VALKOR
01-22-2009, 03:14 AM
<p>While I really appreciate Aeralik jumping in a few times to answer questions, his statement in another thread that "<span >so from the viewpoint of fullfilling your role then nothing has been removed from any fighter" is disingenuous at best. I will focus on the 3 single target tanks to keep the comparisons valid. Paladins had the best hate ability of any single target tank, and while guardians still have permanent reduce hate for an ally and monks still have permanent transfer/siphon hate, paladins now have no permanent hate reduction, transfer, or siphon. Our defining ability is gone while the 2 other tanks both keep their benefical hate mods for allies? Then of course with a 1.6 per minute passive hate proc on a successful melee attack versus the monk hate proc going off 10 times per minute and the guardian generating hate just by being hit, Amends becomes a 20 second stop-gap measure that leaves the paladin with nothing for 40 seconds out of every minute. Instead of giving us an edge in aggro so we have some claim to fame, Amends barely catches us up for a 1/3 of the fight.</span></p><p>So let's head over to test with a paladin, monk, swashbuckler, assassin, and warden. All 5 have RoK raid gear and mythicals, which at least means they are in the same category. On live, they can obviously group well without any hate issues due to transfers and steals. First off is the monk tanking which goes pretty well - monk DPS is down but he holds hate well. And as a paladin, I say about time! All 3 single target tanks should be able to do their main job with the difference being guardians have best survivability and monks have best DPS. And paladins? Well, we used to have best aggro management as our unique advantage. And now? We have the worse hate of the 3 and nothing else to offer. Survivability hasn't changed so guardian is ahead there, and the monk can outparse a paladin both in defensive and offensive, not to mention hybrid. And frankly, I'm okay with all of that as long as the paladin has something unique to offer. It was aggro and that has absolutely and inarguably been removed as there is simply no permanent hate ability left for paladins, which is a real slap in the face when it is still in the game and many other classes still enjoy it, including other tanks! Why in the world don't we have a reduced version in line with the new philosophy if it can be made to work for both of the other single target tanks?</p><p>So what happens when it is the paladin's turn to perform his job of holding aggro and doing 1 DPS? Despite my initially optimistic outlook from seeing the taunt changes, you guessed it: only the latter half as aggro bounces all over the place. The assassin dies on a pull then the swashbuckler on the next one. If we wait 40 seconds for amends to return, aggro is comparable to the monk's sustainable hate gain throughout the encounter. And remember, this is after the scouts had practiced their new aggro abilities with the monk tanking and the monk not using his special snap aggros (i.e., no peel for monk and no holy ground for the paladin). And just to add insult to injury, I had 3 pieces of T2 void shard armor equipped for the Ultra Enraging Presence, which the monk didn't even have! It goes on like this until I finally log off disgusted. Even with amends running and taunts going in defensive of course, the scouts are unable to do the same DPS they could do with the monk tanking. Paladins now have worse hate and worse DPS with nothing to compensate or differentiate them.</p><p>What is being consistently overlooked as evinced by Aeralik's comment above and the changes themselves is the ancillary benefits Amends used to provide, forgetting for the moment that its replacement doesn't work as intended.</p><p>1) Power drain, stun/stifle, charm, etc. are all effects that make the tank only able to gain aggro from passive abilities. While the monk is procing hate 10 times per minute on melee attacks and the guardian is doing it merely by being hit, the paladin has a 1.6 per minute proc on successful melee attacks which means amends has to be used just to catch-up, and did I mention that 40 seconds when it is unavailable? Or that we are suppose to be doing heals, as well as CAs and Spells, in addition to taunts?</p><p>2) Amends allowed a scout/mage to do more DPS then if they had to hold back, which in turn made the paladin desirable. It was a tangible benefit a paladin brought to a group but the changes have not accounted for it. If I'm putting together a group and want a bit more DPS from the tank, I grab a monk. If I need a bit more survivability, I grab a guardian. Both should be able to do their job and since both can now hold aggro better than a paladin, we need an answer to the question: if I am putting together a group and want [insert missing ability] then I would get a paladin. The answer should be if I need a bit more aggro control, but it very clearly isn't as test runs right now.</p><p>3) Paladins are, I believe, the only class without any temporary mitigation buff (as 4 others have) or a permanent mitigation buff (as SKs have). Our equivalent is heals which must be cast in lieu of taunts, cost far more power for same benefit, are easily interrupted, etc. Amends provided some breathing space to work those into your rotation, but currently all 3 single target tanks have roughly the same # of taunts, so while the paladin is busily healing to make up for the missing mitigation buff (assuming they haven't run out of power, been stifled/stunned, charmed, etc.), the other tanks are free to do something more useful, even if that is just auto-attack and generate some hate (or passively stand still and get hit to generate hate but maybe cheer a bit to remain an active participant).</p><p>Ideally in this brave new world, all 3 tanks will be able to hold aggro and then bring something unique to the table. However, you have indeed taken aggro champion away from the paladin class but failed to offer anything new in its place. This is an unsurprising consequence and was clearly in Aeralik's thoughts initially when he posted about Amends on the Paladin board, but he has since forgotten and nothing has been done to address it. If we had Amends and a proc rate closer to the monk or guardian stand there proc, then I could see the argument that we had an edge and I'd work on test to make it happen. Instead, Aeralik, you took away the defining ability of a paladin, and however well-intentioned, you have not given the paladin anything to replace it, and worse, have actually made paladins the least effective at managing aggro in groups. I shudder to think what it will be like on a raid.</p><p>If paladins at least still had a slight edge managing aggro, you could point to that and say they are still aggro champions but it has been brought in line to be comparable to the advantages other tanks enjoy. Instead, as has been amply explained on these boards by others, you've removed paladins passive hate transfer, given them a severly restricted hate proc that depends on their melee attack (we cast spells and heal, as well as do CAs and melee to keep ourselves not too far behind what the other tanks are doing), and then made Amends a 20 second spell that makes our aggro spiky, which is the deathknell of any good tank. We want sustainable and consistent hate and that simply does not exist in the proposed revision on test. Paladins should have an edge in aggro management through a permanent buff in line with what still exists in the game and so clearly does not contravene the new goals. I look forward to your response and to the changes on test to address this, as well as the many other concerns the 5 other tank classes have raised about what this does to them.</p>