51 tanks should have some skill to tank mobs reliably and hold agro firmly, such as timing autoatack, using CA in some proper order etc., than after LU51 tanks become afk class - just hit 3 or 4 buttons with larger hate gain and do not care about autoatack, CAs? Right?</p></blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p><p>With the reduction to DPS in defensive stance if you DONT do those things you will be parsing somewhere with the auto attacks of the templar between heals.</p><p>The good tanks will figure out how best to operate with the changes...and I know a few guardians right now who are excellent tanks who will STILL be excellent after the changes and still pull off some decent DPS because they know their class well.</p></blockquote><p>In pure defence mode (not DW and off-stance) I'm parsing about 3-4K, maybe up to 5K. Mainly it is from autoatack - something about 60-65% or even higher. In offstance with DW dps is like 7-8K with the spikes up to 9K - a good option for trash.</p><p>Now lets take a look at changes in LU51:</p><p>Defensive stance: with the 0,5 autoatack penalty dps will be 2-3K - you can call this DPS? If you waste your time to time autoatacks - it will be 10% higher. Not even worth an efforts. Lot of items with damage procs have about the same efficiency.</p><p>Offencive stance: my god! If you going to parse you going to be at the bottom of the hate list - not an option at all. If only taunts are got changed to detaunts - it will be acceptable to dpsing tanks. But someones smart a*** decided to put taunts (and detaunts in offensive!) in several CAs. There are no options to tank using dps - just taunts and nothing else.</p><p>LU51 removes possibility for MT to do dps even on trash - just hit taunts and do nothing. Wanna do dps? Go to no stance mode, cause in offensive you will be at the bottom of the hate list all the time. And lose all buffs merged to stances!</p></blockquote><p>You are just making up numbers.</p><p>I don't know exactly what the 0.5 multiplier means mathematically, but on test, my autoattack damage decreases by about 25% in defensive stance as compared to no stance.  Other fighters have reported similar numbers.  If we use your 65% figure for autoattack damage, and if the 25% value holds true for whatever gear you're equipped with, that means you will lose about 16% of your current defensive stance dps, and autoattack will work out to about <strong>58%</strong> of your new total.</p><p>So 65% from autoattack is awesome and well worth the effort to exploit, but 58% is a total waste of time easily outweighed by the procs on your gear?</p><p>If you're currently parsing 3-5k in defensive stance, with 65% from autoattack, the new defensive stance penalty will leave you with 2520-4200.</p></blockquote><p>Are seriously think that not to timing autoatack lead to lose of all the damage from the autoatack? So you are wrong. Autoatack is going to be just a bit delayed, and net loss is like 10-15% if you not timing hits. With the newest unmodified damage outputs from dps classes (say like 16K for assassing/wizard) the 2-3K dps from the tank (yes, there are some hate gain buffs for this dps - like 20% overall) is nothing and the threat from the taunts and new tounts attached to several CAs is MUCH bigger than from autoatack. Yes, there are some degro abilities like static reduction to hate gain and detaunt abilities, but hate reduction in LU51 is just like 8% with some single buffs for about the same amount. Thats is - there are no reasons to time autoatack at all, it going to contribute about 25% of total hate, and difference from timing autoatack will be less then 5%. That what I was trying to say - English is far not my native language so I'm just a bit uncertain in wordings =)</p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>You forgot to mention Assassin hate transfer <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/1cfd6e2a9a2c0cf8e74b49b35e2e46c7.gif" border="0" /></p><p>You guys also forgot to mention, in the Patch Notes, precisely what changes are coming to the Assassin hate transfer. I assume there are significant changes coming -- at least on the order of the Swashy hate transfer -- because if we lose OUR "set it & forget it" hate transfer, Assassins should lose theirs, too.</p><p>Please fix the patch notes to reflect this important change. Thank you.</p>

[Illine]

<p><cite>Trojenn@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think you are misunderstanding what was said.  Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro.  Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities and not somone else going all out with little risk because their threat is being transferred to another player.  So when we say its the responsibility of the tank that means more emphasis is placed on what they do to achieve aggro but that doesnt mean other players still can't help them achieve it through buffs.  In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the <span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>revamped swashbuckler transfer</strong></span>, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>Sorry but this kinda made me LOL in RL. Its not a transfer, and its definately not that great of a help.</p><p>Increases hate of targets current target by 6k-9k if class is fighter decreases by 4k-7k if other then fighter.</p><p>30 sec duration with 3 triggers on a 1 minute recast. There is no hate position increases or decreases added on this, just a taunt of detaunt, this by no means will save anyone if they pull agro. For all the scouts out there, its kinda like Baffle, how many times has that made you drop agro if you pull it. ( for me, never ). To drop agro, I have always had to use something that made me drop a threat position. Ugh...</p></blockquote><p>the new swash spell is not a life saver. At least I don't see it that way. I't a buff you cast on the tank to help him keep aggro. 3 times 6 - 9K every minute is not that bad. Sure it's not a transfert anymore but can be cast on raid members. how much hate can you transfert to a tank in one minute right now?</p><p>it should not be too powerfull and there are already many position increase/decrease.</p><p>maybe the recast could be a bit faster but I think it can be usefull if used often and not like a rescue spell.</p>

[Illine]

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>You forgot to mention Assassin hate transfer <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/1cfd6e2a9a2c0cf8e74b49b35e2e46c7.gif" border="0" /></p><p>You guys also forgot to mention, in the Patch Notes, precisely what changes are coming to the Assassin hate transfer. I assume there are significant changes coming -- at least on the order of the Swashy hate transfer -- because if we lose OUR "set it & forget it" hate transfer, Assassins should lose theirs, too.</p><p>Please fix the patch notes to reflect this important change. Thank you.</p></blockquote><p>they talked once about the assassin changes. but don't remember where <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>the only class who still has a hate transfert is the coercer. But the buff is nerfed.</p>

[Melli]

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>You forgot to mention Assassin hate transfer <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/1cfd6e2a9a2c0cf8e74b49b35e2e46c7.gif" border="0" /></p><p>You guys also forgot to mention, in the Patch Notes, precisely what changes are coming to the Assassin hate transfer. I assume there are significant changes coming -- at least on the order of the Swashy hate transfer -- because if we lose OUR "set it & forget it" hate transfer, Assassins should lose theirs, too.</p><p>Please fix the patch notes to reflect this important change. Thank you.</p></blockquote><p>I don't play an assassin....</p><p>However, I've never understood this mindset.  My toy got changed so yours should too!  First of all, you are a rogue, the assassin is a predator. Comparing the two classes and skills is pointless, it's apples and oranges.  Secondly, swashies have more utility and more hate control options.  Assassins have fewer hate control options besides their transfer and less utility.  So even if you were to compare the two, it would be easy to conclude that if they wish to minimize the number of flat out transfers, they'd keep assassin and replace swashbuckler.</p><p>If you spend too much time worrying about the size of someone else's ice cream cone, you're liable to drop your own <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Aeralik]

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>In fact, there are still several buffs which help the tank like the coercer's transfer, the revamped swashbuckler transfer, dirge buffs, etc.</p></blockquote><p>You forgot to mention Assassin hate transfer <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/1cfd6e2a9a2c0cf8e74b49b35e2e46c7.gif" border="0" /></p><p>You guys also forgot to mention, in the Patch Notes, precisely what changes are coming to the Assassin hate transfer. I assume there are significant changes coming -- at least on the order of the Swashy hate transfer -- because if we lose OUR "set it & forget it" hate transfer, Assassins should lose theirs, too.</p><p>Please fix the patch notes to reflect this important change. Thank you.</p></blockquote><p>the patch notes describe it.  The shadows line was their hate transfer line which is now a deaggro proc as referenced below in the patch notes immediately following the swashbuckler hate transfer change.</p><p><span ><p><em>Assassin</em></p> <ul><li>The Shadows line has changed to trigger a hate reduction effect.</li></ul></span></p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>Melli wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>First of all, you are a rogue, the assassin is a predator.</p></blockquote><p>We're both melee DPS scouts.</p><p>But the real point I'm making -- which you glossed over -- is that NOBODY should be getting a "set it & forget it" hate transfer, if we're ALL supposed to be playing more intelligently, paying more attention, & working to help our tanks hold aggro.</p><p>Seems like common sense "balance" to me, but then I don't play an Assassin either.</p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The shadows line was their hate transfer line</p></blockquote><p>Are you saying Assassins never had a hate transfer line, prior to TSO? Because I'd swear I remember otherwise.</p>

[Aeralik]

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The shadows line was their hate transfer line</p></blockquote><p>Are you saying Assassins never had a hate transfer line, prior to TSO? Because I'd swear I remember otherwise.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not saying they didn't.  I'm just merely pointing out that both scout hate transfer skills were changed and mentioned in the patch notes.  There is no conspiracy to hide any changes to the skills.</p>

[DngrMou]

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Melli wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>First of all, you are a rogue, the assassin is a predator.</p></blockquote><p>We're both melee DPS scouts.</p><p>But the real point I'm making -- which you glossed over -- is that NOBODY should be getting a "set it & forget it" hate transfer, if we're ALL supposed to be playing more intelligently, paying more attention, & working to help our tanks hold aggro.</p><p>Seems like common sense "balance" to me, but then I don't play an Assassin either.</p></blockquote><p>I'll macro this with a CA that has a 30 second-ish reuse time....and it's still a nerf.  Assuming 24% transfer, a one minute fight, and 3500 dps...that's 50k+ per minute transferred to the tank.  Our new 18k to 27k 'thing' is going to be slightly less than half that.  They, if they NEED to do anything, should reduce the transfer amount, instead of revamping the spell into SoH Jr.</p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The shadows line was their hate transfer line</p></blockquote><p>Are you saying Assassins never had a hate transfer line, prior to TSO? Because I'd swear I remember otherwise.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not saying they didn't.  I'm just merely pointing out that both scout hate transfer skills were changed and mentioned in the patch notes.  There is no conspiracy to hide any changes to the skills.</p></blockquote><p>OK, I understand now -- you confused me by saying "shadows LINE", which caused me to think you were talking about something from TSO.</p><p>I'm still confused as to why the Swashy spell is something we have to re-cast, while the Assassin spell appears to remain a "set it & forget it" hate transfer, which IMO is easy mode.</p>

[Raidyen]

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The shadows line was their hate transfer line</p></blockquote><p>Are you saying Assassins never had a hate transfer line, prior to TSO? Because I'd swear I remember otherwise.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not saying they didn't.  I'm just merely pointing out that both scout hate transfer skills were changed and mentioned in the patch notes.  There is no conspiracy to hide any changes to the skills.</p></blockquote><p>OK, I understand now -- you confused me by saying "shadows LINE", which caused me to think you were talking about something from TSO.</p><p>I'm still confused as to why the Swashy spell is something we have to re-cast, while the Assassin spell appears to remain a "set it & forget it" hate transfer, which IMO is easy mode.</p></blockquote><p>Good point, interested to hear the answer to that question. </p><p>I do think the hate reduction on the swathy line needs to be more then the hate increase.  I also think we should be able to cast it on ourselves as well.  Currently its just macro'd in with my Swathe AoE that i toss ever minute anyway.  Kind of boring if you ask me, might as well just be a 3 times a minute trigger on a tank.  Coarse i would rather it be something i can cast and control, but make it a little more intersting and worth casting on someone besides the tank.</p>

[Geothe]

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>OK, I understand now -- you confused me by saying "shadows LINE", which caused me to think you were talking about something from TSO.</p><p>I'm still confused as to why the Swashy spell is something we have to re-cast, while the Assassin spell appears to remain a "set it & forget it" hate transfer, which IMO is easy mode.</p></blockquote><p>Assassins have a set it and forget it transfer?No they dont have a transfer what so ever.Assassins now have a deagro proc.You (Swashie [and Brigs]) already ready have essentially the exact same buff, and have had it for years.The new Assassin deagro is basically the same as the Rogue Befuddle line, although with a slightly higher proc rate or deagro amount. And frankly, seeing a Swashie complain about deagro ability equality is absolutely hilarious in and of its self.Swashies have had the passive deagro abilities of Assassins and Brigands combined for years!  (The Hate Transfer (equal to assassin) and Befuddle line (equal to Brigands)).Even now, you have the same passive deagro (Befuddle line) as both Assassins and Brigs, but on top of it you still have a bonus in that you have the 3 trigger huge hate increase or decrease to any target.</p>

[DngrMou]

<p><cite>Geothe wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>OK, I understand now -- you confused me by saying "shadows LINE", which caused me to think you were talking about something from TSO.</p><p>I'm still confused as to why the Swashy spell is something we have to re-cast, while the Assassin spell appears to remain a "set it & forget it" hate transfer, which IMO is easy mode.</p></blockquote><p>Assassins have a set it and forget it transfer?No they dont have a transfer what so ever.Assassins now have a deagro proc.You (Swashie [and Brigs]) already ready have essentially the exact same buff, and have had it for years.The new Assassin deagro is basically the same as the Rogue Befuddle line, although with a slightly higher proc rate or deagro amount. And frankly, seeing a Swashie complain about deagro ability equality is absolutely hilarious in and of its self.Swashies have had the passive deagro abilities of Assassins and Brigands combined for years!  (The Hate Transfer (equal to assassin) and Befuddle line (equal to Brigands)).Even now, you have the same passive deagro (Befuddle line) as both Assassins and Brigs, but on top of it you still have a bonus in that you have the 3 trigger huge hate increase or decrease to any target.</p></blockquote><p>Yes, our hate control abilities were something unique among the scout classes.  It is no more.  And our 'huge' 3 trigger hate increase/decrease does less than half what our no-longer-a-signature-ability hate transer does. </p><p>For those in the know, how exactly does that hate decrease three trigger proc 'thing', (aka SoH Jr.), work?  If the healer in the group gets the attention of a mob...but is still targeting the tank, will it work?  Or will this require us to hunt around for the mob hitting the healer, targeting that mob, casting SoH Jr, smacking the mob enough times trigger the effect, then looking to the tank to get aggro back off us, (assuming it was enough to rip aggro from the healer), while the same spell is in 'cool down', and can't be used to help?</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p></blockquote><p>Once GU51 hits, the only parse for tanks (particularly plate tanks) that will matter is TPS, threat-per-second. That's it. They're going to be there to hold aggro and control the encounter, and that's it. The era of offensive tanking and high DPS is coming to a close with this update; if you're a fighter who wants to parse high, then you're going to have to be in your offensive stance, and that means you're going to be near the bottom of the threat list for the mob. Ironically, in offensive stance, fighters now have some of the best detaunts in the game (e.g.: Rescue will shed something like 12K hate and lower your threat position by 4). Although they've otherwise been nerfed heavily, the only plate tank I can think of that could really "stance dance" effectively is the Paladin, because Holy Ground + Restitution gives them the snap aggro that would be needed to (nearly) instantly put them back at the top of the hate list.</p><p>And, as another poster pointed out, in this new paradigm, tank auto-attack damage -- which used to be significant, and a critical part of generating enough hate through DPS -- is now a small minority of the overall threat generation. The great bulk of their threat is going to be generated through taunts and CAs which generate additional threat, not through the damage itself. Abilities which are going to be important for tanks will no longer revolve around damage output, but in things like increasing the base threat of taunts and the percentage chance for taunts to critical. I imagine we'll also start seeing tank gear, either new or revamped, which has additional threat bonuses tied to it, instead of increases in double attacks or critical hits (e.g.: +2 to base threat, +3 to critical threat, +50 threat, etc.)</p>

[Matia]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p></blockquote><p><strong>Once GU51 hits, the only parse for tanks (particularly plate tanks) that will matter is TPS, threat-per-second. That's it. They're going to be there to hold aggro and control the encounter, and that's it.</strong> The era of offensive tanking and high DPS is coming to a close with this update; if you're a fighter who wants to parse high, then you're going to have to be in your offensive stance, and that means you're going to be near the bottom of the threat list for the mob. Ironically, in offensive stance, fighters now have some of the best detaunts in the game (e.g.: Rescue will shed something like 12K hate and lower your threat position by 4). Although they've otherwise been nerfed heavily, the only plate tank I can think of that could really "stance dance" effectively is the Paladin, because Holy Ground + Restitution gives them the snap aggro that would be needed to (nearly) instantly put them back at the top of the hate list.</p><p>And, as another poster pointed out, in this new paradigm, tank auto-attack damage -- which used to be significant, and a critical part of generating enough hate through DPS -- is now a small minority of the overall threat generation. The great bulk of their threat is going to be generated through taunts and CAs which generate additional threat, not through the damage itself. Abilities which are going to be important for tanks will no longer revolve around damage output, but in things like increasing the base threat of taunts and the percentage chance for taunts to critical. I imagine we'll also start seeing tank gear, either new or revamped, which has additional threat bonuses tied to it, instead of increases in double attacks or critical hits (e.g.: +2 to base threat, +3 to critical threat, +50 threat, etc.)</p></blockquote><p>So in the future, the fighters will be valued less for how they fight, and more for how well they control their "neenerneener" ability.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Matia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So in the future, the fighters will be valued less for how they fight, and more for how well they control their "neenerneener" ability.</p></blockquote><p>For tanks, yes. A tank will be a tank because of the damage they can take and the threat they generate, not the damage that they inflict. That's not to say a fighter class can't take a DPS role, they can. But it will be in offensive stance, and in that stance they have no real chance to hold aggro against any T1 DPS class because not only are their taunts turned into detaunts, many of their CAs will have a detaunt component to them (e.g.: high damage attacks with threat reducers tied to them, somewhat like scouts).</p><p>With GU51, a fighter can either be a meatshield or T2 DPS. They can't be both.</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Matia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p></blockquote><p><strong>Once GU51 hits, the only parse for tanks (particularly plate tanks) that will matter is TPS, threat-per-second. That's it. They're going to be there to hold aggro and control the encounter, and that's it.</strong> The era of offensive tanking and high DPS is coming to a close with this update; if you're a fighter who wants to parse high, then you're going to have to be in your offensive stance, and that means you're going to be near the bottom of the threat list for the mob. Ironically, in offensive stance, fighters now have some of the best detaunts in the game (e.g.: Rescue will shed something like 12K hate and lower your threat position by 4). Although they've otherwise been nerfed heavily, the only plate tank I can think of that could really "stance dance" effectively is the Paladin, because Holy Ground + Restitution gives them the snap aggro that would be needed to (nearly) instantly put them back at the top of the hate list.</p><p>And, as another poster pointed out, in this new paradigm, tank auto-attack damage -- which used to be significant, and a critical part of generating enough hate through DPS -- is now a small minority of the overall threat generation. The great bulk of their threat is going to be generated through taunts and CAs which generate additional threat, not through the damage itself. Abilities which are going to be important for tanks will no longer revolve around damage output, but in things like increasing the base threat of taunts and the percentage chance for taunts to critical. I imagine we'll also start seeing tank gear, either new or revamped, which has additional threat bonuses tied to it, instead of increases in double attacks or critical hits (e.g.: +2 to base threat, +3 to critical threat, +50 threat, etc.)</p></blockquote><p>So in the future, the fighters will be valued less for how they fight, and more for how well they control their "neenerneener" ability.</p></blockquote><p>/almost spits her tea on her kb and monitor</p><p>Omg, I'm going to have to make a macro now for all Pheep's taunts saying that!</p><p><em><strong>Thank you</strong></em> for the much needed laugh!</p>

[Azurro]

<p>I think the original poster was touching on a interesting point.  The developers say they want tanks to be personally responsibly for their own hate but they have never said why they think this very social aspect of the game (after all agro isn’t a issue when you solo) is being shifted so heavily onto the shoulders of the tanks.  To me agro control should be a shared responsibility between all members of the group with skill working together being rewarded by better results.  Maybe click and forget agro transfers are not the best way to accomplish this but it seems like this update swings the pendulum completely to the other side of the spectrum and puts agro control way to much in the hands of tanks and takes the responsibility out of the hands of the other group members.</p>

[Sharakari]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p></blockquote><p>Once GU51 hits, the only parse for tanks (particularly plate tanks) that will matter is TPS, threat-per-second. That's it. They're going to be there to hold aggro and control the encounter, and that's it. The era of offensive tanking and high DPS is coming to a close with this update; if you're a fighter who wants to parse high, then you're going to have to be in your offensive stance, and that means you're going to be near the bottom of the threat list for the mob. Ironically, in offensive stance, fighters now have some of the best detaunts in the game (e.g.: Rescue will shed something like 12K hate and lower your threat position by 4). Although they've otherwise been nerfed heavily, the only plate tank I can think of that could really "stance dance" effectively is the Paladin, because Holy Ground + Restitution gives them the snap aggro that would be needed to (nearly) instantly put them back at the top of the hate list.</p><p>And, as another poster pointed out, in this new paradigm, tank auto-attack damage -- which used to be significant, and a critical part of generating enough hate through DPS -- is now a small minority of the overall threat generation. The great bulk of their threat is going to be generated through taunts and CAs which generate additional threat, not through the damage itself. Abilities which are going to be important for tanks will no longer revolve around damage output, but in things like increasing the base threat of taunts and the percentage chance for taunts to critical. I imagine we'll also start seeing tank gear, either new or revamped, which has additional threat bonuses tied to it, instead of increases in double attacks or critical hits (e.g.: +2 to base threat, +3 to critical threat, +50 threat, etc.)</p></blockquote><p>Excuse a healer for trying to understand all this, but didn't the term "tank" refer to somone the mob could beat on while he controlled the encouter thus letting others do the damage?  When did "tanks" start thinking their job was to top the DPS parse?  If what Kordran summarizes is in fact how things will be, is this a bad thing?  I mean, from this healers standpoint, I would think that Defensive Stance would be needed to hold aggro and control the encounter while the Offensive stance allows you to DPS at the risk of losing aggro.  Sounds right to me!  Plus, the better the tank holds aggro, the less spot healing I have to do when folks rip aggro and then get their arrse handed to them by the mob!</p><p>I'm not trying to de-imphasize folks concerns..... I'm merely trying to understand those tanks who complain their DPS is getting killed.  If you wanna do DPS, roll a Wizard or something.  If you want to be the most relied on person in the raid/group to control the encounter, well it sounds like things are actually improving for you.</p><p>For the sake of all the folks that think they are getting the shaft, I hope you get used to the changes and find playing the game still enjoyable.  If it wasn't for tanks, we'd never get through instances or raid zones!  At least I wouldn't! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p></blockquote><p>Once GU51 hits, the only parse for tanks (particularly plate tanks) that will matter is TPS, threat-per-second. That's it. They're going to be there to hold aggro and control the encounter, and that's it. The era of offensive tanking and high DPS is coming to a close with this update; if you're a fighter who wants to parse high, then you're going to have to be in your offensive stance, and that means you're going to be near the bottom of the threat list for the mob. Ironically, in offensive stance, fighters now have some of the best detaunts in the game (e.g.: Rescue will shed something like 12K hate and lower your threat position by 4). Although they've otherwise been nerfed heavily, the only plate tank I can think of that could really "stance dance" effectively is the Paladin, because Holy Ground + Restitution gives them the snap aggro that would be needed to (nearly) instantly put them back at the top of the hate list.</p><p>And, as another poster pointed out, in this new paradigm, tank auto-attack damage -- which used to be significant, and a critical part of generating enough hate through DPS -- is now a small minority of the overall threat generation. The great bulk of their threat is going to be generated through taunts and CAs which generate additional threat, not through the damage itself. Abilities which are going to be important for tanks will no longer revolve around damage output, but in things like increasing the base threat of taunts and the percentage chance for taunts to critical. I imagine we'll also start seeing tank gear, either new or revamped, which has additional threat bonuses tied to it, instead of increases in double attacks or critical hits (e.g.: +2 to base threat, +3 to critical threat, +50 threat, etc.)</p></blockquote><p>Excuse a healer for trying to understand all this, but didn't the term "tank" refer to somone the mob could beat on while he controlled the encouter thus letting others do the damage?  When did "tanks" start thinking their job was to top the DPS parse?  If what Kordran summarizes is in fact how things will be, is this a bad thing?  I mean, from this healers standpoint, I would think that Defensive Stance would be needed to hold aggro and control the encounter while the Offensive stance allows you to DPS at the risk of losing aggro.  Sounds right to me!  Plus, the better the tank holds aggro, the less spot healing I have to do when folks rip aggro and then get their arrse handed to them by the mob!</p><p>I'm not trying to de-imphasize folks concerns..... I'm merely trying to understand those tanks who complain their DPS is getting killed.  If you wanna do DPS, roll a Wizard or something.  If you want to be the most relied on person in the raid/group to control the encounter, well it sounds like things are actually improving for you.</p><p>For the sake of all the folks that think they are getting the shaft, I hope you get used to the changes and find playing the game still enjoyable.  If it wasn't for tanks, we'd never get through instances or raid zones!  At least I wouldn't! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>For me, I'm the primary damage dealer when I duo with my husband's Warden.  There are also times when I trio with another healer, a Temp, to help her get questing done.  Other times it's a Warlock or Wiz.  But for the most part, the majority of grouping is duo with a healer.</p><p>That's why I'm giving the suggestion time and time again about the threat abilities in off stance not be made into the flip side dethreats but to give threat abilities a hit to threat overall.  Like -40 to -50%.  They can still be used in off stance, but the fighter has to really lean on the threat abilities to keep the threat on them.  Sure, damage can be used to do that as well in off stance, but it seems to me that the threat would still override the dps.</p><p>When I do instances, it's a given that I'll be in def stance.  I'm with others who do the damage, survivability is my concern then.</p><p>I'm not wanting to be top of the parse.  I just want to be able to do my job as primary damage in a duo.</p>

[RafaelSmith]

<p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p></blockquote><p>Once GU51 hits, the only parse for tanks (particularly plate tanks) that will matter is TPS, threat-per-second. That's it. They're going to be there to hold aggro and control the encounter, and that's it. The era of offensive tanking and high DPS is coming to a close with this update; if you're a fighter who wants to parse high, then you're going to have to be in your offensive stance, and that means you're going to be near the bottom of the threat list for the mob. Ironically, in offensive stance, fighters now have some of the best detaunts in the game (e.g.: Rescue will shed something like 12K hate and lower your threat position by 4). Although they've otherwise been nerfed heavily, the only plate tank I can think of that could really "stance dance" effectively is the Paladin, because Holy Ground + Restitution gives them the snap aggro that would be needed to (nearly) instantly put them back at the top of the hate list.</p><p>And, as another poster pointed out, in this new paradigm, tank auto-attack damage -- which used to be significant, and a critical part of generating enough hate through DPS -- is now a small minority of the overall threat generation. The great bulk of their threat is going to be generated through taunts and CAs which generate additional threat, not through the damage itself. Abilities which are going to be important for tanks will no longer revolve around damage output, but in things like increasing the base threat of taunts and the percentage chance for taunts to critical. I imagine we'll also start seeing tank gear, either new or revamped, which has additional threat bonuses tied to it, instead of increases in double attacks or critical hits (e.g.: +2 to base threat, +3 to critical threat, +50 threat, etc.)</p></blockquote><p>Excuse a healer for trying to understand all this, but didn't the term "tank" refer to somone the mob could beat on while he controlled the encouter thus letting others do the damage? When did "tanks" start thinking their job was to top the DPS parse? If what Kordran summarizes is in fact how things will be, is this a bad thing? I mean, from this healers standpoint, I would think that Defensive Stance would be needed to hold aggro and control the encounter while the Offensive stance allows you to DPS at the risk of losing aggro. Sounds right to me! Plus, the better the tank holds aggro, the less spot healing I have to do when folks rip aggro and then get their arrse handed to them by the mob!</p><p>I'm not trying to de-imphasize folks concerns..... I'm merely trying to understand those tanks who complain their DPS is getting killed. If you wanna do DPS, roll a Wizard or something. If you want to be the most relied on person in the raid/group to control the encounter, well it sounds like things are actually improving for you.</p><p>For the sake of all the folks that think they are getting the shaft, I hope you get used to the changes and find playing the game still enjoyable. If it wasn't for tanks, we'd never get through instances or raid zones! At least I wouldn't! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>In general I agree.....I rolled a tank to do just that..tank...could care less what my DPS is.</p><p>What they are doing with GU51 is too much.  I would much rather that they achieve the nerfing of fighter DPS differently than by taking away our options of which buffs and stances to use.   TSO is filled with content where I do not need the defensive bonuses of being in D-stance....but now I will be forced to use D-stance because I need it to hold aggro. </p><p>I would much rather they impose a massive penalty to the DMG I take. when in O-stance but still let me choose if I want to tank in O-stance..  Let the healers and myself decide if its working or not.    Hell, instead of turning +threat into de-threat when in O-stance...ide rather they turn my plate armor into leather armor. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Limiting our options is a bad thing.  I am fine with having crap DPS...When GU#51 goes live...I will remove my O-stance from my hotbars....honestly I will never have a reason to use it...it is counter to my one and only role.</p>

[Wilin]

<p>The concept is not a problem for me. I'd prefer things to stay where they were, but that's fine. Tanks don't have to think as much anymore about balancing stances vs. buffs vs. encounter challenge.</p><p>Just please get it right. I should be holding aggro on an orangex4 just as well now in dstance as I could in ostance before. I don't care if I'm doing 1K DPS as long as I'm doing the 7-8K TPS that I used to do.</p>

[Sharakari]

<p><cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p></blockquote><p>Once GU51 hits, the only parse for tanks (particularly plate tanks) that will matter is TPS, threat-per-second. That's it. They're going to be there to hold aggro and control the encounter, and that's it. The era of offensive tanking and high DPS is coming to a close with this update; if you're a fighter who wants to parse high, then you're going to have to be in your offensive stance, and that means you're going to be near the bottom of the threat list for the mob. Ironically, in offensive stance, fighters now have some of the best detaunts in the game (e.g.: Rescue will shed something like 12K hate and lower your threat position by 4). Although they've otherwise been nerfed heavily, the only plate tank I can think of that could really "stance dance" effectively is the Paladin, because Holy Ground + Restitution gives them the snap aggro that would be needed to (nearly) instantly put them back at the top of the hate list.</p><p>And, as another poster pointed out, in this new paradigm, tank auto-attack damage -- which used to be significant, and a critical part of generating enough hate through DPS -- is now a small minority of the overall threat generation. The great bulk of their threat is going to be generated through taunts and CAs which generate additional threat, not through the damage itself. Abilities which are going to be important for tanks will no longer revolve around damage output, but in things like increasing the base threat of taunts and the percentage chance for taunts to critical. I imagine we'll also start seeing tank gear, either new or revamped, which has additional threat bonuses tied to it, instead of increases in double attacks or critical hits (e.g.: +2 to base threat, +3 to critical threat, +50 threat, etc.)</p></blockquote><p>Excuse a healer for trying to understand all this, but didn't the term "tank" refer to somone the mob could beat on while he controlled the encouter thus letting others do the damage? When did "tanks" start thinking their job was to top the DPS parse? If what Kordran summarizes is in fact how things will be, is this a bad thing? I mean, from this healers standpoint, I would think that Defensive Stance would be needed to hold aggro and control the encounter while the Offensive stance allows you to DPS at the risk of losing aggro. Sounds right to me! Plus, the better the tank holds aggro, the less spot healing I have to do when folks rip aggro and then get their arrse handed to them by the mob!</p><p>I'm not trying to de-imphasize folks concerns..... I'm merely trying to understand those tanks who complain their DPS is getting killed. If you wanna do DPS, roll a Wizard or something. If you want to be the most relied on person in the raid/group to control the encounter, well it sounds like things are actually improving for you.</p><p>For the sake of all the folks that think they are getting the shaft, I hope you get used to the changes and find playing the game still enjoyable. If it wasn't for tanks, we'd never get through instances or raid zones! At least I wouldn't! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>In general I agree.....I rolled a tank to do just that..tank...could care less what my DPS is.</p><p>What they are doing with GU51 is too much.  I would much rather that they achieve the nerfing of fighter DPS differently than by taking away our options of which buffs and stances to use.   TSO is filled with content where I do not need the defensive bonuses of being in D-stance....but now I will be forced to use D-stance because I need it to hold aggro. </p><p>I would much rather they impose a massive penalty to the DMG I take. when in O-stance but still let me choose if I want to tank in O-stance..  Let the healers and myself decide if its working or not.    Hell, instead of turning +threat into de-threat when in O-stance...ide rather they turn my plate armor into leather armor. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Limiting our options is a bad thing.  I am fine with having crap DPS...When GU#51 goes live...I will remove my O-stance from my hotbars....honestly I will never have a reason to use it...it is counter to my one and only role.</p></blockquote><p>So this might be a dumb question, but do you HAVE to be in either stance?  Can you not use D or O stance and rely on hate transfers and de-aggros?  Or are they being changed too much as well?</p><p>As to Pheep's and her duo'ing issue, I see your point.  Guess you better get that Warden a melee DPS spec! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p>

[RafaelSmith]

<p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think more so AFTER changes than before the tanks who dont use skill to time auto attacks and have a solid casting order will stick out like a sore thumb on any parses, regardless of hate or not.</p></blockquote><p>Once GU51 hits, the only parse for tanks (particularly plate tanks) that will matter is TPS, threat-per-second. That's it. They're going to be there to hold aggro and control the encounter, and that's it. The era of offensive tanking and high DPS is coming to a close with this update; if you're a fighter who wants to parse high, then you're going to have to be in your offensive stance, and that means you're going to be near the bottom of the threat list for the mob. Ironically, in offensive stance, fighters now have some of the best detaunts in the game (e.g.: Rescue will shed something like 12K hate and lower your threat position by 4). Although they've otherwise been nerfed heavily, the only plate tank I can think of that could really "stance dance" effectively is the Paladin, because Holy Ground + Restitution gives them the snap aggro that would be needed to (nearly) instantly put them back at the top of the hate list.</p><p>And, as another poster pointed out, in this new paradigm, tank auto-attack damage -- which used to be significant, and a critical part of generating enough hate through DPS -- is now a small minority of the overall threat generation. The great bulk of their threat is going to be generated through taunts and CAs which generate additional threat, not through the damage itself. Abilities which are going to be important for tanks will no longer revolve around damage output, but in things like increasing the base threat of taunts and the percentage chance for taunts to critical. I imagine we'll also start seeing tank gear, either new or revamped, which has additional threat bonuses tied to it, instead of increases in double attacks or critical hits (e.g.: +2 to base threat, +3 to critical threat, +50 threat, etc.)</p></blockquote><p>Excuse a healer for trying to understand all this, but didn't the term "tank" refer to somone the mob could beat on while he controlled the encouter thus letting others do the damage? When did "tanks" start thinking their job was to top the DPS parse? If what Kordran summarizes is in fact how things will be, is this a bad thing? I mean, from this healers standpoint, I would think that Defensive Stance would be needed to hold aggro and control the encounter while the Offensive stance allows you to DPS at the risk of losing aggro. Sounds right to me! Plus, the better the tank holds aggro, the less spot healing I have to do when folks rip aggro and then get their arrse handed to them by the mob!</p><p>I'm not trying to de-imphasize folks concerns..... I'm merely trying to understand those tanks who complain their DPS is getting killed. If you wanna do DPS, roll a Wizard or something. If you want to be the most relied on person in the raid/group to control the encounter, well it sounds like things are actually improving for you.</p><p>For the sake of all the folks that think they are getting the shaft, I hope you get used to the changes and find playing the game still enjoyable. If it wasn't for tanks, we'd never get through instances or raid zones! At least I wouldn't! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>In general I agree.....I rolled a tank to do just that..tank...could care less what my DPS is.</p><p>What they are doing with GU51 is too much. I would much rather that they achieve the nerfing of fighter DPS differently than by taking away our options of which buffs and stances to use. TSO is filled with content where I do not need the defensive bonuses of being in D-stance....but now I will be forced to use D-stance because I need it to hold aggro.</p><p>I would much rather they impose a massive penalty to the DMG I take. when in O-stance but still let me choose if I want to tank in O-stance.. Let the healers and myself decide if its working or not. Hell, instead of turning +threat into de-threat when in O-stance...ide rather they turn my plate armor into leather armor. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Limiting our options is a bad thing. I am fine with having crap DPS...When GU#51 goes live...I will remove my O-stance from my hotbars....honestly I will never have a reason to use it...it is counter to my one and only role.</p></blockquote><p>So this might be a dumb question, but do you HAVE to be in either stance? Can you not use D or O stance and rely on hate transfers and de-aggros? Or are they being changed too much as well?</p><p>As to Pheep's and her duo'ing issue, I see your point. Guess you better get that Warden a melee DPS spec! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Not sure about no-stance....they are merging my STA buff and my Hold-The-Line buffs into stances so if I were to go in "no-stance" I would be without those buffs. I think the merging of buffs is bad idea. </p><p>They are putting too many eggs into single baskets (stances) which removes no-stance as a viable option.</p><p>I am fine with the overall approach they are wanting to take...just do not agree with how they are implementing it.</p><p>This is all pretty silly considering the last time I parsed my DPS when using O-stance to tank...it was just slightly less pathetic than when in D-stance.  The only fighters I see doing what I would say is inappropriate DPS while tanking are the SKs...but even then...its only if they are well geared, mastered out and properly speced for maximizing DPS while tanking.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So this might be a dumb question, but do you HAVE to be in either stance? Can you not use D or O stance and rely on hate transfers and de-aggros? Or are they being changed too much as well?</p><p>As to Pheep's and her duo'ing issue, I see your point. Guess you better get that Warden a melee DPS spec! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>If you go without either stance, you're basically mired in mediocrity. It might be the best option for duoing with another low DPS class, but because the spells that would do things like proc additional damage, buff you, etc. are now tied to the stances it means you're sacrificing a lot. You'll do marginally more DPS with no stance than you would in defensive, but substantially less than if you're in offensive. For example, a fighter that's putting out around 3K in offensive stance could generally expect to put out about 1K in defensive, 1.5K if no stance is being used. Those are approximations of course, but you get the idea.</p>

[Sharakari]

<p>(quotes were getting out of control)</p><p>Ah... now I can see the issue with rolling the buffs into stances.  So you really HAVE to be in some stance.</p><p>Well, all I can say is misery loves company and around GU53, you guys will be able to sit back and laugh at the healers complaining about their rebalance! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Graywindnz]

I know that the brawlers have a halfway stance which is a mix of the def and offence stances, could all the other fighters get something similar? Stance: Bruising (Bruiser lvl71) Stance: Arachnid Stance (Monk lvl71)

[denmom]

<p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So this might be a dumb question, but do you HAVE to be in either stance?  Can you not use D or O stance and rely on hate transfers and de-aggros?  Or are they being changed too much as well?</p><p>As to Pheep's and her duo'ing issue, I see your point.  Guess you better get that Warden a melee DPS spec! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Running with no stance is worse, imho.  Still have the taunts but damage is down as if in def stance.  Not to mention the stat buffs lost and other items.</p><p>As for the melee spec, an idea but no.  No, I'm not one who says that healers should <em><strong>only</strong></em> heal.  I know for a fact that Wardens can cast.  And I have run melee spec on my own Warden.  We just don't care for it.</p><p>I understand altering how one plays due to game changes...but changes that ruin one person's gameplay yet enhance another's is bad design, imho.  Everyone's supposed to have fun, not just a few.</p><p>Edited to clarify a little more.</p>

[Lethe5683]

<p><cite>DngrMouse wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Geothe wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>OK, I understand now -- you confused me by saying "shadows LINE", which caused me to think you were talking about something from TSO.</p><p>I'm still confused as to why the Swashy spell is something we have to re-cast, while the Assassin spell appears to remain a "set it & forget it" hate transfer, which IMO is easy mode.</p></blockquote><p>Assassins have a set it and forget it transfer?No they dont have a transfer what so ever.Assassins now have a deagro proc.You (Swashie [and Brigs]) already ready have essentially the exact same buff, and have had it for years.The new Assassin deagro is basically the same as the Rogue Befuddle line, although with a slightly higher proc rate or deagro amount. And frankly, seeing a Swashie complain about deagro ability equality is absolutely hilarious in and of its self.Swashies have had the passive deagro abilities of Assassins and Brigands combined for years!  (The Hate Transfer (equal to assassin) and Befuddle line (equal to Brigands)).Even now, you have the same passive deagro (Befuddle line) as both Assassins and Brigs, but on top of it you still have a bonus in that you have the 3 trigger huge hate increase or decrease to any target.</p></blockquote><p>Yes, our hate control abilities were something unique among the scout classes.  It is no more.  And our 'huge' 3 trigger hate increase/decrease does less than half what our no-longer-a-signature-ability hate transer does. </p><p>For those in the know, how exactly does that hate decrease three trigger proc 'thing', (aka SoH Jr.), work?  If the healer in the group gets the attention of a mob...but is still targeting the tank, will it work?  Or will this require us to hunt around for the mob hitting the healer, targeting that mob, casting SoH Jr, smacking the mob enough times trigger the effect, then looking to the tank to get aggro back off us, (assuming it was enough to rip aggro from the healer), while the same spell is in 'cool down', and can't be used to help?</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #993366;">If the healers pull aggro long enough for you to do that then you should find a new tank.</span></p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>As for the melee spec, an idea but no.  No, I'm not one who says that healers should <em><strong>only</strong></em> heal.  I know for a fact that Wardens can cast.  And I have run melee spec on my own Warden.  We just don't care for it.</blockquote><p>If thats the case, the warden will be generating such a small amount of hate that you will be able to hold aggro off him in offensive stance, assuming you do not cast any taunts.</p><p>Learn to hold aggro with DPS only (possible against a healer, not against a DPS class), and the waden is there to heal up the extra damage you are taking from your off stance.</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>As for the melee spec, an idea but no.  No, I'm not one who says that healers should <em><strong>only</strong></em> heal.  I know for a fact that Wardens can cast.  And I have run melee spec on my own Warden.  We just don't care for it.</blockquote><p>If thats the case, the warden will be generating such a small amount of hate that you will be able to hold aggro off him in offensive stance, assuming you do not cast any taunts.</p><p>Learn to hold aggro with DPS only (possible against a healer, not against a DPS class), and the waden is there to heal up the extra damage you are taking from your off stance.</p></blockquote><p>Learn to hold?</p><p>Please don't turn this into a "L2P".   There's too much of that being thrown around, of how Paladins have to learn to fight no longer in "easy mode".  Everyone has to adjust to these new changes, all classes.</p><p>What we're finding is that the Warden can pull aggro with casting attacks off the Paladin, but can't with a Zerker.</p><p>I and Jrral (Zerker) have been mulling this over since we found this out over the weekend.  And what we've come up with is that the Zerker is producing faster hits than the Paladin does.  From what I know on my own Zerker mouse, the CAs fire off almost twice the speed that the Paladin CAs and spells do.  The more we test, the more this is looking to be the case.</p><p>The way it's looking, I do the stance tango, start with def then switch to off for damage when the mob is maybe a quarter down its health.  That or have the Warden wait a bit longer before casting.</p><p>Either way, it's still a learning process.</p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Excuse a healer for trying to understand all this, but didn't the term "tank" refer to somone the mob could beat on while he controlled the encouter thus letting others do the damage? When did "tanks" start thinking their job was to top the DPS parse?</p></blockquote><p>It's a matter of the type of group and tank. The main tank in a full group or raid is that way, they hold the mobs and stay alive while the DPS types kill. But there's another kind of tank: the off-tank. He's the guy in the group or raid who, when the respawn wanders up from behind and starts beating on the healer or mage, grabs the add and hauls it over for the MT to take care of. He's the guy who, if the MT loses control of one of the extra mobs in a multi-mob encounter, keeps it from heading for the leather and cloth wearers until the MT can switch targets and get it back. Most of the time the OT plays like a damage-dealer, so the group isn't completely down one DPS slot on the run, and when he's doing that he needs to concentrate on damage just like any other DPS type. But he also needs to be able to switch gears at a moment's notice and do a decent job of traditional tanking. He won't be as good at either as the MT or a true DPS class, but he needs to be good enough at both.</p><p>There's also the small-group situation, the duo or trio where you don't have the ideal make-up. If you've got 2 characters and one of them's a warden, <em>somebody</em> has to dish out the damage in addition to keeping the mobs from chewing on the leather-wearer. Sure the tank probably can't match a scout for DPS output, but against solo mobs you typically don't need 4K DPS to kill them reasonably quickly and you don't need the uber-tough defense that's so important tanking yellow triple-ups. And while their aggro control suffers from their concentrating more on damage, it's also easier to keep control against a single healer than it is with a passle of trigger-happy scouts and over-enthusiastic mages all vying to see who can get the most digits in their damage numbers.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Please don't turn this into a "L2P".</blockquote><p>"Learn to hold" as in you will need to use different abilities in a different manner to what you are used to doing. The class is having some changes, and those changes are probably most pronouced in a situation such as the one you detailed. You will need to relearn parts of the class, whether you like it or not.</p><p>Not everything is an attack...</p>

[Gisallo]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hate gain mod still affects agro generated by damage dealt if I'm not mistaken. So increasing the hate gain in my defensive stance by 8% does not make up the old difference since my damage has also been reduced by at least 30% if not more. And if I'm now supposed to hold agro without the massive transfers I used to have then I have even less agro generation. I know we still get hate gain mod buffed by other classes and I'm assuming it and taunt crit will start appearing on gear, but the damage mod in defensive just has to go.</p><p>PS I am refering to warriors, berserker specifically in my case</p><p>I've also found on test that holding agro is significantly more difficult and when duoing or trioing things it is much harder to kill since I do precious little damage anymore. I have /feedbacked agro issues. I must say I dont understand the agro reduction though. Plate tanks should be able to do low T2 dps if played and geared right...</p></blockquote><p>But we have also had the majority of our taunts increased as well, blood shower now has a hate proc, Insolence now does hate, damage and Hate positions and when Defensive stance procs you get more than just an extra 8% hate.</p><p>In terms of grouping it looks like it will work to be honest (skill and gear being equal).  The only thing we will have to wait and see is this.  DPS gets buffed bigtime in a raid depending on raid and group make up.  If they did not give aggro "buffs" enough ummph, then we could potentially see dps eclipseing aggro on the raid front.</p><p>As for your second issue well it looks like you were trying to tank in Offensive stance.  Its pretty clear they are saying "hey you can do good dps BUT you are not going to be tanking when you do so", so if you are duoing or trioing you need to decide "am I keeping aggro?" or "am I topping the parse?"  Well the powers have spoken and they have said we need to chose <shrug></p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Please don't turn this into a "L2P".</blockquote><p>"Learn to hold" as in you will need to use different abilities in a different manner to what you are used to doing. The class is having some changes, and those changes are probably most pronouced in a situation such as the one you detailed. You will need to relearn parts of the class, whether you like it or not.</p><p>Not everything is an attack...</p></blockquote><p>Yeah, but paladins don't have it nearly as easy as say a 'zerker. Everything I do is a short-cast melee attack, lots of stuff I can generate aggro with that doesn't need debuffing. A paladin has their crucial divine-mitigation debuff turned into a major dethreat, and without that debuff their damage doesn't do nearly as much by way of aggro generation as my 'zerker's CAs do. Combine that with half a pally's "CAs" being longer-cast-time spells instead of melee attacks and I can see in the parses why aggro gets twitchy. It'd be easy enough to compensate for with a taunt or two, but they've <em>got</em> no real taunts in offensive mode.</p><p>Sure, the pally can switch to defensive. But in a duo the pally's also the primary damage (a warden isn't going to be the major damage dealer) and defensive mode kills their DPS output. Not an attractive thing when the whole point of pairing up is to make it less of a slow slog to kill the mobs with lowish damage output.</p>

[Noaani]

<p>Your overestimating the hate a healer generates if they are not DPSing.</p><p>Even in Off stance, auto attack will hold aggro off a healer that is only healing, when the incoming damage is that of a solo mob. Anything more than that is a bonus.</p>

[forge32]

<p>Hate is the responsibility of tanks yes, however one thing one huge thing alot of people i see fail to realize is it is also the responsibility of every other person in group/raid to not pull hate off the mt.</p><p>Soe is putting in a hate meter omg the sky is falling.If soe kept everything in live ,and just added in the hate meter id be pretty upset as well saying there dumming down the game.However  they changed the mechanics to the game now to be back like it was when the game came out so it makes sense to have the hate meter in hopes people use it.However what i see in alot of threads and hear in game is alot of people saying  you know what im gonna do when this goes live /hatemeteroff.These people i seriously hope eventually learn how to play becuase it is not just the tanks responsibility as it is every one elses to not pull the agro.</p><p> Back when  most tanks only did max 2  to 2,5 k dps If you  did something dumb to pull agro of the tank when eq2 came out you died, and it was your own fualt.Act did nothing but destroy the concept of manageing your character through skill to stay alive, and not pull agro off the tank.Which that as well did nothing but cause tanks to get extremely frustrated, redfaced after hearing omg tuant when tuants where used ,and it was obviously the fualt of the  stupid wizard/warlock casting fusion ,or manaburn on inc or what ever big  nuke they had in hope to get it off a secound time before mob dead.</p><p>The concept of i need to be top on the parser regardless how many times i die does not help your raid/group progress in fact it actually hurts the raid/group ,and cuases wipes many times becuase 9 x out of 10 the mob had been peeled off mt dropping him down low on hate list 2 others be dead by time he got it back, or the healers have now been stunned becuase the mob turned, or the mob turned ,and just did a huge aoe frontal that kills half the raid.</p><p>You guys who keep saying learn to play or learn to tuant, as well need to learn how to not pull agro in the first place it is not just the tanks responsibility.If you are too stubbern to realize this then yes these changes may be the end of eq2.So infact others will have to learn there classes again wether they as well like it or not to not pull agro off the tank.</p><p>I dont like alot of these changes as well becuase i know from experience since this game was released just how stubbern people are with omg i need to top the parse with out careing about the chance of pulling agro off the mt ,and wipeing the raid/group.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Gisallo@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hate gain mod still affects agro generated by damage dealt if I'm not mistaken. So increasing the hate gain in my defensive stance by 8% does not make up the old difference since my damage has also been reduced by at least 30% if not more. And if I'm now supposed to hold agro without the massive transfers I used to have then I have even less agro generation. I know we still get hate gain mod buffed by other classes and I'm assuming it and taunt crit will start appearing on gear, but the damage mod in defensive just has to go.</p><p>PS I am refering to warriors, berserker specifically in my case</p><p>I've also found on test that holding agro is significantly more difficult and when duoing or trioing things it is much harder to kill since I do precious little damage anymore. I have /feedbacked agro issues. I must say I dont understand the agro reduction though. Plate tanks should be able to do low T2 dps if played and geared right...</p></blockquote><p>But we have also had the majority of our taunts increased as well, blood shower now has a hate proc, Insolence now does hate, damage and Hate positions and when Defensive stance procs you get more than just an extra 8% hate.</p><p>In terms of grouping it looks like it will work to be honest (skill and gear being equal).  The only thing we will have to wait and see is this.  DPS gets buffed bigtime in a raid depending on raid and group make up.  If they did not give aggro "buffs" enough ummph, then we could potentially see dps eclipseing aggro on the raid front.</p><p>As for your second issue well it looks like you were trying to tank in Offensive stance.  Its pretty clear they are saying "hey you can do good dps BUT you are not going to be tanking when you do so", so if you are duoing or trioing you need to decide "am I keeping aggro?" or "am I topping the parse?"  Well the powers have spoken and they have said we need to chose</p></blockquote><p>Yea I've seen all the extra taunt, and I really wish I could get an exact group on both servers to compare, but with the groups I was in it just seems tougher.</p><p>Point 2: I was not in offensive. I tried defensive only sword and board, defensive only DW, and macroing between defensive and offensive (def anytime i was using something with taunt component) I dont think I was in offensive enough to gain much extra dps from it though.</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Your overestimating the hate a healer generates if they are not DPSing.</p><p>Even in Off stance, auto attack will hold aggro off a healer that is only healing, when the incoming damage is that of a solo mob. Anything more than that is a bonus.</p></blockquote><p>Do you play a Paladin?  Do you play a Warden?</p><p>I'm not being snarky.  I just want to know if you've the actual play experience of the two classes.</p><p>I do.  I have both, L80s.</p><p>I know for a fact that I can get enough aggro from healing and curing that won't get the mob off my Warden until the last few seconds when the mob is nearly dead.</p><p>And that may be true on live, but on Test Copy, the Warden was getting aggro off my Paladin while in off stance.  Def stance, not at all.  It was only on off stance.  The aggro bounced between us until it settled on the Warden.</p><p>Edited for clarification.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Your overestimating the hate a healer generates if they are not DPSing.</p><p>Even in Off stance, auto attack will hold aggro off a healer that is only healing, when the incoming damage is that of a solo mob. Anything more than that is a bonus.</p></blockquote><p>Do you play a Paladin?  Do you play a Warden?</p><p>I'm not being snarky.  I just want to know if you've the actual play experience of the two classes.</p><p>I do.  I have both, L80s.</p><p>I know for a fact that I can get enough aggro from healing and curing that won't get the mob off my Warden until it's nearly dead.</p><p>And that may be true on live, but on Test Copy, the Warden was getting aggro off my Paladin while in off stance.  Def stance, not at all.  It was only on off stance.  The aggro bounced between us until it settled on the Warden.</p></blockquote><p>Now I dont know how the warden and you set your specs up and all that...but I do know that wardens if they go melee can do VERY nice DPS. In the duo you got running it wouldnt be hard at all to go def and let the warden do a lot of DPS also.  With the melee heal proc and other toys they get coupled with the pally heals you could definatly duo some heroics like that if you felt like it, but solo mobs should fall before you in droves with little effort.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Do you play a Paladin?  Do you play a Warden?</blockquote><p>Yes I do.</p><p>This is really simple, as a warden, you are only able to heal as much damage as a mob is dealing to your tank. That damage that the solo mob is dealing is the limit to your aggro generation via healing.</p><p>Even with the increased damage from the off stance, the decreased threat and the lack of taunts, a paladin is able to hold aggro off of a non DPSing healer of any type while in off stance on test now.</p><p>I know this for a fact as I have tested it out first hand (with guardian, monk and paladin as tanks, warden, templar and mystic as healers).</p>

[Tash 1]

<p>I am a bit curious about this from a healer’s point of view.As a solo healer I have no problem ripping the aggro if I really want and since I really don’t want to get aggro I try to avoid that. But non the less I get aggro from time to time anyway.Its not that healers constant have aggro but when they spike out heals taking care of Aoes or healing through group mobs its really not rare to se a healer end up with aggro from one or more mobs.If the healer also want to deal some damage (and I really hope that healers still are allowed to contribute to damage in groups or duos) the hate issue probably can be a bit tricky.The thing I most curious about is how things will work out in Tank-Healer duos. I expect that if the Tank is in defensive he hold aggro and manage damage input really fine. But the DPS of the duo would be feeble and it would probably take long time to kill mobs.If on the other hand the tank go offensive he get detaunts instead of taunts. He take loads more damage and the healer end up with the aggro.So will this be a problem with the new system and must healers spec for DPS for tanks in defensive or spec for Tanking with Tanks in offensive.  Or is its better with Scout-Healer duos instead since Scouts will be able to keep aggro in offensive stance while tanks cant?I am very curios and would very much appreciate any inputs in this./Hugs Tash</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Tashiana@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I am a bit curious about this from a healer’s point of view.As a solo healer I have no problem ripping the aggro if I really want and since I really don’t want to get aggro I try to avoid that. But non the less I get aggro from time to time anyway.Its not that healers constant have aggro but when they spike out heals taking care of Aoes or healing through group mobs its really not rare to se a healer end up with aggro from one or more mobs.If the healer also want to deal some damage (and I really hope that healers still are allowed to contribute to damage in groups or duos) the hate issue probably can be a bit tricky.The thing I most curious about is how things will work out in Tank-Healer duos. I expect that if the Tank is in defensive he hold aggro and manage damage input really fine. But the DPS of the duo would be feeble and it would probably take long time to kill mobs.If on the other hand the tank go offensive he get detaunts instead of taunts. He take loads more damage and the healer end up with the aggro.So will this be a problem with the new system and must healers spec for DPS for tanks in defensive or spec for Tanking with Tanks in offensive.  Or is its better with Scout-Healer duos instead since Scouts will be able to keep aggro in offensive stance while tanks cant?I am very curios and would very much appreciate any inputs in this./Hugs Tash</p></blockquote><p>The only way a healer can have aggro in a group, assuming a half decient tank, is if there is a mob the tank has not generated any hate towards. This is common when adds are a factor, or when there are multiple encounters pulled, but should never happen any other time.</p><p>In a heroic instance, a solo healer will be healing ~750 - 900 heals per second. This is with keeping both the tank alive as well as group heals for AEs and the like. Since hate from heals is at an unknown ratio that is less than 1:1 (ie, 1 HP healed generates less than 1 point of hate), any DPS that is dealing 900+ DPS shoud have aggro over the healer. Since an average tank is able to pull 1.2 - 1.5k DPS in a heroic zone, and has taunts to top that off, there is no reason for a healer to pull aggro except on adds as mentioned above.</p>

[Illine]

<p><cite>Deekin@Venekor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The shadows line was their hate transfer line</p></blockquote><p>Are you saying Assassins never had a hate transfer line, prior to TSO? Because I'd swear I remember otherwise.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not saying they didn't.  I'm just merely pointing out that both scout hate transfer skills were changed and mentioned in the patch notes.  There is no conspiracy to hide any changes to the skills.</p></blockquote><p>OK, I understand now -- you confused me by saying "shadows LINE", which caused me to think you were talking about something from TSO.</p><p>I'm still confused as to why the Swashy spell is something we have to re-cast, while the Assassin spell appears to remain a "set it & forget it" hate transfer, which IMO is easy mode.</p></blockquote><p>Good point, interested to hear the answer to that question. </p><p>I do think the hate reduction on the swathy line needs to be more then the hate increase.  I also think we should be able to cast it on ourselves as well.  Currently its just macro'd in with my Swathe AoE that i toss ever minute anyway.  Kind of boring if you ask me, might as well just be a 3 times a minute trigger on a tank.  Coarse i would rather it be something i can cast and control, but make it a little more intersting and worth casting on someone besides the tank.</p></blockquote><p>you know how many classes have boring things to do? like my coercer having to check mana and cast manaflow. Having to rebuff the scouts that die by tanking aggro, be ready to cast thougt snap and before amnesia too .. knowing I will die and be obliged to rebuff myself and the raid again (around 12 buffs).</p><p>so yeah .. one "boring spell" is not hell. And in a way it's cool it gives you more utility than just a dps/debuffer.</p>

[Thanon]

<p>Thing is, EQ2 is not a game designed around duos. This is a game designed around a full-group mechanic at worst, and a raid group mechanics at best. How well a character performs solo or duo bears little/no relevance on the overall performance of the character in its primary setting: that of a group.</p><p>I understand the concerns. Believe me. I duo with my wife, who happens to play a templar, when we are questing. It's slow as molasses in winter. But I grin and bear it because I am primarily a grouper. I am in groups 95% of the time, running instances and tanking raids. How I perform in a solo/duo setting has little relevance for me.</p><p>But it's not just about me. It's about the overall balance of the game. I've played this game since the beginning. And right now it's so far out of whack that I haven't been enjoying my guardian in a group setting for the past couple of months. The more AA people get, the harder it is to hold aggro. It's gotten to the point now where I can't hold aggro without a dirge + coercer in my group. And that's just sad.</p><p>I ignore the L2Play comments from the "elitist" players. I've been tanking for a very long time now. The fact that I'm where I am today dictates that I do indeed know how to play my class. I've been raid tanking for nearly 6 years, successfully. I know the specs, I know the casting orders. I just fail to agree that a Guardian/tank should need to DPS to do his job. It's always been supposed to be about the taunts, and only in the latest months of the game (ROK - TSO) that you have been unable to do so without needing to spec for damage or spec buckler (which was the stupidest thing in the world IMO)</p><p>Someone else here said it the truest, and it's something I've been complaining about for a couple of years. The ACT generation of players. You know the ones. They spam parse in group chat every third mob, bragging about what position they hold. The skill side of things went out the window a few years ago. All that matters anymore is he who can parse the highest = pwnz. Anyone who can't top parse = teh suck.</p><p>If I wanted to parse I'd have rolled an Assassin. I didn't. I rolled a guardian. A long time ago. And up until the freaking stupid buckler spec crap I always held aggro fine. Then all of a sudden in RoK it was a DPS game. If you didn't run buckler spec you didn't get groups. Now, if you can't parse 7k on your guardian, you suck, you don't get groups, and you need to l2play.</p><p>I'm a defensive tank. I'm specced full defensive. I don't use an AA mirror to change specs between raids and groups because I shouldn't have to. The AA mirror was a "patch" fix implemented by SoE while they worked on the larger issues of the game, which is class balance. One spec should cover all, period. They (SoE) know this. Which is why as tanks we are going to have to pick between two choices now: DPS, or Aggro. You choose. You can't have both. You are either a tank, soaking damage and using your taunts, or you are doing DPS.</p><p>The only tanks upset with the changes are the DPS spec tanks who come from the ACT/Parser generation of players who think that the only way to play is to top that parser. The veteran players, the old school guys like me who have been playing for 14ish years now, we understand how it needs to be, how it has been in the past, and why they (SoE) are making the changes they are. We love the changes. Because it's going to be the way it used to be, when tanks could hold aggro and scouts actually had to USE their de-taunts rather than relying on Amends or Dirge/Coercer hate to play the game for them.</p><p>It's going to be rough. Everyone is going to have to re-learn how to play their class. It's going to be the way it was at launch. Which means LOTS of scouts dying until they figure out that they can't rely on hate transfers anymore, that they will actually have to use their detaunts and *gasp* stop DPSing if they over-aggro. Players who can't manage their aggro will quickly find themselves unable to find a group with the top-notch players.</p><p>It's not just about the tank. It's about the scouts and mages learning how to curb their DPS. Sometimes you actually have to USE YOUR DETAUNTS, TURN OFF YOUR AUTO ATTACK AND STOP CASTING in order to let the tank get aggro back under control. There isn't going to be anymore uber-ez-mode Amends, or 65%+ hate buffs from coercer+dirge. Tanks will no longer be worried about DPS, they will be worrying about TPS. Tanks who fail to understand how TPS works will be unable to hold aggro. Tanks who remain stuck on the concept that DPS = aggro are the ones unable to do their job and crying how their class is broke.</p><p>It ain't broke. It's going back to the way it was originally, and how it was for the first few years of the game. Tanks taunt, they don't DPS. Scouts / mages DPS, but they aren't worried about topping the parser 100% of the time. They are worried about doing enough DPS to be viable, but not so much that they pull off the tank.</p><p>Get used to it boys and girls. We ain't in pre-school anymore. Time to graduate to the old-school way of things, where people actually have to pay attention and spec the way their classes were intended to be played.</p>

[Appollyon]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Do you play a Paladin?  Do you play a Warden?</blockquote><p>Yes I do.</p><p>This is really simple, as a warden, you are only able to heal as much damage as a mob is dealing to your tank. That damage that the solo mob is dealing is the limit to your aggro generation via healing.</p><p>Even with the increased damage from the off stance, the decreased threat and the lack of taunts, a paladin is able to hold aggro off of a non DPSing healer of any type while in off stance on test now.</p><p>I know this for a fact as I have tested it out first hand (with guardian, monk and paladin as tanks, warden, templar and mystic as healers).</p></blockquote><p>I am really interested in this because in offensive I am going to be taking more damage, procing a detaunt, threat gain reduced by 10% (1000dps only gives 900hps in off stance) and no taunt can be used as they turned into detaunts. I know monks have had hate added to our AoE CA (Full Moon), one of our regular CA's (Horse Kick), the INT line attack (Eagle Cry) and we now have an AA to Up base taunts and crit chance (Eagles Talon). I don't know who you are trying to kidd but if your killing anything above white solo mobs its not going to be to easy hold aggro in off stance. If you are infact holding aggro in off stance duoing with a healer I would love to see the logs, or at the very least explain how your getting around the negative hate proc and reduced hate gain and with the new taunts (less CA's = less DPS).</p><p>Now for Duoing I could see starting fights in a mix stanced (Bralwers) or no stance (Plate Tanks) to build hate and after a few taunts switching over to Offensive so you could put out more DPS. This might be a viable way to counter the detaunt proc and the negative hate gain. In all honesty I do belive the detaunt proc should be removed but keep the change of taunts to detaunts that would make tanking full group instances in offensive not the best option but allow people duoing to use Offensive in preist-tank duo's so its not a painfully slow process.</p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Thanon@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thing is, EQ2 is not a game designed around duos. This is a game designed around a full-group mechanic at worst, and a raid group mechanics at best. How well a character performs solo or duo bears little/no relevance on the overall performance of the character in its primary setting: that of a group.</p></blockquote><p>Only at the high end, instances and raids. The overland content (which is actually a majority of the questlines) is geared for solo play. Kunark is a good example, some of the quests are actually designed to be harder when running with a group and get harder the more people in the group (quest items that consume when people collect them, so while a solo player needs to gather 6 a duo needs 12 (only 6 spawn) and a full group needs 36). And a large portion of the casual players do a lot of running around in duos and trios (I see them every night, and a very setup is a healer of some sort running with a fighter for tanking/damage).</p><p>Sure you're not going to duo or trio if you're going into TSO instances. But very few people are going to get a full 6-man group together to go run Moors overland content either, and if SOE is trying to force that it's going to cost them a lot of customers who can't get 6 friends together on a regular basis, aren't inclined to spend the time and cat-herding effort involved in organizing a PUG for overland quests and have zero interest in paying good money to <em>not</em> be able to play the game.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Appollyon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I don't know who you are trying to kidd but if your killing anything above white solo mobs its not going to be to easy hold aggro in off stance.</blockquote><p>We are talking about holding aggro from a warden that is haling the damage done by a solo mob.</p><p>A solo mob on a plate tank should be dealing no more than 250 DPS (that is excessivly conservative, they deal less than that to my wizard). As such, the warden need only heal 250 heals per second. Even if we were to assume that 1 point of damage healed were to equal 1 point of hate (which we know its not, 1 point healed is less than 1 point of hate), and even if a paladin had a -50% hate gain effect on them, they only need to deal 501 DPS to hold aggro off of that warden. These are all level 80 numbers</p><p>If a level 80 paladin can not deal 750 DPS with auto attack alone, they need to rethink their gear selection.</p><p>How can this not be blatantly obvious to people?</p><p>If they were pulling 8 solo mobs then obviously the warden will be healing more, and probably pulling aggr and dying, but anyone expecting to tank more than 1 or 2 solo mobs in a duo and in off stance deserves to die (in game).</p>

[Tash 1]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If they were pulling 8 solo mobs then obviously the warden will be healing more, and probably pulling aggr and dying, but anyone expecting to tank more than 1 or 2 solo mobs in a duo and in off stance deserves to die (in game).</p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Since I can solo 1-4 solo mobs by myself it looks rather odd if a duo should not be able to take more than one or 2…. Im confused!</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">/Hugs Tash</span></span></span></p>

[Prrasha]

<p>So the last several pages of posts boil down to:</p><p>group 1) I think we should leave GU51 the way it is... tank/healer duos can just have the tank in defensive/no stance (and give up DPS that way), or tank in offensive and not use half their skills since they're now dethreats (and give up DPS that way).  Also, tanking with just autoattack (or autoattack and a small subset of combat arts) might not be fun, but it will work.</p><p>group 2) I think we should petition the devs to change GU51, to either un-merge the buffs (and put some "cancels while in defensive/offensive stance" switches on them) so no-stance tanking isn't such a DPS hit, or give plate tanks some sort of mid-stance so using that won't be such a DPS hit, or do something else so that a duo post-GU51 isn't measurably worse off than a duo pre-GU51.</p><p>What is it that group 1 thinks is <em>wrong</em> with the ideas from group 2?  I've seen no arguments other than "the devs have made changes, and there are workarounds."  What makes group 2's petitioned changes <em>bad</em> for the game?</p>

[lizard]

<p><cite>Thanon@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thing is, EQ2 is not a game designed around duos. This is a game designed around a full-group mechanic at worst, and a raid group mechanics at best. How well a character performs solo or duo bears little/no relevance on the overall performance of the character in its primary setting: that of a group.</p><p>I understand the concerns. Believe me. I duo with my wife, who happens to play a templar, when we are questing. It's slow as molasses in winter. But I grin and bear it because I am primarily a grouper. I am in groups 95% of the time, running instances and tanking raids. How I perform in a solo/duo setting has little relevance for me.</p></blockquote><p>That's fine.  You prefer to raid or do instances.  You're not alone.</p><p>Regardless of the intended mechanic, the reality of the game community is duos and trios.  You only need to stroll through any overland zone to see this for yourself, or read the chat channels.  When was the last time you saw an LFG or LFM call for overland content?  For reasons of their own, the majority of the player base assembles full groups ONLY when doing heroic content, usually "indoors."  And even then, when player ability allows it, people will take less than a full group into this content, as well.</p><p>The development team needs to understand that EQ2 does not belong to them.  From the first day people logged in and began playing, it has belonged to the players, because the players bring their own priorities and agendas to the game.  This is true of any creative effort.  The act of opening it to others changes the nature of the work.  Also, EQ2 is a commercial enterprise.  To remain viable, priority consideration needs to be given to what the majority of subscribers want, even at the expense of a designers' preferences.</p><p>Four years worth of empirical, anecdotal evidence shows that the preferred playstyle of the majority of the player base is less than a full group, less than a raid.  So the importance of keeping this playstyle viable should not be dismissed.</p>

[Azurro]

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">I don’t know why a duo should be automatically cut off from heroic content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Sure they might not be able to do the high end dungeons but what about pervious tier zones or even non named even con content if they are well enough equipped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I use to run near grey instances with a warden friend all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>We did it as much for the fun of it as anything else as for the most part the gear was no trade junk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It was slow and sometimes we died more then we should have but it was fun to break away from the stress of a high end zone or raids and just relax and amazingly enough ENJOY PLAYING THE GAME.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The point is the developers shouldn’t take a narrow vision of how people play this game and push the player base into that vision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>If they try that then all they will end up doing is driving people to other games that don’t.</span></p>

[lizard]

<p><cite>Azurro wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">I don’t know why a duo should be automatically cut off from heroic content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Sure they might not be able to do the high end dungeons but what about pervious tier zones or even non named even con content if they are well enough equipped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I use to run near grey instances with a warden friend all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>We did it as much for the fun of it as anything else as for the most part the gear was no trade junk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It was slow and sometimes we died more then we should have but it was fun to break away from the stress of a high end zone or raids and just relax and amazingly enough ENJOY PLAYING THE GAME.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The point is the developers shouldn’t take a narrow vision of how people play this game and push the player base into that vision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>If they try that then all they will end up doing is driving people to other games that don’t.</span></p></blockquote><p>QF bloody E.</p><p>And just to make sure this stays on topic...  The only 'wrong' playstyle is one which exploits bugs, griefs other players, or uses third-party software.  If the changes outlined in GU 51 hamper or prevent people from playing the way they want to, those changes need to be reviewed and reconsidered.</p>

[Oakum]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So this might be a dumb question, but do you HAVE to be in either stance?  Can you not use D or O stance and rely on hate transfers and de-aggros?  Or are they being changed too much as well?</p><p>As to Pheep's and her duo'ing issue, I see your point.  Guess you better get that Warden a melee DPS spec! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Running with no stance is worse, imho.  Still have the taunts but damage is down as if in def stance.  Not to mention the stat buffs lost and other items.</p><p>As for the melee spec, an idea but no.  No, I'm not one who says that healers should <em><strong>only</strong></em> heal.  I know for a fact that Wardens can cast.  And I have run melee spec on my own Warden.  We just don't care for it.</p><p>I understand altering how one plays due to game changes...but changes that ruin one person's gameplay yet enhance another's is bad design, imho.  Everyone's supposed to have fun, not just a few.</p><p>Edited to clarify a little more.</p></blockquote><p>I hope that "WE" you are talking about is you and your duo partner, because its definitely not all  wardens. Most wardens I know including myself love dpsing when healing is not required. We like being useful all the time and should be able to out dps any cleric or shaman (too bad its not true) in the same situation.</p><p>That is the druid secondary side after all. Druids trade the heavier armors like cleric and shaman have in order to do much more dps then them. Not to mention (apparently since its been that way  since LU-13 revamp) raid utility, tank buffs and, for wardens, group wide dps buffs.</p><p>I always look at it this way, if a person is sitting back doing nothing for any reason besides being afk, required by an encounter script, or as not to take aggro off a person tanking, they are not being helpful to the group.</p><p>If a healer is not needed to go all out healing, cleric and shaman should be casting temp buffs/debuffs and then dpsing if they have time inbetween that and heals, whether nuke or melee. If a druids healing is not required, they should be dpsing since we have no valuable temp buffs (with exception of certain rare named mobs) and our very small debuffs are tied to a DoT spell or CA.  </p><p>Same goes for tanks and utility, they should be at least autoattacking and casting ca's/spells if they are not required to be taunting, temp buffing, rezzing ect or otherwise using their main tank or utility abilities.</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Oakum wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So this might be a dumb question, but do you HAVE to be in either stance?  Can you not use D or O stance and rely on hate transfers and de-aggros?  Or are they being changed too much as well?</p><p>As to Pheep's and her duo'ing issue, I see your point.  Guess you better get that Warden a melee DPS spec! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Running with no stance is worse, imho.  Still have the taunts but damage is down as if in def stance.  Not to mention the stat buffs lost and other items.</p><p>As for the melee spec, an idea but no.  No, I'm not one who says that healers should <em><strong>only</strong></em> heal.  I know for a fact that Wardens can cast.  And I have run melee spec on my own Warden.  We just don't care for it.</p><p>I understand altering how one plays due to game changes...but changes that ruin one person's gameplay yet enhance another's is bad design, imho.  Everyone's supposed to have fun, not just a few.</p><p>Edited to clarify a little more.</p></blockquote><p>I hope that "WE" you are talking about is you and your duo partner, because its definitely not all  wardens.</p></blockquote><p>Yes, sorry about that, that "we" is for my husband and myself.</p><p>To clarify, we've tried the melee spec, we don't care for it.</p><p>We like the nuking instead.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Yes, sorry about that, that "we" is for my husband and myself.</p><p>To clarify, we've tried the melee spec, we don't care for it.</p><p>We like the nuking instead. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>This is OT, but if you prefer casting over melee, you should recally consider betraying that Warden to a Fury. A skilled Fury can solo heal even in some of the most difficult instances, <em>and</em> put out a fair amount of DPS as well. Competently geared and played, they can easily outparse any other priest class in the game.</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Yes, sorry about that, that "we" is for my husband and myself.</p><p>To clarify, we've tried the melee spec, we don't care for it.</p><p>We like the nuking instead. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>This is OT, but if you prefer casting over melee, you should recally consider betraying that Warden to a Fury. A skilled Fury can solo heal even in some of the most difficult instances, <em>and</em> put out a fair amount of DPS as well. Competently geared and played, they can easily outparse any other priest class in the game.</p></blockquote><p>And this is where we start getting into preferences.</p><p>I have played both types of Druids, and for what we do, the Warden's the best choice <em><strong>for our gameplay</strong></em>.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Yes, sorry about that, that "we" is for my husband and myself.</p><p>To clarify, we've tried the melee spec, we don't care for it.</p><p>We like the nuking instead. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>This is OT, but if you prefer casting over melee, you should recally consider betraying that Warden to a Fury. A skilled Fury can solo heal even in some of the most difficult instances, <em>and</em> put out a fair amount of DPS as well. Competently geared and played, they can easily outparse any other priest class in the game.</p></blockquote><p>And this is where we start getting into preferences.</p><p>I have played both types of Druids, and for what we do, the Warden's the best choice <em><strong>for our gameplay</strong></em>.</p></blockquote><p>Well if you like nuking over melee, and prefer a warden over a fury, and want to duo with a druid and a pally...you might have to deal with lower than normal DPS and use defensive stance and have very slow kill rates to hold aggro, or go stanceless.</p><p>It sucks I know, but there arent many ways to 'fix' the issues you have...and you have a very specific problem since you dont want to change or adapt anything about your duo.  Yours is the 1 in a million problem unfortunatly.</p><p>If you want to swap the warden to a melee spec...(and speaking as someone who has a warden also, they have so few AA choices that are worthwhile OUTSIDE of going melee, but thats neither here nor there) you will see MAJOR improvment. Or if you swap the warden to a fury for casting you would also see a big DPS increase.  Druids have really moved to a fury=caster, warden=melee style since EoF, and I have a feeling it will keep going that route for a while.</p><p>I wish I could come up with something positive to tell you, cause I know how much it sucks to have to change something you really love, but I cant think of anything.  I know this wont effect hardly any other players, but that doesnt help matters when its YOU thats being effected either.</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Yes, sorry about that, that "we" is for my husband and myself.</p><p>To clarify, we've tried the melee spec, we don't care for it.</p><p>We like the nuking instead. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>This is OT, but if you prefer casting over melee, you should recally consider betraying that Warden to a Fury. A skilled Fury can solo heal even in some of the most difficult instances, <em>and</em> put out a fair amount of DPS as well. Competently geared and played, they can easily outparse any other priest class in the game.</p></blockquote><p>And this is where we start getting into preferences.</p><p>I have played both types of Druids, and for what we do, the Warden's the best choice <em><strong>for our gameplay</strong></em>.</p></blockquote><p>Well if you like nuking over melee, and prefer a warden over a fury, and want to duo with a druid and a pally...you might have to deal with lower than normal DPS and use defensive stance and have very slow kill rates to hold aggro, or go stanceless.</p><p>It sucks I know, but there arent many ways to 'fix' the issues you have...and you have a very specific problem since you dont want to change or adapt anything about your duo.  Yours is the 1 in a million problem unfortunatly.</p><p>If you want to swap the warden to a melee spec...(and speaking as someone who has a warden also, they have so few AA choices that are worthwhile OUTSIDE of going melee, but thats neither here nor there) you will see MAJOR improvment. Or if you swap the warden to a fury for casting you would also see a big DPS increase.  Druids have really moved to a fury=caster, warden=melee style since EoF, and I have a feeling it will keep going that route for a while.</p><p>I wish I could come up with something positive to tell you, cause I know how much it sucks to have to change something you really love, but I cant think of anything.  I know this wont effect hardly any other players, but that doesnt help matters when its YOU thats being effected either.</p></blockquote><p>Heh, lucky us. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Seriously tho, we <em><strong>are</strong></em> actually studying our options, our AAs, etc. for when this goes live.  What has to change, where, how we do things, etc.  It may seem that we don't want to change, but we know we'll <strong><em>have</em></strong> to.  We're just offering our feedback as Aeralik and Kirstie have stated they wanted to see, both in forums and on Test Copy.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Thanon@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thing is, EQ2 is not a game designed around duos. This is a game designed around a full-group mechanic at worst, and a raid group mechanics at best. How well a character performs solo or duo bears little/no relevance on the overall performance of the character in its primary setting: that of a group.</p><p>I understand the concerns. Believe me. I duo with my wife, who happens to play a templar, when we are questing. It's slow as molasses in winter. But I grin and bear it because I am primarily a grouper. I am in groups 95% of the time, running instances and tanking raids. How I perform in a solo/duo setting has little relevance for me.</p><p>But it's not just about me. It's about the overall balance of the game. I've played this game since the beginning. And right now it's so far out of whack that I haven't been enjoying my guardian in a group setting for the past couple of months. The more AA people get, the harder it is to hold aggro. It's gotten to the point now where I can't hold aggro without a dirge + coercer in my group. And that's just sad.</p><p>I ignore the L2Play comments from the "elitist" players. I've been tanking for a very long time now. The fact that I'm where I am today dictates that I do indeed know how to play my class. I've been raid tanking for nearly 6 years, successfully. I know the specs, I know the casting orders. I just fail to agree that a Guardian/tank should need to DPS to do his job. It's always been supposed to be about the taunts, and only in the latest months of the game (ROK - TSO) that you have been unable to do so without needing to spec for damage or spec buckler (which was the stupidest thing in the world IMO)</p><p>Someone else here said it the truest, and it's something I've been complaining about for a couple of years. The ACT generation of players. You know the ones. They spam parse in group chat every third mob, bragging about what position they hold. The skill side of things went out the window a few years ago. All that matters anymore is he who can parse the highest = pwnz. Anyone who can't top parse = teh suck.</p><p>If I wanted to parse I'd have rolled an Assassin. I didn't. I rolled a guardian. A long time ago. And up until the freaking stupid buckler spec crap I always held aggro fine. Then all of a sudden in RoK it was a DPS game. If you didn't run buckler spec you didn't get groups. Now, if you can't parse 7k on your guardian, you suck, you don't get groups, and you need to l2play.</p><p>I'm a defensive tank. I'm specced full defensive. I don't use an AA mirror to change specs between raids and groups because I shouldn't have to. The AA mirror was a "patch" fix implemented by SoE while they worked on the larger issues of the game, which is class balance. One spec should cover all, period. They (SoE) know this. Which is why as tanks we are going to have to pick between two choices now: DPS, or Aggro. You choose. You can't have both. You are either a tank, soaking damage and using your taunts, or you are doing DPS.</p><p>The only tanks upset with the changes are the DPS spec tanks who come from the ACT/Parser generation of players who think that the only way to play is to top that parser. The veteran players, the old school guys like me who have been playing for 14ish years now, we understand how it needs to be, how it has been in the past, and why they (SoE) are making the changes they are. We love the changes. Because it's going to be the way it used to be, when tanks could hold aggro and scouts actually had to USE their de-taunts rather than relying on Amends or Dirge/Coercer hate to play the game for them.</p><p>It's going to be rough. Everyone is going to have to re-learn how to play their class. It's going to be the way it was at launch. Which means LOTS of scouts dying until they figure out that they can't rely on hate transfers anymore, that they will actually have to use their detaunts and *gasp* stop DPSing if they over-aggro. Players who can't manage their aggro will quickly find themselves unable to find a group with the top-notch players.</p><p>It's not just about the tank. It's about the scouts and mages learning how to curb their DPS. Sometimes you actually have to USE YOUR DETAUNTS, TURN OFF YOUR AUTO ATTACK AND STOP CASTING in order to let the tank get aggro back under control. There isn't going to be anymore uber-ez-mode Amends, or 65%+ hate buffs from coercer+dirge. Tanks will no longer be worried about DPS, they will be worrying about TPS. Tanks who fail to understand how TPS works will be unable to hold aggro. Tanks who remain stuck on the concept that DPS = aggro are the ones unable to do their job and crying how their class is broke.</p><p>It ain't broke. It's going back to the way it was originally, and how it was for the first few years of the game. Tanks taunt, they don't DPS. Scouts / mages DPS, but they aren't worried about topping the parser 100% of the time. They are worried about doing enough DPS to be viable, but not so much that they pull off the tank.</p><p>Get used to it boys and girls. We ain't in pre-school anymore. Time to graduate to the old-school way of things, where people actually have to pay attention and spec the way their classes were intended to be played.</p></blockquote><p>I actually thoroughly enjoyed reading this post. You had a lot of good things to say. Until the end where you got elitist yourself. Who are you to say how the game is meant to be played. Just because you've wasted more of your life in MMO's than myself? When I rolled a zerker over a guard I did it because I expected to be able to do more dps than the rest of the plate tanks (and i couldnt roll sk at the time). I never expected to do assasin or wizard, or even swashbuckler damage, BUT I did expect to be able to do reasonable damage (ie as much or more than a dirge or some class that brings extreme utility). Thats why I chose zerker over guard. And thats why I have an issue with them changing this. I've never outparsed or even rivaled (with the exception of AoE) the dps of an equivalently geared dps class that knows how to use their toon. If you read the description of my class (the one that hasnt been changed since launch) I believe it says</p><p>"Berserkers stand at the forefront of battle, unleashing their devastating rage upon the enemy while keeping unwanted attention away from their allies"</p><p>Looks to me like thats, "does a bunch of damage, holds agro"... I'm wanting to play the way my class was intended to be played. Not the way a guardian does. I still use taunts, I still use defensive/offensive when necessary, I want to still have that choice. Detaunts in offensive have to go.</p>

[Mentalep]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>"Berserkers stand at the forefront of battle, unleashing their devastating rage upon the enemy while keeping unwanted attention away from their allies"</p><p>Looks to me like thats, "does a bunch of damage, holds agro"... I'm wanting to play the way my class was intended to be played. Not the way a guardian does.</p></blockquote><p>How do guardians play?</p>

[Azurro]

<p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I wish I could come up with something positive to tell you, cause I know how much it sucks to have to change something you really love, but I cant think of anything.  I know this wont effect hardly any other players, but that doesnt help matters when its YOU thats being effected either.</blockquote><p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Your joking right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>This change will impact every player in the game except maybe the lone conjuror here and there that farms instances (I wonder if tank pets are losing all there DPS as well?) or the people that craft exclusively if there are any of them left.</span></p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Azurro wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I wish I could come up with something positive to tell you, cause I know how much it sucks to have to change something you really love, but I cant think of anything.  I know this wont effect hardly any other players, but that doesnt help matters when its YOU thats being effected either.</blockquote><p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Your joking right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>This change will impact every player in the game except maybe the lone conjuror here and there that farms instances (I wonder if tank pets are losing all there DPS as well?) or the people that craft exclusively if there are any of them left.</span></p></blockquote><p>Way to cut and paste JUST what you want to misquote.</p><p>I meant that for one person who had issues with her duo with her husband and it was very specific issues.  Not in any way shape fashion or form was it meant to mean anything else.</p><p>I will attach the full text I typed...I suggest you re-read it so you can fully understand what I put in my post.</p><p>-------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p><span ><p>Well if you like nuking over melee, and prefer a warden over a fury, and want to duo with a druid and a pally...you might have to deal with lower than normal DPS and use defensive stance and have very slow kill rates to hold aggro, or go stanceless.</p><p>It sucks I know, but there arent many ways to 'fix' the issues you have...and you have a very specific problem since you dont want to change or adapt anything about your duo.  Yours is the 1 in a million problem unfortunatly.</p><p>If you want to swap the warden to a melee spec...(and speaking as someone who has a warden also, they have so few AA choices that are worthwhile OUTSIDE of going melee, but thats neither here nor there) you will see MAJOR improvment. Or if you swap the warden to a fury for casting you would also see a big DPS increase.  Druids have really moved to a fury=caster, warden=melee style since EoF, and I have a feeling it will keep going that route for a while.</p><p>I wish I could come up with something positive to tell you, cause I know how much it sucks to have to change something you really love, but I cant think of anything.  I know this wont effect hardly any other players, but that doesnt help matters when its YOU thats being effected either.</p></span></p>

[Gwarsh]

<p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Tashiana@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If they were pulling 8 solo mobs then obviously the warden will be healing more, and probably pulling aggr and dying, but anyone expecting to tank more than 1 or 2 solo mobs in a duo and in off stance deserves to die (in game).</p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Since I can solo 1-4 solo mobs by myself it looks rather odd if a duo should not be able to take more than one or 2…. Im confused!</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">/Hugs Tash</span></span></span></p></blockquote><p>hi2u defensive stance... seriously, a brain. Use it.</p>

[Lethe5683]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Tashiana@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If they were pulling 8 solo mobs then obviously the warden will be healing more, and probably pulling aggr and dying, but anyone expecting to tank more than 1 or 2 solo mobs in a duo and in off stance deserves to die (in game).</p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Since I can solo 1-4 solo mobs by myself it looks rather odd if a duo should not be able to take more than one or 2…. Im confused!</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">/Hugs Tash</span></span></span></p></blockquote><p>hi2u defensive stance... seriously, a brain. Use it.</p></blockquote><p>Why would anyone even solo in offensive?</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Lethe5683 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Tashiana@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If they were pulling 8 solo mobs then obviously the warden will be healing more, and probably pulling aggr and dying, but anyone expecting to tank more than 1 or 2 solo mobs in a duo and in off stance deserves to die (in game).</p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Since I can solo 1-4 solo mobs by myself it looks rather odd if a duo should not be able to take more than one or 2…. Im confused!</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">/Hugs Tash</span></span></span></p></blockquote><p>hi2u defensive stance... seriously, a brain. Use it.</p></blockquote><p>Why would anyone even solo in offensive?</p></blockquote><p>/sigh.</p><p>To kill stuff faster.</p><p>If you read the thread, it was a discussion on duoing, not soloing.</p>

[Aeralik]

<p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p>

[Lethe5683]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>Would it be possible to make the taunts in offensive do nothing rather than be de taunts.  It's really weird for fighters to have the best de taunt abilities of any class in the game.  With no taunts and -% to hate gain it would be very hard for fighters to tank even with DPS.</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>Suggestion, if I may?</p><p>Since you want to discourage tanking by off stance dps, why not give the taunts a hard hit instead of making them detaunts?  Something like -40% or so?  The tank must keep taunting to hold.</p><p>Paladins, and I think SKs (I've not played one), have a vital taunt they need to use to debuff.  Not only is there the dethreat stacking with taunts and the abilities with threat added, but Paladins are in deeper detriment with their divine mitigation debuff being unusable.</p><p>And thank you.  It's good to know that effects to small groups with the impending changes are being considered and discussed.</p>

[FearDiadh]

<p><cite>Lethe5683 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>Would it be possible to make the taunts in offensive do nothing rather than be de taunts.  It's really weird for fighters to have the best de taunt abilities of any class in the game.  With no taunts and -% to hate gain it would be very hard for fighters to tank even with DPS.</p></blockquote><p>Everytime I read the changes for tanks that is the thing that kept hitting me.  Scouts and mages have hate decreasers as an advantage while DPSing.  Some tanks have mad dps currently but one thing that holds them back is they can not shake the hate.  They lacked detaunts and position drops and the other management tools that let scouts and mages do it. Keep in mind that some of the fighter AA lines have really good auto flurrys and double attacks that are comparable to and in some cases better than scouts.</p><p>It looks like you are right and some of the tanks are going to have the best detaunts in the game and since scouts and mages just lost their transfers the roles could be reversing to an extent.  In my raid crew we already have a monk beating most of our scouts and mages on the parse (he is pushing 9k dps).  He is about to get an aoe auto attack and tons of detaunts added to that... I can't see that helping balance anything.</p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps..</p></blockquote><p>But that's pretty much how you tank for a duo that includes a healer.</p><p>I'm wondering, is this eventually going to happen to Rogues, too? I wouldn't care, because I think it's ludicrous that we can tank as well as we can, but what can you do? Still, what I wanna know is whether or not, eventually, the same sort of thing that's being done to Fighter tanking will be done to Rogue tanking.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>Based on this, I would have to say I agree with people that want a mid stance for plate fighters.</p><p>If you want to encourage tanking via DPS for small groups, make a stance that has the damage proc of the off stance, any hate generating procs of defense stance, any stat increases from buffs that were merged into the stances, no defensive or offensive stat increases or penalties, a 50% reduction in taunt amounts, and a -75% shield effectivness penalty.</p><p>It will encourage tanks to use duel wielding or two-handers, will allow them to deal an acceptable amount of DPS, allow them to hold aggro in a small group of players that know the situation, but has appropriate penalties to make it not effective as a stance in heroic or epic situations.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps..</p></blockquote><p>But that's pretty much how you tank for a duo that includes a healer.</p><p>I'm wondering, is this eventually going to happen to Rogues, too? I wouldn't care, because I think it's ludicrous that we can tank as well as we can, but what can you do? Still, what I wanna know is whether or not, eventually, the same sort of thing that's being done to Fighter tanking will be done to Rogue tanking.</p></blockquote><p>IMO rouges and summoner pets need adjusting in terms of tanking ability once this goes live.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Mentalepsy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>"Berserkers stand at the forefront of battle, unleashing their devastating rage upon the enemy while keeping unwanted attention away from their allies"</p><p>Looks to me like thats, "does a bunch of damage, holds agro"... I'm wanting to play the way my class was intended to be played. Not the way a guardian does.</p></blockquote><p>How do guardians play?</p></blockquote><p>Lets look at the definition:</p><p>"The guardian is the anchor of any group of adventurers, providing leadership and protection for their allies. Combining durable armor and an impressive array of defensive skills, Guardians remain standing after absorbing substantial amounts of physical damage from their enemies."</p><p>Looks to me like thats, "holds agro, takes a beating"... Therefore (feel free to correct me) I'm assuming most guards have almost always tanked in defensive, unless they are just uber geared out to where it didnt matter. This is opposite to most zerkers.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Looks to me like thats, "holds agro, takes a beating"... Therefore (feel free to correct me) I'm assuming most guards have almost always tanked in defensive, unless they are just uber geared out to where it didnt matter. This is opposite to most zerkers.</blockquote><p>Curious, how does any of that relate to class balance? Do you want your bezerker dealing less damage because they can tank, or doing a worse job at tanking because they can DPS?</p>

[Brook]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that <strong>tanking via dps is discouraged</strong> yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>I dont fully fathom why tanking with dps is discouraged when you made dam near every warrior AA line increase dps.</p><p>Its true that there are options and some of the choices we had were for more defensive abilities,  but really... Why is it all of a sudden a problem? You had control over what went in those lines, what stats went on weapons and armor, what mob abilities were.</p><p>Your not going to break the game, the sky isn't going to fall, and many of us will still be here when the dust settles.. but if tanks were not meant to dps then why did you keep feeding us the stuff to do it with?</p><p>Part of me likes some of the changes, but causing me to de-taunt a mob because I <span style="text-decoration: underline;">can</span> tank if needed is beyond stupid.</p><p>Were you wrong for what you already gave us... or are you wrong for changing it now?</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Brook wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that <strong>tanking via dps is discouraged</strong> yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>I dont fully fathom why tanking with dps is discouraged when you made dam near every warrior AA line increase dps.</p><p>Its true that there are options and some of the choices we had were for more defensive abilities,  but really... Why is it all of a sudden a problem? You had control over what went in those lines, what stats went on weapons and armor, what mob abilities were.</p><p>Your not going to break the game, the sky isn't going to fall, and many of us will still be here when the dust settles.. but if tanks were not meant to dps then why did you keep feeding us the stuff to do it with?</p><p>Part of me likes some of the changes, but causing me to de-taunt a mob because I <span style="text-decoration: underline;">can</span> tank if needed is beyond stupid.</p><p>Were you wrong for what you already gave us... or are you wrong for changing it now?</p></blockquote><p>Tanks can DPS, but if you got assassins doing 15k how are you going to hold aggro thru DPS unless you have HIGHER AND HIGHER DPS? at some point it becomes broken and you have to readjust...which is what is happening here...most people knew it was coming so its not a huge shock.</p><p>If your not tanking a mob in a group or raid...why do you care if you detaunt? if its not your job to take the hits for that kill its a moot point. If you need to grab it, stance swapping and abilitys to have snap aggro will be useful...adn some tanks might need some adjustments to they CAN do it. But at the end of the day the de-taunts are a non issue if done right.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Brook wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Why is it all of a sudden a problem? ?</blockquote><p>Its always been a problem, but they are only now getting around to dealing with it.</p>

[Fox_Roshak]

<p>First off I am not a tank, I have one, but hate the dern thing. However I was talking with a friend who is a raid guardian tank. So i ask him why don't they just make your defensive stance turn half of all damage into hate and the other half as damage. For the offensive stance just turn the taunts into half dehates and half damage? Is there some mysterious reason why this wouldn't work?</p>

[Noaani]

<p>Yeah, because then tanks in offensive stance would be dealing rediculous DPS.</p>

[Mentalep]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Mentalepsy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>"Berserkers stand at the forefront of battle, unleashing their devastating rage upon the enemy while keeping unwanted attention away from their allies"</p><p>Looks to me like thats, "does a bunch of damage, holds agro"... I'm wanting to play the way my class was intended to be played. Not the way a guardian does.</p></blockquote><p>How do guardians play?</p></blockquote><p>Lets look at the definition:</p><p>"The guardian is the anchor of any group of adventurers, providing leadership and protection for their allies. Combining durable armor and an impressive array of defensive skills, Guardians remain standing after absorbing substantial amounts of physical damage from their enemies."</p><p>Looks to me like thats, "holds agro, takes a beating"... Therefore (feel free to correct me) I'm assuming most guards have almost always tanked in defensive, unless they are just uber geared out to where it didnt matter. This is opposite to most zerkers.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, most guardians tank much like you do: dual-wielding in offensive stance (or stamina spec with a shield, but I think many moved away from that in TSO).  We put out better threat that way; there's no reason for a guardian to be in defensive stance on live unless the extra protection is needed, which as you know it's usually not.</p><p>Not counting emergency buttons, I've got two single target taunts, two encounter taunts, and one passive hate proc; the rest of the threat that I personally generate comes from dealing damage.  Sony calls us defensive tanks, but we rely on dps to help us keep aggro.</p><p>In GU51, I'll be using defensive stance to tank, but I'll still be dual-wielding and trying to maximize my dps.  Aside from a few taunt proc items I've found, I haven't seen a single piece of equipment with any sort of +hate or +taunt mods on it, and I'm not aware of any equipment changes being made in GU51 to add more such mods, so I suspect I'll continue equipping myself with dps in mind for a while yet.  My dps may be reduced somewhat while tanking, now, but it's still the only portion of my threat that I can scale up right now.</p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>There's the problem, though. You've got duos where, with just 2 characters, you don't have the luxury of choosing just a single role because you don't have enough characters to fill the needed roles. You've got roles like off-tank, where the role itself demands that you combine tanking and damage. Is off-tank not a valid role, then? Is duoing something people should be discouraged from doing? Whether you intend that or not, that's the way your changes are pushing the game.</p><p>Now, I agree about not tanking in offensive mode when you're talking about tanking heroic or epic content in a full group or raid. But that's not the full range of content in the game, not the full range of play. Why <em>shouldn't</em> a berserker be fully capable of tanking solo content in offensive mode when backed up by a warden to heal him? He's supposed to be able to handle those mobs on his own, without any support. If, with a warden healing him, he needs to be in full defensive mode to survive the damage the mobs do, how's he going to be able to survive them without a healer? For that matter, how's the <em>warden</em> supposed to solo mobs that can kill a fully-defensive plate tank?</p><p>Suggestion: don't try to force full-group and raid tanks into defensive mode. Just make it more attractive than offensive mode. In a full group aggro control's a bigger issue than in a duo or trio, as is the ability to survive damage (at least against the kind of content you need a full group for). Leave defensive mode where it is, with a big hit to DPS and a big boost to aggro control and survivability. Leave offensive mode giving the hit to defense. Just remove the active deaggro components. It's rather silly for a plate tank to be better at shedding aggro than a scout or mage anyway. Without the detaunts and dethreats most tanks should be able to hold aggro in a duo or trio against solo or easy heroic content, and I'm betting that the situations where they can't it's because there's enough damage in the group for a more conventional division of responsibility. And with the hate-mechanic changes from TSO plus the remaining changes in GU51, in full groups and raids it'll be sufficiently easier for the MT to run in defensive stance that nobody'll want to tank offensively there. If nothing else, the healers will be demanding that the MT switch to defensive so they can keep him alive without clicking like madmen. The off-tanks will still be offensive, but they're not supposed to be as effective at tanking as the MT most of the time (they can still switch stances if they need to get serious about tanking, but if all they need to do is grab the mob and run it over to the MT they should be OK).</p>

[Kreagan De'Unerro]

<p>Aeralik,</p><p>The Bush administration is leaving today? Please tell us you are also leaving with your stupid ways of trying to class balance this game.</p><p>You are driving more and more people away with your nonsense. Making it harder and harder for people to want to log into this game anymore.</p><p>The game is 4+years old and you are trying to re-engineer it. Just give us content and let it be. EQ2 will never catch the 700lb gorilla of WoW, so stop trying. You are not the MESSIAH of EQ2, you will never save this game. It will always lose subs with each new MMO release, or each Xpack/game balance you screw with.</p><p>SOE dropped the ball with marketing this game 5years ago, and SOE developement is catching up to their marketing team efficiency.</p><p>Majority of us playing this game have been here since most likely the start, most of us are here because we just can't stand the WoW community,graphics,etc.. And because there is nothing better atm for this cult following EQ2 has atm, and that is all SOE has here, is a cult following.</p><p>How many active accounts does EQ2 sport? IDK but I am guessing roughly say 200k? That may be generous, how many are new accounts? Most likely new accounts are plat farmer, well a high percentage of them are, since they get banned everyday.</p><p>SOE start working on the next fantasy MMO and just give us content once a year to sedate us until it is released. Stop tinkering with the core mechanics of all the classes. Instead of increasing level caps you added AA trees with each new xpack which broke your core class features. Then ya added even more powerful abilities to gear,etc... If you wouldn't keep adding more powerful features you wouldn't be in this mess and all would be fine.</p><p>The core game up to T6 was great, you could take just about every clas on raids, in instances and such. But you guys had to add AA trees, what were ya thinking?</p><p><span style="color: #00ffff;">!!!KURT SCHILLING PLEASE SAVE US SOON!!!</span></p><p><span style="color: #00ffff;">38studios.com</span></p>

[Jeepned2]

<p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Tanks can DPS, but if you got assassins doing 15k how are you going to hold aggro thru DPS unless you have HIGHER AND HIGHER DPS? at some point it becomes broken and you have to readjust...which is what is happening here...most people knew it was coming so its not a huge shock.<p>If your not tanking a mob in a group or raid...why do you care if you detaunt? if its not your job to take the hits for that kill its a moot point. If you need to grab it, stance swapping and abilitys to have snap aggro will be useful...adn some tanks might need some adjustments to they CAN do it. But at the end of the day the de-taunts are a non issue if done right.</p></blockquote><p>I KNOW, NERF THE ASSASSINS!!! No wait, that's never going to happen.</p>

[Tash 1]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Tashiana@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If they were pulling 8 solo mobs then obviously the warden will be healing more, and probably pulling aggr and dying, but anyone expecting to tank more than 1 or 2 solo mobs in a duo and in off stance deserves to die (in game).</p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Since I can solo 1-4 solo mobs by myself it looks rather odd if a duo should not be able to take more than one or 2…. Im confused!</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">/Hugs Tash</span></span></span></p></blockquote><p>hi2u defensive stance... seriously, a brain. Use it.</p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Dear Noaani.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I really don’t find any reason for you to insult me and call me stupid. </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">If you want to correct or point something I missed out just say so. </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Again: You state that “anyone expecting to tank more than 1 or 2 SOLO mobs in a DUO and in OFF stance deserve to DIE (in game)”</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">And I say that as a TEMPLAR(Templar is a healer class btw) I can take on 1-4 mobs by my self with no help from any tank and survive with little or no problem.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">So If I can SOLO 1-4 mobs why would you say that if I bring a tank and DUO them we must die?</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" ><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">/Tash</span></span></span></p>

[lizard]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>That opening statement raises larger questions.  Why is tanking through DPS not a valid method?  As long as the tank holds aggro, as long as the mob is dead by the end of the fight, what does it matter how that goal is accomplished?  More importantly, as long as the players accomplishing that goal are having fun doing it, how can it be wrong?  Why is the goal of these changes to discourage a given -- and obviously popular -- style of play?</p><p>I look forward to having these questions answered.  In all the discussion about how these changes will affect various classes, I have seen relatively little question about why any change is necessary at all, especially change which holds a very real risk of alienating part of an already diminished player base.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>lizard wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>That opening statement raises larger questions.  Why is tanking through DPS not a valid method?  As long as the tank holds aggro, as long as the mob is dead by the end of the fight, what does it matter how that goal is accomplished?  More importantly, as long as the players accomplishing that goal are having fun doing it, how can it be wrong?  Why is the goal of these changes to discourage a given -- and obviously popular -- style of play?</p><p>I look forward to having these questions answered.  In all the discussion about how these changes will affect various classes, I have seen relatively little question about why any change is necessary at all, especially change which holds a very real risk of alienating part of an already diminished player base.</p></blockquote><p>The reasons behind the change have been answered and the horse is fully dead I think.  If aggro is held thru DPS, as more and more DPS classes get higher and higher DPS then tanks would also need higher and higher DPS which causes an endless spiral of DPS that basically gets out of control.</p><p>By taking the ability to hold a mobs attention by THREAT alone...you can reset some boundaries back into the game and escape the DPS spiral.</p><p>The job of the tank is to hold the mobs attention and do some DPS. Not to do DPS on par with the real damage dealing classes.  There has to be balance between the archtypes...and I know some people will get their underoo's in a bunch, but at the end of the day it will make the game better for it.</p><p>If you rolled a tank to see big damage numbers flying and the ability to boast about how high your numbers are and break out the rulers with your friends, now might be a good time to start working on that assassin.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Tashiana@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Dear Noaani.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I really don’t find any reason for you to insult me and call me stupid. </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">If you want to correct or point something I missed out just say so. </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Again: You state that “anyone expecting to tank more than 1 or 2 SOLO mobs in a DUO and in OFF stance deserve to DIE (in game)”</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">And I say that as a TEMPLAR(Templar is a healer class btw) I can take on 1-4 mobs by my self with no help from any tank and survive with little or no problem.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">So If I can SOLO 1-4 mobs why would you say that if I bring a tank and DUO them we must die?</span></span></span></p></blockquote><p>Did you read the thread of quotes that lead to the post you quoted, or just make an unerlated comment based on one particular part of a conversation?</p><p>I did not say that anyone expecting to solo 1 or 2 solo mobs in a duo with a tank in off stance should expect to die, I was talking about 2 specific classes and 8 mobs.</p><p>Oh, and can you post a parse of you simultaniously tanking on 4 mobs in Skyfire around The Temple of the White Lady? or were you talking about mobs in Kylong Plains?</p>

[lizard]

<p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>lizard wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>That opening statement raises larger questions.  Why is tanking through DPS not a valid method?  As long as the tank holds aggro, as long as the mob is dead by the end of the fight, what does it matter how that goal is accomplished?  More importantly, as long as the players accomplishing that goal are having fun doing it, how can it be wrong?  Why is the goal of these changes to discourage a given -- and obviously popular -- style of play?</p><p>I look forward to having these questions answered.  In all the discussion about how these changes will affect various classes, I have seen relatively little question about why any change is necessary at all, especially change which holds a very real risk of alienating part of an already diminished player base.</p></blockquote><p>The reasons behind the change have been answered and the horse is fully dead I think.  If aggro is held thru DPS, as more and more DPS classes get higher and higher DPS then tanks would also need higher and higher DPS which causes an endless spiral of DPS that basically gets out of control.</p><p>By taking the ability to hold a mobs attention by THREAT alone...you can reset some boundaries back into the game and escape the DPS spiral.</p><p>The job of the tank is to hold the mobs attention and do some DPS. Not to do DPS on par with the real damage dealing classes.  There has to be balance between the archtypes...and I know some people will get their underoo's in a bunch, but at the end of the day it will make the game better for it.</p><p>If you rolled a tank to see big damage numbers flying and the ability to boast about how high your numbers are and break out the rulers with your friends, now might be a good time to start working on that assassin.</p></blockquote><p>Thank you, Xaren.  That was a very concise summation.</p><p>Acknowledged that an endless spiral of escalating dps is not desirable, the fear expressed by many people across these threads is that the changes will take away too much of a fighter's ability to dps, and relegate them to the primary role of aggro management.  And as others have stated, while this may be a good idea in full groups or raids, it severely restricts the viability of small groups or duos.  I'll admit I've not read completely through all the threads on this subject, but from what I have read so far, the only statement I've seen that indicates that factor has even been considered is Aeralik's statement above.  I look forward to seeing more details on how the viability of duos and small groups is going to be preserved after the update.</p><p>In closing, I offer a cautionary note, Xaren.  If your final paragraph was intended as an insinuation that anybody objecting to these changes is interested only in preserving their tank as a high-defense, high-aggro powerhouse, you would do well to avoid such veiled accusations in the future.  They only weaken your presentation.  If I misunderstood your meaning, please excuse the confusion.</p>

[Tash 1]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Tashiana@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Dear Noaani.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I really don’t find any reason for you to insult me and call me stupid. </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">If you want to correct or point something I missed out just say so. </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Again: You state that “anyone expecting to tank more than 1 or 2 SOLO mobs in a DUO and in OFF stance deserve to DIE (in game)”</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">And I say that as a TEMPLAR(Templar is a healer class btw) I can take on 1-4 mobs by my self with no help from any tank and survive with little or no problem.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">So If I can SOLO 1-4 mobs why would you say that if I bring a tank and DUO them we must die?</span></span></span></p></blockquote><p>Did you read the thread of quotes that lead to the post you quoted, or just make an unerlated comment based on one particular part of a conversation?</p><p>I did not say that anyone expecting to solo 1 or 2 solo mobs in a duo with a tank in off stance should expect to die, I was talking about 2 specific classes and 8 mobs.</p><p>Oh, and can you post a parse of you simultaniously tanking on 4 mobs in Skyfire around The Temple of the White Lady? or were you talking about mobs in Kylong Plains?</p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hun I did quoted your post and you said EXACTLY that </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">“anyone expecting to tank more than 1 or 2 solo mobs in a duo and in off stance deserve to die (in game)”</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">And it where my post you had quoted before.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">And dear I did solo Yellow cons in Skyfire a year ago. If you don’t belive that ppl can solo more than one solo mob at the time … well I cant help you then.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I must admit that with this background I cant say I hold any info in your post in any higher value.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">/Tash</span></span></span></p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Tashiana@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Stuff</blockquote><p>Did you read the quotes and conversation leading up to your interjection on the conversation or not?</p><p>Post a parse of you simultaniously soloing 4 solo from around Temple of the White Lady (or even better, from inside the temple).</p><p>Yeah, we all solo yellow mobs, most of us have been doing it since the day we started playing. However, not all mobs are created equal, and I do not give advice under the assumption that players are against anything but the hardest examples of mobs that fit the catagory of discussion (which happen to be mobs around/inside that temple).</p><p>If someone asks for advice on keeping a tank up in a raid, I am not going to assume they are fighting Tombs trash, if someone wants to know how to DPS well in a group, I am not going to assume they are in Deep Forge. Likewise, with advice for solo play, I am not going to assume anything other than the hardest solo mobs I can think of.</p><p>Edit: I just went out with a paladin in off stance on test duoing with a warden. 2 of the mobs inside the Temple of the White Lady at the same time proved to be a challange, 3 may have been possible, 4 would have been death. Switching to defensive stance made it easy to hold 4 at the same time.</p><p>Obviously raid gear makes a massive difference, but since I am familiar with the person I was having the original conversation with, I made a point of factoring any raid dropped items out of any comments. If you want to come in here and say you are killing 4 of the same mobs on a templar I will not say it can't happen, but only with raid loot. If you log on to test and attempt what was being talked about, you would have a clue.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>lizard wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thank you, Xaren.  That was a very concise summation.</p><p>Acknowledged that an endless spiral of escalating dps is not desirable, the fear expressed by many people across these threads is that the changes will take away too much of a fighter's ability to dps, and relegate them to the primary role of aggro management.  And as others have stated, while this may be a good idea in full groups or raids, it severely restricts the viability of small groups or duos.  I'll admit I've not read completely through all the threads on this subject, but from what I have read so far, the only statement I've seen that indicates that factor has even been considered is Aeralik's statement above.  I look forward to seeing more details on how the viability of duos and small groups is going to be preserved after the update.</p><p>In closing, I offer a cautionary note, Xaren.  If your final paragraph was intended as an insinuation that anybody objecting to these changes is interested only in preserving their tank as a high-defense, high-aggro powerhouse, you would do well to avoid such veiled accusations in the future.  They only weaken your presentation.  If I misunderstood your meaning, please excuse the confusion.</p></blockquote><p>It might have sounded snarky on a 2nd read thru lol but it really wasnt meant that way. More of a tounge in cheek statement that tanks arent going to be the classes for people who want to see the big dmg numbers flying now, and not meant to single out anyones problems with the update other than that very specific point. Lots of complaints have been aimed ONLY at losing DPS and at nothing else, which leads me to think that a very few people are just upset about that one thing.</p><p>There are many little things I want changed, and many things I hope DO change...and the problems for some people are very real problems and I didnt want to belittle those problems in any way.  Things like duo/small groups, brawler passive hate...paladin balancing are all things I hope get looked at and some love sent their way...and they probably will...this isnt the last pass of the test server updates on this stuff.</p>

[Gwarsh]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>thank you for your response.</p><p>I hope you can come up with something for the Pheeps of the world, who's game is coming to a quick end with this update.  There are alot of ideas flying around on these forums and alot of them have real merit.  i hope you give them all some consideration.</p>

[Powers]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.</p></blockquote><p>Isn't that the whole <em>modus operandus</em> of the Berserker?  Tanking by beating on the mob HARD?  If not DPS, what is to distinguish the Berserker from the Guardian in GU51?</p><p>(Note: I don't have enough HD space right now to install a second copy of the game so I can access the Test Server.  If I did, believe me, I'd be there testing it.)</p><p>Powers  &8^]</p>

[RafaelSmith]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long. my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho. increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list. i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard.</p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps. By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive. It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>Then make it REALLY painful...i mean REALLY painful for us to tank in O-Stance. Something on the order of cutting our mit by 50% or the DMG we take by 50%.    Make shields only usable in D-Stance.  The differences between D-stance and O-stance should be with how much DMG we take/do...not with our ability to generate aggro.</p><p>The choice should be ours...specifically the healers.    If the content is such that my healer can keep me up then fine...if not then trust me.....I will be told by my healer..not SOE...that I have to be in D-stance.</p><p>Discouraging something is fine..but what you have currently with GU#51 does not discourage anything..it forces.   You use the word "options" when in fact you leave us none.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>The differences between D-stance and O-stance should be with how much DMG we take/do...not with our ability to generate aggro.</blockquote><p>If tanks are able to hold aggro in off stance, they will tank in it dealing more DPS than a tank should, and basically making this whole excercise pointless.</p>

[Illine]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>The differences between D-stance and O-stance should be with how much DMG we take/do...not with our ability to generate aggro.</blockquote><p>If tanks are able to hold aggro in off stance, they will tank in it dealing more DPS than a tank should, and basically making this whole excercise pointless.</p></blockquote><p>When I play a dps class, I don't want the tank to out dps me. with all the buffs he gets and in O stance, a zerk can easily reach the top of the parse and stay alive while an assassin in a AE fight won't be able to deal as much dps (at least the difference between the assass dps and zerk dps will not be that high) but the assassin can't take much hits. if the tank want to be in off, ok, we will deal almost as much damage as an assassin, but his defense should be the same as the assassin's.</p><p>tanks should be able to tank in off when duoing (I don't talk about duoing +++), coz the dps of each is really important, but he shouldn't be able in dongeons, instances when the dps of the fighter means less (if 2 healers, there are still 3 dps behind him).</p><p>the desaggro is also important coz problem (usually of brawlers being a dps in a group), we don't dps as much as scouts but with have no tools to loose threat, so we can take aggro quite easily. and usually threat buffs (like the troubadour's) don't work on fighters or work the opposite (like the monk hate siphon).</p><p>tanks need then some kind of desaggro when they don't tank so that they can act as a dps class and really dps. not hold back fearing to aggro.</p>

[RafaelSmith]

<p><cite>Illine@Storms wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>The differences between D-stance and O-stance should be with how much DMG we take/do...not with our ability to generate aggro.</blockquote><p>If tanks are able to hold aggro in off stance, they will tank in it dealing more DPS than a tank should, and basically making this whole excercise pointless.</p></blockquote><p>When I play a dps class, I don't want the tank to out dps me. with all the buffs he gets and in O stance, a zerk can easily reach the top of the parse and stay alive while an assassin in a AE fight won't be able to deal as much dps (at least the difference between the assass dps and zerk dps will not be that high) but the assassin can't take much hits. if the tank want to be in off, ok, we will deal almost as much damage as an assassin, but his defense should be the same as the assassin's.</p><p>tanks should be able to tank in off when duoing (I don't talk about duoing +++), coz the dps of each is really important, but he shouldn't be able in dongeons, instances when the dps of the fighter means less (if 2 healers, there are still 3 dps behind him).</p><p>the desaggro is also important coz problem (usually of brawlers being a dps in a group), we don't dps as much as scouts but with have no tools to loose threat, so we can take aggro quite easily. and usually threat buffs (like the troubadour's) don't work on fighters or work the opposite (like the monk hate siphon).</p><p>tanks need then some kind of desaggro when they don't tank so that they can act as a dps class and really dps. not hold back fearing to aggro.</p></blockquote><p>I have never out-dpsed a well played/non-afk scout or mage nomatter what stance im in or what buffs I have.</p><p>In my groups I am usually just a few notches above the healers.</p><p>Only time my DPS actually matters is when duoing or mentoring down to help lower level friends.</p>

[Kreagan De'Unerro]

<p>Most of us guards are not complaing about having to use threat increasers(taunts,etc...), which seem to be better on test atm. I am all for the increased taunts, especially taunts that crit. I suggested it over a month ago here: <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=30&topic_id=438253">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=438253</a></p><p>What I think is the suk is them changing our stances. It is a copout changing our stances right now without some really good thought into it.</p><p>The issue we have is simple:</p><p>1.)They took our buffs and consolidate them into 2 stances, so we can not even use a non-stance role.</p><p>2.)They take our Offensive which flips our taunts to detaunts: Noobs, this gives us the best detaunts in the game, I bet you DPS classes wish you could drop your threat position using 5-7 detaunts?. So now OT in offensive stance is not goin to be a viable option. Also that is not as big a deal as it is when it comes to soloing as a tank. Most of us need to Solo in Offensive to make the fights go faster. But in offensive they are increasing the amount of damage we take. [Removed for Content] we still wear some of the heaviest armor, so why all of a sudden does it become less productive for us to use it?</p><p>So these changes were made basically for raiding, but yet hurt the soloist/duo tank. How is that fair cause a tank plays his toon better then a scout or mage?</p><p>If guards/zerkers were outparsing you DPS classes, it was only a slight few around the EQ2 world compared to the community size, and it is most likely because they know how to play their toon really well and you don't. If guards are outparsing any scout or mage then you folks need to relearn how to play your toon. Change your casting orders, when to use certain abilities. If your tanks are consistantly at the top 10 on parse for raids, then you are doing something wrong and they are doing something right.</p><p>Now scouts(cept swashies) complaing that a zerker is outparsing them on multi-mob encounters, get a clue, you are a SINGLE TARGET DPS, zerker is a multi-mob DPS. That was the silliest complaint I have seen yet.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially <span style="font-size: large; color: #ff0000;"><strong>make it a choice</strong></span>. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>I think you have that wrong there sir. What you've done is remove choice. Basically we dont have the option of tanking in offensive (or "by dps") anymore. A better option would just be to remove taunt effectiveness so that the lower dps + large hate gain in defensive results in equal to or slightly more HPS than the higher dps + lower hate amounts of offensive. I'm an offensive fighter and this basically ruins my playstyle. Just because I learned how to play my class well and maximized his potential I should get nerfed cause some silly ranger or wizard doesnt know how to play theirs?</p><p>The game should not be so black an white. And as a tank we should have multiple tanking styles, not just i tank in defensive I stand in offensive when crafting... </p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>if you got assassins doing 15k</p></blockquote><p>You know, some people might ask why Assassins are doing 15k in the first place.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>lizard wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...</p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>That opening statement raises larger questions.  Why is tanking through DPS not a valid method?  As long as the tank holds aggro, as long as the mob is dead by the end of the fight, what does it matter how that goal is accomplished?  More importantly, as long as the players accomplishing that goal are having fun doing it, how can it be wrong?  Why is the goal of these changes to discourage a given -- and obviously popular -- style of play?</p><p>I look forward to having these questions answered.  In all the discussion about how these changes will affect various classes, I have seen relatively little question about why any change is necessary at all, especially change which holds a very real risk of alienating part of an already diminished player base.</p></blockquote><p>The reasons behind the change have been answered and the horse is fully dead I think.  If aggro is held thru DPS, as more and more DPS classes get higher and higher DPS then tanks would also need higher and higher DPS which causes an endless spiral of DPS that basically gets out of control.</p><p>By taking the ability to hold a mobs attention by THREAT alone...you can reset some boundaries back into the game and escape the DPS spiral.</p><p>The job of the tank is to hold the mobs attention and do some DPS. Not to do DPS on par with the real damage dealing classes.  There has to be balance between the archtypes...and I know some people will get their underoo's in a bunch, but at the end of the day it will make the game better for it.</p><p>If you rolled a tank to see big damage numbers flying and the ability to boast about how high your numbers are and break out the rulers with your friends, now might be a good time to start working on that assassin.</p></blockquote><p>But this doesnt fix the ever expanding dps of the dps classes. Why should an assassin keep moving up 10k dps 12k dps 15kdps, whats next 18k dps?? Why shouldn't a tanks dps improve too. I know tanks arent supposed to do crazy T1 dps and I wouldnt expect to but everyone feels good when they get a high parse, why shouldnt tanks get to do that too. (a high parse in tank respects) There really is no logical reason behind these changes. I can understand trying to get rid of reliance on transfers and increasing the useability of tuants, but the inability to use dps in addition to taunts is pointless and for me kinda game ruining. I loved my zerker. He did good damage when buffed, tanked fine and I just loved the playstyle. Now... i guess we'll see but from test not so much.</p>

[Valentina]

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps..</p></blockquote><p>But that's pretty much how you tank for a duo that includes a healer.</p></blockquote><p>I have yet to hear any response from the devs regarding these changes and duoing.  I'm not sure if they just don't believe duoers exist, or if they simply are not interested in allowing us to continue this playstyle.</p><p>(The humorous thing being, if they destroy fighter usefulness in a duo, duoers will just have to switch someone else in for the fighter class; a melee priest, or a rogue.  Nothing useful is being accomplished other than a lessening of options)</p><p>(Edit: Fixed typos)</p>

[Brook]

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaren@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>if you got assassins doing 15k</p></blockquote><p>You know, some people might ask why Assassins are doing 15k in the first place.</p></blockquote><p>LOL, and some of KNOW why.</p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>xsikal wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>(The humorous thing being, if they destroy fighter usefulness ina  duo, duoers will just have to switch someone else in for the fighter class... a melee priest, or a rogue..</p></blockquote><p>The even more humorous thing is that Swashies -- who only have 2 real taunts -- mostly tank via DPS <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> I guess Aeralik either thinks Swashies never tank for anyone, or else that it's perfectly OK for <span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>us</strong></span> to tank via DPS, but not for anyone else <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p><p>I'm still waiting patiently for someone -- ANYONE -- to explain to me why my non-STA spec'd Swashy can tank as well as he can. In fact, I'm waiting patiently for someone -- ANYONE -- to explain to me why Rogues even have a freekin' tanking AA tree. We're not tanks; we're DPS-&-Debuff monkeys. But someone got the utterly bizarre idea to turn us into Tin Foil Tigers on steroids <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Yet, the only thing that's being changed is our Threat Transfer, & our epic -- which latter change, at present, is among the very <strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">worst</span></strong> conceived I've ever yet seen in this game. Can someone please tell Vanna that SOE wants to buy a clue???</p>

[Oakum]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Lethe5683 wrote:</cite></p><p>/sigh.</p><p>To kill stuff faster.</p><p>If you read the thread, it was a discussion on duoing, not soloing.</p></blockquote><p>From what they the devs are saying, they want tanks to make a choice basically. Do they want to tank or dps? Even with heal procs and dps specced as a warden, I cant heal and dps at the same time unless the mobs are hitting a tank that is basically taking no damage, I can understand that.</p><p>The sticky situatioin is the duo/small group area.</p><p>Theoritcally I suppose that if 2 people were pulling up to 3 or 4 SOLO mobs (and they were geared to hold 1 or 2 of them solo) then one person could be taking on 2 mobs each basically. Which ever kills quicker helps the other.</p><p>Now those who want to duo/small group mow down 8 solo mobs at the same time, which would be a  HEROIC fight due to the large number of mobs, would have to have a tank actually be in defensive like for a normal fight with a hard 3 up heroic encounter.</p><p>That would kill the speed of killing as many mobs as possible in the shortest time possible in overland solo zones for quest completions of kill 10 of X mobs quest and even more significantly those farming for loot drops from solo mobs, since as posted above, one of the biggest reasons to is kill more faster. </p><p>Boxers farming (and farming is an acceptable method of getting items players want or need as long as they dont sell plat or deny others content by killing it all) and/or killing to do heroic content would find it much harder since it would essentally take a lot longer or risk dying more and become more profitable to get live players instead.  </p><p>Those expecting to power lvl by duoing with an alt on a different account or for plat/cash by doing yellow heroic quest mentoring would have it more difficult too.</p><p>I guess one of the important questions most people are not considering here is;</p><p><span style="color: #0000ff;">How many solo mobs does it take for a fight to be considered heroic in which case the tank should be in defensive to keep aggro? What changes, if any, to support their goal of not allowing fighters to TANK with dps as a required or  preferred aggro generator over defensive stance buffs, taunts, and hate generation abilities while keeping small duo/ small group killing SOLO or easy heroic content for quests, ect still feasible without the tank having to go to defensive stance</span><span style="color: #0000ff;">?</span></p><p>Now pre RoK heroic groups of mobs were either three  no up or 1^ up mobs, two 2^^ mobs or one 3^^^ mobs.</p><p>In RoK taking KC or chardok for example, the heroic encounters are either 3 2^^ mobs, 1 weak 3^^^ and a strong 2^^, 2 weaker 3^^^'s or 1 strong 3^^^. TSO seems to have the same mix with 6 to what seems like 8 no up mobs as heroic encounters in the dungeons.</p><p>If thats the case then I would expect a duo pulling 8 mobs to have the person tanking in a defensive stance normally.</p><p>Of course this is all talking about mobs of equal lvl and not 5+ lvls lower fighting a fabled out player with mostly masters and all usefull aa's spent in all 3 AA trees spent. Most tanks in that situation would not have to worry about soloing, let  duoing that content in offensive or defensive depending on the mobs not having special stun ect abilities, lol.</p><p>As a healer, I am very interested in the fight changes since, after the fighers, the healers are the second most effected by Tank changes that could involve questions like why is legendary geared conjy taking aggro from a partially fabled pally/sk/gaurd/zerker ect while I, wearing mostly fabled healing gear with the healer stance on, has to spam constant heals just to him and the group alive while rooting the mobs to keep them from running off after the other dps and killing them 2 or 3 times a fight. </p><p>From keeping up with changes I would say they are in offensive stance cause they want to parse, lol. Check buffs on the tank, see their offensive stance up. Yep, figures, lol.</p><p>Time to ask tank to change to defensive stance or find a new tank.</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>thank you for your response.</p><p>I hope you can come up with something for the Pheeps of the world, who's game is coming to a quick end with this update.  There are alot of ideas flying around on these forums and alot of them have real merit.  i hope you give them all some consideration.</p></blockquote><p>/blinks</p><p>Hee, thank you.  /bow</p><p>Yah, I'm stumped as well.</p><p>The change hampers fighter + class of your choice duos.  But to allow fighter + class of your choice duos to continue with the fighter able to tank while in off stance will keep the problem, as Aeralik sees it, right where it is.</p><p>The only thing I can think of is to drop a negative hit to taunts to make them less effective, not make them into the detrimental dethreats they are currently.</p>

[RafaelSmith]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long. my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho. increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list. i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard.</p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps. By flipping the taunts you essentially make it a choice. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive. It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>thank you for your response.</p><p>I hope you can come up with something for the Pheeps of the world, who's game is coming to a quick end with this update. There are alot of ideas flying around on these forums and alot of them have real merit. i hope you give them all some consideration.</p></blockquote><p>/blinks</p><p>Hee, thank you. /bow</p><p>Yah, I'm stumped as well.</p><p>The change hampers fighter + class of your choice duos. But to allow fighter + class of your choice duos to continue with the fighter able to tank while in off stance will keep the problem, as Aeralik sees it, right where it is.</p><p>The only thing I can think of is to drop a negative hit to taunts to make them less effective, not make them into the detrimental dethreats they are currently.</p></blockquote><p>Would be nice if they could somehow come up with scaling factors for both D and O Stance that scale up/down depending on # of people in the group.   Can scale both DMG and THREAT generation.</p>

[denmom]

<p>I keep seeing claims that all tanks who tank in off stance are out for the place in the dps parse and [Removed for Content].</p><p>Okay, I'd like to clear something up, if I may.</p><p>When I have Pheep in off stance in the duo, or when running in a blender run (bunch of us getting together and just mass killing mobs for quests fast) group, I don't do it for parsing.  Yah, I do laugh when Pheep has several spell crits go off in a row and when she hits high with a crit...but it's not for [Removed for Content] measuring.  It's <em><strong>fun</strong></em>.  And it's a bit of a giggle at what I hear a lot: Paladins can't do much damage.  I'm not expecting to do mage level hits, but yanno, it's kinda neat to see the several crit numbers ranging from 2800's to 4700's with averages in middle 3500's.</p><p>I'll admit that there have been times when I forget being in off stance when going thru an instance and it takes a death to remind me.  Or I realize that I'm taking far more damage than I should.  Or the healer eyes me from across the room and tells me to change because of how hard it is to heal.  But I do usually go in with def stance, it's the thing to do.  Pheep's there to hold the aggro, not do the damage.</p><p>And for the record, after having tested with def stance many times, I do like it.  I wish there was more damage capability.  If there were, I'd use it when duoing.</p>

[Oakum]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the "fix" to small group content is to remove the taunt reversal and instead drastically reduce the quality of the taunts or remove the taunt effect completely, where the tank has to hold hate with dps alone, instead of detaunting all day long.  my defiler has 2 dehates, my necro 1(2 with aa's), my paladin now has at least 7, all of which are higher quality than my any of my other toons, which is rediculous imho.  increase the damage taken in offensive to the point of being effectively in cloth armor if you like, but tanks should not be on the bottom of the hate list.  i've said before I can see and agree with alot of these changes, but the detaunts are way overboard. </p></blockquote><p>The problem with this is that one of the things we are trying to discourage is the concept of tanks tanking by dps.  By flipping the taunts you essentially <span style="font-size: large; color: #ff0000;"><strong>make it a choice</strong></span>. You either go pure dps in offensive or pure tanking in defensive.  It's still subject to change. However, the changes need to be such that tanking via dps is discouraged yet somehow still effective for the small group which is something we have discussed here a bit.</p></blockquote><p>I think you have that wrong there sir. What you've done is remove choice. Basically we dont have the option of tanking in offensive (or "by dps") anymore. A better option would just be to remove taunt effectiveness so that the lower dps + large hate gain in defensive results in equal to or slightly more HPS than the higher dps + lower hate amounts of offensive. I'm an offensive fighter and this basically ruins my playstyle. Just because I learned how to play my class well and maximized his potential I should get nerfed cause some silly ranger or wizard doesnt know how to play theirs?</p><p>The game should not be so black an white. And as a tank we should have multiple tanking styles, not just i tank in defensive I stand in offensive when crafting... </p></blockquote><p>I do believe the choice he is talking about, from how I read it, is to either be doing decent dps or being the MT. Whether its raid, group, or solo with a zerker and a paly for example duoing something.</p><p>He wants tanks to choose, just like us healers have to choose, do we want to heal better or dps better with our stances from TSO.</p><p>Personally, it sounds like the answer may be to have no stance DPS to do, at best, low tier 2 for the average player wearing legendary gear. Where druids, bards, and chanters should probably be when they are not doing their primary duties as healers or utility like a fighter not being a tank in a group. Then in offensive, highly skilled, and fabled good they can do high tier 2/low tier 1 dps equivelant to summoners ect and have detaunts to help them.</p><p>Then duoing with someone they would normally out dps like a non dpsing druid,  or (in theory but not actually)  a lower dps healer class like cleric or shaman would not be an issue since their non stance would keep aggro and dps skill, stance, gear, and aa spec would determine if a druid or utility could pull aggro and if they did, then they could use their one deaggro or root/mez/stun/fear ect and let the fighter class pass them on dps and get aggro back.</p><p>This would not be in conflict with the devs stated goals of not allowing tanks to use dps to gain/hold aggro in a group/raid (tank in offensive) but would still allow duos/small groups to work.</p><p>Just an idea but not playing a tank, I would have no clue how non stance buffs, attacks, and aa's would have to be adjusted to achieve the no stance dps lvl requirement. Its seems that most of the complaints in the threads about the O stance detaunts seem to be from fighter/low dpsing healer duo's and and those who want to do extremely high dps for a fighter AND be the group/raid tank.</p><p>EDIT: Another way of putting it is that they dont want a fighter to be able to hold aggro against a high dps class unless they are in Dstance (and are actively tanking) by just doing equal or more dps then the high DPS that class that is equally geared like a summoner, scout dps class, or mage dps class and using their "tanking" abilities like taunting and rescues at the same time.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Jokael@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Noobs, this gives us the best detaunts in the game, I bet you DPS classes wish you could drop your threat position using 5-7 detaunts?</p></blockquote><p>Not even that. I find it amusing that Fighters now have what I think is probably the best detaunt in the game. In offensive stance, Rescue will shed about 10K of threat and instantly lower your threat position by 4.</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jokael@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Noobs, this gives us the best detaunts in the game, I bet you DPS classes wish you could drop your threat position using 5-7 detaunts?</p></blockquote><p>Not even that. I find it amusing that Fighters now have what I think is probably the best detaunt in the game. In offensive stance, Rescue will shed about 10K of threat and instantly lower your threat position by 4.</p></blockquote><p>10k?  Eesh.</p><p>On Pheep, Rescue is 5118 dethreat and 4 position drop.</p><p>Just for laughs, here's the other dethreats, highest to lowest.  This is with Idolic Axe at rank 7 with ad 3's save for Circular Smite at M2.</p><p>Clarion (single target taunt): 5073-6200</p><p>Penitent Kick (stun, kd): 3818-4667</p><p>Circular Smite (blue aoe with threat): 2761-3375</p><p>Heroic Dash (shield stun and kd): 2704</p><p>Excoriation (divine miti debuff (1617) taunt): 1893-2314</p>

[RafaelSmith]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jokael@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Noobs, this gives us the best detaunts in the game, I bet you DPS classes wish you could drop your threat position using 5-7 detaunts?</p></blockquote><p>Not even that. I find it amusing that Fighters now have what I think is probably the best detaunt in the game. In offensive stance, Rescue will shed about 10K of threat and instantly lower your threat position by 4.</p></blockquote><p>10k? Eesh.</p></blockquote><p>On test the numeric value of my Rescue was 12kish.</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jokael@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Noobs, this gives us the best detaunts in the game, I bet you DPS classes wish you could drop your threat position using 5-7 detaunts?</p></blockquote><p>Not even that. I find it amusing that Fighters now have what I think is probably the best detaunt in the game. In offensive stance, Rescue will shed about 10K of threat and instantly lower your threat position by 4.</p></blockquote><p>10k? Eesh.</p></blockquote><p>On test the numeric value of my Rescue was 12kish.</p></blockquote><p>Whoa...nice. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Mentalep]

<p>I have to agree that it's just senseless for fighters to have such an incredibly powerful array of detaunting abilities.  It essentially gives us a nearly unlimited threat ceiling when dpsing, and that's broken.  I haven't done the math, but I believe the deaggros I have on test can almost nullify my threat from dps.  The 10% hate reduction compounds that issue.  A fighter who is not tanking will essentially be able to maintain very low threat with little effort or attention required; personal responsibility and the interaction with the actual tank, which have been cited as a focus of this update, will I think be largely irrelevant for fighters in a dps role.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>On test the numeric value of my Rescue was 12kish.</p></blockquote><p>That was the value of the taunt for Rescue in my defensive stance; in offensive, it was a bit less (~9900). So the detaunt numbers are actually different than the taunt numbers. In other words, if a taunt is for 5K, the detaunt version will generally be a bit smaller, probably due to bonuses that deal with increasing the values of taunts.</p><p>But in any case, yes, with this update, fighters get incredibly power detaunts in their offensive stance. Not to mention that all of those attacks that had taunts attached to them are then converted into detaunts. The only taunt that I can think of that remains a taunt regardless of stance is Restitution, the Paladin's replacement for Amends. Not that it really matters because the rate at which a tank sheds threat in offensive is incredibly high.</p><p>Edit: I play a Paladin, and I tested using Restitution in offensive stance to see if it would allow the Paladin to tank in offensive; it doesn't, not even in low DPS groups. The rate at which hate is lost due to the stance far outpaces the threat-over-time generated by Restitution. About the only benefit that Restitution would offer is that it could be used before the Paladin switches to defensive stance, as opposed to CAs like Rescue which would require the switch first. But if you remain in offensive, you'll quickly find yourself near the bottom of the threat list.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Mentalepsy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I have to agree that it's just senseless for fighters to have such an incredibly powerful array of detaunting abilities. It essentially gives us a nearly unlimited threat ceiling when dpsing, and that's broken. I haven't done the math, but I believe the deaggros I have on test can almost nullify my threat from dps. The 10% hate reduction compounds that issue. A fighter who is not tanking will essentially be able to maintain very low threat with little effort or attention required; personal responsibility and the interaction with the actual tank, which have been cited as a focus of this update, will I think be largely irrelevant for fighters in a dps role.</p></blockquote><p>You already have warriors who are doing more damage than scouts in raids. They can strap on their dps gear and just go full out with absolutely no concern about ripping from the MT. If they see themselves starting to ride a bit high on the theat meter, they use Snarling Assault (detaunt and their threat position is lowered by 4). They do happen to rip somehow? No problem, punch Rescue, follow up with a couple of "taunts" and they're riding low on the threat list again.</p><p>Some scouts could end up being replaced by fighters who, with the right gear and spec, can put out the numbers <em>and</em> have far superior threat management tools.</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>On test the numeric value of my Rescue was 12kish.</p></blockquote><p>That was the value of the taunt for Rescue in my defensive stance; in offensive, it was a bit less (~9900). So the detaunt numbers are actually different than the taunt numbers. In other words, if a taunt is for 5K, the detaunt version will generally be a bit smaller, probably due to bonuses that deal with increasing the values of taunts.</p><p>But in any case, yes, with this update, fighters get incredibly power detaunts in their offensive stance. Not to mention that all of those attacks that had taunts attached to them are then converted into detaunts. The only taunt that I can think of that remains a taunt regardless of stance is Restitution, the Paladin's replacement for Amends. Not that it really matters because the rate at which a tank sheds threat in offensive is incredibly high.</p><p>Edit: I play a Paladin, and I tested using Restitution in offensive stance to see if it would allow the Paladin to tank in offensive; it doesn't, not even in low DPS groups. The rate at which hate is lost due to the stance far outpaces the threat-over-time generated by Restitution. About the only benefit that Restitution would offer is that it could be used before the Paladin switches to defensive stance, as opposed to CAs like Rescue which would require the switch first. But if you remain in offensive, you'll quickly find yourself near the bottom of the threat list.</p></blockquote><p>Holy Ground stays the same in off stance.</p><p>Pheep's is an increase of 24 positions at ad 3.  If I use it, any mob that I target will just hate until it runs out.</p><p>The problem with Restitution is the timer.</p><p>20 sec duration, 54.5 recast for Pheep.  She has the end ability in Str line.  That's 34.5 secs of "dead air" until it's ready again.</p><p>Idea: Restitution becomes a group taunt with a faster recast, I could see that being a good work around for off stance tanking in duo/trios.</p><p>/sigh   Yeah, been working on my skill of the "stance tango".  Getting real good with the double click...tho I'd really love it if the shift between stances wasn't a double click but a single click as someone else suggested (apologies to whomever did, can't remember your name).</p>

[denmom]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Mentalepsy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I have to agree that it's just senseless for fighters to have such an incredibly powerful array of detaunting abilities. It essentially gives us a nearly unlimited threat ceiling when dpsing, and that's broken. I haven't done the math, but I believe the deaggros I have on test can almost nullify my threat from dps. The 10% hate reduction compounds that issue. A fighter who is not tanking will essentially be able to maintain very low threat with little effort or attention required; personal responsibility and the interaction with the actual tank, which have been cited as a focus of this update, will I think be largely irrelevant for fighters in a dps role.</p></blockquote><p>You already have warriors who are doing more damage than scouts in raids. They can strap on their dps gear and just go full out with absolutely no concern about ripping from the MT. If they see themselves starting to ride a bit high on the theat meter, they use Snarling Assault (detaunt and their threat position is lowered by 4). They do happen to rip somehow? No problem, punch Rescue, follow up with a couple of "taunts" and they're riding low on the threat list again.</p><p>Some scouts could end up being replaced by fighters who, with the right gear and spec, can put out the numbers <em>and</em> have far superior threat management tools.</p></blockquote><p>Jrral, L80 Zerker, and Pheep were messing around with off stance for laughs, to see who could keep the mob on the other the longest.  Jrral was able to first off, but with Pheep's Clarion taunt, I was able to shed the aggro and keep the mob off her until it died.</p><p>Yah, that's a lot of shedding there....possible dethreat of 6200 at the top end of Clarion?  o_o</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Holy Ground stays the same in off stance.</p></blockquote><p>When I tested it, I specifically omitted Holy Ground because it doesn't generate threat; it increases threat position. So what will happen is you'll "ping pong" the mob for the next 10-12 seconds, and then it'll snap right back. The high recast on Restitution is what really makes it unsuitable for tanking in offensive. The threat that you'll generate will be shed quickly after it expires. So, even if you timed Holy Ground and Restitution, you would have roughly 30 seconds of every minute where you'd have no real aggro control whatsoever in offensive.</p><p>I could see "stance dancing" as an OT, but not as an MT. Having the mob bounce all over the place while you're double clicking your stance buttons is not a way to tank, IMO. And if you screw up, and it will happen (lag, whatever) and you're not actually switched out of your stance and you hit what you think is a taunt -- game over. "Oh gee, thought I switched stances but actually I put myself at the bottom of the threat list" is not going to go over very well with other players. I know my personal tolerance for that kind of mistake would be astronomically low.</p>

[Gwarsh]

<p>there's a zerker in my guild who loads up with double attack and crit gear, makes no difference to him if its chain or leather as long as it has damage dealing specials.  with the right buffs he's cranking out insane amounts of damage, nearly always top of the parse on raids, and constantly stealing aggro from the MT, dying, being rezed and jumping right back into the fray.  with detaunts this large people like him will replace scout dps in raids quickly. who needs a ranger when you can have a zerker doing more damage and far superior threat control?</p><p>how about MT and OT fighting for aggro on a raid mob, MT is spiking so he pops off a stoneskin, goes offensive, throws off a detaunt and lets his OT pick it up while healers stabilize him.  the point is the detaunt thing is way overboard, and the potential for abuse is huge.  reduce survivability in offensive stance, not threat.  the whole reason offensive stance is an option is that tanks are so far into the diminishing returns curve that the 15% boost to armor's mitigation value is a mere 1-2% actual mitigation, and thats just self buffed.  Put 2 or 3 healers buffs on the tank and now the mitigation difference between offensive and defensive is so small as to be negligible.</p><p>Offensive stance should mean high dps low survivability.  Defensive stance the opposite.  reversing the threat is opening up a pandora's box of problems, and is forcing people into rediculous "stance dancing" tactics which certainly aren't the intention of the developers.</p><p>Lets not fight over who got hurt worse here.  lets focus on real, effective solutions to accomplish the goal the developers are looking for without the collateral damage that the change in it's current form will no doubt create.</p>

[Prrasha]

<p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>there's a zerker in my guild who loads up with double attack and crit gear, makes no difference to him if its chain or leather as long as it has damage dealing specials. with the right buffs he's cranking out insane amounts of damage, nearly always top of the parse on raids, and constantly stealing aggro from the MT, dying, being rezed and jumping right back into the fray. with detaunts this large people like him will replace scout dps in raids quickly. who needs a ranger when you can have a zerker doing more damage and far superior threat control?</p><p>how about MT and OT fighting for aggro on a raid mob, MT is spiking so he pops off a stoneskin, goes offensive, throws off a detaunt and lets his OT pick it up while healers stabilize him. the point is the detaunt thing is way overboard, and the potential for abuse is huge. reduce survivability in offensive stance, not threat. the whole reason offensive stance is an option is that tanks are so far into the diminishing returns curve that the 15% boost to armor's mitigation value is a mere 1-2% actual mitigation, and thats just self buffed. Put 2 or 3 healers buffs on the tank and now the mitigation difference between offensive and defensive is so small as to be negligible.</p><p>Offensive stance should mean high dps low survivability. Defensive stance the opposite. reversing the threat is opening up a pandora's box of problems, and is forcing people into rediculous "stance dancing" tactics which certainly aren't the intention of the developers.</p><p>Lets not fight over who got hurt worse here. lets focus on real, effective solutions to accomplish the goal the developers are looking for without the collateral damage that the change in it's current form will no doubt create.</p></blockquote><p>Point one, about pure-DPS tanks, is a solid one.  Could the offensive stance penalty just zero out taunt skills, rather than completely reversing them?  Or make them -10% x Normal*, rather than -100% x Normal, or whatever number you feel is necessary to keep the offensive-tanking under control?</p><p>The tank-trading thing can be done already, just have to /voice to the OT throw a rescue or holy ground or something, rather than the MT going offensive and throwing a deRescue... with the cancel & recast time for the stance, that's probably no slower.  And much safer for the raid anyway, since the OT might not be #2 on the hate list, and the MT shedding the mob onto the highest-DPSing assassin, and then the highest DPSing wizard after him, wouldn't be good.</p><p>* - and zero out any position shifts rather than negating them, or make all the shifts -1 position only.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>how about MT and OT fighting for aggro on a raid mob, MT is spiking so he pops off a stoneskin, goes offensive, throws off a detaunt and lets his OT pick it up while healers stabilize him. the point is the detaunt thing is way overboard...</p></blockquote><p>That's really a secondary issue. I'd say the vast majority of serious raiding guilds out there use a Guardian as the MT, a Paladin as the OT. The MT gets into trouble, the Paladin throws out Holy Ground to buy him some time. Once he's back into the green they'll ping pong aggro for a few seconds, and once HG expires he uses Snarling Assault to take control again. No stance changes, no detaunts needed, and it's available in the game right now (as it will be with GU51).</p><p>The real problem is that by giving tanks the best detaunts in the game in their offensive stance, it has the potential to turn scouts into second class citizens, both for groups and raids. As another poster said, the way things are now, there's virtually no DPS threshold for fighters. This goes in as it is now, and why would someone choose an Assassin over a comparably geared/spec'd Berserker who might not put out the spike damage, but can go full bore and never worry about ripping from the MT? I can't think of one.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Gwarsh@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>how about MT and OT fighting for aggro on a raid mob, MT is spiking so he pops off a stoneskin, goes offensive, throws off a detaunt and lets his OT pick it up while healers stabilize him. </blockquote><p>This is not something that will ever happen, as the potential pitfalls are far worse than what would happen if the MT just kept the mob on him with his save up.</p>

[Gwarsh]

<p>either way, my point is that hate should not be able to be so easily manipulated.  these detaunts have got to go.</p>

[Cabral]

<p><cite>everquest2.station.sony.com wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>EverQuest^® II is the next generation of massively multiplayer gaming, a huge online world where friends have come together for adventure and community.</cite></p></blockquote><p>Not raiding. Not grinding. Friends coming together. Now, the community often times may not seem like such a casual environment, but it my experience on Kithicor, it is. I often solo, duo, trio or even if I'm a sizable group, often times one or two archetypes are heavily represented. My primary experience is a Paladin-Templar duo. (According to the panic cries, we will now have to rely on uber Templar DPS ... but I'll wait and see.)</p><p>I am well equipped for my play style with equipment ranging from Treasured to Legendary.</p><p>I have learned a little more about tanking from these discussions (autoattack timing) and the first advice I would give to the devs is that if you want players to be more skillful at their class, teach them how to play it in the game. I'm told either WoW or LotRO does this and seems like an obvious path. As it currently stands, how the game behaves is not described in a central location let alone actively taught to the players. It's scattered accross numerous locations and you have to have an idea of how it might work before you are likely to research it. And to make maters worse, advice pages sometimes include what I might consider minor exploits. You're feared? duck and switch to walk. Nothing says abject fear like slowly moving away.</p><p>So that's my complaint on a fundamental problem that this change may highlight, the lake of player understanding of the way the game works because SOE has kept it cryptic.</p><p>Now, to move my post more solidly on topic, let's address the coming changes.</p><p>My issues before GU51:</p><ol><li>I never, ever use offensive stance. I ignore it. If I'm in it, that means there's a better tank in the group and Riposte or AoE kicks my butt. I "DPS", MA or Offtank in Defensive stance.</li><li>A raid-geared DPSer, often higher level, possibly mentored down, joins a pick-up group and if I don't have Amends on him, I can't hold agro. A chain class can sometime take a decent beating, but sometimes the DPSer can't take the hits.</li><li>I can heal, but when I'm filling the MT role, I rarely use any of my dedicated healing abilities. Only Tangentially related, but since we are talking about assessment of tank class roles.</li></ol><p>My expectations after GU51:</p><ol><li>I will never, ever use offensive stance. I took too much damage before SOE put an increase to damage taken. Never. I don't have two stances; I have one. I will sorely miss the blessed weapon line.</li><li>I don't know if the loss of amends will be offset by the gain of the other taunts. However, there are two flaws in the statements that SOE has made about the GU51: 1) It is not the tank's responsibility to manage agro; It is <strong>everyone's</strong> responsibility to manage agro. Stealing the tanks agro? use your detaunts and tone back. 2) By maximizing my DPS as a tank, I <strong>am</strong> being responsible for my agro. Take away the hate transfer, but don't take my DPS.</li><li>Meh. Maybe SOE will slip something later, slap a taunt onto the heals, or something.</li><li>While "DPS"ing in defensive stance, I can currently avoid hitting taunts (other than righteousness for the divine debuff) in order to not compete with the tank (with loss of amends in its current form, this may not be an issue). I am concerned with the changes that I must chose between reducing my DPS by not hittng the CAs with taunts (see note 1) or compete with the tank for agro as my dedicated taunts constitute a smaller percentage of my agro.</li></ol><p>Test server experience:</p><p>My wife didn't want to patch Test, so I couldn't do a run through of what us duoing will be like. However, I did a quick solo run of the Icy Keep (Easy). On Live, at Level 71 (no Axe of Brilliant Hues), Kastus does a pretty good job of beating me up. I die with him solidly in the orange. On test, same run at 74 with Axe in bank and it's a tough fight. I think I'm tougher than at before, but that could easily be explained by the incarnadine armor (My level -2 Mastercrafted) as opposed to Xegonite at 71 (My level - 9 Mastercrafted) rather than any changes. I still die, but this time he's at half a red bub.</p><p>The weekend is here, so maybe I can find time to take a few more runs and find some fellow testers to try things out with.</p><p>My suggestions for consideration</p><ul><li>Give DPSers a detaunt that is on the same timer as another spell or CA. Give them the tools to manage and be responsible for keeping their agro at appropriate levels for the tank they are with. Make them choose whether they go full out, hold back a little or alternate attacks with duck and cover.</li><li>Paladin specific (though equivelant situations may occur with other tanks): reduce the taunt amount of the defensive stance proc and add a reduced blessed weapon proc. Maintain the flavor of the class.</li><li>Take the taunts off the combat arts and increase the taunts to the appropriate values.</li><li>Change the detaunts while in Offensive stance to 25% (Arbitrary number) with no hate position adjustment so that they can switch to defensive stance and take agro if called upon. Potentially restrict Rescue to defensive stance only.</li><li>Revamp the classes simultaneously. After LU51, the tank classes may be where you want them relative to your view of the other classes, but that view might change as time progresses and feedback is sent in. Revamping the classes in one LU after six months of test server testing should create less panic and provide clases which are more unified.</li><li>Maintain, and play to, the flavor of the classes. (See my Paladin healing comments and an earlier poster's Beserker comments.)</li><li>Don't design a game for raiders. You can't assume that the player base has the equipment to compensate for the penalties you are imposing (ie, defensive/offensive stances). It is against the spirit of the game that I quoted above. You describe a game for one audience and it seems that the changes are geared more towards a different audience plays the game.</li><li>Target the problem areas. The issue is not really in solo and duo groups, but your balancing effort is impacting both. Where is the problem? It's in how hate is generated and managed in group and raid encounters. Restrict the changes to that. Remove/restrict hate transfer but leave tank DPS alone. Balance taunts and detaunts but leave the DPS alone.</li></ul><p>My wife's done watching Battlestar so I won't get to test tonight, maybe tommorrow. In any case, I've been here since beta. I've been through many changes, including at least one combat change, I'll live through this one and adapt. I may find myself focusing on a different class, but I hope not.</p>

[Kreagan De'Unerro]

<p>Ya know what guys, I think with GU51 I am changing my whole outlook on my guard:</p><p>When bidding on raid gear I am goin to bid on normally scout items(if useable by guard)that i would usually not bid on. This means chain,leather,jewelry, anything that will increase my dps even more.</p><p>If I can find enough items to get me closer to 100% MC and 80-100%DA, I think with the right gear we could parse in the 10-13k areas.</p><p>So our Reinforcement will drop our hate position by 1 level +5oo threat each time we hit? Rescue 4positions +12k threat reduction?? Not to mention our standard taunts which with a coercer does damage and detaunt?</p><p>Think mages and some scouts are [Removed for Content] about our DPS now, wait till they see us bidding against them for DPS gear. Crusaders wearing cloth? I was already thinking about this for my SK before this test.</p><p>DPS classes will still do less DPS and get oneshotted why us fighters don't get any agro.</p><p>Raidforces will now consist of?</p><p>4x Bards</p><p>4x Chanters</p><p>2x Templars</p><p>2x Inquisitors</p><p>1x Defiler</p><p>2x Mystic</p><p>1x Warden</p><p>1x Brigand</p><p>7x Fighters</p><p>WOOT ALL HAIL AERALIK!</p><p>Aeralik needs to get a clue.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Jokael@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Aeralik needs to get a clue.</blockquote><p>Its not Aeralik that needs a clue.</p><p>Go out and get all that melee DPS gear, put yourself in a melee DPS spot on a raid and see what your able to do. Then drop an assassin or rouge in that spot and see what they can do with the same debuffs.</p><p>Once you've done that, appologise to your guild for looting all that gear.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Cabral wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I never, ever use offensive stance. I ignore it. If I'm in it, that means there's a better tank in the group and Riposte or AoE kicks my butt. I "DPS", MA or Offtank in Defensive stance.</blockquote><p>Why do you DPS, MA or offtank in front of mobs?</p>

[Kreagan De'Unerro]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jokael@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Aeralik needs to get a clue.</blockquote><p>Its not Aeralik that needs a clue.</p><p>Go out and get all that melee DPS gear, put yourself in a melee DPS spot on a raid and see what your able to do. Then drop an assassin or rouge in that spot and see what they can do with the same debuffs.</p><p>Once you've done that, appologise to your guild for looting all that gear.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ffff00;">Apparently you do not understand sarcasm?</span></p><p>The issue is this <span style="color: #ff00ff;">clown</span>:</p><p>Aeralik is putting forth a crusade to keep tanks from holding agro in Offesnive Stance because him and other scouts/mages are getting outparsed by tanks who are tanking in Offensive. He clearly states over and over that tanking should not be done in Offensive to hold agro, yet in class descriptions such as zerker it says the zerker will maintain a mobs attention by pounding on it hard.</p><p>What is happening now is we as fighters get the best detaunts plus a decent proc in our Offensive stance. Alot of fighters can already outparse 80% of their raid DPS as it is, so increasing a fighters DPS even more and making it so a fighter will never hit the top of a mobs hate meter is going to hurt alot of DPS classes for their respective raid guilds.</p><p>I do see the possibility of some DPS classes being asked to sit now and have their spot taken by a fighter class.</p><p>SKs can hit 10-15k easily in a good raid group set up and if played correctly, and this may increase with their new Offensive Stance. They will be great example of who to replace your dps classes with.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Jokael@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jokael@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Aeralik needs to get a clue.</blockquote><p>Its not Aeralik that needs a clue.</p><p>Go out and get all that melee DPS gear, put yourself in a melee DPS spot on a raid and see what your able to do. Then drop an assassin or rouge in that spot and see what they can do with the same debuffs.</p><p>Once you've done that, appologise to your guild for looting all that gear.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ffff00;">Apparently you do not understand sarcasm?</span></p><p>The issue is this <span style="color: #ff00ff;">clown</span>:</p><p>Aeralik is putting forth a crusade to keep tanks from holding agro in Offesnive Stance because him and other scouts/mages are getting outparsed by tanks who are tanking in Offensive. He clearly states over and over that tanking should not be done in Offensive to hold agro, yet in class descriptions such as zerker it says the zerker will maintain a mobs attention by pounding on it hard.</p><p>What is happening now is we as fighters get the best detaunts plus a decent proc in our Offensive stance. Alot of fighters can already outparse 80% of their raid DPS as it is, so increasing a fighters DPS even more and making it so a fighter will never hit the top of a mobs hate meter is going to hurt alot of DPS classes for their respective raid guilds.</p><p>I do see the possibility of some DPS classes being asked to sit now and have their spot taken by a fighter class.</p><p>SKs can hit 10-15k easily in a good raid group set up and if played correctly, and this may increase with their new Offensive Stance. They will be great example of who to replace your dps classes with.</p></blockquote><p>There is a diffrence between a zerkers description and the reality of the game at present.  I dont think this update has anything to do with any dev playing a scout and getting their feelings hurt.  I have said it in the past, and probably will say it again...there ARE things I do think favor certain classes cause devs play them..this however is NOT one of those times.</p><p>the constance DPS spiral has to stop and this is one way to stop it. If this is done right...DPS classes will be more resposible for their own hate, tanks will be more responsible for their own aggro..and everyone will win.</p><p>I dont think this will make all tanks outparse all DPS on a raid...cause if dont right scout DPS should go up not down, while tank DPS should be stable where its at for top geared / top skilled players.</p><p>I hope we get a solid set of update notes and some changes this week, cause things are very far from perfect as they stand now for a lot of classes, but I have faith its moving in the right direction.</p>

[Powers]

<p>Let's step back from insults a bit, shall we?  This is an accounting of the major concerns as I seem them right now.  I would like this to be a concise and useful summary for the devs to look at.</p><p>1)  Flipping taunts to detaunts in offensive mode risks letting fighters go nuts on DPS without having to worry about hate position, thus threatening the role of scouts in a group.</p><p>2)  Forcing fighters to choose one role -- tank or DPS -- is fine philsophically for groups and raids, but doesn't work well in duos (and maybe solo), where one person has to take on multiple roles.  (If the fighter tanks in a duo with a healer, who does damage?  And if the fighter goes DPS, how can she keep the mob off of the healer?)</p><p>3)  If all the fighters tank the same way, what distinguishes them?  What is the role of the Berserker, for instance, whose high damage output was supposed to help supplement his defensive abilities by maintaining aggro?</p><p>I would like to see Aeralik address these concerns -- either by explaining why they shouldn't be concerns, or what the team plans to do to resolve them.</p><p>Powers  &8^]</p>

[UNTILitSLEEPS]

<p>nt</p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Powers wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>1) Flipping taunts to detaunts in offensive mode risks letting fighters go nuts on DPS without having to worry about hate position, thus threatening the role of scouts in a group.</p><p>2) Forcing fighters to choose one role -- tank or DPS -- is fine philsophically for groups and raids, but doesn't work well in duos (and maybe solo), where one person has to take on multiple roles. (If the fighter tanks in a duo with a healer, who does damage? And if the fighter goes DPS, how can she keep the mob off of the healer?)</p></blockquote><p>On #1, I've thought about that in groups too. 1 any plate class in defensive stance tanking, 1 well-equipped warden to heal, 4 tanks in offensive stance with pure offensive gear on. With the aggro/taunt changes there's no way the offensive tanks will ever risk pulling aggro off the MT, and if they do they can take the hits for a few seconds while they pop off one of their hate-position decreasers ('zerkers at least have an insane number of those).</p><p>On #2, it's not just duos. Even in a full group plate classes run as off-tank, dealing DPS while they aren't needed for tanking adds/respawns or bringing errant mobs back to the MT or simply taking over if the MT dies. With all their snap-aggro abilities turned into deaggro abilities they have to stop and change stances before they can shift from DPS to tanking, which is bad because they're the firefighters of tanks: they spend most of their time doing things other than their primary job, but when you need them for their primary job you need them really badly and <em>right now</em> or people die.</p>

[Illine]

<p><cite>Powers wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Let's step back from insults a bit, shall we?  This is an accounting of the major concerns as I seem them right now.  I would like this to be a concise and useful summary for the devs to look at.</p><p>1)  Flipping taunts to detaunts in offensive mode risks letting fighters go nuts on DPS without having to worry about hate position, thus threatening the role of scouts in a group.</p></blockquote><p>they won't because scouts bring other stuffs, the big dps for assassins which fighter cqn't compete with and debuffs with brigand, swash.</p><p>just that now tqnks will be able to have a slot in a raid.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p>I think the other thing we're missing from this thread is "WHY" zerkers and other fighters stand in offensive while tanking some of the hardest mobs in the game. Ya its an orange or red x4 epic mob, I'd love to stand in defensive so it doesnt beat through my shammy's wards so quick, but hey in defensive i lose so much s/c/p that i cant hit the d*mn thing to hold agro. So they go this great idea tanks dont need dps to hold ago, problem is that even with all the extra hate gain and increased taunts the HPS is not going to make up for the loss in previous dps. And with no transfers (which are very hard to account for) I'm next to positive tanks are losing even more hate. The issue was never that we feel like padding our parse (well maybe the guys rolling on chain and leather are, but) it just we were trying to do our job. The changes make me less effective at my job especially considering my group of friends, created a group where I am one of the primary sources of damage.</p><p>I'd also like to examine this issue of fighters stealing all the raid spots. Lets look at an average raid (this may vary widely)</p><p>grp1- tank, healer, healer, chanter, bard, rogue</p><p>grp2- tank, healer, healer, chanter, bard, tank/rogue</p><p>grp3- bard, chanter, healer, dps, mage, mage</p><p>grp4- bard, chanter, healer, brawler, dps, dps</p><p>sooo who gets cut to make room for extra fighters. a fighters maybe almost 10k dps is not going to replace an assasins 15k (they have better detaunts now), a fighters 10k ish is not going to replace a brig/swashys 10k + debuffs, i doubt we'd replace mages. so where do we put the fighters... no where</p>

[Cabral]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cabral wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I never, ever use offensive stance. I ignore it. If I'm in it, that means there's a better tank in the group and Riposte or AoE kicks my butt. I "DPS", MA or Offtank in Defensive stance.</blockquote><p>Why do you DPS, MA or offtank in front of mobs?</p></blockquote><p>Sigh. I suppose it's too much to ask that the complete post be evaluated instead of focusing part of it. To answer your question, which may have been intended as "don't stand in front", I don't. I was recalling (since I don't use offensive stance anymore) a run or a few runs where I would get Riposted if I got agro* or if I hit an attack too soon, which happend sometimes and I had no way to deagro. Also, I think the mobs had damage shields which we had no way to remove in addition to the occaisional (non-frontal) AoE. It's been a while since we did it, but I want to say it was Klak'Anon or Sanctum of the Scaleborn.</p><p>* This feeds back, btw into my point about each member of the group needing to be responsible for, and having the tools for, managing their own agro.</p>

[Kreagan De'Unerro]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think the other thing we're missing from this thread is "WHY" zerkers and other fighters stand in offensive while tanking some of the hardest mobs in the game. Ya its an orange or red x4 epic mob, I'd love to stand in defensive so it doesnt beat through my shammy's wards so quick.</p><p>sooo who gets cut to make room for extra fighters. a fighters maybe almost 10k dps is not going to replace an assasins 15k (they have better detaunts now), a fighters 10k ish is not going to replace a brig/swashys 10k + debuffs, i doubt we'd replace mages. so where do we put the fighters... no where</p></blockquote><p>Your first point, Tanks standing in front of an orange con raid mob in offensive stance is most likely 5% of the community of tanks who has the GEAR, HEALERS, BUFFS to do so. Most tanks do not do this. I have been clearing VP for nearly 8 months now and have only tankined in Offensive on slouches like Kluzen,Hoshkar,Xygoz,Queen Bee, Mylex,etc... The trash in there is more dangerous then most of those mobs. And this is after getting the gear for our raidforce to do so.</p><p>The reason why us tanks were/are outparsing majority of the DPS classes on raids is again,  the DPS is slacking their butts off and should recheck their casting orders and they keep adding Melee Crit/Double Attack to our gear instead of adding to our taunts. If they would have increased our taunts in the first place and not add so much STR/MC/DA to our gear we would tank more in line using our threat tools. What would you expect when any melee class is running around with 100%DA and 80%MC?</p><p>They do not need to add detaunts to the offensive stance. It is totally lame that we have to choose to be either at the top on the hate scale or the bottom of it. Why not leave the detaunts out? Just a stupid freakin idea.</p><p>Ohh and from the looks of it come GU51 Swashies may be the class less needed now, their debuffs arrent that critical, and a SK can handle his DPS anyday. Heck 4 SKs on raids may not be far fetched with the DPS they are doing.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Jokael@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think the other thing we're missing from this thread is "WHY" zerkers and other fighters stand in offensive while tanking some of the hardest mobs in the game. Ya its an orange or red x4 epic mob, I'd love to stand in defensive so it doesnt beat through my shammy's wards so quick.</p><p>sooo who gets cut to make room for extra fighters. a fighters maybe almost 10k dps is not going to replace an assasins 15k (they have better detaunts now), a fighters 10k ish is not going to replace a brig/swashys 10k + debuffs, i doubt we'd replace mages. so where do we put the fighters... no where</p></blockquote><p>Your first point, Tanks standing in front of an orange con raid mob in offensive stance is most likely 5% of the community of tanks who has the GEAR, HEALERS, BUFFS to do so. Most tanks do not do this. I have been clearing VP for nearly 8 months now and have only tankined in Offensive on slouches like Kluzen,Hoshkar,Xygoz,Queen Bee, Mylex,etc... The trash in there is more dangerous then most of those mobs. And this is after getting the gear for our raidforce to do so.</p><p>The reason why us tanks were/are outparsing majority of the DPS classes on raids is again,  the DPS is slacking their butts off and should recheck their casting orders and they keep adding Melee Crit/Double Attack to our gear instead of adding to our taunts. If they would have increased our taunts in the first place and not add so much STR/MC/DA to our gear we would tank more in line using our threat tools. What would you expect when any melee class is running around with 100%DA and 80%MC?</p><p>They do not need to add detaunts to the offensive stance. It is totally lame that we have to choose to be either at the top on the hate scale or the bottom of it. Why not leave the detaunts out? Just a stupid freakin idea.</p><p>Ohh and from the looks of it come GU51 Swashies may be the class less needed now, their debuffs arrent that critical, and a SK can handle his DPS anyday. Heck 4 SKs on raids may not be far fetched with the DPS they are doing.</p></blockquote><p>I did some hate testing with a swashy (I do not have my myth, and he did) and his "new" swarthy accounted for almost 25% of my total hate generation. I think they will still be needed especially cause they can cast it on the OT for a quick hate boost, or they can cast it on another said dps (spiking wizzy or assasin) to lower their hate. can't remember if its only in group though. still i'd say they've at least got 2 spot locked down</p>

[Sandozar]

<p>Well, i ( zerker, monk ) mostly duo with my girlfriend ( fury, mystic ). We both dislike raiding or visiting instances for x times, although we really like to do quests involving heroic content several levels below - well, pre-rok content anyway.</p><p>So we do solo quests most of the time and have as good gear as is available at the broker. All i can say is this: if after gu51 we will not be able to do what we were able to do before, we both *will* quit and try other games. Of course we will first try it out, but i realy have to say that i'm sceptical if my tanks will be able to tank *and* do enough damage for our duo purposes.</p><p>Well, we will see. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Just my 2c, and sorry for my bad english it's not my native language.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>sooo who gets cut to make room for extra fighters. a fighters maybe almost 10k dps is not going to replace an assasins 15k (they have better detaunts now), a fighters 10k ish is not going to replace a brig/swashys 10k + debuffs, i doubt we'd <strong>replace mages</strong>. so where do we put the fighters... no where</p></blockquote><p>I highlighted the answer for you. Casters do inconsistent damage against level 84/85 raid mobs due to resists, and they're squishy. They pull aggro, they die. On the other hand, fighters can put out the numbers, don't have to deal with ridiculous resist rates, will have the best deaggro in the game and are a lot more durable even in DPS gear. Will they spike damage as high as a caster? No. Will they be more consistent, reliable damage without requiring a rez everytime a raid mob pumps an AoE? Yes. Particularly in TSO raids.</p>

[TheSpin]

<p>I think you went the wrong direction with the stance revamp.</p><p>All of the deaggro on the offensive stances is <em>silly</em>.  Any 2nd tank in a group should still be able to generate enough aggro to take over the tanking if necessary, and should be able to dps in offensive until they need to go defensive.</p><p>A <strong>much better</strong> solution would be to remove the massive weapon skill penalty on the defensive stance, and simply cut all damage dealt by a certain % (say 30%) but compensatve the lower damage output by a large hate increase (say 70%).  That way the tanks can keep tanking the way they have learned to tank, but in defensive stance, with their dps in check, but the hate still their responsibility.  Offensive stance could be adjusted to add the proper amount of dps, and then make the surviveability of the tank suffer rather than the aggro generation.  Suviveability is the MMO sacrifice for DPS, to make aggro generation suffer because of too much DPS goes against the concept of MMOs.</p><p>(In my opinion you can remove the weapon skill bonuses from both the offensive and defensive stance from all classes, and adjust the hit rate to compensate for the change.  Yes DPS should be affected by stances, but NOT hit rate.)</p>