Merging Tank Buffs Into Stances = Removing All Choice in How I Play My Tank.

[Kunaak]

<p>ok - so I took a look at the test server, saw the changes myself.</p><p>the only thing I have to say about it is...</p><p>why?</p><p>no joke... why?</p><p>you want to merge all our skills into various stances, where if we run one stance, we dont get various buffs, we already have??</p><p>so basically, for us mainly instancing tanks, we have to spend the rest of our game time, in one stance.</p><p>no choice whatsoever on how we choose to do our job?</p><p>at the moment, I have all these buffs and stances, and get to assess the situation, and choose clearly what I think will get me past the obstacles before me, in raids and instances.</p><p>if a mobs really hard hitting, I can have the dirge buff us for +50  to slashing and such, go defensive, and live better, keep a good hit rate and so on.</p><p>if I have a very good healer I run offensive stance 100% of the time.</p><p>if things are alittle dicey, but defensive stance still isnt necessary, I run with no stance at all.</p><p>with this update to the stances, it eliminates me completly from the equation, so I have no choice in how I do what I do, and am forced to tank only 1 way. defensive stance 100% of the time.</p><p>when you have no choice, you take me ... the player... outta the equation.</p><p>isnt the entire point of a RPG, to have this open world, where you get all this freedom to do things, and have tools before you, to help you do certain things, and you figure out what works for you and what doesnt. play as you wanted to play?</p><p>with whats going on with the stances, we have no choice.</p><p>MT = defensive stance only.</p><p>OT = offensive stance only.</p><p>theres no choice there. we are basically all being force to play the exact same way, 100% of the time, with the merging of our buffs, and stances, and the penalties that come now from the stances, that arent currently there.</p><p>why give the illusion of choice, when there is no choice at all?</p><p>let me do my job, as I choose.</p><p>leave the stances alone. we have the tools at hand, leave the option of how we do our role, up to us.</p><p>dont force us all to play only 1 way.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Kunaak wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>isnt the entire point of a RPG, to have this open world, where you get all this freedom to do things, and have tools before you, to help you do certain things, and you figure out what works for you and what doesnt. play as you wanted to play?</blockquote><p>While that is a part of the point of an RPG, the point of developers in an RPG is to maintain balance. Tanks being able to hold aggro while DPSing was an issue, they were doing two jobs at the same time.</p><p>This update resolves that issue.</p><p>If they made it so that you could still tank in offensive stance, they would have to make it so you wern't DPSing much more in offensive stance, meaning the difference between the two stances would be very small. Instead, they decided to give fighters an alternative to tanking 100% of the time, by increasing their non tanking DPS ability. In order to do that, they needed to reduce fighters ability to tank while DPSing, otherwise they would have found themselves back with the original situation.</p>

[epyon333]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kunaak wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>isnt the entire point of a RPG, to have this open world, where you get all this freedom to do things, and have tools before you, to help you do certain things, and you figure out what works for you and what doesnt. play as you wanted to play?</blockquote><p>Tanks being able to hold aggro while DPSing was an issue, they were doing two jobs at the same time.</p></blockquote><p>Arent there some classes that are supposed to hold aggro by DPSing, like say zerkers and thats why our taunts and other aggro tools arent that great. </p><p>And if its such a problem why do i still have assasains and wizards pulling off me often.</p>

[Splor]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kunaak wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>isnt the entire point of a RPG, to have this open world, where you get all this freedom to do things, and have tools before you, to help you do certain things, and you figure out what works for you and what doesnt. play as you wanted to play?</blockquote><p>While that is a part of the point of an RPG, the point of developers in an RPG is to maintain balance. Tanks being able to hold aggro while DPSing was an issue, they were doing two jobs at the same time.</p><p>This update resolves that issue.</p><p>If they made it so that you could still tank in offensive stance, they would have to make it so you wern't DPSing much more in offensive stance, meaning the difference between the two stances would be very small. Instead, they decided to give fighters an alternative to tanking 100% of the time, by increasing their non tanking DPS ability. In order to do that, they needed to reduce fighters ability to tank while DPSing, otherwise they would have found themselves back with the original situation.</p></blockquote><p>They designed some tanks around the concept of DPSing. In return for that ability, they butchered survivability and utility. That being said should fighter DPS be curbed some, yes, but putting all tanks in a position where you either dont tank and dps, or you do tank and spam taunts [Removed for Content] the classes who were DEFINED by that ability to hybrid survivability and damage.</p>

[Aeralik]

<p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into stance buffs you would cast anyways.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise you really get what you would have had either way.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into stance buffs you would cast anyways.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise you really get what you would have had either way.</p></blockquote><p>My first reaction was upset when I heard about the merged buffs, but I agreed once I saw them.</p><p>I like how the SK ones change based on stance, to me its a great change...more threat in defensive and still do dmg in offensive. Best of both worlds.</p><p>I dont see why more people dont get it, I really dont.  I am usually critical of a lot of Aeralik's changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> so the fact that I get this one and so many dont really confuses me lol.</p>

[epyon333]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into stance buffs you would cast anyways.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise you really get what you would have had either way.</p></blockquote><p>This will definatly weaken berserkers</p><p>We trade defence and taunts for our DPS.  We are an offenceive tank.</p><p>I run with all my "until canceled" buffs up all the time, now you want to merge them with my stances.  I doubt all the buff will make it to a stance and the ones that do i bet will be split up between the two stances effectively making me weaker in either stance since im missing something i had before.</p><p>And how does forcing me into the defencive stance to tank not take a way choice.  I choose to tank mostly in the off stance because the def stance is weak, atleast for a zerker and make is hard to hold aggro.  i only use the def stance when i really need a little bit more defence, cus thats all it really gives me even at adept III.   Really all youve got to do to zerkers to get the results SOE is claiming their looking for is beef up our def stance and our taunts.</p>

[Skywarrior]

<p><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I choose to tank mostly in the off stance because the def stance is weak, atleast for a zerker and make is hard to hold aggro.  i only use the def stance when i really need a little bit more defence, cus thats all it really gives me even at adept III.   Really all youve got to do to zerkers to get the results SOE is claiming their looking for is beef up our def stance and our taunts.</p></blockquote><p>Some of you don't seem to "get" that this is exactly what SOE is attempting to fix by these changes.  Holding aggro via superior DPS is the issue that is being corrected.  This post is almost a poster child of why the change is coming.  Whether or not you agree with the thrust of the change, the more you emphasize how much you depend on DPS now for aggro, the more you prove the devs correct.</p><p>Tanks should have never become DPS machines.  They had to in order to function as tanks.  These changes are to correct that.  It's really that simple.  Fighters, on the other hand (ie not tanking), need to bring enough DPS to the table to be a viable choice in a group/raid and be able to solo effectively.  Offensive stance is targetted for that. </p><p>Remember, Tank is not a class but a function.  Fighters are not tanks - unless they perform that function.  Fighters are being given the tools to be very effective tanks without infringing on the territory of the DPS classes.</p>

[Nero]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into stance buffs you would cast anyways.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise you really get what you would have had either way.</p></blockquote><p>I don't know if choice is removed.But I think that merging self buffs into stances is a overkill.Create a new powerful defensive stance, a new powerful offensive stance, and a new powerful self buff spell made by merging all self buffs which a fighter has now independent from stances.It's enough.</p><p>To be honest, I don't want to see the effects of a self buff split into two stances.For example, current Unholy Arms of SK is "on a successfull attack, it inflicts damage and heals".But Unholy Strike merged into defensive stance in GU51 heals and increases threat instead of healing and damaging.Grim Strike merged into offensive stance in GU51 heals and inflicts damage.Why shouldn't a self buff heal, damage, and increase threat at the same time?Is a proc of heal, damage and threat overpowered?If so, why?I don't want to see the effects of a current self buff split into two stances.Separating the effects of a self buff into two stances is a nerf.Even if I am compensated with threat instead of damage, at least proc of damage disappears in new defensive stance. Furthermore, separating the effects of self buff as the above also decreases a soloability of SK very much.</p><p>I agree that fighters should take damage with defensive stance.And I agree that fighters should hold aggro by not damage, but taunts.But merging self buffs into stances and separating the effects of a self buff into two stances aren't needed.All you have to do is increasing the amount of taunts in defensive stance and decreasing the amount of taunts in offensive stance like new stances of GU51.It will work enough.You don't need to merge self buffs into stances, separate the effects of a self buff, and nerf the self buff.</p><p>And, to be honest further, how will the individuality and uniqueness of fighters become when all fighters should use only defensive stance to tank?The concept of ST/AoE tank is not working and not functioning as a lot of players said.If fighters should use only defensive stance to tank, why are there 6 fighters?What is the roles of each fighter?Balancing fighters takes away the individuality, uniqueness or identity of each fighter.If fighters should use only defensive stance into which self buffs are merged, there is no need for 6 fighters.If there is one fighter, it's enough.Or like you like, merge fighters into one single-target fighter and one aoe fighter. It's enough.Balancing is important, I know. But where did uniqueness of a fighter go?</p>

[Maroger]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into stance buffs you would cast anyways.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise you really get what you would have had either way.</p></blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p><p>WHy couldn't you just leave the buffs as they are or if you persist in telling people that merging buffs and stances was to save buffing time (which no one believes except you) , why did you remove the damage instead of just adding the aggro TO THE DAMAGE. WHy did you have to cripple the buff ???? Why did you have to force people into playing the game the way you think it should be played by their character instead of allowing them the freedom to choose???</p><p>WHen you change the way the buff operate you are removing choice from the player. !!!</p><p>EDIT: I tried both stances on test -- I took 25% more damage in offense and still did less DPS than I did in DEFENSE ON LIVE. Not sure I see a big improvement to playing the game with your changed. Merging the buffs into stances is a NERF to SK's no matter what anyone says.  So your new OFFENSIVE stances reduces DPS and INCREASES Damage vs. what we now have on live. Great change (NOT)</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into stance buffs you would cast anyways.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise you really get what you would have had either way.</p></blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p><p>WHy couldn't you just leave the buffs as they are or if you persist in telling people that merging buffs and stances was to save buffing time (which no one believes except you) , why did you remove the damage instead of just adding the aggro TO THE DAMAGE. WHy did you have to cripple the buff ???? Why did you have to force people into playing the game the way you think it should be played by their character instead of allowing them the freedom to choose???</p><p>WHen you change the way the buff operate you are removing choice from the player. !!!</p></blockquote><p>If your in defensive stance....your tanking a mob for a group. You want as much threat generation as possible. Damage does not equal threat anymore, they ARE 2 diffrent things.  Threat is how you hold a mob now. If you want damage you go in OFFENSIVE stance.  Its SOOOOOOOO simple to understand. If you had damage and threat and lifetap it would overpower the buff. </p><p>Having to choose between defensive for tanking and offensive for DPS is  not taking away choice...having one stance be the one everyone uses IS though.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>EDIT: I tried both stances on test -- I took 25% more damage in offense and still did less DPS than I did in DEFENSE ON LIVE. Not sure I see a big improvement to playing the game with your changed. Merging the buffs into stances is a NERF to SK's no matter what anyone says.  So your new OFFENSIVE stances reduces DPS and INCREASES Damage vs. what we now have on live. Great change (NOT)</p></blockquote><p>If you truly honestly got those results....then you are having some major issues. OFFENSIVE stance on test is 100% for sure better damage than defensive for damage....and any SK that says they solo worse in it on test than in defensive on live is either not playing the class in any way shape or form correctly or is seriously delusional.</p><p>Rationally speaking, offensive boosts your int way more than def.  If int = spell dmg it is therefore theoretically IMPOSSIBLE to do less damage if your abilites innatly do MORE damage is it not?</p><p>If you can somehow explain to me how a nuke for say 600 dmg in defensive does more DPS than the same nuke in offensive which is now boosted to 750 or so from the int bonus is possible I will concede the point with no problem. Because I cant for the life of me figure that math out.</p>

[Nero]

<p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into stance buffs you would cast anyways.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise you really get what you would have had either way.</p></blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p><p>WHy couldn't you just leave the buffs as they are or if you persist in telling people that merging buffs and stances was to save buffing time (which no one believes except you) , why did you remove the damage instead of just adding the aggro TO THE DAMAGE. WHy did you have to cripple the buff ???? Why did you have to force people into playing the game the way you think it should be played by their character instead of allowing them the freedom to choose???</p><p>WHen you change the way the buff operate you are removing choice from the player. !!!</p></blockquote><p>If your in defensive stance....your tanking a mob for a group. You want as much threat generation as possible. Damage does not equal threat anymore, they ARE 2 diffrent things.  Threat is how you hold a mob now. If you want damage you go in OFFENSIVE stance.  Its SOOOOOOOO simple to understand. If you had damage and threat and lifetap it would overpower the buff. </p><p>Having to choose between defensive for tanking and offensive for DPS is  not taking away choice...having one stance be the one everyone uses IS though.</p></blockquote><p>One of identities of SK is lifetap.If SK loses damage proc instead of threat proc, it kills one of our identities.Lifetap is stealing life from the enemy.In other words, lifetap is damaging the enemy and absorbing life from the enemy.Damage and heal must not be separated if you respect SK.</p><p>And I don't think that a proc of damage, heal, and threat is overpowered.Proc of damage will not be important when the amount of taunts become very huge in GU51.So, why does a proc of damage, heal, and threat at the same time become a problem?Don't rip off our identity.</p>

[epyon333]

<p><cite>Skywarrior wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">This will definatly weaken berserkers</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">We trade defence and taunts for our DPS.  We are an offenceive tank.</span></p><p>I choose to tank mostly in the off stance because the def stance is weak, atleast for a zerker and make is hard to hold aggro.  i only use the def stance when i really need a little bit more defence, cus thats all it really gives me even at adept III.   Really all youve got to do to zerkers to get the results SOE is claiming their looking for is beef up our def stance and our taunts.</p></blockquote><p>Some of you don't seem to "get" that this is exactly what SOE is attempting to fix by these changes.  Holding aggro via superior DPS is the issue that is being corrected.  This post is almost a poster child of why the change is coming.  Whether or not you agree with the thrust of the change, the more you emphasize how much you depend on DPS now for aggro, the more you prove the devs correct.</p><p>Tanks should have never become DPS machines.  They had to in order to function as tanks.  These changes are to correct that.  It's really that simple.  Fighters, on the other hand (ie not tanking), need to bring enough DPS to the table to be a viable choice in a group/raid and be able to solo effectively.  Offensive stance is targetted for that. </p><p>Remember, Tank is not a class but a function.  Fighters are not tanks - unless they perform that function.  Fighters are being given the tools to be very effective tanks without infringing on the territory of the DPS classes.</p></blockquote><p>There i fixed my quote for you.  Some fighters are supposed to relay on DPS to hold aggro, like the zerker, that why its been like that since the game started. </p><p>Yes, we have taunts and a defensive stance.</p><p>Yes, i use them</p><p>No, i dont think DPS is the only way i can hold aggro.</p><p>Yes i think SOE is going over board with this. </p><p>If SOE wants me useing my DEF stance more though some hate gain on it.  Dont make my class a guardian when i dont want to play that style of character.</p><p>The bigger reason im upset about these massive class changes is what happened after our update 13 and SWG'S NGE.  Both had major class revamps and both seriously hurt the games.  I didnt spend time getting to lvl 80 just to have my class changed when i got there.</p><p>Sure the fighter classes need work.  Maybe we all do to much DSP, but its just a bad idea to change a class so drastically.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Nero wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into stance buffs you would cast anyways.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise you really get what you would have had either way.</p></blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p><p>WHy couldn't you just leave the buffs as they are or if you persist in telling people that merging buffs and stances was to save buffing time (which no one believes except you) , why did you remove the damage instead of just adding the aggro TO THE DAMAGE. WHy did you have to cripple the buff ???? Why did you have to force people into playing the game the way you think it should be played by their character instead of allowing them the freedom to choose???</p><p>WHen you change the way the buff operate you are removing choice from the player. !!!</p></blockquote><p>If your in defensive stance....your tanking a mob for a group. You want as much threat generation as possible. Damage does not equal threat anymore, they ARE 2 diffrent things.  Threat is how you hold a mob now. If you want damage you go in OFFENSIVE stance.  Its SOOOOOOOO simple to understand. If you had damage and threat and lifetap it would overpower the buff. </p><p>Having to choose between defensive for tanking and offensive for DPS is  not taking away choice...having one stance be the one everyone uses IS though.</p></blockquote><p>One of identities of SK is lifetap.If SK loses damage proc instead of threat proc, it kills one of our identities.Lifetap is stealing life from the enemy.In other words, lifetap is damaging the enemy and absorbing life from the enemy.Damage and heal must not be separated if you respect SK.</p><p>And I don't think that a proc of damage, heal, and threat is overpowered.Proc of damage will not be important when the amount of taunts become very huge in GU51.So, why does a proc of damage, heal, and threat at the same time become a problem?Don't rip off our identity.</p></blockquote><p>I can respect where your coming from...but all tanks lost damage in defensive stance. The purpose of the update is to bring down tank DPS while boosting threat...which is what this achieves.</p><p>I personally dont feel it takes away a SK's identity to lose one dmg componant from the proc, since you still retain the heal on it. But your entitled to feel that way if you want. I just dont expect it to change, since adding the damage on to it sorta defeats the purpose of bringing tank DPS down...so you might be upset about it for quite a while.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>This will definatly weaken berserkers</blockquote><p>Bezerkers stand to be the single best heroic instance tanks in the game if the changes go live like they are, the second best raid MT, and the single best raid OT.</p><p>Its not weakening Bezerkers.</p>

[epyon333]

<p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into stance buffs you would cast anyways.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise you really get what you would have had either way.</p></blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p><p>WHy couldn't you just leave the buffs as they are or if you persist in telling people that merging buffs and stances was to save buffing time (which no one believes except you) , why did you remove the damage instead of just adding the aggro TO THE DAMAGE. WHy did you have to cripple the buff ???? Why did you have to force people into playing the game the way you think it should be played by their character instead of allowing them the freedom to choose???</p><p>WHen you change the way the buff operate you are removing choice from the player. !!!</p></blockquote><p>If your in defensive stance....your tanking a mob for a group. You want as much threat generation as possible. Damage does not equal threat anymore, they ARE 2 diffrent things.  Threat is how you hold a mob now. If you want damage you go in OFFENSIVE stance.  Its SOOOOOOOO simple to understand. If you had damage and threat and lifetap it would overpower the buff. </p><p>Having to choose between defensive for tanking and offensive for DPS is  not taking away choice...having one stance be the one everyone uses IS though.</p></blockquote><p>How about they just fix the stance no one uses.  Ahh i know its too simple. </p><p>Increase def penalties for the off stance.  Throw some hate gain in the def stance and increase the def bounse. </p><p>increase threat of taunts.</p><p>Then see if you need to decrease DPS.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Nero wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Why shouldn't a self buff heal, damage, and increase threat at the same time?Is a proc of heal, damage and threat overpowered?If so, why?</blockquote><p>A lifetap deals damage to the target and heals the caster. Both actions cause hate individually.</p><p>If you have a lifetap that deals 1k damage and heals the caster for 1k, the damage it deals is equal to 1k hate, and the heal is equal to somewhere between 300 and 600 hate. That means this lifetap is causing 1.3 - 1.6k hate.</p>

[epyon333]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>This will definatly weaken berserkers</blockquote><p>Bezerkers stand to be the single best heroic instance tanks in the game if the changes go live like they are, the second best raid MT, and the single best raid OT.</p><p>Its not weakening Bezerkers.</p></blockquote><p>ok how are zerkers stronger after our buff which we can use all of them get split at most likely as watered down versions between our 2 stances. </p><p>and im only speaking for zerkers because thats what i play.  i really dont see how spliting and merging buff between 2 stances is helpful for any tank.</p>

[Nero]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Nero wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Why shouldn't a self buff heal, damage, and increase threat at the same time?Is a proc of heal, damage and threat overpowered?If so, why?</blockquote><p>A lifetap deals damage to the target and heals the caster. Both actions cause hate individually.</p><p>If you have a lifetap that deals 1k damage and heals the caster for 1k, the damage it deals is equal to 1k hate, and the heal is equal to somewhere between 300 and 600 hate. That means this lifetap is causing 1.3 - 1.6k hate.</p></blockquote><p>I think that it is a problem of adjustment.I know and agree that DPS should decrease in defensive stance.Therefore, making the damage amount of damage proc small will solve the problem about which you talked.I don't want 1k amount of damage of damage proc in defensive stance.I just think that damage and heal in lifetap should not be separated.Anyhow, if damage and heal of a proc are separated, SK will lose one of lifetaps.</p>

[Dragowulf]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into stance buffs you would cast anyways.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise you really get what you would have had either way.</p></blockquote><p>In PvP it screws up tanks.  Now they can only be offensive and defensive and not defensive with offensive buffs, etc etc.</p><p>Pretty much sucks imo.</p>

[Matia]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into <strong>stance buffs you would cast anyways</strong>.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise <strong>you really get what you would have had either way.</strong></p></blockquote><p>As long as you play a certain way someone else has decided is the way you want to.</p>

[epyon333]

<p><cite>Matia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into <strong>stance buffs you would cast anyways</strong>.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise <strong>you really get what you would have had either way.</strong></p></blockquote><p>As long as you play a certain way someone else has decided is the way you want to.</p></blockquote><p>Agreed</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't see how choice is removed.  Honestly, you benefit more than you would have in the past since the buffs you would have cast anyways are now built into stance buffs you would cast anyways.  The only difference is in their flavor.  If it was once threat then its probably damage in offensive while threat in defensive.  If it was once pure damage then it might be more threat oriented in the defensive stance but a tanks main goal is to build threat and take damage so it works in that case.  Think of the threat more as damage and you are right in line with what you would have had previously.  If something is messed up like the bruiser stance was then feel free to post it but otherwise you really get what you would have had either way.</p></blockquote><p>Choice was removed by only allowing us to do our job (tank) in one way (defensive). There is no option to adjust style based on situation since we are unable to do our job in offensive due to hate loss. IE easier situation would call for offensive stance while a tougher situation would require defensive stance.</p><p>I love the changes to the defensive stance since I would actually be able to use it now. there were many times where i truly wished i could stand in defensive but couldnt cause the wizzy would die every single pull. But with my gear it is a waste of time for me to stand in defensive in an easy zone such as deep forge.</p><p>The OP is correct that choice has been removed, but not really by a merging of the buffs. It is true we (zerks) can no longer run the passive hate proc while in offensive, which is fine as long as we have some sort of additional dps proc to make up for it in offensive. The reason choise was removed is because we went from agro management in defensive being lower than offensive (HAD to tank in o-stance) TO agro management in offensive being impossible and defensive being good (HAVE to tank in d-stance). As I've stated before if you make agro management <span style="color: #ff0000;">equal in both stances, and widen the survivability differences</span> then tanks will use the appropriate stances for the appropriate situations while still having a choice in tanking styles. The tanks that choose to only use offensive (stubborn or just inexperienced) will eventually no longer be asked to tank since other tanks that know what they are doing will use the correct stance for the zone/group/mob.</p><p>To <strong>above poster</strong>, how is doing dps and tanking doing 2 jobs? Based on that definition bards, and enchanters should do weak dps since their job is to buff the group and manage mobs. The amount of dps that a fighter acutally tanking the mob was doing was not overly high considering the amount of buffs on the MT. Plus if a tank is surviving just fine then why shouldnt they be aloud to dps. Now if tanks were putting an overly due amount of work on healers just for an extra few dps then I see the issue, however for zerkers at least this was a necessary evil. Again why I said agro management should be equal in both stances.</p>

[Aeralik]

<p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p>

[Matia]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then <strong><em>nothing has been removed from any fighter</em></strong> and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>Then where are the buffs when not being shoehorned into one stance or another?</p><p>And before you say everyone is always in them anyway, if that were the case there would be no such thing as no stance. It wouldn't be a buff. It would be an always on toggle with no other way BUT to be in one or another.</p><p>Or is that the next step, to make it absolutely mandatory to be in one or the other while saying it improves choice?</p><p>The argument cannot be made that a stanceless person is unbalanced, because if it were nobody would be using stances.It also can't be convincingly stated that the buffs were merged for balance when the statement that you keep leading with about why it was done was that "everyone complained that rebuffing was too time consuming".</p><p>Whether it is more advantageous or not to be in a stance, the perception is more like that it has been decided that everyone should play a certain way and they will be penalized until they conform to the ideal that someone else has decided they should match.That may not be the case (and I don't honestly believe it is intended to be), but it is a perception by some.</p>

[Valentina]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>Which, again, ignores the case of duos where the fighter HAS to be able to do reasonable damage as well as tanking.</p><p>It may be an either/or situation (tanking vs. damage dealing) on raids, but that is not the case in the rest of the game... until this change goes live.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Matia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then <strong><em>nothing has been removed from any fighter</em></strong> and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>Then where are the buffs when not being shoehorned into one stance or another?</p><p>And before you say everyone is always in them anyway, if that were the case there would be no such thing as no stance. It wouldn't be a buff. It would be an always on toggle with no other way BUT to be in one or another.</p><p>Or is that the next step, to make it absolutely mandatory to be in one or the other while saying it improves choice?</p><p>The argument cannot be made that a stanceless person is unbalanced, because if it were nobody would be using stances.It also can't be convincingly stated that the buffs were merged for balance when the statement that you keep leading with about why it was done was that "everyone complained that rebuffing was too time consuming".</p><p>Whether it is more advantageous or not to be in a stance, the perception is more like that it has been decided that everyone should play a certain way and they will be penalized until they conform to the ideal that someone else has decided they should match.That may not be the case (and I don't honestly believe it is intended to be), but it is a perception by some.</p></blockquote><p>I still have problems with ever seeing a time at any point on live where a tank ISNT in a stance. If someone can point one out or give some sorta reason why its done or something other than just saying it that would be great.</p><p>Cause if no one really does it, and everyone is in a stance all the time....this is all a moot point and just an argument for arguments sake.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>This will definatly weaken berserkers</blockquote><p>Bezerkers stand to be the single best heroic instance tanks in the game if the changes go live like they are, the second best raid MT, and the single best raid OT.</p><p>Its not weakening Bezerkers.</p></blockquote><p>I can understand your claim on the heroic tank since TSO is all about aoe stuff, although i'd say SK's do an equal if not better job.</p><p>I would respectively disagree with the 2nd best raid MT, and best raid OT. To OT we will have to stand in defensive as to remain high enough agro-wise, which removes our advantage of superior dps, in addition we have the least snap agros which is vital to OTing successfully. Nor is there significant AoE content there so we loose that advantage also. I'd say either crusader makes just as good of an OT, especially considering dps can no longer be a focus for the OT. As for 2nd best MT I can only see this because survivably we are superior due to being a warrior vs crusader, however I would say its overall a moot point since we still do not rival a guardian for MT job.</p><p>I would say it leaves zerkers better from a heroic standpoint, while reducing our effectiveness from a raiding aspect. In heroic content we may be even better on tough instances or poor group makeups, but for easy content we have lost much of the flavor of the class. I dont know if you play a zerker, but I can tell you that many of us play a zerker over a guard due to the love of the class. Their flavor just has an appeal that cant be satisfied by any other class. I personally feel this flavor is disappearing and we are becoming more "guardian-ish". :-/ makes me sad</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Matia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...</p></blockquote>...</blockquote>...</blockquote><p>I still have problems with ever seeing a time at any point on live where a tank ISNT in a stance. If someone can point one out or give some sorta reason why its done or something other than just saying it that would be great.</p><p>Cause if no one really does it, and everyone is in a stance all the time....this is all a moot point and just an argument for arguments sake.</p></blockquote><p>No one would run stanceless currently because the penalties in either are not as severe. With the update some (especially duos/trios) will want to run stanceless to eliminate the penalties of  crap damage (def) and inability to hold hate (off). However the loss of certain buffs will significantly reduce the effectiveness of this option as well. Zerkers for example have had their berserk buff and passive hate buff combined into the stances. So for someone running stanceless (and now unbuffed) they've lost hate and dps they used to have. I've done testing vs a guard dps/survivability wise running unbuffed completely and the berserker is vastly inferior in both regards.</p><p>editted to remove ridiculously long quotes</p>

[Matia]

<p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I still have problems with ever seeing a time at any point on live where a tank ISNT in a stance. If someone can point one out or give some sorta reason why its done or something other than just saying it that would be great.</p><p>Cause if no one really does it, and everyone is in a stance all the time....this is all a moot point and just an argument for arguments sake.</p></blockquote><p>Can you point out to me where it's shown that everyone IS in a stance all the time, other than some folks saying that they can't see why everyone isn't?</p><p>As far as showing why, I have given reasons why before. Whether every person agrees isn't the point.Saying that there's no reason to not be in a stance, so nobody should be concerned is like saying that there's no reason for everyone not to be eating their greens all the time because they are healthy, so nobody should be upset if the only way to get chocolate is with a big serving of collard greens.</p><p>Are the greens healthy? Sure. Should everyone be forced to eat them is they want the other thing? No.</p><p>Same principle.</p>

[Danelin]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>I think the problem goes more to perceptions than overall effects. One issue is that developer perspectives are almost always focused on the endgame, and solutions rarely fix the endgame without feeling like getting hit with a giant slap in the face for those who aren't in that elite crowd.</p><p>During RoK, Guardians superceded Berserkers in every way in most situations. Berserkers who were focused on performing their tanking role had zero chance of outparsing a guardian who was focused on keeping damage up for aggro on a non-AE encounter, and AE encounters in Kunark are few and far between.</p><p>Now, we have tanks who are hitting top of parse when they are fully mythed and fabled out, in an optimally buffed MT group... Of course they were doing that back in KoS and nobody thought it was that big of a problem. This paradigm shift is not an issue for the tanks who are more 'defensive' in orientation anyway, or the brawlers who already have a 'midstance' ... My thought on the matter is that ALL warrior classes should have some form of 'midstance' that maintains our access to the original buffs that were not part of a stance. Provided that we maintained at least SOME of our aggro generation while in midstance, we could tank easier content while still putting in more damage. As things stand, berserkers and shadowknights lose out completely on what their classes were defined to them as during character creation.</p><p>This mid-game redefinition with no compensation is a dangerous habit on the part of SoE customer service. The major imbalancing of racial abilities with the race revamp flew completely counter to the original game experience. We were told that race should only be an issue at character generation. With TSO gears and AA, that is true again, IF we are completely decked out in top-end gear. A state most players never attain. For the 'rest of us' crowd, people like myself who chose characters specifically with the desire to be 'against eq1 type' were punished for our choices. My woodelf necromancer was rendered significantly less potent than a darkelf or erudite even with full raid buffs or end-game gear up until late RoK, when the class itself became impotent.</p><p>When changes like this go in, if they are deemed truly necessary, things like one-shot race respecs and penalty-free betrayals with appropriate gear replacements should be offered to those of us who are having our role redefined out from under us. Why would I want to keep my tank as a berserker when the 'ideal tank' is a guardian? Why would my necromancer still be a woodelf if I were offered the choice (as I should have been) to move to a race that actually excels at magecraft? When I made the toon, I lost out on a few points of int and gained wisdom and agi. A fair tradeoff that was very easily countered by gear and then the diminishing returns curve after EOF. I didn't even have to contemplate a shift in gear. Now I could have more spellcrit or faster casting time, thus allowing for more gear options and shifting to achieve ideal bonuses...</p><p>The problem here Aerilik, is that when you chose to shift the paradigm, you punish those who have been adapting to the paradigm and functioning within it without any form of compensation.</p><p>I think a lot of game balance has been lost over the years with the complete removal of the tier system. When you made a character just after launch, you KNEW what damage tier your toon was supposed to be in. That meant, provided equal levels of gear and player skill, you had an idea of where you should sit on the parse. Now some aspects of that have changed, but even then, things are lost or traded away in ways that injure some members of the community.</p><p>Another excellent example of this is the revision to enchanters. Enchanters exchanged their damage as a mage archtype for utility. Buffing, debuffing, and manipulation are all in the enchanter toolbox. Then after breaking coercer reactives, sony decided that as part of the fix, they would move them closer to the original archetype role, and now they are sitting high on the parse, with all of their utility intact. This detracts from the role of all other mages, and worse, punishes BARDS by leaving them as the only 'pure utility' class, that loses their archetype DPS as a scout in favor of utility... Small wonder most of the bard community is crabby.</p><p>Kairn</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Matia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...</p></blockquote>...</blockquote>...</blockquote><p>I still have problems with ever seeing a time at any point on live where a tank ISNT in a stance. If someone can point one out or give some sorta reason why its done or something other than just saying it that would be great.</p><p>Cause if no one really does it, and everyone is in a stance all the time....this is all a moot point and just an argument for arguments sake.</p></blockquote><p>No one would run stanceless currently because the penalties in either are not as severe. With the update some (especially duos/trios) will want to run stanceless to eliminate the penalties of  crap damage (def) and inability to hold hate (off). However the loss of certain buffs will significantly reduce the effectiveness of this option as well. Zerkers for example have had their berserk buff and passive hate buff combined into the stances. So for someone running stanceless (and now unbuffed) they've lost hate and dps they used to have. I've done testing vs a guard dps/survivability wise running unbuffed completely and the berserker is vastly inferior in both regards.</p><p>editted to remove ridiculously long quotes</p></blockquote><p>its also logical to assume if no one on live runs without a stance....the devs will likely tune everything to be everyone in a stance.  The focus of feedback should then be "this is what we need on each stance" not "MY buffs! my poor poor buffs /sob /moan!"</p><p>If we can make sure there are logical reasons why things need to be a certain way (such as a tank holding some aggro in a duo or trio AND doing damage) it will likely get adjusted. Just moaning about nerfs serves no purpse to get things changed, its likely just ignored. I have some small measure of faith that when this is all said and done a tank will run a stance in a duo or trio and hold aggro and do similar dmg to solo.  That is one thing that has been pointed out, logical reasoning used, and results should come from it.</p><p>We are going to expect some penaltys on each stance. Its the purpose of the update. My hope is that each is balanced out so you want to be in them for the jobs they are for...and if they currently arent that way....feedback WHY they need changed.</p>

[Aeralik]

<p><cite>xsikal wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Which, again, ignores the case of duos where the fighter HAS to be able to do reasonable damage as well as tanking.</p><p>It may be an either/or situation (tanking vs. damage dealing) on raids, but that is not the case in the rest of the game... until this change goes live.</p></blockquote><p>A duo is not ignored at all.  In most cases you are still enhanced slightly.  A duo is not going into an instance and clearing out the high damage bosses.  If they are then none of these changes really change that fact.  A duo is probably going through overland zones and questing or going back to older lower con heroics they can handle.  In those cases the minor damage increase shouldnt be a big thing if they make sure they are up to date with equipment.  Also the hate reduction is minor and you should be able to work around that.  Otherwise you just cant taunt which leaves you to your dps.  The flipping of taunts was removed for no additional taunting or snaps so you should still be able to do high dps in your duos.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Matia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I still have problems with ever seeing a time at any point on live where a tank ISNT in a stance. If someone can point one out or give some sorta reason why its done or something other than just saying it that would be great.</p><p>Cause if no one really does it, and everyone is in a stance all the time....this is all a moot point and just an argument for arguments sake.</p></blockquote><p>Can you point out to me where it's shown that everyone IS in a stance all the time, other than some folks saying that they can't see why everyone isn't?</p><p>As far as showing why, I have given reasons why before. Whether every person agrees isn't the point.Saying that there's no reason to not be in a stance, so nobody should be concerned is like saying that there's no reason for everyone not to be eating their greens all the time because they are healthy, so nobody should be upset if the only way to get chocolate is with a big serving of collard greens.</p><p>Are the greens healthy? Sure. Should everyone be forced to eat them is they want the other thing? No.</p><p>Same principle.</p></blockquote><p>Ok. In all my years of playing, all my pick up groups/raid groups/instance groups....examining people around town I have NEVER seen a tank not using stances since stances have been around. ever.</p><p>Now granted that might not mean much, but based on my own personal experience, and the experience of others....its safe to assume that the majority of tanks use stances on live right now (offensive more than defensive)</p><p>If you want me to do a laundry list of pros vs cons for stances currently on live I can.  I am sure the pros far outweigh the cons...which also leads to a logical assumption the majority of people will use what benifits them most.</p><p>A fairer anology might be you can get to New York from California by walking or flying.  If given a fair and equal choice...I assume the majority will fly and not walk. While there might be a someone who would walk...I cant see balancing all flights and walking path around that one person over the rest who choose to fly.</p>

[irvisscott]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>This is a paradigm shift...towards nonsense. A tank should worry about staying alive and holding agro? OK, I run most of the zones now with the exception of last named in NA, stronghold, and palace (sure I am forgetting some) with one healer now in offensive with crap gear and any good healer.  So staying alive isnt really a reason to use Def stance. Why will I have to worry about it after this update when I am forced to use Def stance and stay alive even easier?</p><p>Holding agro? According to what I see I just sit back and spam taunts. Trying to learn to maximize the Dps of my class is about the only that sets one tank apart from another, and that is being taken away. Topping the parse isnt what excites me, but doing all I can does.  Any decent Dps class that loses a parse to a Pally should be laughed at in most situations.</p><p>How am i better fulfilling my role being needlessly in def stance? It will make the game boring for not only me, but the healer as well. IMHO this change is poorly thought out and will suck the fun out of the game.</p>

[Tazdrag]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>This is more than a paradigm shift for Brawlers. Up until today, every previous developer post I have ever read that dealt with Brawlers and their place in the great scheme of things was that we were dps tanks, now you say that we are should stop worrying about damage when it was the class design in the first place, it is mind boggling</p><p>On live as a monk I can keep single target aggro 95%+ of the time, and that is in aggro stance, as soon as I drop to a lower stance keeping aggro is a lot harder cause I am missing a lot more of the time.Even our VP set bonus is DPS based, are you going to change the bonuses on that set??? eg 4 items increase the effectiveness of Flow like the wind, it increase attack speed by 5 and increases slashing, crushing, piercing and ranged by 20. that 20 points goes a long way to helping me as a monk hit yellow and orange mobs, and that 20 points is on top of the 55increase I already had from flow like the wind master. So now I am going to be losing 75 points to tank group mobs and in the harder instances there is no way the extra taunt makes up for the significant loss of damage</p><p>Can you guys please sort your "stuff" out and give us and by us I mean the entire player base, eactly what the plan is and where each character fits in to this great plan of yours, now this plan should cover raids, group and soloing. It should also cover where each class is meant to be in the dps stakes now as well as that is important to players because you guys made it important in your encounter designs</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Mobmasher@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>This is a paradigm shift...towards nonsense. A tank should worry about staying alive and holding agro? OK, I run most of the zones now with the exception of last named in NA, stronghold, and palace (sure I am forgetting some) with one healer now in offensive with crap gear and any good healer.  So staying alive isnt really a reason to use Def stance. Why will I have to worry about it after this update when I am forced to use Def stance and stay alive even easier?</p><p>Holding agro? According to what I see I just sit back and spam taunts. Trying to learn to maximize the Dps of my class is about the only that sets one tank apart from another, and that is being taken away. Topping the parse isnt what excites me, but doing all I can does.  Any decent Dps class that loses a parse to a Pally should be laughed at in most situations.</p><p>How am i better fulfilling my role being needlessly in def stance? It will make the game boring for not only me, but the healer as well. IMHO this change is poorly thought out and will suck the fun out of the game.</p></blockquote><p>See I think its the opposite. Any tank after these changes that maximizes their class DPS and hold aggro in defensive will shine. If you are truly good at your class your DPS will show over someone who depending on offensive and button mashing to tank.</p>

[Danelin]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>xsikal wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Which, again, ignores the case of duos where the fighter HAS to be able to do reasonable damage as well as tanking.</p><p>It may be an either/or situation (tanking vs. damage dealing) on raids, but that is not the case in the rest of the game... until this change goes live.</p></blockquote><p>A duo is not ignored at all.  In most cases you are still enhanced slightly.  A duo is not going into an instance and clearing out the high damage bosses.  If they are then none of these changes really change that fact.  A duo is probably going through overland zones and questing or going back to older lower con heroics they can handle.  In those cases the minor damage increase shouldnt be a big thing if they make sure they are up to date with equipment.  Also the hate reduction is minor and you should be able to work around that.  Otherwise you just cant taunt which leaves you to your dps.  The flipping of taunts was removed for no additional taunting or snaps so you should still be able to do high dps in your duos.</p></blockquote><p>Um. If we are duoing with a single healer, we may be able to hold aggro just by doing damage and avoiding throwing our taunts, but if we are duoing with a DPS class, we are going to get ripped off of constantly. Trios also suffer from the loss of tank DPS, and I have trioed quite a bit of white and yellow con stuff in TSO. Again the inclusion of a mid-stance that kept the offensive portion of our buffs without the deaggros would be preferrable. </p><p>Here is how I would suggest setting things up:</p><p>Offensive stance - As functioning on test currently</p><p>Mid Stance - As our existing buffs work, no penalty on damage output, no bonuses to defense or taunts</p><p>Defensive stance - As working on test, with two changes: Make all forms of uncontested avoidance contested when not in defensive, and reduce the numeric base values of our taunts (not below current live amounts), BUT add +base taunt amount to defensive stance.</p><p>This arrangement would allow us to  tank weaker stuff in midstance, as losing uncontested won't hurt us much against weaker mobs and we don't need the mitigation bonuses etc. While still putting the hard content functioning in the way you already have things revised. That way Berserkers and Shadowknights could at least spend some of our time playing our classes as we know and love them.</p><p>Kairn</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Matia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...</p></blockquote>...</blockquote>...</blockquote>...</blockquote>...</blockquote><p>its also logical to assume if no one on live runs without a stance....the devs will likely tune everything to be everyone in a stance.  The focus of feedback should then be "this is what we need on each stance" not "MY buffs! my poor poor buffs /sob /moan!"</p><p>If we can make sure there are logical reasons why things need to be a certain way (such as a tank holding some aggro in a duo or trio AND doing damage) it will likely get adjusted. Just moaning about nerfs serves no purpse to get things changed, its likely just ignored. I have some small measure of faith that when this is all said and done a tank will run a stance in a duo or trio and hold aggro and do similar dmg to solo.  That is one thing that has been pointed out, logical reasoning used, and results should come from it.</p><p>We are going to expect some penaltys on each stance. Its the purpose of the update. My hope is that each is balanced out so you want to be in them for the jobs they are for...and if they currently arent that way....feedback WHY they need changed.</p></blockquote><p>Agreed. I dont like the posts that are just a sob story. Logical reasons are the best way to get things changed to what they need to be. However you and the dev's need to remember that this is still a game and therefore meant to be fun. some people play this game and play certain classes because the playstyle lets them have fun. Many of these playstyles are being vastly altered and to some people this will be game-ruining. Its not always just about the numbers.</p><p>my 2cp</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</blockquote><p>This is a little OT, but if you want to top the parse for a zonewide, you still need to be an assassin. I hope you plan on addressing that sometime soon.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Danelin wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>xsikal wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Which, again, ignores the case of duos where the fighter HAS to be able to do reasonable damage as well as tanking.</p><p>It may be an either/or situation (tanking vs. damage dealing) on raids, but that is not the case in the rest of the game... until this change goes live.</p></blockquote><p>A duo is not ignored at all.  In most cases you are still enhanced slightly.  A duo is not going into an instance and clearing out the high damage bosses.  If they are then none of these changes really change that fact.  A duo is probably going through overland zones and questing or going back to older lower con heroics they can handle.  In those cases the minor damage increase shouldnt be a big thing if they make sure they are up to date with equipment.  Also the hate reduction is minor and you should be able to work around that.  Otherwise you just cant taunt which leaves you to your dps.  The flipping of taunts was removed for no additional taunting or snaps so you should still be able to do high dps in your duos.</p></blockquote><p>Um. If we are duoing with a single healer, we may be able to hold aggro just by doing damage and avoiding throwing our taunts, but if we are duoing with a DPS class, we are going to get ripped off of constantly. Trios also suffer from the loss of tank DPS, and I have trioed quite a bit of white and yellow con stuff in TSO. Again the inclusion of a mid-stance that kept the offensive portion of our buffs without the deaggros would be preferrable. </p><p>Here is how I would suggest setting things up:</p><p>Offensive stance - As functioning on test currently</p><p>Mid Stance - As our existing buffs work, no penalty on damage output, no bonuses to defense or taunts</p><p>Defensive stance - As working on test, with two changes: Make all forms of uncontested avoidance contested when not in defensive, and reduce the numeric base values of our taunts (not below current live amounts), BUT add +base taunt amount to defensive stance.</p><p>This arrangement would allow us to  tank weaker stuff in midstance, as losing uncontested won't hurt us much against weaker mobs and we don't need the mitigation bonuses etc. While still putting the hard content functioning in the way you already have things revised. That way Berserkers and Shadowknights could at least spend some of our time playing our classes as we know and love them.</p><p>Kairn</p></blockquote><p>Based on what Aeralik wrote I take it to mean offensive stance now has no de-taunt, just no taunting or snap aggro. Now I could be wrong...but thats how I read it. If that IS the case, a duo or trio should be fine as long as a DPS is careful to use their own deaggro's.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Mobmasher@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>This is a paradigm shift...towards nonsense. A tank should worry about staying alive and holding agro? OK, I run most of the zones now with the exception of last named in NA, stronghold, and palace (sure I am forgetting some) with one healer now in offensive with crap gear and any good healer.  So staying alive isnt really a reason to use Def stance. Why will I have to worry about it after this update when I am forced to use Def stance and stay alive even easier?</p><p>Holding agro? According to what I see I just sit back and spam taunts. Trying to learn to maximize the Dps of my class is about the only that sets one tank apart from another, and that is being taken away. Topping the parse isnt what excites me, but doing all I can does.  Any decent Dps class that loses a parse to a Pally should be laughed at in most situations.</p><p>How am i better fulfilling my role being needlessly in def stance? It will make the game boring for not only me, but the healer as well. IMHO this change is poorly thought out and will suck the fun out of the game.</p></blockquote><p>See I think its the opposite. Any tank after these changes that maximizes their class DPS and hold aggro in defensive will shine. If you are truly good at your class your DPS will show over someone who depending on offensive and button mashing to tank.</p></blockquote><p>For warriors at least we are going to have many of our dps optimizing gear/AA's to buff up our hate gain since the effectiveness of our auto attack has been significantly reduced. In o-stance it will be impossible to tank since hate gain is lower and we can not taunt or use 3 of our CA's. In defensive the auto attack dmg is reduced so much that an extra 3% crit say will not be worth sacrificing +taunt or +tauntcrit to effectively due our job.</p><p>Sure we will still be able to and have to optimized dps/hate/survivability but none of it will be earth shattering. In my opinion it takes more skill and knowledge of a class to optimize its dps than to optimize its hps.</p>

[Matia]

<p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Ok. In all my years of playing, all my pick up groups/raid groups/instance groups....examining people around town I have NEVER seen a tank not using stances since stances have been around. ever.</p><p>Now granted that might not mean much, but based on my own personal experience, and the experience of others....its safe to assume that the majority of tanks use stances on live right now (offensive more than defensive)</p><p>If you want me to do a laundry list of pros vs cons for stances currently on live I can.  I am sure the pros far outweigh the cons...which also leads to a logical assumption the majority of people will use what benifits them most.</p><p>A fairer anology might be you can get to New York from California by walking or flying.  If given a fair and equal choice...I assume the majority will fly and not walk. While there might be a someone who would walk...I cant see balancing all flights and walking path around that one person over the rest who choose to fly.</p></blockquote><p>Utilizing your logic thread however, no evidence has yet been given that these buffs being folded in in any way <em>balances</em> the stances. The statement has been made a few times that this is critical for balance, but not how it actually does that.</p><p>It undeniably makes them more wanted, but that is not the same thing.</p><p>A more logical assumption is that the developers decided that the stances should really really be emphasized, but the changes would make them less desirable. Therefore in order to make it more likely people would conform to the desired state, the decision was made that it would be set up so that unless you did X, you would lose Y, even though Y previously had zero to do with X.</p><p>And as far as your analogy, if the thing being taken away from the walker because they walked is still available to the flyers, but just without having to go to the airport to get it, there's no reason to force the walker to conform just because.If it's sitting right outside the airport where it's just as available to the walker as to the flyers, nobody loses.</p>

[Danelin]

<p>I still prefer the idea of a midstance that will work in group content or while soloing but would be suicidal on raids. I have a hard time getting behind the idea of a frothing raging homicidal maniac with an axe who can barely hurt his foes but keeps them angry by shouting insults...</p><p>As for offensive stance duoing with a DPS... Unless insanely geared berserkers have trouble duoing in o-stance with a dps class WITH hate transfers... I can't imagine scout deaggros are going to work that much better with us having traded a minor upgraded in damage (which now generates less hate) for the loss of the ability to taunt or use any combat art with a taunt component.</p>

[Jurmoon]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>Are you then going to take a look at reducing dps requirements of encounters in Norrath and in TSO in particular?</p><p>If the group must put out 10, 15, 20k dps in order to defeat the encounter   (thinking of the mistmoore dungeons here) and the tank is now doing "1 dps",   then you are looking at a high failure rate.   Which means more folks are not going to be welcome in groups. </p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I would respectively disagree with the 2nd best raid MT, and best raid OT. To OT we will have to stand in defensive as to remain high enough agro-wise, which removes our advantage of superior dps, in addition we have the least snap agros which is vital to OTing successfully. Nor is there significant AoE content there so we loose that advantage also. I'd say either crusader makes just as good of an OT, especially considering dps can no longer be a focus for the OT. As for 2nd best MT I can only see this because survivably we are superior due to being a warrior vs crusader, however I would say its overall a moot point since we still do not rival a guardian for MT job.</blockquote><p>The focus of an offtank needs to switch away from DPS and on to hate, just like main tanking.</p><p>An offtanks role is to be second on the hate list so that if the tank goes down, they have aggro before the DPS does. being second on the hate list negates the need for snap aggro. SKs come third for doing this job, after bezerkers and a second guardian. Having a tank able to hold an encounters worth of adds is useful for an off tank, but most of the fights that require this also require an offtank on the main mob.</p><p>In a standard MT group, a bezerker will have single target hate second only to a guardian, AE hate that is beating everyone else in the game, and survivability that is "high enough". This is why they will make the second best raid MT.</p><p>Crusaders are good by themselves or in groups, but simply do not gain as much additional hate from the buffs present in a standard MT group to compete with a warrior in that role, and would lose too much survivability if the classes to provide them with better buffs were bought in (more true of SK than paladin, but still true of both).</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>xsikal wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Which, again, ignores the case of duos where the fighter HAS to be able to do reasonable damage as well as tanking.</p><p>It may be an either/or situation (tanking vs. damage dealing) on raids, but that is not the case in the rest of the game... until this change goes live.</p></blockquote><p>A duo is not ignored at all.  In most cases you are still enhanced slightly.  A duo is not going into an instance and clearing out the high damage bosses.  If they are then none of these changes really change that fact.  A duo is probably going through overland zones and questing or going back to older lower con heroics they can handle.  In those cases the minor damage increase shouldnt be a big thing if they make sure they are up to date with equipment.  Also the hate reduction is minor and you should be able to work around that.  Otherwise you just cant taunt which leaves you to your dps.  The flipping of taunts was removed for no additional taunting or snaps so you should still be able to do high dps in your duos.</p></blockquote><p>Is the hate reduction still 10%? And in offensive can you still get buffed so say you have a bard buffing you (i believe they add hate gain) you could be +hate gain in offensive stance?</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Matia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Ok. In all my years of playing, all my pick up groups/raid groups/instance groups....examining people around town I have NEVER seen a tank not using stances since stances have been around. ever.</p><p>Now granted that might not mean much, but based on my own personal experience, and the experience of others....its safe to assume that the majority of tanks use stances on live right now (offensive more than defensive)</p><p>If you want me to do a laundry list of pros vs cons for stances currently on live I can.  I am sure the pros far outweigh the cons...which also leads to a logical assumption the majority of people will use what benifits them most.</p><p>A fairer anology might be you can get to New York from California by walking or flying.  If given a fair and equal choice...I assume the majority will fly and not walk. While there might be a someone who would walk...I cant see balancing all flights and walking path around that one person over the rest who choose to fly.</p></blockquote><p>Utilizing your logic thread however, no evidence has yet been given that these buffs being folded in in any way <em>balances</em> the stances. The statement has been made a few times that this is critical for balance, but not how it actually does that.</p><p>It undeniably makes them more wanted, but that is not the same thing.</p><p>A more logical assumption is that the developers decided that the stances should really really be emphasized, but the changes would make them less desirable. Therefore in order to make it more likely people would conform to the desired state, the decision was made that it would be set up so that unless you did X, you would lose Y, even though Y previously had zero to do with X.</p><p>And as far as your analogy, if the thing being taken away from the walker because they walked is still available to the flyers, but just without having to go to the airport to get it, there's no reason to force the walker to conform just because.If it's sitting right outside the airport where it's just as available to the walker as to the flyers, nobody loses.</p></blockquote><p>As far as the balance goes I see it like this :</p><p>Damage shield and threat buff on live does small dmg and small threat. to balance it for offensive...the damage was increased by nearly double (with good int on offensive) and threat removed.  To balance it for defensive the dmg was kept around the same but the threat was increased by a HUGE amount. This fine tunes the 2 stances to emphasize threat in defensive and damage in offensive.</p><p>Dmg proc/heal in offensive was left basically as is and in Defensive it was changed to threat proc/heal. This balances offensive to again be more DPS oriented and Defensive to gain more threat.</p><p>Now as far as making the stances more desirable, the overall point of the whole update is to make you tank in defensive and DPS in offensive. So yes it makes sense to make sure the stances reflect that, and to make people pick one or the other in most situations.</p><p>Now I dont think that the majority will have any issues with buffs matching their stances, and the minority that do might be suprised by how they work, instead of looking at them in theory and trying to figure them out. There is likely to be some that arent happy regardless, which is bound to happen in anything you ever do.</p>

[Matia]

<p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>As far as the balance goes I see it like this :</p><p>Damage shield and threat buff on live does small dmg and small threat. to balance it for offensive...the damage was increased by nearly double (with good int on offensive) and threat removed.  To balance it for defensive the dmg was kept around the same but the threat was increased by a HUGE amount. This fine tunes the 2 stances to emphasize threat in defensive and damage in offensive.</p><p>Dmg proc/heal in offensive was left basically as is and in Defensive it was changed to threat proc/heal. This balances offensive to again be more DPS oriented and Defensive to gain more threat.</p><p>Now as far as making the stances more desirable, the overall point of the whole update is to make you tank in defensive and DPS in offensive. <strong>So yes it makes sense to make sure the stances reflect that, and to make people pick one or the other in most situations.</strong></p><p>Now I dont think that the majority will have any issues with buffs matching their stances, and the minority that do might be suprised by how they work, instead of looking at them in theory and trying to figure them out. There is likely to be some that arent happy regardless, which is bound to happen in anything you ever do.</p></blockquote><p>Then logically, if the intent were to do so (make people pick one), they would have made a fighter not have to buff to be in a stance. Instead they would always be in one, and simply have a toggle choice as to which. Much like running and walking. You are always doing one or the other, you just have to decide which of the two is currently active.</p><p>Since they did not do so, then logically there is a reason to have a non-stance "stance". Than being postulated, what is it? And if it is intended to exist, then why make it so undesired that many people think it is useless?</p><p>If a third state continues to exist, then it should be just as viable and workable as the other two states. Perhaps for those nebulous times when an individual needs/wants/wishes some of each of the other two states without the entire accompanying mess.</p>

[Dasein]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>The entire game is about DPS - hate, heals, buffs, debuffs and everything other than DPS only exists to assist with DPS, and has no inherent value when it comes to defeating encounters. There are no encounters you win because you heal or taunt the mob into submission.</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Matia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>As far as the balance goes I see it like this :</p><p>Damage shield and threat buff on live does small dmg and small threat. to balance it for offensive...the damage was increased by nearly double (with good int on offensive) and threat removed.  To balance it for defensive the dmg was kept around the same but the threat was increased by a HUGE amount. This fine tunes the 2 stances to emphasize threat in defensive and damage in offensive.</p><p>Dmg proc/heal in offensive was left basically as is and in Defensive it was changed to threat proc/heal. This balances offensive to again be more DPS oriented and Defensive to gain more threat.</p><p>Now as far as making the stances more desirable, the overall point of the whole update is to make you tank in defensive and DPS in offensive. <strong>So yes it makes sense to make sure the stances reflect that, and to make people pick one or the other in most situations.</strong></p><p>Now I dont think that the majority will have any issues with buffs matching their stances, and the minority that do might be suprised by how they work, instead of looking at them in theory and trying to figure them out. There is likely to be some that arent happy regardless, which is bound to happen in anything you ever do.</p></blockquote><p>Then logically, if the intent were to do so (make people pick one), they would have made a fighter not have to buff to be in a stance. Instead they would always be in one, and simply have a toggle choice as to which. Much like running and walking. You are always doing one or the other, you just have to decide which of the two is currently active.</p><p>Since they did not do so, then logically there is a reason to have a non-stance "stance". Than being postulated, what is it? And if it is intended to exist, then why make it so undesired that many people think it is useless?</p><p>If a third state continues to exist, then it should be just as viable and workable as the other two states. Perhaps for those nebulous times when an individual needs/wants/wishes some of each of the other two states without the entire accompanying mess.</p></blockquote><p>By that logic may things in game are broken too though.</p><p>You dont have to eat and drink in game...but I dont know who doesnt. If they meant for you to always have it, they would make it alway be on?</p><p>The same can be said for scout poisons. But I dont know many poison users that dont run with it.</p><p>Healers dont need to hand out rez shards, everyone should just have them?</p><p>Any buff in game doesnt have to be cast, but there are sure lots and lots of them that are...should they make all buffs just appear?</p><p>At some point you have to click a button to make your character better. Stanceless you have no beniefits, with a stance you do.</p><p>Saying they must have a reason to let you not have one so there should be benfits for it is the same as saying any of those things should have reasons not to be used. Its a 'slippery slope' argument that is a bad idea.  They COULD make you be in one stance or another...but that would require massive programing to shift fighters to that, and I for one would rather that be spent doing new content instead of making some people feel better about stance choices.</p>

[Praytus]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>yes, but by killing MT dps, you've instantly made every encounter harder and the game has gained nothing by it.</p>

[Nero]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>Then, why have Berserker, Shadowknight, Brawlers been defined as offensive tank?Why shouldn't fighters want dps at the same time of staying alive and staying at the top of hate list?</p><p>Personally, I selected Shadowknight because SK's image is like evil knight or Darth Vader(you may laugh) and I like evil knight.Evil knight should attack and inflict damage.And Shadowknight lifetaps. It is one of the reasons why I like Shadowknight.Lifetap is damage and heal.So, do you deny lifetap by denying fighters' dps?</p><p>After all, fighters are fighter, those who fight.If fighters can do only 1 dps, will be fighters able to be called fighter?If fighters can do only 1 dps, fighters don't fight.If so, fighters are merely meat wall or meat shield. Fighters aren't fighting.As a fighter, I want strongly the feeling that I am fighting.The feeling excites me.I am not only a meat shield, but also a fighter.What's wrong with fighter's wanting dps?</p><p>I agree that fighters should take damage with defensive stance.I agree that fighters should hold aggro by not dps, but taunts.</p><p>But Aeralik, I read your post.<blockquote>If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs.</blockquote>After I read this sentense, I got so upset. I can't forgive.You are going to ignore my preference for Shadowknight. I selected Shadowknight because Shadowknight was an evil knight, which is offensive and lifetaps.</p><p>The attitude that doesn't forgive any dps for fighters is obviously an overkill.Certainly, fighters too focused on dps in RoK.But you seem to too focus on taunt in GU51, too.</p>

[Danelin]

<blockquote><p>By that logic may things in game are broken too though.</p><p>You dont have to eat and drink in game...but I dont know who doesnt. If they meant for you to always have it, they would make it alway be on?</p><p>The same can be said for scout poisons. But I dont know many poison users that dont run with it.</p><p>Healers dont need to hand out rez shards, everyone should just have them?</p><p>Any buff in game doesnt have to be cast, but there are sure lots and lots of them that are...should they make all buffs just appear?</p><p>At some point you have to click a button to make your character better. Stanceless you have no beniefits, with a stance you do.</p><p>Saying they must have a reason to let you not have one so there should be benfits for it is the same as saying any of those things should have reasons not to be used. Its a 'slippery slope' argument that is a bad idea.  They COULD make you be in one stance or another...but that would require massive programing to shift fighters to that, and I for one would rather that be spent doing new content instead of making some people feel better about stance choices.</p></blockquote><p>You don't have to eat and drink in game, and I know plenty of players in fast-power regenning classes who don't bother using drink, and more than few berserkers prior to our regen change who didn't eat.</p><p>Poisons are there to be a consumable drain on the economy, albeit a tiny one. The autoconsume feature basically renders this always on as long as you remember to stay stocked up.</p><p>I would LOVE on my cleric to have a passive ability that automatically gave out shards.</p><p>The problem right now is that pre-revamp, stanceless on my berserker I still have berserk, reactive damage + taunt, group berserk, str, regen health from taking dmg... Mixing our buffs together causes us to eat a penalty from running stanceless rather than being the 'neither here nor there' that the current system gives us. I am pushing for a midstance that basically would function the same way that our current buffset does if we have all of our buffs running but no stance. The additional nerfing of that 'middle of the road' setup I suggested in my above post was to keep it more in line with the post-revamp mechanics the devs are pushing for.</p><p>Incidentally, I know that *I* on my berserker often go to no stance if I am having issues with spiking too much before ever setting my finger onto the 'I can't hit anything and lose aggro constantly' button (IE Defensive if I don't have a dirge or templar skill buffing me)</p>

[Tandy]

<p><cite>Nero wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>Then, why have Berserker, Shadowknight, Brawlers been defined as offensive tank?Why shouldn't fighters want dps at the same time of staying alive and staying at the top of hate list?</p><p>Personally, I selected Shadowknight because SK's image is like evil knight or Darth Vader(you may laugh) and I like evil knight.Evil knight should attack and inflict damage.And Shadowknight lifetaps. It is one of the reasons why I like Shadowknight.Lifetap is damage and heal.So, do you deny lifetap by denying fighters' dps?</p><p>After all, fighters are fighter, those who fight.If fighters can do only 1 dps, will be fighters able to be called fighter?If fighters can do only 1 dps, fighters don't fight.If so, fighters are merely meat wall or meat shield. Fighters aren't fighting.As a fighter, I want strongly the feeling that I am fighting.The feeling excites me.I am not only a meat shield, but also a fighter.What's wrong with fighter's wanting dps?</p><p>I agree that fighters should take damage with defensive stance.I agree that fighters should hold aggro by not dps, but taunts.</p><p>But Aeralik, I read your post.</p><blockquote>If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs.</blockquote>After I read this sentense, I got so upset. I can't forgive.You are going to ignore my preference for Shadowknight. I selected Shadowknight because Shadowknight was an evil knight, which is offensive and lifetaps.<p>The attitude that doesn't forgive any dps for fighters is obviously an overkill.Certainly, fighters too focused on dps in RoK.But you seem to too focus on taunt in GU51, too.</p></blockquote><p>Just dont forget, on test copy atm in defensive stance my dmg is NOT that bad. SK still feels just like an SK on live, dmg is just down a little bit. In offensive its almost better.</p><p>So at least stop and take a look at the stuff for yourself. SK's still lifetap like mad regardless of the stance they are in.</p>

[Danelin]

<p>I am, to a limited extent, playing devil's advocate with this whole thing. In terms of being able to tank rougher content, I actually LIKE most of the tank revamp, other than the fact that I am going to become horribly dependant on +slashing gear, as I am presuming at least SOME portion of my aggro is still going to rely on my being able to hurt things... Not to mention the whole 'homicidal maniac with an axe' image of berserker fails completely at the moment I can no longer injure my opponents...</p><p>What I don't like is the complete loss of flexibility. Brawlers get midstance, but we lose the option of no-stance unless we feel like losing buffs. That is imbalanced in the other direction.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Nero wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Then, why have Berserker, Shadowknight, Brawlers been defined as offensive tank?</blockquote><p>Becuase even though their DPS is lower on test than it is on live, it is still higher on test than other fighters, in both defensive and offensice stances.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>The flipping of taunts was removed for no additional taunting or snaps so you should still be able to do high dps in your duos.</blockquote><p>Although I would need to wait until this hits test to try it out, this shouldmake it so that every fighter is able to hold aggro off of a healer in defensive stance, rendering one of my two issues with this revamp cleared.</p><p>That just leaves the gap between single target and AE fighters to be resolved.</p>

[sliderhouserules]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</blockquote><p>This is a little OT, but if you want to top the parse for a zonewide, you still need to be an assassin. I hope you plan on addressing that sometime soon.</p></blockquote><p>*Highly* doubtful. <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=105&topic_id=441178�" target="_blank">He voted Rangers off the island...</a></p>

[Juravael]

<p>I like the proposed changes thusfar but will wait for them to hit Live before any final judgement.</p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things. Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes. Tanks are too focused on damage. A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro. If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs.</p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift. When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list. Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts. If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>Aeralik, this isnt a real paradigm shift. We played the game like that pre EoF. A tank was a tank and managed aggro on its own. And i agree with you DEV's this is the way it should be.</p><p>However, is it really neccessary to merge self-buffs into the stances to reach that goal ? It was mentioned that aggro developed linear while dps developed exponential. Wouldnt it be a good idea to just balance those two curves against each other ?</p><p>Mind you, there is more then groups and raids. People duo and solo wierd stuff like green or grey heroic quests. We do this sometimes with quite custom setups. Loosing choice is loosing options. Less options, less fun.</p>

[Wurm]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things. Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes. Tanks are too focused on damage. A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro. <strong>If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs.</strong></p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift. When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list. Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts. If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>So the duo/soloer tanks should quit right now? Your perspective doesn't = everyone elses perspective at all.</p><p>I forsee myself once again running out of mana while soloing an even con mob because I can't do enough damage to it in defensive stance and it forces me to chain heal to stay alive in offensive. Just like after LU13. And it took the dev team months to say "oops" and fix it last time.</p><p>Haven't you guys lost enough frustrated players already?</p>

[Elanjar]

<p>for all of you who missed it he said that they removed the detaunts from O-stance and replaced it with just no taunting. The dps of o-stance (even with -hate gain) should be enough agro for duo/trio ers.</p>

[circusgirl]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>xsikal wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Which, again, ignores the case of duos where the fighter HAS to be able to do reasonable damage as well as tanking.</p><p>It may be an either/or situation (tanking vs. damage dealing) on raids, but that is not the case in the rest of the game... until this change goes live.</p></blockquote><p>A duo is not ignored at all.  In most cases you are still enhanced slightly.  A duo is not going into an instance and clearing out the high damage bosses.  If they are then none of these changes really change that fact.  A duo is probably going through overland zones and questing or going back to older lower con heroics they can handle.  In those cases the minor damage increase shouldnt be a big thing if they make sure they are up to date with equipment.  Also the hate reduction is minor and you should be able to work around that.  Otherwise you just cant taunt which leaves you to your dps.  <span style="color: #ff0000;">The flipping of taunts was removed for no additional taunting or snaps so you should still be able to do high dps in your duos.</span></p></blockquote><p>Can anyone explain what is meant by this?  Does this mean we no longer get detaunts instead of taunts in offensive stance?  Because if so I'm going to be extremely bummed, that was a serious blessing for dpsing brawlers.  Previously the only tank able to keep aggro off of me when I chose to dps instead of tank was paladin, which will obviously no longer be an option with amends gone.  The decision to flip taunts actually made brawler dps a pretty sweet gig, and I'de be sad to see it go, especially if they're going to make tanking in offensive not viable anyway.</p>

[Wurm]

<p><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>for all of you who missed it he said that they removed the detaunts from O-stance and replaced it with just no taunting. The dps of o-stance (even with -hate gain) should be enough agro for duo/trio ers.</p></blockquote><p>Its not the agro that has me worried, its the running out of power. A OOP paladin is a dead paladin, if he is duoing with a non-healing class.</p><p>Defensive... power dump to do enough dps to finish the fight</p><p>Offensive... power dump to do enough healing to finish the fight</p><p>Either way your going to either go OOP and die or finish the fight with a sliver of power left. Even before GU51 this was an issue (there is a reason I run around with power pots and status power symbols). And finishing the fight with no power left means a longer downtime during which if you get spawned on or pick up an add you are screwed.</p><p>Of course I could always stick to fighting green con and not have problems... but where is the fun in that.</p><p>This GU13 deja vu all over again.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</blockquote><p>This is a little OT, but if you want to top the parse for a zonewide, you still need to be an assassin. I hope you plan on addressing that sometime soon.</p></blockquote><p>*Highly* doubtful. <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=105&topic_id=441178�" target="_blank">He voted Rangers off the island...</a></p></blockquote><p>He's allowed his own fun.</p><p>As long as it doesn't affect the game.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite>Wurm wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things. Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes. Tanks are too focused on damage. A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro. <strong>If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs.</strong></p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift. When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list. Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts. If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>So the duo/soloer tanks should quit right now? Your perspective doesn't = everyone elses perspective at all.</p><p>I forsee myself once again running out of mana while soloing an even con mob because I can't do enough damage to it in defensive stance and it forces me to chain heal to stay alive in offensive. Just like after LU13. And it took the dev team months to say "oops" and fix it last time.</p><p>Haven't you guys lost enough frustrated players already?</p></blockquote><p>Actually, solo and duo tanks will be fine with the next test patch (assuming his changes make it in).</p><p>Tanks have a choice of high aggro/high survivabilty/low DPS for if they are duoing with a DPS class, or medium aggro/high DPS/low survivability (for a tank) if they are duping with anything other than high DPS. Paladins are doing more solo damage on test than on live.</p><p>You really should play on test before you comment, the changes are actually very good all around, with the exception of AE hate for paladins, guardians and brawlers.</p>

[Vulkan_NTooki]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>OMG! Did a guardian beat you on a parse Aeralik? Is that why u even type this kinda sh*t?</p><p>There is no way a fighter class can out dps a t1 or t2 dps class provided the following: Equal Skill, Equal Gear, Equal spell quality, Equal buffs... NO WAY WHAT SO EVER!!</p><p>If your dps class is out parsed by a tank class u've met a better/smarter geared, skilled, buffed player.. simple as that..</p><p>The only reason u find tank classes on top of parses is the above statements. Tank classes where forced to improve those areas in order to compete for aggro. So they actually know how to max dps. Doesnt mean they were doing to much. It was others doing to little.</p><p><strong>Reducing the dps of the tank classes serves only 1 purpose. Reduce the overall effectiveness of a group(by gimping total dps and letting t1/t2 dps classes continue to slack).</strong></p><p>Heck, my 77 wizard is allready starting to out dps many assassins, brigs, other t1 dps classes at lvl 80, and he is in quest/mc/broker sh*it gear. Why? Cause I spend the time needed to read up on how to max my dps.</p><p>Tank dps was fine where it was.. If u guys focused on fixing the things that were broken instead, the aggro fix woulda been live 4 months ago instead of still on test.</p><p>(Remove aggro transfers, improve taunt amounts, improve de-taunts, add some passive hate, some tweaking to "hybrid classes") DONE... If u can kill a sparrow with a soft gun.. why use a [Removed for Content] Canon...</p>

[DistortionII]

<p><cite>Vulkan_NTooki wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>OMG! Did a guardian beat you on a parse Aeralik? Is that why u even type this kinda sh*t?</p><p>There is no way a fighter class can out dps a t1 or t2 dps class provided the following: Equal Skill, Equal Gear, Equal spell quality, Equal buffs... NO WAY WHAT SO EVER!!</p><p>If your dps class is out parsed by a tank class u've met a better/smarter geared, skilled, buffed player.. simple as that..</p><p>The only reason u find tank classes on top of parses is the above statements. Tank classes where forced to improve those areas in order to compete for aggro. So they actually know how to max dps. Doesnt mean they were doing to much. It was others doing to little.</p><p><strong>Reducing the dps of the tank classes serves only 1 purpose. Reduce the overall effectiveness of a group(by gimping total dps and letting t1/t2 dps classes continue to slack).</strong></p><p>Heck, my 77 wizard is allready starting to out dps many assassins, brigs, other t1 dps classes at lvl 80, and he is in quest/mc/broker sh*it gear. Why? Cause I spend the time needed to read up on how to max my dps.</p><p>Tank dps was fine where it was.. If u guys focused on fixing the things that were broken instead, the aggro fix woulda been live 4 months ago instead of still on test.</p><p>(Remove aggro transfers, improve taunt amounts, improve de-taunts, add some passive hate, some tweaking to "hybrid classes") DONE... If u can kill a sparrow with a soft gun.. why use a [Removed for Content] Canon...</p></blockquote><p>Probably, word is Aerilik is leaving the game and possibly the EQ2 team, much like Lockeye before him, he'll be giving us the shaft before he bails, (ala the dehate nerfs to make dehate AA's more desired that everyone told him NO ONE would go for,.. and look... no one did.. but he did b/c he THOUGHT he knew better then his playerbase).</p>

[Maroger]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>By changing the way the buffs works you have removed choice. It is SOOOOO simple to understand. In Defensive Stance your buffs no longer do damage and THREAT DOES NOT EQUAL DAMAGE == they are two separate things.  Damage removes hit points from the mob threat does not. SO yes you are losing something when you remove the damage from a buff.</p></blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>I solo - I need to do damage. Why are you nerfing my playstyle? My primary role is whatever I want it to be -- it should not be what you want it to be after 4 years.</p><p>And more importantly why did you reduce the effect of the  buffs as a result of the merger?</p><p>Before the merger -- GRIM STRIKE did 438-730 Damage as merged into Offensive Stance -- it only does 314-524-</p><p>I had it at Master I and 5 AA's into it -- I have lost of all that and changing that into some other words does not lessen the fact that BUFF WAS NERFED BY YOU.</p><p>Was that necessary? My damage got increased, my DPS reduced and this is in offensive stance where you say we are going to have increased DPS - 25% less DPS in offensive stance over what I was doing in LIVE does not equal increased DPS in Offense no matter how much icing you put on it and how many glib words rolls off your tongue. The numbers tell the story. Even in OFFENSE DPS IS REDUCED. </p><p>I should be able to play the game the way I have been playing for 4 years,-- not the way you want to force me to play it and there is no one can say you are right - you only think you are right you have no proof you are right.</p><p>The buffs should be left along -- we paid for them we put AA's into them and with this merger all that is lost.</p><p>Not only that - we got buffs every 10 levels -- so now we will not get the buffs that we would have gotten in our 70's- so DOUBLE NERF TO US TO CLASSES WHOSE BUFFS ARE LOST BY MERGER.</p>

[Nero]

<p>If you merge self buffs into stances, then merge all 6 fighters into 1 fighter.Or merge all 6 fighters into one single-target fighter and one aoe fighter, the concept of which  you seem to like very much.If a fighter uses defensive stance, which was merged with self buffs, similar to other 5 fighters, then where is there the difference among 6 fighters?Where is the uniqueness, the individuality, the characteristics, or the identity of Guardian, Berserker, Paladin, Shadowknight, Monk, Bruiser?</p><p>If all fighters takes damage with defensive stance and hold aggro with not damage, but taunt, fighters will become merely a meat shield.But Shadowknight is not merely a meat shield.SK is EVIL and SK is a noble KNIGHT.Knights must not be merely a meat shield.Knights must be nobler than a meat shield.And Shadowknight must be not only noble, but also evil.</p><p>Certainly, all fighters will be more efficient to tank with this change in GU51.I must thank devs about it.But all fighters just do the same thing. It's ridiculous.Balancing fighters is needed very much.But, at the same time, characterizing fighters is also needed strongly.The concept of ST/AoE tank is broken as many people indicated.</p><p>If DPS is never important to tank as Aeralik said("If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs."), what should offensive tanks(Berserker, Shadowknight, and Brawlers) do?In GU51, hate/threat and defensive things will be important.DPS will become not important.If offensive tanks can inflict more damage than defensive tanks, so what? Because only hate/threat and defensive things are important in GU51.</p><p>No uniqueness, no individuality, no characteristics, no identity.Fighters just do the same thing. Staying alive and staying at the top of hate list with ONLY ONE defensive stance merged with self buff.Where is a diversity?</p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend an <span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Assassin</strong></span>.</p></blockquote><p>Fixed it for ya, Aeralik <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2e207fad049d4d292f60607f80f05768.gif" border="0" /></p><p>However, while topping the parse doesn't necessarily excite me ... when I created my Swashy, I didn't ever have the vision of even occasionally tanking. I never wanted to have anything to do with tanking; I wanted to be a DPS & Debuff monkey.</p><p>Why, then, do I have a tanking AA tree? Why are Brigs & Swashies as effective at tanking as we are? & have you considered at all that since our Stances aren't being changed, nor are our buffs being consolidated with stances, after LU51 we will still be tanking via DPS?</p><p>I don't know about any other Rogue, but I for one would really, really like to see you answer questions about what's going to happen to Rogue stances, buffs, & tanking ability -- particularly since we have two full AA trees that revolve mostly around generating or reducing HATE, which I coulda sworn this whole patch was intended to revise. It feels to me like you guys are only doing half a patch, & I'm not the least happy thinking of the potential consequences to the game if you hold off the rest of the patch for some time later.</p><p>Regardless, I think that consolidating buffs with stances is an absolutely <strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">TERRIBLE</span></strong> idea. Please don't do it to anyone -- & especially not based on the utterly ludicrous claim that people complained the rebuffing takes too long <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /> If you're going to do it, then please, please PLEASE come up with an <span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>actual</strong></span> reason.</p>

[Vanderlay]

<p><cite>Skywarrior wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I choose to tank mostly in the off stance because the def stance is weak, atleast for a zerker and make is hard to hold aggro.  i only use the def stance when i really need a little bit more defence, cus thats all it really gives me even at adept III.   Really all youve got to do to zerkers to get the results SOE is claiming their looking for is beef up our def stance and our taunts.</p></blockquote><p>Some of you don't seem to "get" that this is exactly what SOE is attempting to fix by these changes.  Holding aggro via superior DPS is the issue that is being corrected.  This post is almost a poster child of why the change is coming.  Whether or not you agree with the thrust of the change, the more you emphasize how much you depend on DPS now for aggro, the more you prove the devs correct.</p><p>Tanks should have never become DPS machines.  They had to in order to function as tanks.  These changes are to correct that.  It's really that simple.  Fighters, on the other hand (ie not tanking), need to bring enough DPS to the table to be a viable choice in a group/raid and be able to solo effectively.  Offensive stance is targetted for that. </p><p>Remember, Tank is not a class but a function.  Fighters are not tanks - unless they perform that function.  Fighters are being given the tools to be very effective tanks without infringing on the territory of the DPS classes.</p></blockquote><p>Okay if what you are saying is true, I want a scout's DPS while I'm running offensive stance in a group/raid situation. </p><p>You know darn well that's not going to happen because then the scouts will complain that a pally/SK/zerker is doing the same amount of damage he is doing.  I want to be able to hit 7-8K or greater ZW like the scouts can.  If I'm running offensive stance, and not tanking I should be able to right?  That would definitley make it more balanced.</p>

[katalmach]

<p><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>Based on what Aeralik wrote I take it to mean offensive stance now has no de-taunt, just no taunting or snap aggro. Now I could be wrong...but thats how I read it. If that IS the case, a duo or trio should be fine as long as a DPS is careful to use their own deaggro's.</blockquote></blockquote><p>Okay, and as a mystic, I have exactly one deaggro with a recast of 5 minutes (not counting items/gear, as not all mystics will have those additional deaggros). How is that going to help me and my tank manage our duo/trio aggro? Sure, on a single target we will be okay, b ut what about adds? How is my tank going to grab a nd hold them if he can't taunt them? DPS alone won 't cut it, especially as my tank is a single targe t tank with weak AOE capabilities. I rely on my tank to hold aggro, because that is his job. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever if he can't taunt just because he is in offensive stance (indeed, you'd think an "offensive taunt" would be more insulting to the mob). When I am in offensive healing stance, I can still heal and use all of my abilities - just not quite as effectively. So why not let tanks do the same? Lower the taunts a little in offensive, if you like, but don't flip or disable them.</p><p>Personally I think GU51 should be scrapped complet ely. The only change needed, as I see it, is to fi x defensive stances so that tanks can actually hit  things and hold aggro while in them. I'm sure the re are other small fixes needed as well, but I don 't think a paradigm shift is the way to go, four y ears into a game's life. Small fixes, yes - huge sweeping changes, no.  </p>

[Gisallo]

<p><cite>Skywarrior wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I choose to tank mostly in the off stance because the def stance is weak, atleast for a zerker and make is hard to hold aggro.  i only use the def stance when i really need a little bit more defence, cus thats all it really gives me even at adept III.   Really all youve got to do to zerkers to get the results SOE is claiming their looking for is beef up our def stance and our taunts.</p></blockquote><p>Some of you don't seem to "get" that this is exactly what SOE is attempting to fix by these changes.  Holding aggro via superior DPS is the issue that is being corrected.  This post is almost a poster child of why the change is coming.  Whether or not you agree with the thrust of the change, the more you emphasize how much you depend on DPS now for aggro, the more you prove the devs correct.</p><p>Tanks should have never become DPS machines.  They had to in order to function as tanks.  These changes are to correct that.  It's really that simple.  Fighters, on the other hand (ie not tanking), need to bring enough DPS to the table to be a viable choice in a group/raid and be able to solo effectively.  Offensive stance is targetted for that. </p><p>Remember, Tank is not a class but a function.  Fighters are not tanks - unless they perform that function.  Fighters are being given the tools to be very effective tanks without infringing on the territory of the DPS classes.</p></blockquote><p>here's the problem and I can understand people being frustrated (though they don't even really know the reason why).  Berzerkers did dps for 2 reasons.  To hold aggro and because they were more squishy than their counter part.  There was no AoE and single target tanks.  there were offensive and defensive tanks.</p><p>Yes Zerkers held aggro more with dps BUT this was to keep aggro management balanced.  The Guardian didn't have to do as much dps because they A) were tougher and B) had more hate tools.  So while you say "this was the problem" it actually wasn't a problem, it was simply how SOE had chosen to balance tanks.</p><p>Now here is the past problem.  Even if tank A could hold aggro as well if not better than tank B and stay standing more easily, tank A often got emo because he wasn't as high on the damage parse as tank B.  A tanks job wasn't to be on the parse, never was BUT since some tanks were "offensive" they ended up being higher on it.</p><p>Clearly SOE wants to eliminate the offensive vs defensive paradigm.  They have created the Single target vs AOE paradigm and forced classes to fit these definitions even if it makes NO sense (hello Palladin's <nod&gt<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.  Since we have done this though people have concerns and understandably so.This leads to new problems. </p><ol><li>If a tank was designed to hold aggro using dps as a large portion (formerly offensive tanks) will the changes to aggro management make up the difference.  Basically were "offensive" tanks given a larger aggro boost in their defensive stance than "defensive" tanks?  This would be necessary as offensive tanks needed more dps to do the same job. </li><li>Second since the offensive tanks can't help burn the mob down faster, were they given a requisite amount of surviveability boost (over that the defensive tanks get) since lower surviveability was also a trade off for more dps?</li><li>The devs have often talked about how there are still plenty of hate tools avaliable to tanks to help maintain aggro BUT these have been in the context of the raid setting.  What is the effect going to be in your "typical" group? eg. Tank 1-2 healers rest pick your dps flavor.  Will these PUGS or even small guild groups still be viable?</li><li>If you do 1 and 2 how much whining and screaming would you see from the formerly "defensive" tanks?  Way too often classes do not looking at the combined numbers of all of their abilities and how they are practically applied, but select one or two abilities that another class recently got boosted and go "WAAAAHHHH I didn't get anything and this is better than the one ability I have in a narrow circumstance."</li><li>seeing number 4 is so darn prevelant does the dev team have the stones to do the required fixes to the extent they should or will they just do some watered down version that "should work" to minimize the whining?</li></ol><p>It is possible they did this right.  But as others have said with the incredibly small number of people on test now a days (a lot of it due to last years test server fiasco which may not be mentioned in detail for fear of ban) they are going to make sure there are no "bugs" but leave actual practical testing effectiveness to Live.  When you have such a sweeping change as this its easy to understand why people might be less than optimistic isn't it?</p>

[RafaelSmith]

<p><cite>Possumu@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Personally I think GU51 should be scrapped completely. The only change needed, as I see it, is to fix defensive stances so that tanks can actually hit things and hold aggro while in them. I'm sure there are other small fixes needed as well, but I don't think a paradigm shift is the way to go, four years into a game's life. Small fixes, yes - huge sweeping changes, no.</p></blockquote><p>Agreed but sadly SOE does not own any screwdrivers...just big sledgehammers...and they still miss <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Destriel]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>You've built a game where tanks CAN dps while tanking.  Tanks ENJOY dpsing while tanking.  Its FUN for them to see their dips and try to improve on it.  Pressing those few taunt buttons to hold agg and not worrying about dps ISN'T FUN.  Our MT is already bored out of his tree half of the time just holding one mob, the only thing he has to do is DPS.  From his experience on test, he's about to get a lot more bored...</p><p>If these changes are not found to be fun, then the shift will be from people having a good time playing EQ2 playing a class they know and like to people being forced to play a selected class they hate simply because it's needed for their raid/guild/groupage/w/e....</p><p>Personally, I do not understand the need for these changes and I think it's rather silly that so much time is being spent working on something that many already consider to be working just fine...</p>

[sliderhouserules]

<p><cite>Destriel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>You've built a game where tanks CAN dps while tanking.  Tanks ENJOY dpsing while tanking.  Its FUN for them to see their dips and try to improve on it.  Pressing those few taunt buttons to hold agg and not worrying about dps ISN'T FUN.  Our MT is already bored out of his tree half of the time just holding one mob, the only thing he has to do is DPS.  From his experience on test, he's about to get a lot more bored...</p><p>If these changes are not found to be fun, then the shift will be from people having a good time playing EQ2 playing a class they know and like to people being forced to play a selected class they hate simply because it's needed for their raid/guild/groupage/w/e....</p><p>Personally, I do not understand the need for these changes and I think it's rather silly that so much time is being spent working on something that many already consider to be working just fine...</p></blockquote><p>I think a lot of it comes from the fact that mythical weapons are completely and utterly over the top overpowered. I myself have complained that my instance-geared wizard got beat on the parse by a similarly equipped guardian who had no raid gear, but had his mythical. Couple this with a long-running trend towards melee dps (to push and keep scouts, particularly assassins, at the top of the DPS food chain) and you have a recipe for what we're seeing now.</p><p>When you're dealing with a complex system based on numbers, if the designers don't have their systems worked out, but instead approach things willy nilly (which they seem to do) then you're going to have the situation where these super-special weapons that are supposed to be hard to get and only raiders would have them throw the game completely out of balance, forcing the mechanics team to step in and say "whoa, the mechanics are all messed up we've got to fix this."</p><p>What did you expect when you gave the playerbase these godly weapons? Can it honestly be said that the disparity exists completely independent of mythical weapons? I doubt it. Taunts haven't scaled as dps has scaled, this has been stated. But mythical weapons throw back the covers and show all to anybody who looks.</p>

[Brook]

<p>I like that the detaunts were removed in off stance, it was a step in the right direction and it does show that you are indeed taking in the feedback.</p><p>Not being able to cast a taunt while in off stance wont work. The taunt is the only way to finish a HO. and this penalizes soloers. Recommend severely reducing the taunt in off stance, not removing the ability to use it.</p><p>Also noticed was the recast time on stances being 5 seconds instead of instant..very displeased with that. If your going to change the way I like to play a fighter then by all means do so but don't [Removed for Content] us into not being able to grab a hold on an unforeseen situation when needed. We are after all the ones that are supposed to get beat on.</p><p>You should know first hand how big a mess can become of a raid in 5-6 seconds... its not fair to us nor is it fair to the rest of the raidforce.</p><p>What I fail to grasp is why the changes now? You and your team have been pumping up our dps with weapons and abilities the past few years... why is it all of a sudden so important to have a LU13 all over again?</p>

[Destriel]

<p><cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think a lot of it comes from the fact that mythical weapons are completely and utterly over the top overpowered. I myself have complained that my instance-geared wizard got beat on the parse by a similarly equipped guardian who had no raid gear, but had his mythical. Couple this with a long-running trend towards melee dps (to push and keep scouts, particularly assassins, at the top of the DPS food chain) and you have a recipe for what we're seeing now.</p><p>When you're dealing with a complex system based on numbers, if the designers don't have their systems worked out, but instead approach things willy nilly (which they seem to do) then you're going to have the situation where these super-special weapons that are supposed to be hard to get and only raiders would have them throw the game completely out of balance, forcing the mechanics team to step in and say "whoa, the mechanics are all messed up we've got to fix this."</p><p>What did you expect when you gave the playerbase these godly weapons? Can it honestly be said that the disparity exists completely independent of mythical weapons? I doubt it. Taunts haven't scaled as dps has scaled, this has been stated. But mythical weapons throw back the covers and show all to anybody who looks.</p></blockquote><p>If you got out dps'd by a guard while you were playing your wizard, I would suggest with all due respect that you are not very good at playing your wizard and that your problem is not with tank dps output but with your ability to play your wizard.  The mythical does not automatically exponentially increase a guardian's dps, and the fact that your example's guardian had their mythical has very little to do with the fact that you got beat on the parse.</p><p>If this change is due to people complaining in /feedback that they're getting beat on the parse by tanks, I would have to say that their lack of skill in the game is the biggest problem, not tank dps output.  And it has, for the most part, very little to do with mythicals.</p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Tanks being able to hold aggro while DPSing was an issue, they were doing two jobs at the same time.</p></blockquote><p>This update only solves PART of that issue, because as Skywarrior pointed out, "tank is a FUNCTION, not a CLASS."</p><p>Rogues will still be able to tank using DPS, because nothing -- that we know of, because nobody at SOE is answering the question -- is being changed regarding our ability to tank.</p><p>I'm quite sure nobody is answering that question, because at present, they're not doing anything about it. I fully understand that they're (apparently) not touching the bulk of Rogue abilities that influence hate generation or reduction, because at present they're working on the FIGHTER side of things.</p><p>The problem is, that approach is, at best, half the job -- & I am not the least bit interested in seeing a half-done job foisted on the player base, with assurances that the rest of it will be done "soon." I would FAR rather get the entire thing done at one go, even if that means it has to wait another few months before being implemented.</p><p>Of course, if they ARE touching the Rogue side of things, then they should tell us so.</p>

[Kiljoi]

<p><cite>Destriel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If these changes are not found to be fun, then the shift will be from people having a good time playing EQ2 playing a class they know and like to people being forced to play a selected class they hate simply because it's needed for their raid/guild/groupage/w/e....</p><p>Personally, I do not understand the need for these changes and I think it's rather silly that so much time is being spent working on something that many already consider to be working just fine...</p></blockquote><p>To be honest, I get the sense the opinions of long standing players are irrelevant to the developers in this instance.<span>  </span>From a paladin perspective, it seems that we are forced to basically play a new class!<span>  </span>I could go in greater detail but it is proving to be a waste of time.</p> <p>It is a terrible shame that after gu51 goes live, I will not be playing the class I have been thoroughly enjoying for years.<span>  </span>Instead I will be playing a Neo-Paladin (as I like to call it) where spamming buttons is key and being 2^nd rate to the other single target tank is how it is.  Change the game like this... your bound to loose some of the loyals.</p> <p>For the sake of my guild I’ll do what I can to adjust… if it maintains the current level of suck as seen on test then…</p> <p>I’ll take my QQing and monthly sub to a more enjoyable gaming experience.</p>

[sliderhouserules]

<p><cite>Destriel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think a lot of it comes from the fact that mythical weapons are completely and utterly over the top overpowered. I myself have complained that my instance-geared wizard got beat on the parse by a similarly equipped guardian who had no raid gear, but had his mythical. Couple this with a long-running trend towards melee dps (to push and keep scouts, particularly assassins, at the top of the DPS food chain) and you have a recipe for what we're seeing now.</p><p>When you're dealing with a complex system based on numbers, if the designers don't have their systems worked out, but instead approach things willy nilly (which they seem to do) then you're going to have the situation where these super-special weapons that are supposed to be hard to get and only raiders would have them throw the game completely out of balance, forcing the mechanics team to step in and say "whoa, the mechanics are all messed up we've got to fix this."</p><p>What did you expect when you gave the playerbase these godly weapons? Can it honestly be said that the disparity exists completely independent of mythical weapons? I doubt it. Taunts haven't scaled as dps has scaled, this has been stated. But mythical weapons throw back the covers and show all to anybody who looks.</p></blockquote><p>If you got out dps'd by a guard while you were playing your wizard, I would suggest with all due respect that you are not very good at playing your wizard and that your problem is not with tank dps output but with your ability to play your wizard.  The mythical does not automatically exponentially increase a guardian's dps, and the fact that your example's guardian had their mythical has very little to do with the fact that you got beat on the parse.</p><p>If this change is due to people complaining in /feedback that they're getting beat on the parse by tanks, I would have to say that their lack of skill in the game is the biggest problem, not tank dps output.  And it has, for the most part, very little to do with mythicals.</p></blockquote><p>I expected this kind of retort would come out of the woodwork. You can kindly take this sentiment and shove it back up where the sun doesn't shine. I play my wizard just fine, thank you.</p><p>Please, tell me that a guardian with middle-of-the-road gear parsing 3.5 to 4k in Chelsith (pre-TSO) with a mismatched group is normal and not due to his mythical?</p>

[RafaelSmith]

<p><cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Destriel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think a lot of it comes from the fact that mythical weapons are completely and utterly over the top overpowered. I myself have complained that my instance-geared wizard got beat on the parse by a similarly equipped guardian who had no raid gear, but had his mythical. Couple this with a long-running trend towards melee dps (to push and keep scouts, particularly assassins, at the top of the DPS food chain) and you have a recipe for what we're seeing now.</p><p>When you're dealing with a complex system based on numbers, if the designers don't have their systems worked out, but instead approach things willy nilly (which they seem to do) then you're going to have the situation where these super-special weapons that are supposed to be hard to get and only raiders would have them throw the game completely out of balance, forcing the mechanics team to step in and say "whoa, the mechanics are all messed up we've got to fix this."</p><p>What did you expect when you gave the playerbase these godly weapons? Can it honestly be said that the disparity exists completely independent of mythical weapons? I doubt it. Taunts haven't scaled as dps has scaled, this has been stated. But mythical weapons throw back the covers and show all to anybody who looks.</p></blockquote><p>If you got out dps'd by a guard while you were playing your wizard, I would suggest with all due respect that you are not very good at playing your wizard and that your problem is not with tank dps output but with your ability to play your wizard. The mythical does not automatically exponentially increase a guardian's dps, and the fact that your example's guardian had their mythical has very little to do with the fact that you got beat on the parse.</p><p>If this change is due to people complaining in /feedback that they're getting beat on the parse by tanks, I would have to say that their lack of skill in the game is the biggest problem, not tank dps output. And it has, for the most part, very little to do with mythicals.</p></blockquote><p>I expected this kind of retort would come out of the woodwork. You can kindly take this sentiment and shove it back up where the sun doesn't shine. I play my wizard just fine, thank you.</p><p>Please, tell me that a guardian with middle-of-the-road gear parsing 3.5 to 4k in Chelsith (pre-TSO) with a mismatched group is normal and not due to his mythical?</p></blockquote><p>Seems normal to me considering that in such a group and assumming comprabable level gear the scouts of mages of group should be in the 6k+ range.</p><p>I have yet to be in any situation...group...raid or otherwise where I outparsed any skilled scout or caster DPS class.</p><p>And while the Mythicals are sweet...you can't seriously believe that having one all the sudden tripples a guardians DPS?</p>

[Gisallo]

<p><cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think a lot of it comes from the fact that mythical weapons are completely and utterly over the top overpowered. I myself have complained that my instance-geared wizard got beat on the parse by a similarly equipped guardian who had no raid gear, but had his mythical. Couple this with a long-running trend towards melee dps (to push and keep scouts, particularly assassins, at the top of the DPS food chain) and you have a recipe for what we're seeing now.</p><p>When you're dealing with a complex system based on numbers, if the designers don't have their systems worked out, but instead approach things willy nilly (which they seem to do) then you're going to have the situation where these super-special weapons that are supposed to be hard to get and only raiders would have them throw the game completely out of balance, forcing the mechanics team to step in and say "whoa, the mechanics are all messed up we've got to fix this."</p><p>What did you expect when you gave the playerbase these godly weapons? Can it honestly be said that the disparity exists completely independent of mythical weapons? I doubt it. Taunts haven't scaled as dps has scaled, this has been stated. But mythical weapons throw back the covers and show all to anybody who looks.</p></blockquote><p>Well as much as you might think it sucks SOE will Say "Mythicals are supposed to be well...Mythical."  So yes just about any class with a mythical wll out dps a class without it.  Their retort will be "a mythical Wizard will out dps a mythical guardian."  To some it may suck but when you have the tier 3/4 fablked gear being better than the tier 1-2 and you add in a weapon that is tier 4 that requires a specific quest/kill progression those items simply have to be UBER and by a far margin.</p><p>The reason you dealt with what you did is either A) the tank is the alt of a hard core raider or B) he came up with about 100 plat per update.  Does it stink alts can be twinked or people with enough plat (or who buy from plat farmers) can get their mythical outside the ideal progression system?  Yeah, but that doesn't mean that the Mythicals are the problem.  This coming from someone without one yet btw.</p>

[Destriel]

<p><cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I expected this kind of retort would come out of the woodwork. You can kindly take this sentiment and shove it back up where the sun doesn't shine. I play my wizard just fine, thank you.<p>Please, tell me that a guardian with middle-of-the-road gear parsing 3.5 to 4k in Chelsith (pre-TSO) with a mismatched group is normal and not due to his mythical?</p></blockquote><p>I'm trying to be nice here, and I'm just stating the facts.  If you're not out dpsing the guard on your wizzy then I'd say you have some work to do on your wizzy.  I'm not saying that you suck or anything rude, so let's be nice.</p><p>Take that same guard and give him/her a non-mythical 1h, or even the fabled epic, the parse would be close.  You can't take 2 players and say 1 is a wizzy and 1 is a guard, therefore the wizzy should always out dps the guard.  It doesn't work like that.  You're not factoring in skill to that equation.  Even after these changes go through there will be tanks beating all sorts of DPS classes all over the place on the parse, even ones in defensive tanking stance - some people do not take the time to learn their toons, or for any other variety of reasons cannot perform on their toons as they are intended to.  Period.  And the rest of the player population does not need a substantial change to how an essential part of their game works to make these not-so-great players feel better about themselves.</p><p>But this is getting off topic, so I'll leave it at this: Slider, I hope you can get your mythical at some point so you can see first hand that it's truly not the mythical that makes the player.</p>

[habby2]

<p><cite>Destriel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I expected this kind of retort would come out of the woodwork. You can kindly take this sentiment and shove it back up where the sun doesn't shine. I play my wizard just fine, thank you.<p>Please, tell me that a guardian with middle-of-the-road gear parsing 3.5 to 4k in Chelsith (pre-TSO) with a mismatched group is normal and not due to his mythical?</p></blockquote><p>I'm trying to be nice here, and I'm just stating the facts.  If you're not out dpsing the guard on your wizzy then I'd say you have some work to do on your wizzy.  I'm not saying that you suck or anything rude, so let's be nice.</p><p>Take that same guard and give him/her a non-mythical 1h, or even the fabled epic, the parse would be close.  You can't take 2 players and say 1 is a wizzy and 1 is a guard, therefore the wizzy should always out dps the guard.  It doesn't work like that.  You're not factoring in skill to that equation.  Even after these changes go through there will be tanks beating all sorts of DPS classes all over the place on the parse, even ones in defensive tanking stance - some people do not take the time to learn their toons, or for any other variety of reasons cannot perform on their toons as they are intended to.  Period.  And the rest of the player population does not need a substantial change to how an essential part of their game works to make these not-so-great players feel better about themselves.</p><p>But this is getting off topic, so I'll leave it at this: Slider, I hope you can get your mythical at some point so you can see first hand that it's truly not the mythical that makes the player.</p></blockquote><p>You have to be joking.  For a melee class (not sure on casters), upgrading from Fabled to Mythical is a HUGE boost to their own personal DPS.  It's not even remotely close. </p><p>Troubie - pre mythical 1.2k dps, after mythical 2.5k dps  (actually ran the test just before and after, so no other equip changed and casting order was identical)</p><p>Assassin - pre mythical 4-5k dps, after mythical 7-9k dps</p><p>That is the change for ONE piece of equipment.  There was no other change of equipment, no change of ability, nothing else changed except the mythical, so for you to spout off that people need to learn their toons, maybe you should learn what your equipment actually does.</p>

[Uwopo]

<p>DPS classes do not compete with tanks for group spots...  Does it really matter if a fighter stacked with buffs can out DPS you on a few fights?</p><p>By lowering our options and DPS when tanking, you merely lower our options when it comes to group makeup.</p><p>Right now, I can build a group with 5 random classes and decide how best to tank for that group...</p><p>Do I dual wield?  Use a shield?  Wear my DPS armor?  Wear my tanking armor?  Offensive stance?  Defensive stance?  No stance?</p><p>If I am forced to use defensive stance and suffer a newly added major hit to DPS, it renders most of those options moot.  With the 0.5 damage modifier, is DPS armor or dual wield even going to matter?  Just give me one healer, T1 DPS and utility for that DPS.  The class makeup of an optimal instance has just narrowed.</p><p>The other thing that bothers me about people complaining about tank DPS... do you realize that if you're outparsed by the fighter tanking for your group now, that you going to be outparsed even more by an fighter in the new offensive stance?  Now you actually will be competing with fighters for DPS slots and those fighters will be free to dual wield and wear their full DPS gear without fear of it impacting their ability to tank...</p>

[sliderhouserules]

<p><cite>Glacier@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Destriel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I expected this kind of retort would come out of the woodwork. You can kindly take this sentiment and shove it back up where the sun doesn't shine. I play my wizard just fine, thank you.<p>Please, tell me that a guardian with middle-of-the-road gear parsing 3.5 to 4k in Chelsith (pre-TSO) with a mismatched group is normal and not due to his mythical?</p></blockquote><p>I'm trying to be nice here, and I'm just stating the facts.  If you're not out dpsing the guard on your wizzy then I'd say you have some work to do on your wizzy.  I'm not saying that you suck or anything rude, so let's be nice.</p><p>Take that same guard and give him/her a non-mythical 1h, or even the fabled epic, the parse would be close.  You can't take 2 players and say 1 is a wizzy and 1 is a guard, therefore the wizzy should always out dps the guard.  It doesn't work like that.  You're not factoring in skill to that equation.  Even after these changes go through there will be tanks beating all sorts of DPS classes all over the place on the parse, even ones in defensive tanking stance - some people do not take the time to learn their toons, or for any other variety of reasons cannot perform on their toons as they are intended to.  Period.  And the rest of the player population does not need a substantial change to how an essential part of their game works to make these not-so-great players feel better about themselves.</p><p>But this is getting off topic, so I'll leave it at this: Slider, I hope you can get your mythical at some point so you can see first hand that it's truly not the mythical that makes the player.</p></blockquote><p>You have to be joking.  For a melee class (not sure on casters), upgrading from Fabled to Mythical is a HUGE boost to their own personal DPS.  It's not even remotely close. </p><p>Troubie - pre mythical 1.2k dps, after mythical 2.5k dps  (actually ran the test just before and after, so no other equip changed and casting order was identical)</p><p>Assassin - pre mythical 4-5k dps, after mythical 7-9k dps</p><p>That is the change for ONE piece of equipment.  There was no other change of equipment, no change of ability, nothing else changed except the mythical, so for you to spout off that people need to learn their toons, maybe you should learn what your equipment actually does.</p></blockquote><p>Thank you.</p><p>I know how to play my wizard quite well. He doesn't have super gear because I play my pally more, and I also craft a lot (4 master crafters). So I read a lot on the forums (when I should be working, like now) and I know casting order, etc. I just haven't had a chance to gear him up very well because he doesn't get much play time. I doubt either of my characters will get their mythical because I am not interested in buying my updates, simply on principle. Yet my wizard is routinely at or near the top of every ZW. This guardian in Chelsith was quite a fluke, and when I inspected him I was quite surprised at his lackluster gear considering how high he was parsing. When I noticed his mythical I just groaned to myself.</p><p>I don't care how much people hide their head in the sand concerning this, it *is* part of the issue.</p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I inspected him I was quite surprised at his lackluster gear considering how high he was parsing. When I noticed his mythical I just groaned to myself.</p><p>I don't care how much people hide their head in the sand concerning this, it *is* part of the issue.</p></blockquote><p>Makes you wonder why the rest of his gear was so lackluster, if he had his mythical.</p><p>Well, actually it doesn't, but rhetorical speculations are fun <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Vanderlay]

<p>I think alot of people are missing the fact that the "Offensive tanks" were designed to be able to deal out the damage, maintain aggro and have a lower survivability factor.  Your "Defensive tank" was designed to be able to withstand larger amounts of damage, avoid said damage, and maintain aggro. </p><p>What Aeralik is deciding to do is going to put all FIGHTER'S into either a tank role, or a dps role...but not both at the same time.  That being said, the Offensive tanks better get some higher taunt amounts, increased mitigation, higher avoidance and better defensive CA's when tanking.  If DPS no longer equals hate generation then I better, as a zerker, get some better taunts and hate proc'cing CA's.  Zerker's have always controlled aggro by DPS'ing.  That is why they were the Offensive tanks.  Now you are turning my zerker into either a guardian or a swashbuckler.  Thanks SOE.</p>

[sliderhouserules]

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>sliderhouserules wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I inspected him I was quite surprised at his lackluster gear considering how high he was parsing. When I noticed his mythical I just groaned to myself.</p><p>I don't care how much people hide their head in the sand concerning this, it *is* part of the issue.</p></blockquote><p>Makes you wonder why the rest of his gear was so lackluster, if he had his mythical.</p><p>Well, actually it doesn't, but rhetorical speculations are fun <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>He didn't have crappy gear by any means. But he was not as well geared as my paladin was at the time... I'd done Thuuga, Waste Hunter, gotten the good shoulders from MC, etc. You can't really buy [all your] instance/quest gear. But you can easily buy your mythical. People sell loot rights to No Trade items, but buying your mythical is easier than gearing out your toon. He'd just done the mythical first, and is much better geared by now, no doubt. I haven't kept tabs on him.</p><p>This was supposed to be a small(er) point in this overall discussion. The disparity between melee dps and spell dps is an ongoing and well-known problem. Fighters have simply ridden the melee dps elevator up alongside the scouts, and now the devs think fighters are due to be kicked off that elevator. Mythicals are just one way this disparity becomes immediately obvious. IMO they should have kept a tighter reign on things all along. Itemization has taken things too far, and now they think they need to make base mechanics changes to bring things back in line.</p>

[Snorm]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>My concerns with these changes have nothing to do with balance issues. I've thought since KoS that tanks have been stepping on the toes of the DPS classes, particularly late in the expansion when everyone is overpowered. The job of the MT has always been to hold aggro and stay alive. Short of changing the mechanics such that having one toon standing in front of the mob taking the majority of the damage is nearly always the way to go, that will always be the case. The fact that producing damange was a major part of aggro was why tanks cared about it.</p><p>As someone who rolled my class to play purely as a tank, when KoS came out and I found my self having to be concerned about how much damage I was doing just annoyed me. Deliberately speccing as raid tank into something that just lowered my survivability and increased my DPS went severely against my grain. But the truth of the matter was that those mechanics required me to develop a much more nuanced understanding of exactly how a guard produces DPS, and what all the aggro/survivability trade offs were so that I could generate enough aggro without sacraficing too much survivability. In short it made the class both more challenging and more fun to play, which is kind of the point of a game.</p><p>As I read these changes, you have removed a large part of the game play from the raid tank role. Which is nice. I can safely cast my defensive stance, hit my taunts when they are up, and go to sleep that night safe in the knowledge that I was only gimping my raid by some pathetic amount of DPS by not worring myself with capping out my personal DPS. There will still be some skill in managing incoming damange, but only insomuch as when to cast the four or so CAs that slow that down. Don't really need to worry with DPS/survivability gear, at least as it's in the game now, and we certainly won't be playing around with stances mid pull anymore.</p><p>The one acutally nice thing is that raids should be far less dependant on having a decently balanced array of buffing/debuffing classes, at least for aggro purposes, which will make pickup and casual raids much easier to get off the ground.</p><p>Anyway, thanks for lobotomizing my class on the alter of class balance. It makes both your job and mine that much simpler.</p><p>Snorm</p>

[Terron]

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>this goes back to the whole point behind the changes.  Tanks are too focused on damage.  A tank should not worry about damage they should worry about staying alive and keeping aggro.  If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs. </p><p>These changes are a paradigm shift.  When you are the main tank your goal is to stay alive and stay at the top of hate list.  Your goals should not be seeing how high you can get up on the dps charts.  If topping the parses is what excites you then I would recommend a scout or mage.</p><p>So from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter and in many cases its actually been improved to better fulfill their roles.</p></blockquote><p>I have always considered the changes to defensive stance to be pretty good for most classes, and the offensive stances seem OK now. There is only one<strong> BIG</strong> problem left - the attitude expressed  here.</p><p>For me the fun in EQ2 comes largely from the roleplaying aspect. Compared to P&P games it is very poor but it is there and it is important. The taunting/aggro management mechanic is an essential part of the game but from a roleplaying perspective it is terrible. Why should the enemy attack the person standing there insulting them, rather than the ones actually hurting them? The conflict between those two needs is the biggest problem of the fighter classes.</p><p>That statement ignores the roleplaying aspect and effectively says it unimportant and should be ignored. That is completely wrong. It is a vital part of what makes the game fun for many people.</p><p>When I started playing I made my first character a guardian based on the (inaccurate) description in the manual. When I got the first taunt CA I thought it was a little strange. when I first grouped (at about level 17 in Vermin's Snye, and discovered what tanking in a MMORPG was about I was appalled at how unrealistic it is. If it wasn't for the quests I would have stopped playing.</p><p>When I am tanking I do not want to imagine myself standing yelling insults whilst the rest of the group kills the foes who are attacking me for some reason. I want to imagine myself as a warrior contributing equally to the fight. I don't care about DPS lists but I do want to be thinking about damaging the enemy since that is what a warrior does. It I was not doing more damage than those whose primary role from both a roleplay and game aspect is not doing damage (the healers) then I would not feel right.</p><p>The taunting aspect needs to be largely disguised for the roleplaying to work whilst controlling aggro. If it isn't possible to do both at the same time then tanking will not be fun any more (and I would stop doing it).</p><p>Both the mechanics and the feel have to work, but the signs are that only the former was considered when designing these changes.</p>

[Yimway]

<p>Just adding my 2cp here, hate doing so 7 pages into a thread, but oh well.</p><p>You should not be making changes that limit playstyle.  The game is big enough and the classes diverse enough, that you can allow multiple tank playstyles.</p><p>In the current live system, the defensive tank playstyle is flat out broken.  We all acknowledge that, and you've taken up the GU51 project to correct that problem.  You've done some very smart and needed changes to the abilities that are core to this playstyle.</p><p>Where you have gone incredibly wrong, is to dictate / assume that this should be *THE* playstyle for all tank classes in an active tanking role.  This sir, is epic failsauce.</p><p>Combining the buffs only serves to limit playstyle and it is a horrible short sighted decision, and not one you should make 4 years into a mature MMO.</p><p>Simply put, there is not justifiable reason not to allow for both playstyles.  1) A defensive build with massive taunt potential and minimal dps output. 2) a offensive DPS build based around aggro management thru dps output with minimally effective taunts.</p><p>You can and should tune the defensive build to have more aggregate hate/s potential than the offensive spec.  However, there is simply no good reason to force us into a defensive build in all tanking situations in all times.  You should however make changes to fix playstyles and abilities without pigeon holing us into ONLY one vision/playstyle.</p>

[Dorieon]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Just adding my 2cp here, hate doing so 7 pages into a thread, but oh well.</p><p>You should not be making changes that limit playstyle.  The game is big enough and the classes diverse enough, that you can allow multiple tank playstyles.</p><p>In the current live system, the defensive tank playstyle is flat out broken.  We all acknowledge that, and you've taken up the GU51 project to correct that problem.  You've done some very smart and needed changes to the abilities that are core to this playstyle.</p><p>Where you have gone incredibly wrong, is to dictate / assume that this should be *THE* playstyle for all tank classes in an active tanking role.  This sir, is epic failsauce.</p><p>Combining the buffs only serves to limit playstyle and it is a horrible short sighted decision, and not one you should make 4 years into a mature MMO.</p><p>Simply put, there is not justifiable reason not to allow for both playstyles.  1) A defensive build with massive taunt potential and minimal dps output. 2) a offensive DPS build based around aggro management thru dps output with minimally effective taunts.</p><p>You can and should tune the defensive build to have more aggregate hate/s potential than the offensive spec.  However, there is simply no good reason to force us into a defensive build in all tanking situations in all times.  You should however make changes to fix playstyles and abilities without pigeon holing us into ONLY one vision/playstyle.</p></blockquote><p>This pretty much perfectly sums up my opinion as well. Limiting playstyles is a bad idea. Tanking in Offensive stance should be possible, just not as good as tankign in Defensive stance. Kinda liek a scout could dps in Defensive stance but they won't because they can't do their job as effectively.</p><p>I agree that fighter Defensive stance on live was completely broken. Tanks could not use it and hold consistant agro. This was due in part to tanks doing much less damage in Defensive stance and in part because taunts had not been scaling up at the same rate as dps. Both issues had been brought up by various tanks in various threads over the years. The combination of these two things forced tanks to go Offensive stance and maximize dps potential in order to hold hate off of scouts and mages that refused to hold back (and they shouldn't have to hold back every fight). What I have trouble with is the complete overhaul and changing of playstyles being forced onto the tanking community.</p><p>The Defensive changes are mostly really nice but they are nothing special, just what Defensive stance should have been all along. The thing I have trouble with is the .5% melee damage reduction being added in.  You are reducing damage on a stance that was already not used because the damage output was very low due to low c/s/p skills on the stance. I agree its way easier to hold hate in Defensive stance on test currently, but that loss in dps for tanks will affect every single zone in the game especially fights that require a certain dps output for the group/raid. Also, if you are set on keeping the -.5% melee reduction then there is no reason to keep the - c/s/p on the stances. This also affects our agro since our hate procs (at least brawlers) are tied to us actually hitting the mob. In my opinion, the Defensive stance changes were a step in the right direction, however they were maybe 1-2 steps too far. It would be much easier for people to swallow if you dropped either the - to c/s/p or the -.5% melee damage reduction on the stance.</p><p>The Offensive stance changes are ok overall and should help a non tanking fighter increase dps a small amount. But, I think you went to far with the disabling of taunts when in Offensive stance. I think putting either a -to the effectiveness of worn armor or a large - to hate generation would have acheived your goal. Sure with either of those changes, there would still be a few fighters tanking in Offensive stance, but they would mostly be fighters whose gear out paces the zone they are in. Why should a VP/TSO raid geared fighter need to be in Defensive stance to tank in Maidens Chamber or either of Obelisk zones. To completely disable all taunts/snap agros you are placing an unneeded limitation on a class archtype, especially for raids where being able to react quickly is a needed skill. </p><p>The 5 sec recast on fighter stances is also a bad move imo. I understand the need to limit stance dancing, but this change goes too far imo. Currently on live, if I'm not tanking and the MT goes down I can hit tsunami +peel and grab the mob then switch to Defensive stance to survive until the MT is back up. I already had to change this for TSO mobs that might strikethrough and cast D stance before peel but it is still very quick and I can do it all in 2-3sec which saves the raid alot of grief.  On test not only can I not tsunami+peel in Offensive stance I have to wait 5sec to switch to Defensive stance so even if I get tsunami going I am still running a big chance of getting 1-2 shotted before I can turn Defensive stance on. I think unlinking the stances and upping the recast to 15 seconds or so, as has been suggested elsewhere, is the best way for you to go with this.</p><p>Combining the buffs was not needed at all. I can understand combining the taunt proc buffs to Defensive stance but all the other self buffs was just overkill. And I don't buy the reasoning was that tanks were complaining about rebuffing after a wipe. Even if I am the only person that dies and I get rezzed it takes about 5 seconds to be rebuffed.</p><p>So to sum up.</p><p>-Remove one of the penalties from the fighter Defensive stance. Either the - to c/s/p or the -.5% melee damage reduction. They aren't both needed.</p><p>-Make taunts work in Offensive stance but make them work in a reduced amount so it isn't as advantageous as it is currently. Or if that isn't an option, at least make snap agro's work in Offensive stance. I can live without this one if the stance recast is fixed.</p><p>-Either remove the recast timer from the fighter stances or unlink the stances and increase the recast to 15-20 seconds.</p><p>-Unlink the self buffs from the stances or make all the buffs into one buff that can be up without a stance active.</p><p>Sorry I included ideas/topics outside the OP but I just got going and wanted to add in my 2cp's on changes.</p>

[cr0wangel]

<p><em>If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs.</em></p><p>But will I have fun playing a taunt bot? I don't think so.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>cr0wangel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><em>If they do 1 dps and can stay on top of the hate list then from our perspective they are doing their jobs.</em></p><p>But will I have fun playing a taunt bot? I don't think so.</p></blockquote><p>Exactly, all skill / challenge to tanking has just been virtually removed.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>cr0wangel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>But will I have fun playing a taunt bot? I don't think so.</p></blockquote><p>Don't worry, at the rate at which taunts refresh now, you'll be so busy keeping those taunts running that you won't have time to notice whether you're having fun or not. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" /></p><p>I've played Guardians, Berserkers and Paladins, but the Paladin is the one I play the most and to be honest, I was never really overly concerned about DPS. I primarily play as a defensive tank, and so these changes don't really impact my playstyle much. For those who enjoy the Warrior classes and their damage output as well as tanking ability, yeah, I can completely understand where the upset is. They're being forced to pick and choose, where before they didn't have to.</p>