GU 51 play test feedback -1/22 [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Revanna

01-22-2009, 09:46 PM

I was in the group with Aeralik, two fighters, SK and pally, one healer, an illy and Aera on a lock. Vest and Kahli were the tanks. Everyone mythicaled, tanks were pretty fabled, no avatar gear as I could tell. Healer was mostly legendary. I didn't die once, except on last mob in cavern. Tank did a pull to group there, and on single target, I can put out a lot more dps there. I had tc. Aggro was pretty solid on the tanks, I had it sometimes, but the healer had no probs keeping me up. I think the fighters tanked 90%+ in defensive. One of them complained about dps in off stance. Deep Forge All: (08:55) 10245832 | 19151,09 [Tiath-Bolt of Ice-41804] Tiath 3546123 | 6628,27 Tehom 2055331 | 3841,74 Vestr 1519624 | 2840,42 Kahli 1464935 | 2738,20 Aeral 1389567 | 2597,32 Tinyh 239640 | 447,93 Arila 30612 | 57,22 Tehom 0 | 0,00 Tiath 0 | 0,00 Caverns All: (13:27) 18343103 | 22729,99 [Tiath-Bolt of Ice-41495] Tiath 6015074 | 7453,62 Aeral 3355967 | 4158,57 Tehom 3300029 | 4089,26 Kahli 2810160 | 3482,23 Vestr 2514338 | 3115,66 Tinyh 232479 | 288,08 Edgri 74598 | 92,44 Arila 40288 | 49,92 a fet 170 | 0,21 Tiath 0 | 0,00 Tehom 0 | 0,00_________________-Ti

jam3

01-22-2009, 10:27 PM

Razhish’s Cloak of Flowing Power has had its proc replaced with Praetor’s Strike.why... nerf a good item?

Antryg Mistrose

01-22-2009, 10:36 PM

I was suprised at how well both a paladin and SK held aggro off a high dps Wiz.'course there is not much you can do about a wizard wielding a hatespike? (Malefic Fury) and 15k dps in the first 15 sec of a fight, but that was the only aggro death. Playing a templar, my hate meter hovered in teens or even lower except on the occasional incoming. I do like the pet health bar in the new group window, nice feature for priests.In another group playing a [Removed for Content]/alt illus, control spells seemed to only pull aggro if casting on inc - really had no issues with aggro with a bruiser/sk tanking, nor did the assassin.So Aggrowise - I can't see much to complain about.Now about the dps of that [Removed for Content] warlock - "A" something .....p.s. "<a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/characters/character_profile.vm?characterId=857184102" target="_blank">mostly legendary</a>" bite your tongue !

MirageKnight

01-22-2009, 10:55 PM

I have tested as SK 190AA raid tank geared.1.Couple thing that I didn't like about stance change was having recast time, which is have to wait for casting another stance after cancel one stnace. So when casters got adds on their back and defensive tank doesnt realize (well yeah, I don't think this bruiser was tanker at first palce that he couldn't keep good aggro on defensive either, but thats his player skill), tank (SK) on offensive can't grab aggro immediately to off tank because of stance. I have to cancel offensive stance, then wait for defensive stance recastable then cast defensive then build hate.... if casters still alive till that. It's hard to take aggro on neutral (no stance) when casters used AoE damage and getting beating. Unless all tanks have some spell/ca like holy ground which pops up 24 hate position for duration, its very hard to grab aggro on no stance stage nor offensive stance when hate went off to casters and need to off tank. Things get worse in raid as caster probably die in sec if off tank doesnt grab hate asap.So remove recast time for defensive <> offensive stance and making rescue/assult 24 hate postion or giving similar skill like holy ground of paladin is necessary for other tanks to use offensive stance. Otherwise, only paladin can use offensive stance without worrying about hate position because of one overpowered spell, holy ground which seems not good idea.2.Another thing about SK's defensive stance has double penalty as having decrease melee damage multiplier of caster by 0.5 AND reduces the base damage of spells by 10%along with weapon skill reductions. I have read as Aeralik saying this is because SKs are much mroe spell/ca damage oriented than other tanks while in defensive, which makes sense on base spel dmg 10% penalty but then why have to have same penalty on melee damage multiplier like other tanks. No less amount but same amount. Giving double penalty only to SK seems unfair.3.On SK's offensive stance, I have to say I don't see much increase on damage for sacrificing alot and having penalty. Damage increase pretty much come from INT raise of offensive stance only which is very low impact after buffs from group (and depends on base INT gear of SK).4.While SK on offensive stance, SK's encoutner taunt can't be used at all. I hope this is bug as SK would like to use debuff part spell even offensive stance.5.On SK's offensive stance description, its saying "inability to apply taunt effects", but doesn't have this effect listed in effect listing. I'm guessing this is bug. This is making SK still getting message of raising hate msg showing up in chat window during offensive stance when sk used these threat raising spell/ca. I'm not sure if threat is actually raising but I think it does. Just can't use encounter taunt spell at all.Overall I like the idea of offensive/defensive stance after these issues have been solved.

BleemTeam

01-23-2009, 03:56 AM

My group consisted of:Me (Guardian), Ranger, Bruiser, Mystic, Coercer, Dirge.We did The Crucible Zone.In defensive stance, I didn't lose agro once, on any fight..ONLY the non-curable fear would cause me to lose it. I had no Moderate on anyone in the group, and my avoidance on the Dirge.In offensive stance, I took aggro only a few times from the Bruiser. I must admit, when I wanted to take it, I did. When the Bruiser started to get the hang of it, I never took it again. The only death in the instance occured when the ranger pulled aggro from a group encounter from the Bruiser.The average parses were 6k ranger, 6k coercer, 5k bruiser(2k bruiser defensive) 3k dirge, 2k me (4k me offensive).My continued and now proven hypothesis is as follows: I changed nothing how I play and did my job accurately and well.

Tehom

01-23-2009, 05:44 AM

I was the illusionist in the group with Aeralik. I was honestly going into the test expecting aggro to be much more wild than on live, and was very surprised to see how stable things were. Aggro would switch between the two fighters, but only due to the current bug about taunts working in offensive stance. We tested Deep Forge for single-target aggro and Caverns of the Afflicted for AE.Aside from the last fight we did at the end of Caverns of Afflicted, aggro was never really an issue at all, and we had clicked off Trak shield effect so it didn't skew things while keeping on wicked wands of malice and so on. It's also worth noting that we didn't have any classes that'd modify aggro in any way, like a dirge, troubador, coercer, etc. I believe the +aggression component of the warlock skill buff would have modified taunt values, but it wasn't up during our testing.Overall, I was very pleased with how the changes looked, though I can understand concerns of fighters who feel they may not contribute enough damage in defensive stance.

Novusod

01-23-2009, 05:54 AM

Raid geared 191aa Bruiser here that ran Deep Forge with Reahov twice earlier today with two slightly different group set ups. For the most part I am very unhappy with these changes. Deep Forge is a zone I have run many times on live and the run through today came out much differently than I had hoped. I normally run the zone in Offensive stance and hold agro fine with high Bruiser dps but due to the changes on the test server I am forced to tank the zone in Defensive and rely on taunts instead of dps to hold agro. The results I witnessed during this runthough was that the increased taunts DO NOT replace the agro generating ability of the lost DPS. I do not believe it is a matter of skill to relearn how to play my class from the ground up only to run out of power from spamming the so called "taunts" and taunt generating CAs. That is how tanks are to be played now is it not?? After seeing the changes in action I feel the bruiser class lacks the tools necessary to be an effective tank POST GU51.My suggestion is to let Bruisers do what they do best and that is to tank and taunt in offensive. Yes there IS risk in tanking offensively as I can get high spike damage and wipe but that is a risk I should be allowed to take if I choose to. Tieing taunts to only be usable it defensive stance severly limits my options in doing what I need to do to keep the group safe. There has to be more ballancing done here as the bruiser seems completely watered down as a tank.

Illine

01-23-2009, 06:34 AM

<cite>Novusod wrote:</cite><blockquote>Raid geared 191aa Bruiser here that ran Deep Forge with Reahov twice earlier today with two slightly different group set ups. For the most part I am very unhappy with these changes. Deep Forge is a zone I have run many times on live and the run through today came out much differently than I had hoped. I normally run the zone in Offensive stance and hold agro fine with high Bruiser dps but due to the changes on the test server I am forced to tank the zone in Defensive and rely on taunts instead of dps to hold agro. The results I witnessed during this runthough was that the increased taunts DO NOT replace the agro generating ability of the lost DPS. I do not believe it is a matter of skill to relearn how to play my class from the ground up only to run out of power from spamming the so called "taunts" and taunt generating CAs. That is how tanks are to be played now is it not?? After seeing the changes in action I feel the bruiser class lacks the tools necessary to be an effective tank POST GU51.My suggestion is to let Bruisers do what they do best and that is to tank and taunt in offensive. Yes there IS risk in tanking offensively as I can get high spike damage and wipe but that is a risk I should be allowed to take if I choose to. Tieing taunts to only be usable it defensive stance severly limits my options in doing what I need to do to keep the group safe. There has to be more ballancing done here as the bruiser seems completely watered down as a tank.</blockquote>couldn't you tank in mid stance??

Prestissimo

01-23-2009, 06:52 AM

<cite>MirageKnight wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have tested as SK 190AA raid tank geared.1.Couple thing that I didn't like about stance change was having recast time, which is have to wait for casting another stance after cancel one stnace. So when casters got adds on their back and defensive tank doesnt realize (well yeah, I don't think this bruiser was tanker at first palce that he couldn't keep good aggro on defensive either, but thats his player skill), tank (SK) on offensive can't grab aggro immediately to off tank because of stance. I have to cancel offensive stance, then wait for defensive stance recastable then cast defensive then build hate.... if casters still alive till that. It's hard to take aggro on neutral (no stance) when casters used AoE damage and getting beating. Unless all tanks have some spell/ca like holy ground which pops up 24 hate position for duration, its very hard to grab aggro on no stance stage nor offensive stance when hate went off to casters and need to off tank. Things get worse in raid as caster probably die in sec if off tank doesnt grab hate asap.So remove recast time for defensive <> offensive stance and making rescue/assult 24 hate postion or giving similar skill like holy ground of paladin is necessary for other tanks to use offensive stance. Otherwise, only paladin can use offensive stance without worrying about hate position because of one overpowered spell, holy ground which seems not good idea.</blockquote>Then what would a paladin have that makes it different than anything else? As of the moment, Holy Ground is the ONLY ability that the paladins have that give them any form of competition as the MA.You are not allowed to have the awsome loving that the shadowknight just got, and then start asking to get the paladins ONE and ONLY unique spell remaining that gives a raid a reason to want them. Especially above all else when the paladin is supposed to be the king of agro. You have sneering assault, rescue, death touch (which I might add still does not take power although the paladin's equivilant does, and alot at that...) and your superior aa end line abilities not to mention healing through your offensive spells rather than having to cast them seperately. If you are unable to snap agro off of the squishy, then that is the squishies problem for not doing their job, or it is your problem for not doing your job.Keep us posted on the next in-test group! Thank you for taking the testing to the level of actually running the groups with us Aeralik. I'll be there next time with my paladin/warden/wizard (assuming I don't have to work right durring the middle of it again)

Zimrathon

01-23-2009, 07:32 AM

I seem to have read differently to you as I recall he said ALL tanks should have something LIKE the Paladins Holy Ground. We all know that us SK's got some awesome loving recently but that was _LONG_ overdue as any other tank who would always get selected over an SK for MT spots would tell you. Just because we got that loving to correct the situation we had been in for years doesn't mean we can't ask for dumb proposed 'adjustments' to be addressed.To not be able to grab aggro due to a five second delay in switching stances is just not the way to correct what is perceived as an over power on SK's. Simply removing the aggro/threat aspect of all Spells/CA's in offstance and reducing the Spells/CA's base damage by 10% in defstance would be enough to finalise the balance and I for one would be happy with it.

steelbadger

01-23-2009, 07:37 AM

I did went into Deep Forge as part of a 4-person group; Guardian (me), Pally (Boli), Coercer (Meshur) and Warden (Megera).Guard was largely TSO shard armour (T1) and jewelery with bits of T1-2 fabled dotted here and there. No Myth.Pally was very well geared, Myth and lots of stuff from VP.Coercer is pretty well geared, Myth'd, mish-mash of the good legendary and raid loot fabled.Warden was mostly legendary geared, no Myth.1) Looks like The Doomsmith's script is a bit broken. There where no hammers up in his room and he would throw out his massive incurable aoes, we could do nothing to stop them (no hammers visible to kill).2) Is it intended that all CA with large taunt components (Guard examples are Infraction, Gut Kick, Lay Waste and Slanderous Assault and the AA ability Sneering Assault) still operate as taunts while in offensive stance? The only abilities that became greyed-out were my primary single and group taunts and rescue. I am unsure on higher taunts from the TSO tree as my test-copy character is not specced into them.3) In terms of hate; neither myself nor Boli noticed much in the group to raise a complaint about (Though the Pally primary taunts being unusable in offensive stance was a major talking point as they are important for pally dps due to their debuff component). However we didn't really have much aoe dps (Or much dps in general).4) Guard in group mode was ok in this group, I had enough lee-way on the single target hate to be able to switch targets and spread the hate about somelMy one concern is on how this scales. In a group situation having 4-5k Hate per second is enough to hold aggro off all but the most insane dps classes (single target) but in a raid it will not be, with players in comparable gear to my own doing 6-7-8k dps. It is hard to tell but it does not seem that taunts are effcted by debuffs and while they are getting some gear to add +hate, +hate gain, +hate crit and the like there is still no-where near as much capacity for scaling as a dps class gets. When I consider also that the buffing and debuffing potential of a raid can greatly increase dps whilest at the same time not really increasing Hate generation (especially now that the large buffs of dirges and coercers has gone) and the de-hate possibilities have gone the way of the dodo (no more -50% hate from trouby) I am left feeling that raid aggro could be a bit of a sticking point.As it is now on live I have trouble holding aggro off dps classes if the group is unbuffed (ie, no dirge or coercer). That lack of buffage reduces their dps a bit but it reduces my hate generation far more than it effects their dps.As it is on test an unbuffed situation appears to be very comfortable for aggro control, but with the massive possibilities for melee and spell dps buffage in stacked groups/raids I fear that hate generation will fall behind in this this area. I understand that you want dps classes to have to concider their actions whilest dpsing, but it is a fine line between holding off for a second to make just that little bit of difference needed for the tank to maintain aggro and having to hold off for 10-15 seconds in every 60 which is simply frustrating.Anyway, I hope someone has had a go at some easy raid content and can allay my fears.

Junaru

01-23-2009, 11:36 AM

I just don't like the idea of the 5sec recast time on stances. I have had macro's set up for years to switch from offencive to defencive (swapping out gear and buffs). SOE first made it so I couldn't switch gear out while in combat now I can't change stances?What good is Peeling a mob if I go splat cause I can't switch to defencive stance? Sorry but because you can't come up with insightful ways to fix something you instead break something else. As a programmer I can't imagine my boss being ok with me disabling a button because it didn't work right. 5sec recast on stances is not a fix it's a work around and a sorry one at that.All these changes have become nothing more then controls to make us play your way. Why not just rename the game "The Matrix" and turn me into a battery already. I feel like a robot with these changes./press_button_1/sleep 100/press_button_2/sleep 100/press_button_3You are taking all the fun out of the game. As a Monk my main role in a raid is to DPS and to snap any back if the tank goes down and the ST does not have aggro. You gave me tools to fill that role now you are taking them away. I was a big supporter of the orginal changes but now you are just putting bandaids on everything.REMOVE THE STANCE RECAST TIMER.

VALKOR

01-23-2009, 11:59 AM

Typical sequence running Crucible TSO instance on test:01 - Pull05 - Amends cast to add a hate proc once every 4 seconds for 20 seconds.15 - Fight ends....20 - Pull25 - pray35 - Fight ends....40 - Pull45 - pray55 - Fight ends....60 - Pull65 - Amends is finally back!75 - Fight ends.rinse and repeat.-----Scenario 1 - Amends is a new snap-aggro abilityIf this is true so that a tank only needs a hate proc once every 37.5 seconds and a slight increase to hate gain to go along with their normal taunts, why do Guardians need the hate proc on a portion of block/damage and monks need the 9% transfer and 10 times per minute hate proc?Scenario 2 - Amends is part of base aggro generationWhy is the recast 1 minute so that is is unavailable 2 out of every 3 fights going at a reasonable pace through an instance (forget chain pulling or the like)? No other single target tank even has to worry about recasting their being hit proc or hate siphon, let alone have it unavailable 2/3rds of the time.-----When an ability is so clearly broken on paper, it's not difficult to confirm that on test. Of course, you have to tank an instance that is hard enough that normal taunts can't handle it without the added hate from the transfer/procs that guardians/monks enjoy. We intentionally experimented on test to find if that breaking point existed and it did. It's not a matter of holding aggro when it can be easily done with normal taunts - you have to push it to expose the weakness that will come up again and again in real play.Lastly, I really appreciate the support the vast majority of the community has shown on this issue. Most fighters look at these numbers and say, 'yeah, I see how that is broken." So again, I want to stess that I don't think anything should be done to nerf guardians or monks aggro. You simply need to restore a permanent and reasonable hate siphon to the paladins so that all 3 enjoy some form of a permanent beneficial hate modifier for an ally, and paladins regain the passive always on no power hate procs the other two classes already have on test.

Junaru

01-23-2009, 12:06 PM

<cite>VALKOR wrote:</cite><blockquote>Typical sequence running Crucible TSO instance on test:01 - Pull05 - Amends cast to add a hate proc once every 4 seconds for 20 seconds.15 - Fight ends....20 - Pull25 - pray35 - Fight ends....40 - Pull45 - pray55 - Fight ends....60 - Pull65 - Amends is finally back!75 - Fight ends.rinse and repeat.-----Scenario 1 - Amends is a new snap-aggro abilityIf this is true so that a tank only needs a hate proc once every 37.5 seconds and a slight increase to hate gain to go along with their normal taunts, why do Guardians need the hate proc on a portion of block/damage and monks need the 9% transfer and 10 times per minute hate proc?Scenario 2 - Amends is part of the baseline aggro generationWhy is the recast 1 minute so that is is unavailable 2 out of every 3 fights going at a reasonable pace through an instance (forget chain pulling or the like)? No other single target tank even has to worry about a castable ability, let alone one that is unavailable 2/3rds of the time.-----When an ability is so clearly broken on paper, it's not difficult to confirm that on test. Of course, you have to tank an instance that is hard enough that normal taunts can't handle it without the added hate from the transfer/procs that guardians/monks enjoy. We intentionally experimented on test to find if that breaking point existed and it did. It's not a matter of holding aggro when it can be easily done with normal taunts - you have to push it to expose the weakness that will come up again and again in real play.Lastly, I really appreciate the support the vast majority of the community has shown on this issue. Most fighters look at these numbers and say, 'yeah, I see how that is broken." So again, I want to stess that I don't think anything should be done to nerf guardians or monks aggro. You simply need to restore a permanent and reasonable hate siphon to the paladins so that all 3 enjoy some form of beneficial hate modifier for an ally, and paladins regain the passive always on no power hate procs the other two classes already have on test.</blockquote>You make it seem like if you don't have Amends up you can't tank. Even without my 7% (READ SEVEN PERCENT) transfer I can hold aggro. I use the taunt keep SOE gave me.

VALKOR

01-23-2009, 12:21 PM

Another monk already corrected you on the 7% vs 9% with a <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=195&topic_id=441439#4922700" target="_blank">screenshot</a>, but even if we accept 7%, it doesn't change the fundamental argument I outlined with the 2 scenarios. You are assuming Amends is a snap-aggro and not part of the baseline aggro management to be used each fight. Okay, let's go with that assumption. In that case, why do you need a 7% hate siphon and a 10 times per minute hate proc in addition to the same # of taunts as a paladin in order to hold aggro?Case 1) Aggro is so easy that normal taunts work.Case 2) Aggro is tough enough that the 7% transfer and 10 times per minute proc make the difference.Case 3) Aggro is so hard that nothing holds it.In case 3, we both fail. In case 1, we both succeed. In case 2, the guardian/monk succeeds and the paladin fails. Even if we leave aside the complications of OOP, control effects, etc., a 7% transfer and a proc every 6 seconds is much better than a proc every 37.5 seconds. And in cases where you don't have the 7% transfer, then it will be a straight 10 times per minute proc rate versus a 1.6 times per minute proc rate.10 x 2000 - 20000 in a minute1.6 x 2200 - 3520 in a minute (assuming my hate mod is 10% better which it isn't - test is currently about 4% better but I more than doubled it to make the point)So even if we stack all the #s in your favor and you voluntarily turn off your 7% hate siphon for some inexplicable reason, you have 16,480 more hate. And of course any monk who is tanking will have another 7% siphon on top of that proc difference. And all the hate you are generating happens automatically with no power cost and no interruptability and never has to be down or unable to be cast.As Kiara mentioned, bickering isn't going to help anyone. I outlined the substantive differences as they exist on test and thanked the many other fighters who chimed in with corrections but still agreed the pendulum for passive hate gain has swung too far the other way for paladins on test and needs to be fixed. It takes a lot to look beyond your own class to agree that another needs to be fixed, especially when you are all in competition for the same spot, and so I'm doubly grateful to the guardians and monks who are that brave. If you can't be, at least look at the scenarios to understand which one you think applies and then you can see that there is an easily identifiable difference.

Boli32

01-23-2009, 12:58 PM

So... 11pm my time I decided a quick log on test to see these new changes.. little did I know play testing was happening that day (I've been busy this week :/) so I decided what the hell and try and get a group to see what's up... however someone... *gives evils* nicked all the players... so after a while I managed to fall in with 3 other people and we decided to head over to forge.I would have been able to formulate a better idea of true agro holding... but I was in a group formed just trying to do *something* and our gear was vastly different; from one end of the spectrum to the other.RAID : 7058490 | 5799.91 | 20:17Meshur (coercer) 3051795 | 2507.64 | Master's Strike-5497 Healed 0 | 0% Bolixx (me, paladin) 2977177 | 2446.32 | Refusal of Atonement-5720 Healed 369285 | 28% Holy Touch-5429Squitch (guardian) 1010244 | 830.11 | Mar-2926 Healed 2516 | 0% Sentry Watch Guard-1258Megera (warden) 19274 | 15.84 | Master's Smite-3236 Healed 906728 | 70% Grand Florescence-2009What I did find out... was I could still load on my dps gear and tank as normal as every one of my threat abilities was actually still active and only the amends single taunt and encounter taunt (making my debuff unuseable) were actually greyed out. There needs to be a better way without removing ghe spells at all... I for one would love to hit the taunt buttons even if they generated no threat in offensive stance as I use them to active spell procs i.e. maestro and Peace of Mind.The lack of my encounter debuff (taunt) in offensive stance was very worrying and impacted by dps. in such a way my dps tanking.. and my dps in offensive ended up pretty similar.incidentally... Pheeps can suuure talk a man's ear off when she gets going <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />

Arathy

01-23-2009, 01:16 PM

<cite>Tiath@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote>I was in the group with Aeralik, two fighters, SK and pally, one healer, an illy and Aera on a lock. Vest and Kahli were the tanks. Everyone mythicaled, tanks were pretty fabled, no avatar gear as I could tell. Healer was mostly legendary. I didn't die once, except on last mob in cavern. Tank did a pull to group there, and on single target, I can put out a lot more dps there. I had tc. Aggro was pretty solid on the tanks, I had it sometimes, but the healer had no probs keeping me up. I think the fighters tanked 90%+ in defensive. One of them complained about dps in off stance. Deep Forge All: (08:55) 10245832 | 19151,09 [Tiath-Bolt of Ice-41804] Tiath 3546123 | 6628,27 Tehom 2055331 | 3841,74 Vestr 1519624 | 2840,42 Kahli 1464935 | 2738,20 Aeral 1389567 | 2597,32 Tinyh 239640 | 447,93 Arila 30612 | 57,22 Tehom 0 | 0,00 Tiath 0 | 0,00 Caverns All: (13:27) 18343103 | 22729,99 [Tiath-Bolt of Ice-41495] Tiath 6015074 | 7453,62 Aeral 3355967 | 4158,57 Tehom 3300029 | 4089,26 Kahli 2810160 | 3482,23 Vestr 2514338 | 3115,66 Tinyh 232479 | 288,08 Edgri 74598 | 92,44 Arila 40288 | 49,92 a fet 170 | 0,21 Tiath 0 | 0,00 Tehom 0 | 0,00_________________-Ti</blockquote>What class was Aeralik? assassin?

Kiljoi

01-23-2009, 01:21 PM

When grouping with our well geared high parsing brigand, I had some trouble holding agro when amends was down. It would bounce around quite a bit between him and I until amends was back. A reduction to the recast imo is needed for restitution aka amends. Id really like to see if as a buff because that would keep the flavor of the class (gamplay) very similar imo which is really all im after is too stay true to what i've been playing for a long time now.Also not being able to cast our debuff in offensive stance hurts our ability to dps.

VALKOR

01-23-2009, 01:22 PM

I believe the poster indicated he was on a warlock.

Raviel

01-23-2009, 01:34 PM

as the update stands now, i think its just about perfect. defense stance got the tweak it needed and offense stance tanking wasnt completely crippled. i think the only change that needs to be made now is make taunts in off stance useable, but cause 0 aggro so sks and pallies can still use their debuffs. hate should stay on CAs, because honestly if you have 2 fighters in a group and one is playing in off stance, aggro shouldnt be a problem with the -10% hate gain on the stance itself, and aside from that removing hate from CAs in offense would completely box tanks into defense stance at almost all times. The deaggros were my only real problem with the update, now that its gone im happy

Maroger

01-23-2009, 01:45 PM

The problem with the test was that it was not to test the changes to obtain results to validate the changes Aeralik wants to make,If he truly want to run a test of this changes then he would test through a variety of levels in a variety of zone - not just level 80 in TSO. The way the test was run indicates that he is only interested in fixing a problem with level 80's in TSO and his willing to ruin the game for everyone else to do so.These changes need better scaling based on the level of the players and not be so geared to level 80 with 100+ AAs. This should tell you that Aeralik is solely focused on level 80 and TSO and does not care about the rest of the player base or the game as a whole.

Kiljoi

01-23-2009, 01:51 PM

eidos

01-23-2009, 02:18 PM

<cite>Kiljoi@Blackburrow wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>The problem with the test was that it was not to test the changes to obtain results to validate the changes Aeralik wants to make,If he truly want to run a test of this changes then he would test through a variety of levels in a variety of zone - not just level 80 in TSO. The way the test was run indicates that he is only interested in fixing a problem with level 80's in TSO and his willing to ruin the game for everyone else to do so.These changes need better scaling based on the level of the players and not be so geared to level 80 with 100+ AAs. This should tell you that Aeralik is solely focused on level 80 and TSO and does not care about the rest of the player base or the game as a whole.</blockquote>QFEI think they seek to fix to many problems with AAs. Its really not fair to those that are leveling up or casual. They pay the same money as us.</blockquote>I also tend to agree. I have my own tests with another player (so that player differences are taken into account) with the same race/class/level/group/mobs/gear (MC or basic to avoid any special gear bonuses) and with similar build and AA points, so that we can test out these changes so we can actually see the raw results which may also help the other fighters. Gear, groups, builds, levels, players and zones all effect gameplay. I'm not saying that I'll make some startling discovery, but it will be interesting to see what we actually discover at least for ourselves. I understand that a lot of the changes are geared for endgame raid/TSO instances which may be skewing the numbers/rationale of some of the changes. I'm not for or against the changes at the moment since I can't really say what it changes for my gameplay.

dreiden

01-23-2009, 03:10 PM

Aeralik, If the purpose of the recast timer on the stances is to make it so you can't switch back and forth in an effort to min max spells during combat why not make it set up where the 2 are on different timers. Set it so the recast of each is 10seconds. This would make it so you could switch one way really fast, like it is on live right now, when the need arouse for switching to peel the mob and tank yourself, but then you would have to wait 10 seconds, or any reasonable length, before you can get back to the other stance.Or as another solution only give the recast time when you cancel the defensive stance. I don't think anyone is complaining that you cant go from defensive to offensive fast enough.

Maroger

01-23-2009, 03:28 PM

<cite>Kiljoi@Blackburrow wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>The problem with the test was that it was not to test the changes to obtain results to validate the changes Aeralik wants to make,If he truly want to run a test of this changes then he would test through a variety of levels in a variety of zone - not just level 80 in TSO. The way the test was run indicates that he is only interested in fixing a problem with level 80's in TSO and his willing to ruin the game for everyone else to do so.These changes need better scaling based on the level of the players and not be so geared to level 80 with 100+ AAs. This should tell you that Aeralik is solely focused on level 80 and TSO and does not care about the rest of the player base or the game as a whole.</blockquote>QFEI think they seek to fix to many problems with AAs. Its really not fair to those that are leveling up or casual. They pay the same money as us.</blockquote>This is exactly why these changes will ruin the game and cause players to leave. Sure if you are level 80 and have 100+ AA these changes may be minor to you or help with your TSO instance.But they are going to hurt lower level players with much fewer AA. I don't honestly think that Aeralik cares about the game as a whole, but rather is interested in validating his changes and thus only seeks to test in a way that proves that his changes are correct. He does not want to hear negative feedback on his changes and thus structures his test in a way that facilitates and encourage him in what he is doing.He simply does not want to spend the time to test properly for all levels in all zones and just want to jam this through to live without any thought for the health of the game as a whole. There is more to any game than the end game and many players do not want to rush through a large game just to get to the end game. The endgame is probably the lest fun and enjoyable part of any MMO.

speedycerv

01-23-2009, 03:53 PM

Don't act like you can only low level group if a dev organizes it. Anyone can copy over, use a lower level char if thats what u care about. /testcopy addTell your friends or guildies to do the same. It's in your best interest to test those, you could take it upon yourself <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />

Maroger

01-23-2009, 04:03 PM

<cite>Ishidaa@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>Don't act like you can only low level group if a dev organizes it. Anyone can copy over, use a lower level char if thats what u care about. /testcopy addTell your friends or guildies to do the same. It's in your best interest to test those, you could take it upon yourself <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>If Aeralik cares so little about the game that he cannot be bothered to run test properly for all levels and all zones what makes you think he will listen to feedback from other than level 80.He has said or done nothing that makes me think that he cares about anything other than testing and fixing level 80 in TSO.Testing SHOULD NEVER BE DONE BY A DEVELOPER - properly run testing is run by a testing department which structures the test to cover ALL aespects of the impact of a change. Developers tend to only test to get results they want to see to validate their changes. Aeralik has just demonstrated the validity of my statement.

Kurindor_Mythecnea

01-23-2009, 04:07 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>The problem with the test was that it was not to test the changes to obtain results to validate the changes Aeralik wants to make,If he truly want to run a test of this changes then he would test through a variety of levels in a variety of zone - not just level 80 in TSO. The way the test was run indicates that he is only interested in fixing a problem with level 80's in TSO and his willing to ruin the game for everyone else to do so.These changes need better scaling based on the level of the players and not be so geared to level 80 with 100+ AAs. This should tell you that Aeralik is solely focused on level 80 and TSO and does not care about the rest of the player base or the game as a whole.</blockquote>Not only that, but the carelessness in giving stances a recast time when tanks have vetted their distraught over the capacity to perform productively as an off-tank is unacceptable. Aside from that, offensive stance is truly pointless. I parsed it multiple times, and in defensive stance I was able to put out over twice the DPS while having to heal only 9-11K over a 26-32 second fight, doing 3.9-5.4K DPS -- while in offensive stance I had to heal for 19K over a 46 second fight, doing only 2-2.4K DPS. This is, in large part, due to the finicky "fix" that was claimed to have gone live, in order to allow Death march and our disease debuff usability in offensive -- something that is, as of yet, not available. :O

Dasein

01-23-2009, 04:18 PM

Kiljoi

01-23-2009, 04:39 PM

<cite>Dasein wrote:</cite><blockquote>The purpose of this test was not proper QA...</blockquote>A major problem is that there is no real comprehensive QA testing. If only they had a QA team...

Junaru

01-23-2009, 05:00 PM

<cite>VALKOR wrote:</cite><blockquote>Another monk already corrected you on the 7% vs 9% with a <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=195&topic_id=441439#4922700" target="_blank">screenshot</a>, but even if we accept 7%, it doesn't change the fundamental argument I outlined with the 2 scenarios. You are assuming Amends is a snap-aggro and not part of the baseline aggro management to be used each fight. Okay, let's go with that assumption. In that case, why do you need a 7% hate siphon and a 10 times per minute hate proc in addition to the same # of taunts as a paladin in order to hold aggro?Case 1) Aggro is so easy that normal taunts work.Case 2) Aggro is tough enough that the 7% transfer and 10 times per minute proc make the difference.Case 3) Aggro is so hard that nothing holds it.In case 3, we both fail. In case 1, we both succeed. In case 2, the guardian/monk succeeds and the paladin fails. Even if we leave aside the complications of OOP, control effects, etc., a 7% transfer and a proc every 6 seconds is much better than a proc every 37.5 seconds. And in cases where you don't have the 7% transfer, then it will be a straight 10 times per minute proc rate versus a 1.6 times per minute proc rate.10 x 2000 - 20000 in a minute1.6 x 2200 - 3520 in a minute (assuming my hate mod is 10% better which it isn't - test is currently about 4% better but I more than doubled it to make the point)So even if we stack all the #s in your favor and you voluntarily turn off your 7% hate siphon for some inexplicable reason, you have 16,480 more hate. And of course any monk who is tanking will have another 7% siphon on top of that proc difference. And all the hate you are generating happens automatically with no power cost and no interruptability and never has to be down or unable to be cast.As Kiara mentioned, bickering isn't going to help anyone. I outlined the substantive differences as they exist on test and thanked the many other fighters who chimed in with corrections but still agreed the pendulum for passive hate gain has swung too far the other way for paladins on test and needs to be fixed. It takes a lot to look beyond your own class to agree that another needs to be fixed, especially when you are all in competition for the same spot, and so I'm doubly grateful to the guardians and monks who are that brave. If you can't be, at least look at the scenarios to understand which one you think applies and then you can see that there is an easily identifiable difference.</blockquote>Well not too be little but where were all the Pally's when Monks were back of the list tanks? You guys left us high and dry. In fact the ONLY class that came to Monk defence was Swashbucklers. But thats beyond this.I don't diagree with you. In fact I don't know enough about your classes current state because so much has changed with every one. But for years you had 40% siphen and now that things have changed you make it seem like 9% (must not have 5 points into that AA cause I remember only seeing 7%) is a HUGE deal. Seems pretty hypacritical don't you think? I'm all for getting your class "fixed" but don't make it seem like Monk's are God's of aggro like you are. You talk about Monks having "16,480 more hate" but for years you were kings of passive aggro. I'm sorry that maybe it's Monks turn to be on top.I'm sorry you class got the shaft but my Monk isn't that much better at hate then he has been for years. Your class just got knocked down to our level.Give Pally's 9% hate siphin but at the same time give Brawlers 40% AoE Autoattack.

Morrolan V

01-23-2009, 05:14 PM

The last sentence makes sense.I think it's counterproductive to focus on where we have been. It makes much more sense to look forward. As presently constituted on test, looking at both the numbers and the play, it is quite apparent that Paladins are the tank class LEAST able to generate threat. Given that the other elements of tank balance -- survivability, DPS and utility -- have not materially changed, it seems clear to me that this is unfair to Paladins and results in an unbalanced situation.If you read through Valkor's posts, he is quite clearly NOT calling for a nerf to Monks, or to anyone, but rather saying that Paladins need a baseline threat generation ability to bring them up to par. I agree with that.Likewise for brawlers, we are not asking that other tanks' AoE autoattack be nerfed to 24%, but rather requesting that we (the supposed DPS fighters) be brought up to the 40% that all plate fighters get.

Maroger

01-23-2009, 05:58 PM

<cite>Dasein wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ishidaa@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>Don't act like you can only low level group if a dev organizes it. Anyone can copy over, use a lower level char if thats what u care about. /testcopy addTell your friends or guildies to do the same. It's in your best interest to test those, you could take it upon yourself <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>If Aeralik cares so little about the game that he cannot be bothered to run test properly for all levels and all zones what makes you think he will listen to feedback from other than level 80.He has said or done nothing that makes me think that he cares about anything other than testing and fixing level 80 in TSO.Testing SHOULD NEVER BE DONE BY A DEVELOPER - properly run testing is run by a testing department which structures the test to cover ALL aespects of the impact of a change. Developers tend to only test to get results they want to see to validate their changes. Aeralik has just demonstrated the validity of my statement.</blockquote>The purpose of this test was not proper QA, but more a demo type presentation to give people a chance to see the changes for themselves. It's more like a test drive you take before buying a car compared to the internal testing an automobile manufacuter does while designing a car.</blockquote>The Aeralik needs to see that proper testing is done before he jams this through on live. Yes but when you test drive a car and don't like there are other models availble. Aeralik does not believe in choice and so provides only one model.If he wanted to give people a chance to see the changed why was "his test" only organized for Level 80 and in TSO only -- there are other levels in this game and lots more zones. I suggest he needs to expand his horizons are scrap the GU until he takes more time to test it on a wider basis than he is currently doing.

habby2

01-23-2009, 06:21 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>The Aeralik needs to see that proper testing is done before he jams this through on live. Yes but when you test drive a car and don't like there are other models availble. Aeralik does not believe in choice and so provides only one model.If he wanted to give people a chance to see the changed why was "his test" only organized for Level 80 and in TSO only -- there are other levels in this game and lots more zones. I suggest he needs to expand his horizons are scrap the GU until he takes more time to test it on a wider basis than he is currently doing.</blockquote>1) The vast majority of the player base is level 80, or has level 80 toons. Even with the high percentage of accounts with a level 80, he could still only get 50 of them (9 groups). How many lower level players actually showed up? Plus, how a level 80 deals with the changes would be almost identical to how a lower level deals with it. Things don't change as you level up, you just keep getting upgrades to combat the now higher level mobs you're dealing with. 2) Who cares what zone? The TSO zones are handy because you can easily get to AE and solo mob dungeons that you can run through fairly quick and get some data.3) You seriously want him to have 17 different versions of code for the server?????????? I'm sure he's not doing anything else for the next 5-10 years so he'll get right on that.Honestly, the type of tests he ran will give the best data and feedback for any tweaks (Hoping for any major changes is a fantasy) that need to be made to the system. Continuously calling for them to be scrapped and citing incorrect data, questioning the testing procedures, all of these thing do nothing other than make people ignore what you're saying, whether you have a valid point or not

ixchel78

01-23-2009, 06:24 PM

I was in the test group with Aeralik, (Vestris, 80 SK) and overall I can say I was very happy with how the group handled. I didn't have to change my playstyle in any way tanking, agro felt really solid, even moreso than on live.I do think threat amounts could be increased slightly, the wizard did snap occassionally, but not as much as I might expect on live.The delay in casting stances could be an issue for situations where the OT needs to pick up right away, that short delay will probably mean a dead assassin in a raid if the MT goes down.The lowered dps in defensive stance is a disappointment. I think our damage is reduced a little too much to make soloing and duoing as fun as it has been.The Pally and I both went into def stance for the last fight. He started with agro, I held through most of the middle of the fight with him snapping it back at the end. We didn't use any specials, only taunts. I didn't really see one of us having an advantage to agro over the other.

Mentalep

01-23-2009, 06:35 PM

Granted there are six fighter classes and I only play one, but I'm not exactly sure how these changes are so harmful to pre-80 players.It seems to me that it would have been a lot easier to tank for mentors and twinks this way.

denmom

01-23-2009, 06:57 PM

<cite>Boli32 wrote:</cite><blockquote>So... 11pm my time I decided a quick log on test to see these new changes.. little did I know play testing was happening that day (I've been busy this week :/) so I decided what the hell and try and get a group to see what's up... however someone... *gives evils* nicked all the players... so after a while I managed to fall in with 3 other people and we decided to head over to forge.I would have been able to formulate a better idea of true agro holding... but I was in a group formed just trying to do *something* and our gear was vastly different; from one end of the spectrum to the other.RAID : 7058490 | 5799.91 | 20:17Meshur (coercer) 3051795 | 2507.64 | Master's Strike-5497 Healed 0 | 0% Bolixx (me, paladin) 2977177 | 2446.32 | Refusal of Atonement-5720 Healed 369285 | 28% Holy Touch-5429Squitch (guardian) 1010244 | 830.11 | Mar-2926 Healed 2516 | 0% Sentry Watch Guard-1258Megera (warden) 19274 | 15.84 | Master's Smite-3236 Healed 906728 | 70% Grand Florescence-2009What I did find out... was I could still load on my dps gear and tank as normal as every one of my threat abilities was actually still active and only the amends single taunt and encounter taunt (making my debuff unuseable) were actually greyed out. There needs to be a better way without removing ghe spells at all... I for one would love to hit the taunt buttons even if they generated no threat in offensive stance as I use them to active spell procs i.e. maestro and Peace of Mind.The lack of my encounter debuff (taunt) in offensive stance was very worrying and impacted by dps. in such a way my dps tanking.. and my dps in offensive ended up pretty similar.incidentally... Pheeps can suuure talk a man's ear off when she gets going <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Ahahhah, sorry about that! <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />But truly, thank you again for all the info! /bows

Aeralik

01-23-2009, 07:17 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ishidaa@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>Don't act like you can only low level group if a dev organizes it. Anyone can copy over, use a lower level char if thats what u care about. /testcopy addTell your friends or guildies to do the same. It's in your best interest to test those, you could take it upon yourself <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>If Aeralik cares so little about the game that he cannot be bothered to run test properly for all levels and all zones what makes you think he will listen to feedback from other than level 80.He has said or done nothing that makes me think that he cares about anything other than testing and fixing level 80 in TSO.Testing SHOULD NEVER BE DONE BY A DEVELOPER - properly run testing is run by a testing department which structures the test to cover ALL aespects of the impact of a change. Developers tend to only test to get results they want to see to validate their changes. Aeralik has just demonstrated the validity of my statement.</blockquote>Our QA department is doing a lot of testing and running through with other groups. The benefit of me being in the group was I could see what was happening. I was more along for the ride watching and collecting some parse data to analayze. Our QA department gave me similar stuff but its still nice to look at fight X and know that Y happened and look at the data to find out why. When it comes to lower level characters the impact of the changes is smaller. A level 40 isnt running around having to hold aggro on someone who has 75% or higher crit and various other stats. If a level 80 guardian can hold aggro against a decked out level 80 wizard its likely with the lower level buffs that things will be similar since you have far fewer variables with their item selection. Everyones feedback is important and its used but the true success of this update is that aggro tables scale up properly against the exponential gains players see at the higher level.

Maroger

01-23-2009, 07:35 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ishidaa@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>Don't act like you can only low level group if a dev organizes it. Anyone can copy over, use a lower level char if thats what u care about. /testcopy addTell your friends or guildies to do the same. It's in your best interest to test those, you could take it upon yourself <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>If Aeralik cares so little about the game that he cannot be bothered to run test properly for all levels and all zones what makes you think he will listen to feedback from other than level 80.He has said or done nothing that makes me think that he cares about anything other than testing and fixing level 80 in TSO.Testing SHOULD NEVER BE DONE BY A DEVELOPER - properly run testing is run by a testing department which structures the test to cover ALL aespects of the impact of a change. Developers tend to only test to get results they want to see to validate their changes. Aeralik has just demonstrated the validity of my statement.</blockquote>Our QA department is doing a lot of testing and running through with other groups. The benefit of me being in the group was I could see what was happening. I was more along for the ride watching and collecting some parse data to analayze. Our QA department gave me similar stuff but its still nice to look at fight X and know that Y happened and look at the data to find out why. When it comes to lower level characters the impact of the changes is smaller. A level 40 isnt running around having to hold aggro on someone who has 75% or higher crit and various other stats. If a level 80 guardian can hold aggro against a decked out level 80 wizard its likely with the lower level buffs that things will be similar since you have far fewer variables with their item selection. Everyones feedback is important and its used but the true success of this update is that aggro tables scale up properly against the exponential gains players see at the higher level.</blockquote>Are you and QA testing for other playstyles as Well? Or do you solely focus on raid and group content? The current changes are a big negative if you solo and soloers are a large part of the player base in this game.If you are concerned mainly with aggo tables why did you make sure that DPS went down in OFF. stance and Damage went up - doesn't sound solo friendly to me or even like you are providing "fun". You can scale aggo table without taking away the stand alone buffs or reducing their effects after you major them. Seems to me like you are after more than just aggro tables -- like changing the whole game paradigm after 4 years.Maybe you should consider balancing TSO and the mobs and NOT the players.

Raidyen

01-23-2009, 07:40 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ishidaa@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>Don't act like you can only low level group if a dev organizes it. Anyone can copy over, use a lower level char if thats what u care about. /testcopy addTell your friends or guildies to do the same. It's in your best interest to test those, you could take it upon yourself <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>If Aeralik cares so little about the game that he cannot be bothered to run test properly for all levels and all zones what makes you think he will listen to feedback from other than level 80.He has said or done nothing that makes me think that he cares about anything other than testing and fixing level 80 in TSO.Testing SHOULD NEVER BE DONE BY A DEVELOPER - properly run testing is run by a testing department which structures the test to cover ALL aespects of the impact of a change. Developers tend to only test to get results they want to see to validate their changes. Aeralik has just demonstrated the validity of my statement.</blockquote>Our QA department is doing a lot of testing and running through with other groups. The benefit of me being in the group was I could see what was happening. I was more along for the ride watching and collecting some parse data to analayze. Our QA department gave me similar stuff but its still nice to look at fight X and know that Y happened and look at the data to find out why. When it comes to lower level characters the impact of the changes is smaller. A level 40 isnt running around having to hold aggro on someone who has 75% or higher crit and various other stats. If a level 80 guardian can hold aggro against a decked out level 80 wizard its likely with the lower level buffs that things will be similar since you have far fewer variables with their item selection. Everyones feedback is important and its used but the true success of this update is that aggro tables scale up properly against the exponential gains players see at the higher level.</blockquote>I have to completely agree with Aeralik on this guys. I would be rather ticked off if i saw dev time going into the level 40's group balance. Most players are in their 40's for maybe a week. I, and many others have been playing at level 80 since a couple weeks after RoK released. This would be like developers spending time on the pvp server balance. Everytime that happens, there are usually several blue server players that complain about wasted dev time on pvp. Well, i will make that same arguement here.Aeralik is taking a pretty good beating from all angles over these changes, but i respect the fact that he is willing to get his hands dirty with the players on test, and at the same time getting his nose bloodied by a good majority of the community, probably myself included.I just find it complete BS to be honest that there were only around 50 players on Test during this playtest. Based on the forums here and on flames, there are hundreds of players that hate these changes, but many of them are just talkers. They just want to complain and flame, rather then spend a bit of time on test to learn the changes, and help the Devs to balance them.The changes are very playable, and in some ways fun. Sure there are some tweaks that need to be made still, but this change is not the end of EQ2, like many of us thought it was going to be.

Maroger

01-23-2009, 07:54 PM

<cite>Deekin@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have to completely agree with Aeralik on this guys. I would be rather ticked off if i saw dev time going into the level 40's group balance. Most players are in their 40's for maybe a week. I, and many others have been playing at level 80 since a couple weeks after RoK released. This would be like developers spending time on the pvp server balance. Everytime that happens, there are usually several blue server players that complain about wasted dev time on pvp. Well, i will make that same arguement here.Aeralik is taking a pretty good beating from all angles over these changes, but i respect the fact that he is willing to get his hands dirty with the players on test, and at the same time getting his nose bloodied by a good majority of the community, probably myself included.I just find it complete BS to be honest that there were only around 50 players on Test during this playtest. Based on the forums here and on flames, there are hundreds of players that hate these changes, but many of them are just talkers. They just want to complain and flame, rather then spend a bit of time on test to learn the changes, and help the Devs to balance them.The changes are very playable, and in some ways fun. Sure there are some tweaks that need to be made still, but this change is not the end of EQ2, like many of us thought it was going to be.</blockquote>Well I don't think 50 was a bad number - remember he scheduled it for 6PM EDT - and a lot maybe just getting home from work and couldn't make it. And the time zone goes from there making it harder for other times zones to participate if they have jobs etc.Let me point out to you that not everyone is level 80 in this game or is rushing to get to level 80. You may have rushed to get to level 80 but a lot of player did not nor want to. Many turn off their XP just to spend more time questing in a level. So the goal of level 80 is not for every play.I am sure that if you are level 80 with 100 + AA the changes do not seem horrible - but down the ladder they suck and are nothing but rotten eggs.The play test was nothing more than creating a favorable condition for Aeralik to confirm that his changes are right. That is NOT a test. You may be unfamiliar with how real testing is done, but I can assure that what happened was not a real test. The number of participants is not in and of itself a meaningful gauge of the quality of a test. There are many, many other factors that determine the quality of testing - and almost all were absent for that "test" Aeralik ran.

Matia

01-23-2009, 07:55 PM

<cite>Deekin@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have to completely agree with Aeralik on this guys. I would be rather ticked off if i saw dev time going into the level 40's group balance. Most players are in their 40's for maybe a week. I, and many others have been playing at level 80 since a couple weeks after RoK released. This would be like developers spending time on the pvp server balance. Everytime that happens, there are usually several blue server players that complain about wasted dev time on pvp. Well, i will make that same arguement here.Aeralik is taking a pretty good beating from all angles over these changes, but i respect the fact that he is willing to get his hands dirty with the players on test, and at the same time getting his nose bloodied by a good majority of the community, probably myself included.I just find it complete BS to be honest that there were only around 50 players on Test during this playtest. Based on the forums here and on flames, there are hundreds of players that hate these changes, but many of them are just talkers. They just want to complain and flame, rather then spend a bit of time on test to learn the changes, and help the Devs to balance them.The changes are very playable, and in some ways fun. Sure there are some tweaks that need to be made still, but this change is not the end of EQ2, like many of us thought it was going to be.</blockquote>You mean.. *gasp* not everyone could log on and play during work hours??? How shocking!!And, just so it's said.. if you are going to base your validity of testing on an assumption that the "majority" is in one part of the spectrum and therefore gathering data from just it is all that is needed... just let me point out that the "majority" of the players aren't fighters. So by your logic as long as he observes all of the wizards, scouts, and healers, he's observed the "majority" and can balance a fighter without laying eyes on one.

Boli32

01-23-2009, 08:02 PM

<cite>Matia wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deekin@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have to completely agree with Aeralik on this guys. I would be rather ticked off if i saw dev time going into the level 40's group balance. Most players are in their 40's for maybe a week. I, and many others have been playing at level 80 since a couple weeks after RoK released. This would be like developers spending time on the pvp server balance. Everytime that happens, there are usually several blue server players that complain about wasted dev time on pvp. Well, i will make that same arguement here.Aeralik is taking a pretty good beating from all angles over these changes, but i respect the fact that he is willing to get his hands dirty with the players on test, and at the same time getting his nose bloodied by a good majority of the community, probably myself included.I just find it complete BS to be honest that there were only around 50 players on Test during this playtest. Based on the forums here and on flames, there are hundreds of players that hate these changes, but many of them are just talkers. They just want to complain and flame, rather then spend a bit of time on test to learn the changes, and help the Devs to balance them.The changes are very playable, and in some ways fun. Sure there are some tweaks that need to be made still, but this change is not the end of EQ2, like many of us thought it was going to be.</blockquote>You mean.. *gasp* not everyone could log on and play during work hours??? How shocking!!And, just so it's said.. if you are going to base your validity of testing on an assumption that the "majority" is in one part of the spectrum and therefore gathering data from just it is all that is needed... just let me point out that the "majority" of the players aren't fighters. So by your logic as long as he observes all of the wizards, scouts, and healers, he's observed the "majority" and can balance a fighter without laying eyes on one.</blockquote>It was 11pm my time (UK) and I was online till 2am... trust me today at work not fun.Ideally if you want the most amount of people online and testing its best on a saturday afternoon/night... that whilst it may mean overtime for SoE Devs... it also allows the majority of peoplr who play the game to log on and test <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Raidyen

01-23-2009, 08:11 PM

I couldnt make the playtest either because of work, but i have spent several hours on the test server with my RL friends, testing the changes, and 90 percent of what is posted on these and other forums is, well quite honestly complete fiction. Which tells me the majority of players just like to complain, and not actually see for themselves and help test, 'gasp'. That is where i get a bit frustrated, and it makes it hard for the people that DO test, and have been testing, to get thier points across without getting hammered by 2 dozen posters that probably have never even done a /copytest.As far as the level 80 thing and not rushing, i came back to EQ2 on the release of EoF, i started my swashy on a pvp server with my wife, we locked levels, and did not get to lvl 70 until right before RoK released. I know about the slow grind. I also know, that short of making paladins wear cloth armor to tank in, there is not much that is going to make the lower levels in this game unplayable. Players may have to adapt and change how they do things, Just like some lvl 80 solo's and duo's, but thats just part of an MMO, if you cant adapt, then find a new line of gaming.

Tandy

01-23-2009, 08:31 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deekin@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have to completely agree with Aeralik on this guys. I would be rather ticked off if i saw dev time going into the level 40's group balance. Most players are in their 40's for maybe a week. I, and many others have been playing at level 80 since a couple weeks after RoK released. This would be like developers spending time on the pvp server balance. Everytime that happens, there are usually several blue server players that complain about wasted dev time on pvp. Well, i will make that same arguement here.Aeralik is taking a pretty good beating from all angles over these changes, but i respect the fact that he is willing to get his hands dirty with the players on test, and at the same time getting his nose bloodied by a good majority of the community, probably myself included.I just find it complete BS to be honest that there were only around 50 players on Test during this playtest. Based on the forums here and on flames, there are hundreds of players that hate these changes, but many of them are just talkers. They just want to complain and flame, rather then spend a bit of time on test to learn the changes, and help the Devs to balance them.The changes are very playable, and in some ways fun. Sure there are some tweaks that need to be made still, but this change is not the end of EQ2, like many of us thought it was going to be.</blockquote>Well I don't think 50 was a bad number - remember he scheduled it for 6PM EDT - and a lot maybe just getting home from work and couldn't make it. And the time zone goes from there making it harder for other times zones to participate if they have jobs etc.Let me point out to you that not everyone is level 80 in this game or is rushing to get to level 80. You may have rushed to get to level 80 but a lot of player did not nor want to. Many turn off their XP just to spend more time questing in a level. So the goal of level 80 is not for every play.I am sure that if you are level 80 with 100 + AA the changes do not seem horrible - but down the ladder they suck and are nothing but rotten eggs.The play test was nothing more than creating a favorable condition for Aeralik to confirm that his changes are right. That is NOT a test. You may be unfamiliar with how real testing is done, but I can assure that what happened was not a real test. The number of participants is not in and of itself a meaningful gauge of the quality of a test. There are many, many other factors that determine the quality of testing - and almost all were absent for that "test" Aeralik ran.</blockquote>You so seriously have no clue about reality. I am wondering what game you are playing because based on everything you have said this last week, I am getting more and more to the point I think your playing some "twilight zone" version of EQ2.The game was based from the ground up to get an ability, and then upgrade it. the stuff that works at lvl 80 will work at lvl 50, since a lvl 80 has EVERY tool a lvl 50 has...just a few more. If the things work for a 80 they work for a 50.And seriously the majority of players do NOT sit at sub 80 on their first character. I am sorry you have played since launch and STILL arent max level, but dont take that out on everyone else.

speedycerv

01-23-2009, 08:36 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deekin@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have to completely agree with Aeralik on this guys. I would be rather ticked off if i saw dev time going into the level 40's group balance. Most players are in their 40's for maybe a week. I, and many others have been playing at level 80 since a couple weeks after RoK released. This would be like developers spending time on the pvp server balance. Everytime that happens, there are usually several blue server players that complain about wasted dev time on pvp. Well, i will make that same arguement here.Aeralik is taking a pretty good beating from all angles over these changes, but i respect the fact that he is willing to get his hands dirty with the players on test, and at the same time getting his nose bloodied by a good majority of the community, probably myself included.I just find it complete BS to be honest that there were only around 50 players on Test during this playtest. Based on the forums here and on flames, there are hundreds of players that hate these changes, but many of them are just talkers. They just want to complain and flame, rather then spend a bit of time on test to learn the changes, and help the Devs to balance them.The changes are very playable, and in some ways fun. Sure there are some tweaks that need to be made still, but this change is not the end of EQ2, like many of us thought it was going to be.</blockquote>Well I don't think 50 was a bad number - remember he scheduled it for 6PM EDT - and a lot maybe just getting home from work and couldn't make it. And the time zone goes from there making it harder for other times zones to participate if they have jobs etc.Let me point out to you that not everyone is level 80 in this game or is rushing to get to level 80. You may have rushed to get to level 80 but a lot of player did not nor want to. Many turn off their XP just to spend more time questing in a level. So the goal of level 80 is not for every play.I am sure that if you are level 80 with 100 + AA the changes do not seem horrible - but down the ladder they suck and are nothing but rotten eggs.The play test was nothing more than creating a favorable condition for Aeralik to confirm that his changes are right. That is NOT a test. You may be unfamiliar with how real testing is done, but I can assure that what happened was not a real test. The number of participants is not in and of itself a meaningful gauge of the quality of a test. There are many, many other factors that determine the quality of testing - and almost all were absent for that "test" Aeralik ran.</blockquote>Maybe you missed the post Aeralik just wrote. You have already stated these words in your other posts. If you did read what he said, it's possible you might have missed the point. Exponentionally... gear makes a huge impact on game mechanics. Below t7 ish, gear doesn't have much benefit other than surviving. The player skills that they gain past 50 are new aswell, whereas 1-49 is virtually all the same skills. In other words if it works without the huge impact on players that gear has, the impact of everything in this test is of less concern. Things will work in t3 if they work for t8.

speedycerv

01-23-2009, 08:41 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>Are you and QA testing for other playstyles as Well? Or do you solely focus on raid and group content? The current changes are a big negative if you solo and soloers are a large part of the player base in this game.If you are concerned mainly with aggo tables why did you make sure that DPS went down in OFF. stance and Damage went up - doesn't sound solo friendly to me or even like you are providing "fun". You can scale aggo table without taking away the stand alone buffs or reducing their effects after you major them. Seems to me like you are after more than just aggro tables -- like changing the whole game paradigm after 4 years.Maybe you should consider balancing TSO and the mobs and NOT the players.</blockquote>DPS goes up in offensive stance. Damage is the same thing except for the concept of time. DPS stands for damage per second. Stand along buffs are there but merged into the stance. This is because of people complaining about the amount of buffs to cast after dieing.

Prrasha

01-23-2009, 08:44 PM

<cite>ixchel78 wrote:</cite><blockquote>The Pally and I both went into def stance for the last fight. He started with agro, I held through most of the middle of the fight with him snapping it back at the end. We didn't use any specials, only taunts. I didn't really see one of us having an advantage to agro over the other.</blockquote>Well, this is a problem, if you're remotely equally geared.I don't know what "the last fight" was, but...- if it was an AE fight, then the pally shouldn't have been able to pull aggro off of you (unless he was only pulling one mob in the group with his "superior" ST taunts). SKs need some aggro buffing in this case.- if it was a single named mob, then you shouldn't have been able to pull aggro off the pally. Pallies need some aggro buffing in this case.Which was it, if I may ask?

Maroger

01-23-2009, 08:57 PM

<cite>Ishidaa@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>Are you and QA testing for other playstyles as Well? Or do you solely focus on raid and group content? The current changes are a big negative if you solo and soloers are a large part of the player base in this game.If you are concerned mainly with aggo tables why did you make sure that DPS went down in OFF. stance and Damage went up - doesn't sound solo friendly to me or even like you are providing "fun". You can scale aggo table without taking away the stand alone buffs or reducing their effects after you major them. Seems to me like you are after more than just aggro tables -- like changing the whole game paradigm after 4 years.Maybe you should consider balancing TSO and the mobs and NOT the players.</blockquote>DPS goes up in offensive stance. Damage is the same thing except for the concept of time. DPS stands for damage per second. Stand along buffs are there but merged into the stance. This is because of people complaining about the amount of buffs to cast after dieing.</blockquote>Well let me point this out to you in case you didn't read. The buffs were REDUCED in damage and healing as a result of the merger. So your DPS will go do since GRIM STRIKE is a damage buff and its damage has been reduced. The healing component is also reduced. SO I am not sure how reducing your damage does not reduce your DPS -- it sure reduced mine but maybe you have the ability to defy the law of mathematics.

Tandy

01-23-2009, 08:59 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ishidaa@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>Are you and QA testing for other playstyles as Well? Or do you solely focus on raid and group content? The current changes are a big negative if you solo and soloers are a large part of the player base in this game.If you are concerned mainly with aggo tables why did you make sure that DPS went down in OFF. stance and Damage went up - doesn't sound solo friendly to me or even like you are providing "fun". You can scale aggo table without taking away the stand alone buffs or reducing their effects after you major them. Seems to me like you are after more than just aggro tables -- like changing the whole game paradigm after 4 years.Maybe you should consider balancing TSO and the mobs and NOT the players.</blockquote>DPS goes up in offensive stance. Damage is the same thing except for the concept of time. DPS stands for damage per second. Stand along buffs are there but merged into the stance. This is because of people complaining about the amount of buffs to cast after dieing.</blockquote>Well let me point this out to you in case you didn't read. The buffs were REDUCED in damage and healing as a result of the merger. So your DPS will go do since GRIM STRIKE is a damage buff and its damage has been reduced. The healing component is also reduced. SO I am not sure how reducing your damage does not reduce your DPS -- it sure reduced mine but maybe you have the ability to defy the law of mathematics.</blockquote>You also received the master 1 stance. Which has a higher int than the one you have on live. Which makes ALL your spells do more dmg. so the small reduction on one proc doesnt outweight the diffrence in damage on everything else. Unless YOUR defying the laws of mathematics....and you DID say you got the master stance.Again. your. wrong.

demonwr

01-23-2009, 09:00 PM

as things curently sit i see alot of peps still tanking in off stance you still have some snap aggro and taunts from ca more than enouf to hold aggro in most situations and your also removing the ability of offtanks in off stance to use debuffs on mobs dont think not alowing t5aunts to be cast is the answer here sadly i missed the test day as i have been buisy but i think just removing threat from all taunts and CAs in off stance would be a more apropriat move then not alowing some to be cast you would see less ofencive tanking but still alow fighters in of to properly apply there debuffs

Aeralik

01-23-2009, 09:48 PM

<cite>demonwrym wrote:</cite><blockquote>as things curently sit i see alot of peps still tanking in off stance you still have some snap aggro and taunts from ca more than enouf to hold aggro in most situations and your also removing the ability of offtanks in off stance to use debuffs on mobs dont think not alowing t5aunts to be cast is the answer here sadly i missed the test day as i have been buisy but i think just removing threat from all taunts and CAs in off stance would be a more apropriat move then not alowing some to be cast you would see less ofencive tanking but still alow fighters in of to properly apply there debuffs</blockquote>What is on test is currently bugged though. Once the fix is out, taunts and hate position bumps will no longer work while in offensive stance. So if you want to test your threat you really need to be in the defensive stance.

Maroger

01-23-2009, 10:02 PM

<cite>Tandy wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ishidaa@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>Are you and QA testing for other playstyles as Well? Or do you solely focus on raid and group content? The current changes are a big negative if you solo and soloers are a large part of the player base in this game.If you are concerned mainly with aggo tables why did you make sure that DPS went down in OFF. stance and Damage went up - doesn't sound solo friendly to me or even like you are providing "fun". You can scale aggo table without taking away the stand alone buffs or reducing their effects after you major them. Seems to me like you are after more than just aggro tables -- like changing the whole game paradigm after 4 years.Maybe you should consider balancing TSO and the mobs and NOT the players.</blockquote>DPS goes up in offensive stance. Damage is the same thing except for the concept of time. DPS stands for damage per second. Stand along buffs are there but merged into the stance. This is because of people complaining about the amount of buffs to cast after dieing.</blockquote>Well let me point this out to you in case you didn't read. The buffs were REDUCED in damage and healing as a result of the merger. So your DPS will go do since GRIM STRIKE is a damage buff and its damage has been reduced. The healing component is also reduced. SO I am not sure how reducing your damage does not reduce your DPS -- it sure reduced mine but maybe you have the ability to defy the law of mathematics.</blockquote>You also received the master 1 stance. Which has a higher int than the one you have on live. Which makes ALL your spells do more dmg. so the small reduction on one proc doesnt outweight the diffrence in damage on everything else. Unless YOUR defying the laws of mathematics....and you DID say you got the master stance.Again. your. wrong.</blockquote>Actually the MASTER I stances I got were for level 72 and 73 - they are no good to me now. ALso I will not get the level 70 buffs for Grim Strike and Tarnished Caress so the Damage on the Buffs and the Healings are well below what they would be if I were to get the Level 70's buffs since they would be better than the buffs on the Master I stances. I current got Master I on DEF stance which is useless and ADEPT III on OFF Stance because my Grim Strike was Master I - but the damage on the buff is higher than what is on the stance.The Current Buffs I have on the stances which are the Level 60' stances are lower than the stand alone version of the buffs. So again you are wrong and just proved that you cannot read.The point you fail or don't want to understand is that the damage on Grim Stike is REDUCED and the HEALING is REDUCED from what it would be on the stand alone buffs -- Actually it is reduced by about 2 levels. I can help you with the math if you would like.

Tandy

01-23-2009, 10:25 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tandy wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ishidaa@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>Are you and QA testing for other playstyles as Well? Or do you solely focus on raid and group content? The current changes are a big negative if you solo and soloers are a large part of the player base in this game.If you are concerned mainly with aggo tables why did you make sure that DPS went down in OFF. stance and Damage went up - doesn't sound solo friendly to me or even like you are providing "fun". You can scale aggo table without taking away the stand alone buffs or reducing their effects after you major them. Seems to me like you are after more than just aggro tables -- like changing the whole game paradigm after 4 years.Maybe you should consider balancing TSO and the mobs and NOT the players.</blockquote>DPS goes up in offensive stance. Damage is the same thing except for the concept of time. DPS stands for damage per second. Stand along buffs are there but merged into the stance. This is because of people complaining about the amount of buffs to cast after dieing.</blockquote>Well let me point this out to you in case you didn't read. The buffs were REDUCED in damage and healing as a result of the merger. So your DPS will go do since GRIM STRIKE is a damage buff and its damage has been reduced. The healing component is also reduced. SO I am not sure how reducing your damage does not reduce your DPS -- it sure reduced mine but maybe you have the ability to defy the law of mathematics.</blockquote>You also received the master 1 stance. Which has a higher int than the one you have on live. Which makes ALL your spells do more dmg. so the small reduction on one proc doesnt outweight the diffrence in damage on everything else. Unless YOUR defying the laws of mathematics....and you DID say you got the master stance.Again. your. wrong.</blockquote>Actually the MASTER I stances I got were for level 72 and 73 - they are no good to me now. ALso I will not get the level 70 buffs for Grim Strike and Tarnished Caress so the Damage on the Buffs and the Healings are well below what they would be if I were to get the Level 70's buffs since they would be better than the buffs on the Master I stances. I current got Master I on DEF stance which is useless and ADEPT III on OFF Stance because my Grim Strike was Master I - but the damage on the buff is higher than what is on the stance.The Current Buffs I have on the stances which are the Level 60' stances are lower than the stand alone version of the buffs. So again you are wrong and just proved that you cannot read.The point you fail or don't want to understand is that the damage on Grim Stike is REDUCED and the HEALING is REDUCED from what it would be on the stand alone buffs -- Actually it is reduced by about 2 levels. I can help you with the math if you would like.</blockquote>Let me wrap your little mind around the BIG PICTURE. Grim strike went down some yes. The damage shield got a HUGE boost on it. One proc got reduced. ONE PROC GOT REDUCED.You got 2 master stances and your upset cause your not high enough to use them? LEVEL UP MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dear God in heaven give me your account info I will get you to 80 just to stop the madness.Since apparently I have to do the 'long math' for you here it is.I have some upgrades on gear on live I dont have on test copy, and until I get new copy over this will have to do.Unholy Arms 3.5 / min Live - 2.9 / min Test on Offensive StanceLive 663-1105 dmg 276-460 healsTest 618-1030 dmg 256-426 healIf you take into consideration that most of your spells will do a bit more damage, you can see there IS a small reduction there, but its seriously small. It would be more dmg if my gear were the exact same I am sure.The rest of my spells dont translate well, cause of the new spell dmg I have on live but here are some numbers theremaliceLive 1090-1590Test 1017-1518pain wrathLive 1766-2717Test 1695-2648All of this is with 1052 int in DPS gear on Live and 1079 int on Test (still lacking the new gear I have on Live for 100% accurate test). As you can see, with missing around 100 spell dmg and some int on peices on live, the numbers are not much lower. If I have the same gear on test the numbers would be HIGHER than on live.You always talk like 'higher lvl stuff is useless to me' as if your level'ing in reverse. LOWER LEVEL THINGS WILL BE WORTHLESS WHEN YOU LVL UP MAN. the current max tier stuff is what you need to look at it, since it DOESNT upgrade....and if you lvl up you WILL get them. I can read....I just dont think YOU can.

aislynn00

01-23-2009, 11:02 PM

Antryg Mistrose

01-23-2009, 11:24 PM

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ixchel78 wrote:</cite><blockquote>The Pally and I both went into def stance for the last fight. He started with agro, I held through most of the middle of the fight with him snapping it back at the end. We didn't use any specials, only taunts. I didn't really see one of us having an advantage to agro over the other.</blockquote>Well, this is a problem, if you're remotely equally geared.I don't know what "the last fight" was, but...- if it was an AE fight, then the pally shouldn't have been able to pull aggro off of you (unless he was only pulling one mob in the group with his "superior" ST taunts). SKs need some aggro buffing in this case.- if it was a single named mob, then you shouldn't have been able to pull aggro off the pally. Pallies need some aggro buffing in this case.Which was it, if I may ask?</blockquote>They looked similarily geared to me. It was "The Bonegrinder" - last named in Caverns of the Afflicted. ONE fight mind you, so sample size proves precisely nothing, but here is some of the data Aeralik now has in his possessionShadow Knight Threat Out - total 245,570 :<ul><li>50,593 Chastisement</li><li>48,335 Shadowknight's Furor</li><li>37,608 Insinuate</li><li>35,214 Vengeful Feedback</li><li>17,695 Unholy Strike</li><li>17,198 Hateful Slam</li><li>14,341 Lucan't Boot</li><li>12,537 Grave Sacrement</li><li>7,082 Hatespike II</li><li>4,967 Crimson Circle</li></ul>damage out 152,421 (2419dps)healed out 15,225Paladin Threat Out - total 226,395 :<ul><li>74,020 Clarion</li><li>53,217 Restitution</li><li>27,432 Faithful Cry</li><li>25,837 Penitent Kick</li><li>23,624 Excoriation</li><li>13,284 Heroic Dash</li><li>8,981 Glorious Strike</li></ul> damage out 183,745 (2917dps) healed out 4,963<ul><li>0sec Paladin starts</li><li>6sec Wizard tanking</li><li>10sec Paladin tanking</li><li>11sec Wizard tanking</li><li>16sec Wizard dead</li><li>17sec Illus? pet tanking</li><li>18sec SK tanking</li><li>25sec Paladin tanking</li><li>26sec SK tanking</li><li>40sec Illus? pet tanking</li><li>40sec SK tanking</li><li>60sec Paladin tanking (restitution cast a 2nd time)</li><li>63sec Bonegrinder dead</li></ul>Wizard was resurrected at 29sec. Total dps of the group 21k, peaking at 34k just prior to the wizard's death.So roughly: SK was tanking 66% of the time, Paladin 18%, Wizard 15%

Noaani

01-24-2009, 01:07 AM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>Are you and QA testing for other playstyles as Well? Or do you solely focus on raid and group content? The current changes are a big negative if you solo and soloers are a large part of the player base in this game.If you are concerned mainly with aggo tables why did you make sure that DPS went down in OFF. stance and Damage went up - doesn't sound solo friendly to me or even like you are providing "fun". You can scale aggo table without taking away the stand alone buffs or reducing their effects after you major them. Seems to me like you are after more than just aggro tables -- like changing the whole game paradigm after 4 years.Maybe you should consider balancing TSO and the mobs and NOT the players.</blockquote>You need to stop being such a constant pessimist.Fighters solo just fine on test, some of them even do so slightly better (guardian). Any mob designated as suitable for soling against, and of an appropriate level, is able to be soloed by any fighter on test. Some may claim to have a diminished solo DPS from what they have on live, but I have yet to see any evidance of that past rhetoric on the forums.Changes have gone in over the last few days to specifically address fighters in a duo or trio, so the claim that it is only group and raid content being taken into account are blatantly and demonstratably wrong, and you probably should refrain from making such comments in the future.As for low level content, if a tank with 24% taunt crit can hold aggro off me with 100% spell crit, if you take 40 levels off each character, as well as removing the crit from high level gear, I am sure the tank with 24% taunt crit can continue to hold aggro off a wizard with 12% spell crit.Some of us have already tested this, and had nothing specific to feedback from level 40 that was not already sent in from level 80. Tanks are better off at low levels than they are at high levels. If anything, level 40 tanks need a nerf, my wizard couldn't get above 55% hate on single targets.But hey, continue to waste developer time posting things you have no idea about...

Glerin

01-24-2009, 05:45 AM

<cite>Antryg Mistrose wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite>Shadow Knight Threat Out - total 245,570 :<ul><li>50,593 Chastisement</li><li>48,335 Shadowknight's Furor</li><li>37,608 Insinuate</li><li>35,214 Vengeful Feedback</li><li>17,695 Unholy Strike</li><li>17,198 Hateful Slam</li><li>14,341 Lucan't Boot</li><li>12,537 Grave Sacrement</li><li>7,082 Hatespike II</li><li>4,967 Crimson Circle</li></ul>damage out 152,421 (2419dps)healed out 15,225Paladin Threat Out - total 226,395 :<ul><li>74,020 Clarion</li><li>53,217 Restitution</li><li>27,432 Faithful Cry</li><li>25,837 Penitent Kick</li><li>23,624 Excoriation</li><li>13,284 Heroic Dash</li><li>8,981 Glorious Strike</li></ul> damage out 183,745 (2917dps) healed out 4,963<ul><li>0sec Paladin starts</li><li>6sec Wizard tanking</li><li>10sec Paladin tanking</li><li>11sec Wizard tanking</li><li>16sec Wizard dead</li><li>17sec Illus? pet tanking</li><li>18sec SK tanking</li><li>25sec Paladin tanking</li><li>26sec SK tanking</li><li>40sec Illus? pet tanking</li><li>40sec SK tanking</li><li>60sec Paladin tanking (restitution cast a 2nd time)</li><li>63sec Bonegrinder dead</li></ul>Wizard was resurrected at 29sec. Total dps of the group 21k, peaking at 34k just prior to the wizard's death.So roughly: SK was tanking 66% of the time, Paladin 18%, Wizard 15%</blockquote>if anything this has me worried, granted i don't know the paladin but i do know the SK who tanked (and thats one hellofa SK IMO!) the paladin should be -way- above the SK in terms of threat, since this was a 1minute (roughly) long fight though it leads me to believe the paladin wasn't using his / her grouptaunt everytime it was up (probably just used it for the debuff portion once every ~20seconds) one thing that comes to mind there though;the SK endline ability generates 48k aggro single target, i'd assume it does alot more on aoe fights?the paladin endline ability generates 27k aggro, and thats -only- single target, seems sort of "off" to meThe shadowknight also did 3x (roughly) the paladin's healamount, if you'd have the paladin tanking and using his heals (which is our "anti spike") - you'd see a decrease in both threat, and DPS on the paladin, which would most definitely put him / her further behind the SK, also, like most paladins the paladin never used "Holy Circle", this is something i've always thought about, I rarely use it ever myself due to its loong casting time, i use it if -nothing- else is up, I'd have been there myself if i could, but alas the testing began at 1am my time, which kinda puts it at a bad hour *sadface*granted, this is only one fight as people mentioned, but i'm guessing this was one fight where "everything was up and being used", it truly worries me that a SK is above the paladin (unless ofcourse theres a big gear difference, and the paladin have lower ranks of his abilities then the SK), on a single target, the paladin should be -far- ahead in terms of aggro, since the SK will stomp the paladin into the ground and then cover him with alot of dirt on a aoe fight.and to sum it up, if anyone want a paladin (mythical / raid and instance gear), illusionist (instance gear) for testing on test server, never hesitate to /tell antonia_bayle.Glerin and we can setup a date to test stuff! preferebly in afternoons GMT time!

Kordran

01-24-2009, 06:02 AM

My guess, just based on those numbers, that the Paladin was playing pre-GU51 style primarily using CAs in his rotation and only using taunts secondarily (probably when it looked like he was losing aggro and the mob was twitching to the wizard). It would explain his relatively low threat output and higher damage. You can't do that now. All taunts, and all CAs with additional threat generation need to have first priority in the rotation. The old "I'll just throw out an AE taunt at the start for the debuff, and will only start taunting if the mob twitches" mentality won't work post-GU51.I wrote in another post, the way to think of it in the context of the game now is say that you had two low recast CAs that did 9K direct damage, and 3.5K AE damage respectively. Would you not use those each and every single time they were up? Sure you would. That's exactly how the new taunts need to be considered.Edit: One other point. In that named fight, I think it's a safe bet that the Paladin did not lead off with Sigil so he'd get fed hate right at the beginning of the fight; the fact that the wizard ripped from him 6 seconds in would tend to indicate that. While you obviously couldn't use Sigil in every fight with trash, against named, it's a tool that should definitely be used.

FinalHolmes

01-24-2009, 07:58 AM

Maroger wrote:Are you and QA testing for other playstyles as Well? Or do you solely focus on raid and group content? The current changes are a big negative if you solo and soloers are a large part of the player base in this game.If you are concerned mainly with aggo tables why did you make sure that DPS went down in OFF. stance and Damage went up - doesn't sound solo friendly to me or even like you are providing "fun". You can scale aggo table without taking away the stand alone buffs or reducing their effects after you major them. Seems to me like you are after more than just aggro tables -- like changing the whole game paradigm after 4 years.Maybe you should consider balancing TSO and the mobs and NOT the players.All I can say is good work Aeralik, I copied my Shadowknight (Level 44) over to the test server a few days ago, and to be honest I can't find any problems at all for the solo player, also I only ever tank in defensive.I ran through Nektropos Castle, The D'Vinnian Throne, The Tombs of Night and I also killed a ton of yellow and orange mobs, I had no death's and I never really noticed my speed dropping at anytime.

aislynn00

01-24-2009, 09:41 AM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote>My guess, just based on those numbers, that the Paladin was playing pre-GU51 style primarily using CAs in his rotation and only using taunts secondarily (probably when it looked like he was losing aggro and the mob was twitching to the wizard). It would explain his relatively low threat output and higher damage. You can't do that now. All taunts, and all CAs with additional threat generation need to have first priority in the rotation. The old "I'll just throw out an AE taunt at the start for the debuff, and will only start taunting if the mob twitches" mentality won't work post-GU51.I wrote in another post, the way to think of it in the context of the game now is say that you had two low recast CAs that did 9K direct damage, and 3.5K AE damage respectively. Would you not use those each and every single time they were up? Sure you would. That's exactly how the new taunts need to be considered.Edit: One other point. In that named fight, I think it's a safe bet that the Paladin did not lead off with Sigil so he'd get fed hate right at the beginning of the fight; the fact that the wizard ripped from him 6 seconds in would tend to indicate that. While you obviously couldn't use Sigil in every fight with trash, against named, it's a tool that should definitely be used.</blockquote>Let's try another example that illustrates the problem, one where we are able to eliminate a few unknowns.A few minutes ago, I fought the training wall in Kunzar Jungle, a 76th level mob, so you don't get a lot of resists or misses.I am an 80th level guardian.I used my taunts and hate-boosting CA's in the ideal order, the ones with low reuse time first, all taunts given priority over CA's with pure damage or damage plus debuff. The one exception to this rule was Decimate, which is a high-damage debuff which renders it much less likely that subsequent attacks will be parried, dodged, or blocked, so I used that single CA before any CA's with hate components. Decimate is up every 60 sec.I have every single AA that boosts hate generation, including the TSO endline hate-boosting CA, Sentinel's Strike and the AA which reduces the casting time and boosts the hate generation and damage of Assault and, more importantly, Lay Waste. I am spec'ed Intelligence/Strength/Stamina in the warrior tree for max single-target hate generation. I have all taunts and all CA's with hate components at Master I or Master II. I have no gear bonuses that would affect the hate value of my taunts except for a +8 Aggression bonus on my bracers. I am wearing one item with a Hate Spike II proc. I did not use rescues.These are the hate numbers I achieved vs the training wall before I ran OOP after 1 minute 16 seconds (I terminated the fight and stopped logging at that point):Impede 131198 / 1726Gut Kick 48375 / 637Infraction 28888 / 380Guard 25860 / 340Sentinel Strike 23088 / 304Lay Waste 19586 / 258Hatespike II 6096 / 80Total 283091 / 3725Do note, this was vs a mob which didn't resist a single taunt, didn't avoid a single CA, didn't stun, didn't stifle, and didn't force me to use any oh-sh*t abilities, putting up defensive short-term buffs, or anything. This was an ideal situation, something you will rarely find vs actual mobs.I do find it disturbing in the extreme that a shadowknight--whose single-target DPS is already much higher than mine and who completely crushes me in AE DPS and hate generation--is able to not only match but beat me, a single-target tank, in pure hate generation. And let's not forget, he was fighting a genuine named, who resists, avoids, etc., while I was fighting a dummy who was hit by every single CA and taunt.

Antryg Mistrose

01-24-2009, 11:36 AM

Mini

01-24-2009, 11:57 AM

For what it is worth.. as a lvl 80 Guard.. Who the hell cares what my DPS is as long as I can hold agro. I am a tank, tanking is what I am supposed to do. If I wanted to play DPS, I should have picked a different toon.Now, as I started, as long as I can hold agro.

aislynn00

01-24-2009, 12:56 PM

<cite>Antryg Mistrose wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote>My guess, just based on those numbers, that the Paladin was playing pre-GU51 style primarily using CAs in his rotation and only using taunts secondarily (probably when it looked like he was losing aggro and the mob was twitching to the wizard). It would explain his relatively low threat output and higher damage. You can't do that now. All taunts, and all CAs with additional threat generation need to have first priority in the rotation. The old "I'll just throw out an AE taunt at the start for the debuff, and will only start taunting if the mob twitches" mentality won't work post-GU51.I wrote in another post, the way to think of it in the context of the game now is say that you had two low recast CAs that did 9K direct damage, and 3.5K AE damage respectively. Would you not use those each and every single time they were up? Sure you would. That's exactly how the new taunts need to be considered.Edit: One other point. In that named fight, I think it's a safe bet that the Paladin did not lead off with Sigil so he'd get fed hate right at the beginning of the fight; the fact that the wizard ripped from him 6 seconds in would tend to indicate that. While you obviously couldn't use Sigil in every fight with trash, against named, it's a tool that should definitely be used.</blockquote>It was test of aggro, and the tanks agreed, no posn increasing taunts (except the unavoidable restitution), no group hate siphons.I don't think your guess is correct.As you can't instantly cast all taunts then hit them exactly when they refresh, I think, l looking that the actual logs he did pretty darn well. There was theoretically room to cast ONE more group taunt and 2-3 single target ones. When taunts are down (which they are most of the time) - you cast somethimg else. Even my legendary geared paladin has worked that out against the training wall.p.s. If thats is your char Khaynex, then you really cannot compare a legendary shard armour geared char, to the two fabled / mythical equipped tanks in the post. Your figures are around what my legendary geared paladin gets.</blockquote>And why, pray tell, can't I compare the two? Mythicals don't have any bonuses which add to the hate of taunts and CA's with taunt components, so they are irrelevant, since I'm not looking at DPS.Raid gear doesn't matter either, unless those two were wearing one of those very few pieces of TSO raid armor with bonuses to base taunt amount and taunt crit. Were they? If so, it is easy to account for those bonuses, which are minor.If not, then those two character and mine are on exactly equal ground as far as pure hate generated by taunts and CA's goes (part of the problem with the changes; only a select few pieces of gear have any significant impact on taunt-generated hate).As for my figures being about on par with what your heroically equipped paladin gets, I don't doubt that. I'm not saying your paladin is generating too much hate; in fact, I'm saying that he is way below where he should be: namely, way ahead of any equivalently equipped shadow knight vs single mobs, just as such a shadowknight would be way ahead vs groups of mobs.

aislynn00

01-24-2009, 01:00 PM

<cite>Hakk@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>For what it is worth.. as a lvl 80 Guard.. Who the hell cares what my DPS is as long as I can hold agro. I am a tank, tanking is what I am supposed to do. If I wanted to play DPS, I should have picked a different toon.Now, as I started, as long as I can hold agro.</blockquote>Exactly. As long as you are able to hold aggro. That is the problem, though: our DPS is lower than that of a shadow knight, yet they also have us beaten in single-target pure hate generation, which ends up giving them a major hate generation advantage when combined with their DPS.Shadow knights should perhaps deal more DPS, even vs single targets, than guardians and paladins, but they should certainly not be even close to us in hate generation in that regard.

Jrral

01-24-2009, 01:52 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>Our QA department is doing a lot of testing and running through with other groups. The benefit of me being in the group was I could see what was happening.</blockquote>That's just it: you're testing in full groups, and probably concentrating on the fighter as the MT. A lot of fighters either aren't in a full group or aren't the MT. Try testing these scenarios:1. Take a full group into an instance with an off-tank along. No raid gear allowed, max RoK quest/instance legendary, broker-available or T1 shard gear, the stuff players who aren't tied in to raid guilds would have. Past the half-way point in a named fight, FD the main tank or otherwise take him out of the fight like would happen if he was killed. Test how the OT does picking up the mobs and taking over when he's been running in offensive stance, and how well the group does against the nameds in general with the OT running in defensive stance.2. Take a fighter-healer duo or a fighter-fighter-healer/fighter-fighter-healer trio through solo quest content and/or writs in Jarsath, Skyfire and Moors. Test how much trouble the tank has holding aggro and how much of a slog the killing actually is.Right now you're testing the designed target of your changes: the MT in a full group where the tank has no need to worry about doing damage but does have to worry a lot about aggro control. At work when I change code I'm never ever allowed to test just against what the change was supposed to fix. I'm always required to test it against a bunch of things it wasn't designed to fix, to make sure they all still work and the change didn't create more bugs elsewhere.

liveja

01-24-2009, 02:01 PM

<cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>2. Take a fighter-healer duo or a fighter-fighter-healer/fighter-fighter-healer trio through solo quest content and/or writs in Jarsath, Skyfire and Moors. Test how much trouble the tank has holding aggro and how much of a slog the killing actually is.</blockquote>Then, after conducting this test, & using the SAME healer ... replace the Fighter with a STA-spec'd Rogue, re-do the entire test, & see what happens. For real jollies, give the Rogue tanking equipment too, & test the Rogue's capabilities in both Off & Def Stance.Ideally, such a test should be conducted with all 6 Fighter classes & both Rogue classes, hopefully with a variety of healers as well.

Kordran

01-24-2009, 02:34 PM

<cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>Right now you're testing the designed target of your changes: the MT in a full group where the tank has no need to worry about doing damage but does have to worry a lot about aggro control. At work when I change code I'm never ever allowed to test just against what the change was supposed to fix. I'm always required to test it against a bunch of things it wasn't designed to fix, to make sure they all still work and the change didn't create more bugs elsewhere.</blockquote>In the same vein, you first have to make sure your code works as-intended and then you perform regression tests and start looking for boundary conditions. They haven't gotten past the first stage yet, and are still changing some of the core mechanics with how taunts and stances actually work.Big picture first, then the sideshow.

Glerin

01-24-2009, 02:43 PM

<cite>Khayne@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Antryg Mistrose wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote>My guess, just based on those numbers, that the Paladin was playing pre-GU51 style primarily using CAs in his rotation and only using taunts secondarily (probably when it looked like he was losing aggro and the mob was twitching to the wizard). It would explain his relatively low threat output and higher damage. You can't do that now. All taunts, and all CAs with additional threat generation need to have first priority in the rotation. The old "I'll just throw out an AE taunt at the start for the debuff, and will only start taunting if the mob twitches" mentality won't work post-GU51.I wrote in another post, the way to think of it in the context of the game now is say that you had two low recast CAs that did 9K direct damage, and 3.5K AE damage respectively. Would you not use those each and every single time they were up? Sure you would. That's exactly how the new taunts need to be considered.Edit: One other point. In that named fight, I think it's a safe bet that the Paladin did not lead off with Sigil so he'd get fed hate right at the beginning of the fight; the fact that the wizard ripped from him 6 seconds in would tend to indicate that. While you obviously couldn't use Sigil in every fight with trash, against named, it's a tool that should definitely be used.</blockquote>It was test of aggro, and the tanks agreed, no posn increasing taunts (except the unavoidable restitution), no group hate siphons.I don't think your guess is correct.As you can't instantly cast all taunts then hit them exactly when they refresh, I think, l looking that the actual logs he did pretty darn well. There was theoretically room to cast ONE more group taunt and 2-3 single target ones. When taunts are down (which they are most of the time) - you cast somethimg else. Even my legendary geared paladin has worked that out against the training wall.p.s. If thats is your char Khaynex, then you really cannot compare a legendary shard armour geared char, to the two fabled / mythical equipped tanks in the post. Your figures are around what my legendary geared paladin gets.</blockquote>Mythicals don't have any bonuses which add to the hate of taunts and CA's with taunt components, so they are irrelevant, since I'm not looking at DPS.</blockquote>that statement is untrue actually since the SK one have a proc that makes all their heals generate 300% extra aggro, unfortunately that can't be parsed though

01-24-2009, 04:17 PM

I just looked on Test for the first time. The RoK AA triggered Berserk is now a stupid mish mash between berserk in Offensive and berserk in Defensive. It should mirror whatever the stance-induced affect is. Also, Offensive Stance does not increase the displayed damage amount of my CAs. Is the +8% to both the min and max?

Powers

01-24-2009, 05:17 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>Everyones feedback is important and its used but the true success of this update is that aggro tables scale up properly against the exponential gains players see at the higher level.</blockquote>Maybe you should be fixing that exponential curve, eh? Shouldn't it be linear, or at least closer to linear than exponential? That's one of the biggest problems with mentoring, in fact.Powers &8^]

Tehom

01-24-2009, 06:15 PM

Anyone complaining about lack of low level testing or non-raidgeared testers doesn't seem to understand how these changes were crafted. Fighters are holding aggro primarily through their base taunts, which are all skills/spells that are largely unmodified by gear or level. DPS and hate generation for non-fighters, however, increases exponentially with gear and level. If a fighter at level 80 can hold aggro largely with just taunts over well geared dps classes, it'll be far easier as gear and/or levels are reduced.

Jrral

01-24-2009, 06:56 PM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote>In the same vein, you first have to make sure your code works as-intended and then you perform regression tests and start looking for boundary conditions. They haven't gotten past the first stage yet, and are still changing some of the core mechanics with how taunts and stances actually work.Big picture first, then the sideshow.</blockquote>That assumes though that off-tanking and solo content are considered side-shows and the primary focus of players should be on the heroic instances and raiding. That has never been the case in EQ2. And it can't be the case if you want to attract the casual players.As for not paying attention to the requirements during design, any software developer who does that will find himself out of work fairly quickly (or relegated to minor work only). When you've got more to the program than the piece you're working on, you always have to consider up front what your changes are going to do to the rest of the program. If you don't, if you wait until you've got all the work done to find out what else it broke, you'll often find that you broke other parts of the system that must function correctly and you broke them in ways that aren't fixable. Then you have to back your changes out and start over from scratch, and your boss is going to be very very unhappy about being chewed out by management for failing to deliver as promised and costing the company one or more major customers.

Mirander_1

01-24-2009, 08:34 PM

<cite>Powers wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>Everyones feedback is important and its used but the true success of this update is that aggro tables scale up properly against the exponential gains players see at the higher level.</blockquote>Maybe you should be fixing that exponential curve, eh? Shouldn't it be linear, or at least closer to linear than exponential? That's one of the biggest problems with mentoring, in fact.Powers &8^]</blockquote>Going from Aeralik's previous posts, part of the purpose of GU 51 was to change taunting from linear to exponential. The reason being that basically everything else in the game increases exponentially, which is part of the reason why fighters would gain aggro via dps.

Antryg Mistrose

01-24-2009, 09:13 PM

<cite>Khayne@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>And why, pray tell, can't I compare the two? Mythicals don't have any bonuses which add to the hate of taunts and CA's with taunt components, so they are irrelevant, since I'm not looking at DPS.Raid gear doesn't matter either, unless those two were wearing one of those very few pieces of TSO raid armor with bonuses to base taunt amount and taunt crit. </blockquote>I didn't check exactly what they were wearing, but if you want to account for things, try accounting for Blessings, Divine Recovery and Death March, and whatever else was cast in the GROUP.It really is a stretch to compare/extrapolate anything from a group dungeon setting to solo whacking a wall.

Jrral

01-25-2009, 05:39 PM

<cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>Then, after conducting this test, & using the SAME healer ... replace the Fighter with a STA-spec'd Rogue, re-do the entire test, & see what happens. For real jollies, give the Rogue tanking equipment too, & test the Rogue's capabilities in both Off & Def Stance.Ideally, such a test should be conducted with all 6 Fighter classes & both Rogue classes, hopefully with a variety of healers as well.</blockquote>I've already done some of that. My berserker can, for instance, tank in a small group without a damage class nicely through sheer DPS output in offensive stance. I just have to be careful about adds, because with the new changes I've no fast way to drag a mob off the healer if one comes in. I'd expect a swashie or brigand to be able to do similarly well because like the 'zerker they've a lot of fast attacks so they can keep up the steady stream. A paladin has more trouble, their attacks may be a bit bigger but they take longer to get off so there's more dead time when aggro can go astray.Honestly, I think what I said about my 'zerker summarizes the problems with Aeralik's approach. He wants to keep tanks from tanking by sheer DPS, and I agree that in a full group that's needed (the DPS spiral is getting out of control). But those same changes are forcing me into tanking by sheer DPS in any situation other than a full group. If I'm in a duo or trio with low-damage types, I'm well advised to throw away defensive stance, ignore all my hate-generation abilities, dump my tanking gear and gear myself up like a chain wearer. In fact, I'm probably well-advised to put my plate armor in the bank and don chain myself. Against solo content with a competent healer I can afford the mitigation loss, and the additional damage stats and effects on scout-oriented gear will help me hold aggro better while insuring I can do my job as primary damage-dealer. I don't think that's at all what Aeralik intends, but it's looking more and more like that's what his changes will force me to do.As for off-tanking, I've pretty much given up on it at this point. With the changes in their current state, an off-tank can only do one half of their job. A group's better off dropping the second tank in favor of either additional damage to help burn the mob down before the off-tank would've needed to tank anything or a second healer to reduce the need for an OT in case the MT goes down.

liveja

01-25-2009, 08:02 PM

<cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'd expect a swashie or brigand to be able to do similarly well</blockquote>I'd almost expect them to do better, because Swashies (at least) have two different "taunts", neither of which is tied to Defensive Stance.They're not as effective as REAL taunts, but they've always seemed to work well when I need to snap aggro back to myself while tanking for a warden. Sleight of Hand might actually do so as well, though I've not yet tried it in that situation, mainly because my erstwhile Warden partner is mostly playing her Coercer these days.

aislynn00

01-25-2009, 09:33 PM

<cite>Antryg Mistrose wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Khayne@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>And why, pray tell, can't I compare the two? Mythicals don't have any bonuses which add to the hate of taunts and CA's with taunt components, so they are irrelevant, since I'm not looking at DPS.Raid gear doesn't matter either, unless those two were wearing one of those very few pieces of TSO raid armor with bonuses to base taunt amount and taunt crit. </blockquote>I didn't check exactly what they were wearing, but if you want to account for things, try accounting for Blessings, Divine Recovery and Death March, and whatever else was cast in the GROUP.</blockquote>Blessings affects two of the shadowknight's pure hate-generating abilities: Unholy Strike and Hatespike II. Blessings increases the proc chance of said abilities by 20%, which caused them to generate an additional 64 hate per second (4047 total hate for the fight). So subtract 64 hate per second to elimitate Blessings from the equation.Death March and Divine Recovery only affect casting time and, in the case of Divine Recovery, recovery time, neither of which has a major impact on a shadowknight's pure hate generation (their impact on his DPS is far more significant, but that is another matter entirely).Most of the hate generated by the shadowknight came from Shadowknight's Furor that just had to be cast once during the fight (something like 4 min reuse), passive procs (100% proc chance), and of course, the single-target and group taunts, both of which have casting times of 0.25 sec and 0.5 sec recovery time. I'm afraid you aren't going to be able to squeeze in even one single more taunt during a 63 sec fight by reducing those numbers with Death March and Divine Recovery.Interestingly enough, though, I did forget about one aspect of Death March: it generates one hell of a lot of hate in its own right, hate which can't be parsed. Even more of an advantage for the shadowknight right there.<blockquote>It really is a stretch to compare/extrapolate anything from a group dungeon setting to solo whacking a wall.</blockquote>If we were talking DPS, I would concur, but not with regards to hate generation.There really aren't a lot of unknown positive factors: Since you didn't have a coercer or dirge, we have effectively eliminated all taunt base and taunt crit buffs.What remains are proc enhancers and recast time reducers. You had a cleric (accounted for above), but again, no dirge, so no need to worry about Luck of the Dirge.That covers proc enhancers, unless the tank was wearing those crappy fabled shoulders from Ravenscale Repository. I somehow doubt that he was, and I don't know of any other tier 8 gear which boosts proc probability.Your group doesn't have any recast time reducers in the guise of buffs or spells. Possibly minor buffs on gear, but even if that were the case, my own recast times are permanently reduced by 12%, which undoubtedly is more than what the shadowknight enjoyed, so I should be even further ahead in hate generation.On the other hand, there are a lot of factors which would certainly reduce the shadowknight's hate generation in an actual boss mob fight compared to a staged fight vs a training wall: o A real mob parries, dodges, blocks, and otherwise avoids attacks with hate components. o A real mob resists. o A real mob stuns and stifles (Death March would take care of that while up, though). o A real mob might even necessitate that you do something like healing yourself instead of taunting for a couple of seconds in order to survive a damage spike.All of that would reduce the shadowknight's hate per second. And yet, the AE tank fighting an instance boss still generated more hate per second than the single-target specialist fighting a training wall.And you think that is reasonable?

Powers

01-26-2009, 11:15 AM

<cite>Mirander@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Powers wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>Everyones feedback is important and its used but the true success of this update is that aggro tables scale up properly against the exponential gains players see at the higher level.</blockquote>Maybe you should be fixing that exponential curve, eh? Shouldn't it be linear, or at least closer to linear than exponential? That's one of the biggest problems with mentoring, in fact.Powers &8^]</blockquote>Going from Aeralik's previous posts, part of the purpose of GU 51 was to change taunting from linear to exponential. The reason being that basically everything else in the game increases exponentially, which is part of the reason why fighters would gain aggro via dps.</blockquote>Yeah, I know... I'm saying, shouldn't everything in the game increase linearly? It would help mitigate the problem of having mentors who are insanely powerful relative to the people they are mentoring.Powers &8^]

Junaru

01-26-2009, 12:09 PM

<cite>Khayne@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>Paladins and guardians should be as far ahead in single-target hate generation as shadowknights are ahead of paladins and guardians in AE hate generation.</blockquote>Would really love it if people started including the other TWO TANKS in their posts.

Kordran

01-26-2009, 12:50 PM

<cite>Junaru wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would really love it if people started including the other TWO TANKS in their posts.</blockquote>Honestly, that's a result of both game mechanics and player convention where Brawlers are considered to be DPS. The number of you that actually want to "tank" constitutes a pretty small percentage. And with TSO, the number of mobs who strike-through, have high damage AEs and very high spike damage, your significantly lower mitigation can tend to make you a liability. I've been in raids where a Monk was used to try and OT relatively simple fights like Tilas and Ikalus. Healers were simply unable to keep him up; things would look like they were going well, and then a second later, he was eating dirt. Note that I'm not saying that it's impossible, just in my experience it's not practical because you're good at avoiding hits, but when you take a few hard ones, you fold.From my own personal experience, I've run into very few Brawlers who actually want to tank encounters. They'll do it in a pinch, but they prefer to DPS and leave the tanking to the plate fighters.

Morrolan V

01-26-2009, 03:18 PM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Junaru wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would really love it if people started including the other TWO TANKS in their posts.</blockquote>Honestly, that's a result of both game mechanics and player convention where Brawlers are considered to be DPS. The number of you that actually want to "tank" constitutes a pretty small percentage. And with TSO, the number of mobs who strike-through, have high damage AEs and very high spike damage, your significantly lower mitigation can tend to make you a liability. I've been in raids where a Monk was used to try and OT relatively simple fights like Tilas and Ikalus. Healers were simply unable to keep him up; things would look like they were going well, and then a second later, he was eating dirt. Note that I'm not saying that it's impossible, just in my experience it's not practical because you're good at avoiding hits, but when you take a few hard ones, you fold.From my own personal experience, I've run into very few Brawlers who actually want to tank encounters. They'll do it in a pinch, but they prefer to DPS and leave the tanking to the plate fighters.</blockquote>Brawlers are tanks, and SOE balances us as tanks. It's not helpful to say that "it's harder for brawlers to tank some fights, so they are DPS". We are not ever going to be tier 1 DPS, so we have to look at all aspects of the class, just like the other tanks.Which is to say, I agree with you completely re: single target/multi target tanking. The two things are not balanced AT ALL. I tank all the time in groups and off tank raids in TSO (I have off tanked both Tilas and Ikalus many times). I can consistently tank the librarian fight in Palace of Ferzhul. And I can't tank the front hall of caverns of the afflicted, the "easy" zone off CL. It's one thing to gather two 4 mob encounters (like in Outer Stronghold). That's VERY hard, but can be done with on the ball crowd control and aggro savvy dps. I simply CANNOT keep control of three 10 mob encounters. I can do that zone as the nominal tank in some groups (rogue heavy ones) because the DPS can take the hits, but I cannot "tank" it. On the other hand, I have done the zone with our SK tanking and it's stupid simple. The reverse is not true - I have never seen the SK struggle particularly or go OOP holding aggro on a single target.It's been said before, and it's still true: the single target/multi target tank dichotomy is NOT balanced and needs to be fixed. Either give the single target tanks more aoe control options or balance it another way - MUCH more single target hate, MUCH more single target DPS, or a combination of both. The power effiency argument, by the way, is weak. How many tanks of either stripe struggle with power holding aggro on a single target? As it stands, where at least half of the heroic content in the current expansion is multiple mob encounters, the situation is very unbalanced.