Aeralik, a reasoned question:

[Eueadan]

<p>Aeralik, in reading through all the Amends discussion, I see several trends in the various posts that lead to a question.  The answer to the question might help everyone to understand what is going on, and how to best give feedback.</p><p>The question:</p><p>What, exactly, is the paladin's role:</p><p>(a) Solo (i.e. what can they do better than other classes);</p><p>(b) In groups (i.e. why/when would a group want to choose a Paladin over other tanks);</p><p>and</p><p>(c) In raids (i.e. why is a Paladin essential to have in your raid force)?</p><p>It seems like everyone is freaking out about amends not because they are overreacting, but because they fear losing any and all roles and advantages that give paladins a reason to exist.</p><p>If nerfing one "overpowered" ability causes this type of outcry, perhaps the problem is not that people are being childish, perhaps we just don't understand what your vision of our role is, and need some guidance to help you fix it.</p><p>Obviously, many paladins have previously thought paladins were supposed to excel in hate control, and saw amends as essential to that role.</p><p>More importantly, perhaps we could give you better, legimate feedback regarding how to balance paladin if we understood that vision.</p><p>Instead of starting the discussion with "ok guys, now don't be jerks" (which starts the conversation like a drunken sailor throwing insults to pick a fight), perhaps you could say "we have a great vision that will make Paladin a really useful, but balanced class, please help us determine how to accomplish that."</p><p>Personally, I could care less whether we have amends or not.  I would just like to know what my job is, and how I can help ensure that I can adequately do that job.</p>

[Freliant]

<p>A paladin is a fighter that can heal. In order to be able to heal, he gave up a little bit of tanking potential. In my opinion, Paladins should increase the heal potential and heal cast times of every healer in the raid, just like a Shadowknight is a fighter that can tank and increases the casting potential of all mages in the raid. And a Berzerker is a fighter that went down the melee skills route and increases the melee potential of everyone in their group. Guardians don't get any of those 3 things since they focused on getting their defenses up.</p><p>With that said, no other fighter should tank better than a guardian. So in a raid, they should be the main pick. A zerker would be good for off tanking mobs, a SK for increasing the potential of casters, and it should follow that the paladin should increase the healing potential of the healers. That kinda squares away all the facets.</p>

[Boethius_Permafrost]

<p>So your theory is that paladins should be useless, but their +healing buff could be upgraded a little, so they can stand around doing nothing at raids?</p><p>Your position is untenable.  First of all, if paladins and guardians share the same design role, why should Guardians be better?  Second, guardians don't give up anything.  They have more and more useful buffs and debuffs, and their heals are far more powerful than paladin heals, already.</p><p>Hey, if you can call a ward a heal, then you can call stoneskin and riposte immunity heals. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Boli32]

<p>A reasoned answer:</p><p>A paladin out parsed me once whilst tanking...so I'm nerfing them - deal with it.</p>

[Freliant]

<p><cite>Enrico@Permafrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So your theory is that paladins should be useless, but their +healing buff could be upgraded a little, so they can stand around doing nothing at raids?</p><p>Your position is untenable.  First of all, if paladins and guardians share the same design role, why should Guardians be better?  Second, guardians don't give up anything.  They have more and more useful buffs and debuffs, and their heals are far more powerful than paladin heals, already.</p><p>Hey, if you can call a ward a heal, then you can call stoneskin and riposte immunity heals. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>The stoneskin effect is not something Guardians "call" whenever they want to. They use it once every few minutes which gives you a chance to proc a stoneskin while its up for a max of 5 procs that are not guaranteed.</p><p>I know of Paladins that solo ^^^ content because of the fact that they can heal themselves. This gives them an edge in solo and group content. However I know you will immediately chime in with something about "edge in group and solo" and then try to bring a witty remark reguarding that not applying to raids.</p><p>My pre-emtive retort is that my suggesting for heal buff increase is founded in how the other fighter classes are focused on one particular aspect.</p><p>Are you trying to force the devs into stating a specific purpose for all tanks in a raid, or are you actually trying to take over the only thing that the guardian can do well? Raids are what decide what they want their fighters to do on a per encounter basis. Some times they will be off tanking, sometimes they will be buff bots, sometimes they will be dpsing, and some times they will be tanking, depending on the necesity of the raid. What is the purpose of the paladin... whatever your raid needs.</p>

[Eueadan]

<p><cite>Freliant wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>A paladin is a fighter that can heal. In order to be able to heal, he gave up a little bit of tanking potential. In my opinion, Paladins should increase the heal potential and heal cast times of every healer in the raid, just like a Shadowknight is a fighter that can tank and increases the casting potential of all mages in the raid. And a Berzerker is a fighter that went down the melee skills route and increases the melee potential of everyone in their group. Guardians don't get any of those 3 things since they focused on getting their defenses up.</p><p>With that said, no other fighter should tank better than a guardian. So in a raid, they should be the main pick. A zerker would be good for off tanking mobs, a SK for increasing the potential of casters, and it should follow that the paladin should increase the healing potential of the healers. That kinda squares away all the facets.</p></blockquote><p>I could live with this sort of raid role (albiet, it does nothing for grouping) if it is something that feedback shows raiders would perceive as useful.</p><p>The real issue that I think is agitating anyone is that the amends nerf FEELS random.  It feels like the devs are picking a random ability that someone on the team doesn't like/understand, and changing it because they can.</p><p>I tend to believe that is not the case, and the devs have a reasoned plan.  I would hope that this nerf is part of an overall plan to better paladin and help the class.  That's why I ask the question: "So, what's the plan?"  I think everyone would be less vocal about the change if they understood.</p><p>Then again, I guess it is possible that the change could also be exactly what some believe it to be: a (1) random, (2) unreasoned, nerf that (3) has no vision or rationale.  If that is case we will never hear an answer, and it will make me sad.</p>

[Eueadan]

<p><cite>Freliant wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Are you trying to force the devs into stating a specific purpose for all tanks in a raid, or are you actually trying to take over the only thing that the guardian can do well?</blockquote><p>By the way...I disagree with the implication of this statement (whether it is what you meant or not) and think it is the root of the problem.</p><p>I often hear people make the argument that guardians should be the #1 choice for raid tank.  I think that is bunk, and about as far from "balance" as is possible.</p><p>There are 6 "tank" classes, and all should have a major raid role.  All should be the #1 choice for some encounter.  No class should have a monopoly on tanking for every encounter.</p><p>Maybe guardians have abilities that protect against major damage spikes, so they excel against raid mobs that periodically hit overly hard.</p><p>Maybe Paladins have an instant hate advantage, and excel in situations where the raid mob mem wipes a lot.</p><p>And so on and so on...</p><p>Every tank should be designed to be #1 in SOMETHING.  Every tank should be the optimal choice for some type of raid encounter.</p>

[Kordran]

<p>In terms of raiding, the "niche" would seem to be snap aggro as an offtank. If you see what other fighters are complaining about, it's issues with offtanking in o-stance, then having to pick up the mob and work their way up through the threat list. Paladins really don't have that issue. Holy Ground + Restitution means that you're on top, tanking the mob almost immediately (the new recast on stance switches means that you'll be in "no stance" for 5 seconds though).</p><p>Since most Paladins are OTs in raids, the real question is going to be how fights like Thuuga, Overking, etc. play out. A lot of raids also have their Paladins MT Pawbuster; it'll be interesting to see if the new ability to use their single taunt through a stun coupled with Restitution is enough to allow them to hold aggro in that fight. My guess is that it'll require the two-tank tango just as if you have a Guardian MT and Berserker OT.</p>

[Prestissimo]

<p>I seriously hope that raiding goes down in flames because of the change because then aeralik can't pretend that things are working and will have to fix it.  He hasn't tested raid content in test with these changes or if he has, he sure hasn't made it apparent that he understands the concept of being able to taunt enough to hold hate against 9k dpsing toons.  No matter what happens, without some form of passive hate leeching or some form of way to control the highest dpsing toon/extremes, raiding wont work because theres such a spread of dps rates between one raid force and another.</p><p>You can't just use only raw taunts and have the same tank that can barely taunt for a 150k raid turn around and hold agro against a 195k dps fight or have that same tank go into a PuG group and be completely uncontested for hate.  There is no balance in that at all.  There has to be some form of transfering or something modifying the hate rates to keep the tank right at the cap of the hate list, but additionally leaving enough room that someone could potentially overtake him if they nuked too hard, otherwise this game has effectively become "he who has the highest taunts = the best tank of all that cannot lose agro to anyone."</p>

[Boethius_Permafrost]

<p><cite>Freliant wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Enrico@Permafrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...</p><p>Your position is untenable.  First of all, if paladins and guardians share the same design role, why should Guardians be better?</p><p>...</p></blockquote><p>...</p><p>Are you trying to force the devs into stating a specific purpose for all tanks in a raid, or are you actually trying to take over the only thing that the guardian can do well?</p><p>...</p></blockquote><p>Two points. </p><p>First: This isn't my idea.  It's Aerick's plan to make paladins and guardians have the same role, but if he does that, then they have to be comparable, and you'll have to compete with other tanks to be the main tank.  MY plan would be to make them similar, but have guardians have better defense and paladins have better agro generation.  I would have them both be important members of the raid.  (Actually, my plan would have been to keep paladins as AE tanks, like they always have been, and make SK's into the single target tank, since they are the ones who needed a role.)</p><p>Second: You're trying to get sympathy for guardians being locked into a narrow niche roll like MT?  Go away.</p>

[Kiara]

<p>As noted in the other locked thread, please, please, either respond in an appropriate feedback thread, or start an appropriately titled thread with your concerns.</p><p>Please do not continue to start threads directly addressing staff members.</p><p>It's very expressly against the Forum Rules and will result in locks as it is getting out of hand.</p>