Fighter Ballancing Suggestion [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Vulkan_NTooki

02-05-2009, 12:31 PM

Ventisly

02-05-2009, 03:32 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>Since the other thread with suggestions / comments got moved, I'll start another with the actual suggestion comments only.My suggestion to the changes on test:1) remove buff consolidation period.2) remove negative taunt penalties from offensive stance3) possibly further increase hit rates in defensive stanceIf you want to make O-stance tanking more difficult, add a shield effectiveness penalty to it, however do not remove the playstyle entirely. No matter where the penalties lie, there just reaches a point where the content is trivial, and fighters should be able to still hold aggro while sacrificing un-needed survivability for dps.Thats really all I see broken at the moment. There is no GOOD reason to prevent me from tanking trivial encounters in offensive stances. I'm not beating T1 or T2 DPS doing so, which is what I read as the only reason for the changes. Oh, and I'm not concerned with how many buffs I have to cast. SoE's credability would raise significantly if such BS wasn't fed to us.The update should open up more options to fighters, not take options away.</blockquote>1) I think you are more asking for buffs not to be changed or limited to one stance or another. There were several guard buffs that were merged into either our group buff or into both our def and off stances unchanged so I don't see a problem with consolidation in general except in cases where the buff is only available on one stance but not the other.2) We need to get an answer to this basic question, is group/raid tanking in off stance going to be practically possible? I think the general answer to this is no, they are trying to get tanks back to the roots of taking damage and holding aggro per the initial post about the hate changes by Aeralik. And your suggestions about adding a shield penalty is pretty funny considering how most warriors dual wield in off stance and brawlers...well...I'll let you figure that one out.3) It seems to always come back to the DPS, even when in defensive. So if you are concerned about procs based on hitting the mob, just make sure those are balanced compared to the other tanks. I've seen the hate proc for pallys (based on hitting the mob) compared to the hate proc for guards (based on getting hit). Sure, the hate proc for hitting the mob won't go off nearly as often in def stance as it could go off in off stance, but then the hate proc for guards doesn't go off nearly as often either with the tank's self avoidance and additional cleric/tank avoidance on them. Calculate how much overall hate is generated by each tank in a typical group or raid situation and show the math. I'm sure the devs do some calculations to try to keep the overall amounts similar even though the methods for generating aggro are different from class to class. And you can't just look at one proc, you have to balance all the aggro tools for the tanks, procs, dps, taunts, heals,... Do the devs get stuff wrong? Sure, but in order to point this out you need to show them some numbers to point out problems with their equations, not just ask for more of whatever which they will view as imbalancing their equations.

Yimway

02-05-2009, 04:03 PM

<cite>Gaktar@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>2) We need to get an answer to this basic question, is group/raid tanking in off stance going to be practically possible? I think the general answer to this is no, they are trying to get tanks back to the roots of taking damage and holding aggro per the initial post about the hate changes by Aeralik. And your suggestions about adding a shield penalty is pretty funny considering how most warriors dual wield in off stance and brawlers...well...I'll let you figure that one out.</blockquote>This is exactly my concern / exception with the changes. Tanks should be able to tank in offensive as they do now vs content that is trivial. Taking that away is a mistake. Taking away choices is a mistake. Thats why I make these suggestions to give fighters the choice to play different builds depending on the difficulty of the encounter in front of them.Being forced into defensive builds to tank content that offers ZERO challenge is not a wise move, and will make the class borring and lopsided.Regarding hit rates in defensive: Quite a few of our taunts are also CAs and do not use the aggression system for to-hit chance. Then look at abilities like reinforcement that have a 100% proc rate for 13s. If we can't hit the mob effectively in defensive stance, the usefullness of the snap aggro abilites that rely on the melee hit check is problematic in defensive builds.I tried to get some meaningful data on this, but trying to get group/raids togeter on test vs high orange cons was time wasted, in-stead I have to look at the current hitrates on live in these builds, and it looks to be problematic as I stated.

RafaelSmith

02-05-2009, 04:27 PM

I have been thinking alot last couple days about all this fighter "balancing" stuff.I have come to the conclusion that they are really making moutains out of mole hills and trying to change/fix WAY TOO much at one time.With the exception of a few tweaks that I think are needed to the current mechanic that is on live......what exactly is so out of balance on live? Some well geared, well played fighters are able to tank in O-stance and actually provide some DPS? how is that bad. Seriously.......ive been grouping alot with various classes from my guild....the only time any of our fighters match or out DPS the pure DPS classes is when those DPS classes are either lower level, poorly geared, or in some case just not good at playing their class.Life is not great for me as Guard in TSO......but frankly after thinking about things...I would rather just keep struggling than have the game dumbed down and/or totally negate the hard effort alot of other players better than I have done to optimize their characters.Just tweak things so that those of us that choose to be as tanky as possible can do our job with a little less frustration dn struggle.My last one word of advice to SOE.........K.I.S.S As software developers they should know what that means <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Elanjar

02-05-2009, 04:45 PM

Since this is a "consolidated suggestion thread" I will again post my suggestions here. These will go in priority and are suggested changes to what is currently on test1) Agro generation potential needs to be EQUAL in both stances. - Allow taunting in offensive but have a % taunt penalty making their values approximately equal to amounts on live - lower dps + higher taunts (defensive) = higher dps + lower taunts (offensive) - NOTE* i do think that you should keep the 10% hate reduction for OT and 2nd group fighter roles. (agro potential still equal)2) Unlink recast timers for each stance. OR Remove the 5 sec recast to 0 seconds.3) If dps is going to be further reduced in defensive (ie -0.5 multiplier) then its survivability needs to be enhanced via uncontested damage reduction (stoneskin, dodge, etc...), additionally if damage taken is going to be increased (ie 5-10% extra damage taken) then dps need to be enhanced more by offensive. -suggestions for defensive: stoneskin or dodge chance. perhaps even on a times per minute basis -suggestions for offensive: higher dmg procs or procs that increase things like double attack, melee crit, flurry, crit amount (or just add a +0.5 multiplier)I know it is desired that tanks utilize defensive stance more. I dont mind this being encouraged but at the moment it is forced. To encourage more common use of defensive stance the survivability/dps gap between the stances needs to be increased. Make it so offensive can be used only on truely trivial zones or if you have end game raid gear. On the flip side I know many tanks that only use offensive because it has superior agro control. If defensive had the same agro control they would use defensive nearly full time.

RafaelSmith

02-05-2009, 04:53 PM

<cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote> Make it so offensive can be used only on truely trivial zones or if you have end game raid gear. On the flip side I know many tanks that only use offensive because it has superior agro control. If defensive had the same agro control they would use defensive nearly full time.</blockquote>This pretty much sums up what I think should be the ultimate goal of any changes to fighters.My healers and groupmates would much prefer I use D-stance.....as do I.

Bruener

02-05-2009, 06:05 PM

My recommendations: 1. Leave offensive stance the way it is on Live, or if you really think you need to take more out of the stance leave the fighter takes 10% more damage on it. Hate should be the same for fighters whether they are in offensive stance using DPS more or if they are in Defensive stance using taunts more. 2. Get rid of the 5 sec recast on stances. Unlink them if you have to than increase the recast on each single stance to 15 seconds. 3. The defensive stances look pretty good but DPS in them takes a little too much of a hit because of multiple factors adding up. Leave the -.5 melee mod on there, but iincrease the +skills in defensive so that tanks can hit the mobs more. Auto attack is a huge passive hate gain, and when hitting the mob less this is a problem.

Landiin

02-05-2009, 09:47 PM

1: leave O stance the way it is on live now but negate any hate it would generate or could be transferred to you while in O stance. (either tank or DPS, I see no reason why we should be able to do both)2: If you insists on lowering our hit skill and etc while in D stance; you need to add threat to every combat art we have. Something like: adds DMG * 2 threat to every CA or even just every melee hit.I would find it just as challenging to try an produce enuff HPS to keep agro off the DPSers as I do now trying to produce enuff DPS to keep agro off. I know we are accustom to producing our share of DPS to make the group that much more productive but really this shouldn't of ever been part of our job.

Yimway

02-05-2009, 11:12 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>I would find it just as challenging to try an produce enuff HPS to keep agro off the DPSers as I do now trying to produce enuff DPS to keep agro off. I know we are accustom to producing our share of DPS to make the group that much more productive but really this shouldn't of ever been part of our job.</blockquote>It is and always has been part of the fighters job to contribute to dps from eq1 launch to present. It's just a secondary task to holding aggro and staying alive.For content where staying alive and holding aggro is trivial, dps is your only focus.

Eugam

02-06-2009, 07:30 AM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>I would find it just as challenging to try an produce enuff HPS to keep agro off the DPSers as I do now trying to produce enuff DPS to keep agro off. I know we are accustom to producing our share of DPS to make the group that much more productive but really this shouldn't of ever been part of our job.</blockquote>It is and always has been part of the fighters job to contribute to dps from eq1 launch to present. It's just a secondary task to holding aggro and staying alive.For content where staying alive and holding aggro is trivial, dps is your only focus.</blockquote>Where did you dig out this myth ? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />In EQ2 there was no encounter that allowed you to go off stance. LOL. A huge part of the mobs where 6 linked heroics ^^^. The game was balanced mob HP vs. group powerpool. DPS had do go out to kill the mob before tank and healers are oom. That requried the tank to taunt the mobs away from heal and dps. Back then nobody cared about tank or healer dps. Group survivability was the only thing people cared for. And trust me, grey heroics where able to wipe you back then <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Both, healers and tanks got some dps when quests where more and more solo content and it was a pain to kill a mob for tanks and healers. On MoA solo instance i was on wave 3 when all my guildies went to bed <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> beacuse healer dps was almost non existent.

Vulkan_NTooki

02-06-2009, 09:18 AM

<cite>Eugam wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>I would find it just as challenging to try an produce enuff HPS to keep agro off the DPSers as I do now trying to produce enuff DPS to keep agro off. I know we are accustom to producing our share of DPS to make the group that much more productive but really this shouldn't of ever been part of our job.</blockquote>It is and always has been part of the fighters job to contribute to dps from eq1 launch to present. It's just a secondary task to holding aggro and staying alive.For content where staying alive and holding aggro is trivial, dps is your only focus.</blockquote>Where did you dig out this myth ? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />In EQ2 there was no encounter that allowed you to go off stance. LOL. A huge part of the mobs where 6 linked heroics ^^^. The game was balanced mob HP vs. group powerpool. DPS had do go out to kill the mob before tank and healers are oom. That requried the tank to taunt the mobs away from heal and dps. Back then nobody cared about tank or healer dps. Group survivability was the only thing people cared for. And trust me, grey heroics where able to wipe you back then <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />Both, healers and tanks got some dps when quests where more and more solo content and it was a pain to kill a mob for tanks and healers. On MoA solo instance i was on wave 3 when all my guildies went to bed <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> beacuse healer dps was almost non existent.</blockquote>Weird... I cant remember struggling like you suggest here.. played since launch and its basically the same now as it was then. Kill the mob before it kills you. The only way to do this, is to my knowledge, damage.If any, the only difference I see is that back then we all ran around in treasured/crafted gear, cause legendary gear was hard to come by.. Now u can get fabled items even in heroic instances, giving "casual" players a chance to even out the playing field a little, but also making content trivial faster.Maxing out your character has allways been the same tho... its just the priority of which stat to improve first..Mitigation > HP > Sta > Str/Int (dps) back when avoidance never was an issueAvoidance > HP > Sta > Mitigation > DPS when they launched diminishing returnsDPS > Avoidance > HP > Mitigation when u got to the point where diminishing returns made it more valuable to increase dps vs increasing the other stats further.This resulted in most tanks having several sets of gear giving them the option to tweak surviveability vs dps depending on the encounter at hand. Further into the life span dps does more and more dps, but taunts didnt follow the same progression, and tanks found them self more and more often in offensive just to hold aggro. This doesnt mean that tank dps is a bad thing.. It means u need to get defensive on par with dps for aggro reasons and making it a viable stance for tanking content that requires surviveability.

Yimway

02-06-2009, 12:26 PM

<cite>Eugam wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>It is and always has been part of the fighters job to contribute to dps from eq1 launch to present. It's just a secondary task to holding aggro and staying alive.For content where staying alive and holding aggro is trivial, dps is your only focus.</blockquote>Where did you dig out this myth ? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />In EQ2 there was no encounter that allowed you to go off stance. LOL. A huge part of the mobs where 6 linked heroics ^^^. The game was balanced mob HP vs. group powerpool. DPS had do go out to kill the mob before tank and healers are oom. That requried the tank to taunt the mobs away from heal and dps. Back then nobody cared about tank or healer dps. Group survivability was the only thing people cared for. And trust me, grey heroics where able to wipe you back then <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />Both, healers and tanks got some dps when quests where more and more solo content and it was a pain to kill a mob for tanks and healers. On MoA solo instance i was on wave 3 when all my guildies went to bed <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> beacuse healer dps was almost non existent.</blockquote>I've been MTing since about 1998 thru eq1 and eq2, and it is no myth. Tanking is and always has been controlling agro, positioning mob, staying alive, and maximizing dps thru that process.We absolutely should be able to focus on maximizing dps when in content where our other tasks are trivial, otherwise the game itself becomes too trivial to keep our attention.

Landiin

02-06-2009, 12:32 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>I would find it just as challenging to try an produce enuff HPS to keep agro off the DPSers as I do now trying to produce enuff DPS to keep agro off. I know we are accustom to producing our share of DPS to make the group that much more productive but really this shouldn't of ever been part of our job.</blockquote>It is and always has been part of the fighters job to contribute to dps from eq1 launch to present. It's just a secondary task to holding aggro and staying alive.For content where staying alive and holding aggro is trivial, dps is your only focus.</blockquote>OK I worded that wrong;DPS should of never been our primary job as it is now. I know you'll argue that it isn't but it really is; we have to DPS to hold aggro and our job is to hold aggro thus making DPS our primary job at the moment.I agree that if the content is trivial and we don't care about holding solid aggro, go O stance and blow crap up. However we shouldn't be able to hold aggro via taunting or hate transfers while in O stance. I don't think there should be any other penelty other then losing taunts and being able to receive hate transfer of any sort while in O stance though.

Vulkan_NTooki

02-06-2009, 12:45 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>I would find it just as challenging to try an produce enuff HPS to keep agro off the DPSers as I do now trying to produce enuff DPS to keep agro off. I know we are accustom to producing our share of DPS to make the group that much more productive but really this shouldn't of ever been part of our job.</blockquote>It is and always has been part of the fighters job to contribute to dps from eq1 launch to present. It's just a secondary task to holding aggro and staying alive.For content where staying alive and holding aggro is trivial, dps is your only focus.</blockquote>OK I worded that wrong;DPS should of never been our primary job as it is now. I know you'll argue that it isn't but it really is; we have to DPS to hold aggro and our job is to hold aggro thus making DPS our primary job at the moment.I agree that if the content is trivial and we don't care about holding solid aggro, go O stance and blow crap up. However we shouldn't be able to hold aggro via taunting or hate transfers while in O stance. I don't think there should be any other penelty other then losing taunts and being able to receive hate transfer of any sort while in O stance though.</blockquote>Well.. I disagree with that last paragraph.. I agree with the first one..dps is the main source for aggro along with transfers from other classes(which also is generated by dps in most cases).The difference between defensive and offensive should however be a question about surviveability vs dps and not surviveability+aggro vs dps-aggro ... If u chose the former u will get ppl choosing different ways of achiving the same goal, gaining flexibility in group setups, gear quality, etc.. Diversity is good..

Mohare

02-06-2009, 12:55 PM

I think a simple solution would be to change the offensive stance to be a mirror image of the defensive stance. Instead of making where a tank can't taunt at all in offensive, just lower a persons aggression skill. This will increase the resist rate of taunts. In defensive a person loses melee skills making it harder for hits to land. Now on live tanks can gain skill through buffs and gear to help deal with the loss. This would make offensive the same way. People would have to give up dps and/or survivability gear for more aggression. This will still leave tanks with options and allow for more variety when tanking easier content.

Landiin

02-06-2009, 01:03 PM

<cite>Vulkan_NTooki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>OK I worded that wrong;DPS should of never been our primary job as it is now. I know you'll argue that it isn't but it really is; we have to DPS to hold aggro and our job is to hold aggro thus making DPS our primary job at the moment.I agree that if the content is trivial and we don't care about holding solid aggro, go O stance and blow crap up. However we shouldn't be able to hold aggro via taunting or hate transfers while in O stance. I don't think there should be any other penelty other then losing taunts and being able to receive hate transfer of any sort while in O stance though.</blockquote>Well.. I disagree with that last paragraph.. I agree with the first one..dps is the main source for aggro along with transfers from other classes(which also is generated by dps in most cases).The difference between defensive and offensive should however be a question about surviveability vs dps and not surviveability+aggro vs dps-aggro ... If u chose the former u will get ppl choosing different ways of achiving the same goal, gaining flexibility in group setups, gear quality, etc.. Diversity is good..</blockquote>If the content was so trivial that a group would use a scout instead of a tank class then the same would hold true as it is now. While we are in O stance we shouldn't be any thing more then glorified scout.I like to blow crap up too don't get me wrong. But if I am in that type of mood I'll log on my scout. Other wise I'll waid through the onslaught of mobs getting beat on, holding aggro and protecting the group while they burns them down.

Noaani

02-06-2009, 01:04 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've been MTing since about 1998 thru eq1 and eq2, and it is no myth. Tanking is and always has been controlling agro, positioning mob, staying alive, and maximizing dps thru that process.</blockquote>Thing is, none of this changes with GU#51, its just that the DPS you are able to do while also doing the rest of your role is lower.You will still hit the mob, you will still deal damage to it, and you will still gain hate from doing so. Increasing your DPS by 100 is going to give you the same result (hate wise) as increasing your threat by 100.Maximizing your DPS is still viable.

Yimway

02-06-2009, 02:34 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>OK I worded that wrong;DPS should of never been our primary job as it is now. I know you'll argue that it isn't but it really is; we have to DPS to hold aggro and our job is to hold aggro thus making DPS our primary job at the moment.I agree that if the content is trivial and we don't care about holding solid aggro, go O stance and blow crap up. However we shouldn't be able to hold aggro via taunting or hate transfers while in O stance. I don't think there should be any other penelty other then losing taunts and being able to receive hate transfer of any sort while in O stance though.</blockquote>I don't agree... DPS should of never been our ONLY method of reliably holding aggro. DPS+Taunt should be effective in cases where survivability is trivial.We still care about holding aggro in either scenario, and we should have abilities that work to that effect irregardless of stance. However, yes in defensive stance the threat abilities need to be severely augmented to overcompensate for lack of dps threat.These things should never be mutually exclusive.

Yimway

02-06-2009, 02:36 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>Maximizing your DPS is still viable.</blockquote>No it is not. There is tons of content I do that does not require the survivability benefits of defensive stance. Then lookign at the combining of buffs and the limited choices provided now, it further negates the ability to effectively tank trivial content in o-stance.

Elanjar

02-06-2009, 04:53 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've been MTing since about 1998 thru eq1 and eq2, and it is no myth. Tanking is and always has been controlling agro, positioning mob, staying alive, and maximizing dps thru that process.</blockquote>Thing is, none of this changes with GU#51, its just that the DPS you are able to do while also doing the rest of your role is lower.You will still hit the mob, you will still deal damage to it, and you will still gain hate from doing so. Increasing your DPS by 100 is going to give you the same result (hate wise) as increasing your threat by 100.Maximizing your DPS is still viable.</blockquote>Maximizing your dps will always be necessary. However by nerfing our overall dps they are giving us less effective methods of generating agro. There are significantly more ways to boost/modify your dps, while there will only be 3 ways to boost your hps.As I've said in pretty much every thread ever about this, offensive and defensive should both provide the same agro potential. The difference being one (defensive) significantly increases your survivability while lowering your dps. Agro is therefore more dependent on taunts and passive hate gains. In the other (offensive) we trade lower surviviability for increased dps. In this stance dps is the primary method of controlling agro and therefore taunts are less effective BUT NOT GONE.

Kiljoi

02-06-2009, 05:25 PM

Suggestion - Don't ruin the fighters. As a Paladin my favorite fights (in instances) are the massive aoe fights, for instance, Outer Stronghold. Also my favorite raids are fights that I get to pick up multiple adds. I know this has been said before, but I feel robbed of my class when I log into test. Similarly or Less geared paladins use their heals LOTS in the toughest of battles, and amends made it possible to really be a paladin and not a guardian. Maybe more threat added to heals... I know they did this. .but I think it needs another boost and an actually reflected taunt amound built into the discription. Transparency anyone?In my honest opinion, the fighter changes rob some classes of their uniqueness. I'd venture to say that these changes flat out make tanks too similar. Lets all just spam anyways...(sarcasm)... I guess thats what the devs think will be the most fun for us. I'd like to express my negativity further but it would probably distract from the point. If your gonna balance Paladins and Guards into single target tanks, dont you need to inc pally def skills/abilities? And dont say that Pallies are better then guards at agro... I've tested it.. didnt see a noticable difference. I did however see a noticable difference in favor of guardians survivability vs. paladins.I'm not saying that some classes dont deserve a bump in their ability to hold agro and survivability. As was mentioned earlier, tanking in offensive stance and doing better dps seemed to be a reward for working hard and getting that fabled loot. You know the exceptional loot we work for to better our characters? Its a real shame that the fighter changes take this aspect of the game away to such a large degree. I wouldnt call it a nerf.. i'd call it a real mistake.I know this isnt in line with this new vision for a game thats been around for several years, but if your going to make this change... I would like faithful cry changed to AOE not just single target and a reuse timer of 30s.Id still like to hear a valid reason why they are pushing this change down our throats.

Caetrel

02-06-2009, 06:05 PM

If the Dev's issue is tanking in O-stance, just make serious penalties to avoidance and mitigation in O stance so you can't do it on anything except trivial content or when not yourself tanking.If the Dev's issue is hate dependency, nerf all transfers and gains slightly and improve taunt effectiveness.It is THAT SIMPLE.

Caetrel

02-06-2009, 06:09 PM

And if the issue is tanks in Defensive stance parsing too much while tanking, that is not a problem. If I am main tanking a raid and doing 6-8k dps, you can bet the bards are doing more than me and the dps toons are smoking 10-15+.Somewhere, someone thougth there was a problem because scrub dps can't outparse a tank in easy group instances. That is not a problem with EQ2 that is a problem with player suckitude.

Strade

02-06-2009, 06:14 PM

Iwant the option with my Warlock to wear plate armor, to get abilities that make me immune to all damages for over a minute and I do want to have my DPS boosted. That way, I can solo every zone in the game and don't bother with team play anymore.More option for Mages as they should rule the parse and be able to tank anything from oakmist forest to the avatars themself.PS: Tell these useless classes (scouts, tank, healer ...etc) that I am the only reason why the group is succesful. But wait ... I do not need to group anymore! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />PS2: I think that paladin got hit pretty hard on test, yes, but overall, the changes are good. The game is slowly dying people. This revamp was needed for the health of the game. You can't deny that. You want more option while tanking, you ask for the buff to not be consolidated. But what options are you really using on live at the moment? Off stance + the buff to tank? And switch to def if you are rading? I call bs here ... and I do hope devs will agree.Even with those changes, a monk in def will still need 2 healer for harder zone. But if you as a plate tank that do not DPS enough in def maybe you only need 1 healer? Maybe you can fill the gap with another scout or mage? It can only be GOOD for the whole game! More DPS geting invited, brawlers that are a valid option in a group as a DPS or a tank (like it was in ROK whitout the need of uber equipements) people that are playing a chanter/bard able to log their old main again ...The situation as it is on live server is geting boring. Groups are lookin for a plate tank, 2 healers, a bard AND an enchanter ... and 1 uber DPS. Where are the options there for the "not needed" classes? Reroll as a bard, enchanter or a SK? This need to stop now or else you will see more and more people go to another game. I don't know if you play something else than everquest 2, but lately, I do see lots of new faces in vanguard with the new trial being out. And guess what? This game is geting better and better and there is a balance there: Tank are not suposed to DPS and are not parsing more than true DPS classes ... oh wait, it's probably cause 99% of the mages/scout are played by sucky person and only your Avatar geared Wizzy, assassin ...etc is well played? Give me a break ...I do not see why I need to spend a lot more time in the game than other fighters to be able to do my job: Tank or DPS. I agree that a monk should never be able to take hit as well as a guardian, but why a plate tank is able to tank better and dps better than an equally geared brawler? Why are SK and Zerker able to compete (and beat) mage/scout DPS while tanking? The tank mechanic is broken and need to be fixed period.Wow sorry for the long post, but I think some people get overboard and only think about themself. Figther revamp need to end as soon as possible to let summoners and healers get there cookies as well. I think the devs know what is good for the game a lot more than you think. Eq2 is geting a lot worst than it was before they started to listen to the community ... the only good changes that are coming into the game lately is for the crafters. Protect me from what I want Brian Molko said and I think he was right.EDIT: corrected some typo ... I am sure there is a lot more but english isnt my first language so I sorry for this <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Strade

02-06-2009, 06:24 PM

<cite>Fidelus@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>And if the issue is tanks in Defensive stance parsing too much while tanking, that is not a problem. If I am main tanking a raid and doing 6-8k dps, you can bet the bards are doing more than me and the dps toons are smoking 10-15+.Somewhere, someone thougth there was a problem because scrub dps can't outparse a tank in easy group instances. That is not a problem with EQ2 that is a problem with player suckitude.</blockquote>Can you take only 2 minutes in consideration that it's maybe not the case? Get yourself a parser, do some test. What I suggest is build a group of trusty people, DPS and healer, and take a week of your time to run every TSO zone with a picked up tank. Whatever tank you come by, be it a brawler or a plate tank, mytical or not. See the result.Afther this, tell me that the tanking mechanic is not broken. Raid is not an option for those test cause obviously, this is not where it is broken. Oh wait ... maybe the persons that got this GU51 pushed back are raiders? Hmmm ... so what left for people that do not raid but want to group to get theses shards?EDIT: Yeah DPS classes do well in raid cause they have most of the time and optimal group for buffs etc. That is not the case in normal group. Or maybe you can tank with your warlock in a groupe full of mages and a troubadour? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" />

Strade

02-06-2009, 06:28 PM

<cite>Fidelus@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>If the Dev's issue is tanking in O-stance, just make serious penalties to avoidance and mitigation in O stance so you can't do it on anything except trivial content or when not yourself tanking.If the Dev's issue is hate dependency, nerf all transfers and gains slightly and improve taunt effectiveness.It is THAT SIMPLE.</blockquote>It is not that simple. People will take boosters in their groupe until the tank have little to no penalities in off stance and push away other classes like necro or druids.

Bruener

02-06-2009, 06:38 PM

<cite>Strade@Storms wrote:</cite><blockquote>Iwant the option with my Warlock to wear plate armor, to get abilities that make me immune to all damages for over a minute and I do want to have my DPS boosted. That way, I can solo every zone in the game and don't bother with team play anymore.More option for Mages as they should rule the parse and be able to tank anything from oakmist forest to the avatars themself.PS: Tell these useless classes (scouts, tank, healer ...etc) that I am the only reason why the group is succesful. But wait ... I do not need to group anymore! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />PS2: I think that paladin got hit pretty hard on test, yes, but overall, the changes are good. The game is slowly dying people. This revamp was needed for the health of the game. You can't deny that. You want more option while tanking, you ask for the buff to not be consolidated. But what options are you really using on live at the moment? Off stance + the buff to tank? And switch to def if you are rading? I call bs here ... and I do hope devs will agree.Even with those changes, a monk in def will still need 2 healer for harder zone. But if you as a plate tank that do not DPS enough in def maybe you only need 1 healer? Maybe you can fill the gap with another scout or mage? It can only be GOOD for the whole game! More DPS geting invited, brawlers that are a valid option in a group as a DPS or a tank (like it was in ROK whitout the need of uber equipements) people that are playing a chanter/bard able to log their old main again ...The situation as it is on live server is geting boring. Groups are lookin for a plate tank, 2 healers, a bard AND an enchanter ... and 1 uber DPS. Where are the options there for the "not needed" classes? Reroll as a bard, enchanter or a SK? This need to stop now or else you will see more and more people go to another game. I don't know if you play something else than everquest 2, but lately, I do see lots of new faces in vanguard with the new trial being out. And guess what? This game is geting better and better and there is a balance there: Tank are not suposed to DPS and are not parsing more than true DPS classes ... oh wait, it's probably cause 99% of the mages/scout are played by sucky person and only your Avatar geared Wizzy, assassin ...etc is well played? Give me a break ...I do not see why I need to spend a lot more time in the game than other fighters to be able to do my job: Tank or DPS. I agree that a monk should never be able to take hit as well as a guardian, but why a plate tank is able to tank better and dps better than an equally geared brawler? Why are SK and Zerker able to compete (and beat) mage/scout DPS while tanking? The tank mechanic is broken and need to be fixed period.Wow sorry for the long post, but I think some people get overboard and only think about themself. Figther revamp need to end as soon as possible to let summoners and healers get there cookies as well. I think the devs know what is good for the game a lot more than you think. Eq2 is geting a lot worst than it was before they started to listen to the community ... the only good changes that are coming into the game lately is for the crafters. Protect me from what I want Brian Molko said and I think he was right.EDIT: corrected some typo ... I am sure there is a lot more but english isnt my first language so I sorry for this <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>When I read this I see a bunch of words scrambled together giving out a lot of mis-information. This is probably the whole reason for the fighter changes in the first place. Fighters do not out dps good scouts (bards do not count because they are utility) or good mages (unbalance being in enchanters even though they rock at utility are still being allowed to parse T1 numbers). If you or anybody else is seeing this count yourself lucky because you are probably in the presence of a phenomenal player. Than turn to your DPS and say "so why is it again you can't do that?" At which time they will probably tell you there is no way their gear is as nice as theirs and they still have a whole bunch of spells to get masters on.I do not agree with any of your statements about this change being about SOE wanting to shake things up because the game is dying. This is not the way to do it at all. Making it boring for a good size of the player base that has probably been playing for quite some time is not going to save things. They need to keep as much versatility and flavor in the game as much as possible. Oh, and your statement about DPS'ers getting out dps'd by a tank in defensive is so untrue.I am getting sick of trying to explain to all the people that do not play tanks, or are not playing them as mains...how boring this is going to make it be for us if we are forced into a stance in order to tank. I came into TSO pretty much out-geared for group instances, and you want me to go defensive and kill my own DPS, which allows me to do things faster, just so that you...a dps'er in legendary gear can out parse me? I have invested tons of time into earning gear and gathering all my masters so that I can optimize myself in whatever setting I want to play in. Why take that away?I know mages that do the same thing, how is it different? I know mages that have tanked RoK zones by throwing on all their dispersion gear. I know mages that can solo some of the named in TSO group instances already because they throw on gear to do so. They keep their flavor, but I have to lose mine? Tell you what, when you see me...a SK, going in and having enough DPS and survivability to solo the named that geared mages can than we can talk about taking away flavor.

Caetrel

02-07-2009, 01:51 AM

<cite>Strade@Storms wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fidelus@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>If the Dev's issue is tanking in O-stance, just make serious penalties to avoidance and mitigation in O stance so you can't do it on anything except trivial content or when not yourself tanking.If the Dev's issue is hate dependency, nerf all transfers and gains slightly and improve taunt effectiveness.It is THAT SIMPLE.</blockquote>It is not that simple. People will take boosters in their groupe until the tank have little to no penalities in off stance and push away other classes like necro or druids.</blockquote>You think raiders don't run instances and know how groups work? Lol. The warlock and necro in my guild will own my dps and any other tanks dps out there in ANY situation. Not my fault all those pug dps players are suck.

Landiin

02-08-2009, 01:39 AM

<cite>Fidelus@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>You think raiders don't run instances and know how groups work? Lol. The warlock and necro in my guild will own my dps and any other tanks dps out there in ANY situation. Not my fault all those pug dps players are suck.</blockquote>Yea just beause a raid geared fighter is out DPS a ledgendary geared mage means the mage sucks and gear has nothing to do with it. /sigh

Bruener

02-08-2009, 01:51 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fidelus@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>You think raiders don't run instances and know how groups work? Lol. The warlock and necro in my guild will own my dps and any other tanks dps out there in ANY situation. Not my fault all those pug dps players are suck.</blockquote>Yea just beause a raid geared fighter is out DPS a ledgendary geared mage means the mage sucks and gear has nothing to do with it. /sigh</blockquote>Not sure what you are trying to say here, but yes gear has everything to do with it. So that fighter that is raiding the hardest content in the game and putting in a regular schedule with a guild to do so ends up having a lot better gear than legendary DPS classes. Is there a problem with that?

Grumpy_Warrior_01

02-08-2009, 01:54 PM

PARSE DPS PARSE PARSE bla bla bla PARSE PARSE DPS PARSE bla bla PARSE DPS PARSE DPS PARSE PARSE bla bla bla PARSE PARSE DPS PARSE bla bla PARSE DPS PARSE DPS PARSE PARSE bla bla bla PARSE PARSE DPS PARSE bla bla PARSE DPS PARSE DPS PARSE PARSE bla bla bla PARSE PARSE DPS PARSE bla bla PARSE DPS blaAmazing how much bickering comes from people obsessed over a graph in a freeware log reader that's not even connected with the game or Sony. Because let's face it, ACT is the only way anybody has a clue about who is doing what damage. Believe it or not, this game can be played enjoyably and successfully without a constant DPS graph churning on every desktop. Nobody used to give a hang about parsers because there wasn't one. We chose weapons, armor and spells and journeyed off to conquer Norrath and you never heard anybody gripe about fighters doing too much damage to the enemy lol /boggleAll the timers and buzzers in ACT are great, but people need to detox from that side-by-side DPS graph. Please, use ACT to maximize your personal output for the good of your raid/group/self. No argument there. But for cripes sake I'm tired of being told I can't use this 30 pound axe to split open a mob's head because some graph-obsessed wizard will be [Removed for Content] if I actually show any damage with it. Seriously shut down the parser for a few days and focus on the GAME for a change. And remember:EVERY TIME YOU RUN A PARSE, GOD DPS'ES A KITTEN.

Obadiah

02-09-2009, 01:40 PM

<cite>Grumpy_Warrior_01 wrote:</cite><blockquote>PARSE DPS PARSE PARSE bla bla bla PARSE PARSE DPS PARSE bla bla PARSE DPS PARSE DPS PARSE PARSE bla bla bla PARSE PARSE DPS PARSE bla bla PARSE DPS PARSE DPS PARSE PARSE bla bla bla PARSE PARSE DPS PARSE bla bla PARSE DPS PARSE DPS PARSE PARSE bla bla bla PARSE PARSE DPS PARSE bla bla PARSE DPS blaAll the timers and buzzers in ACT are great, but people need to detox from that side-by-side DPS graph. Please, use ACT to maximize your personal output for the good of your raid/group/self. No argument there. But for cripes sake I'm tired of being told I can't use this 30 pound axe to split open a mob's head because some graph-obsessed wizard will be [Removed for Content] if I actually show any damage with it. Seriously shut down the parser for a few days and focus on the GAME for a change. And remember:EVERY TIME YOU RUN A PARSE, GOD DPS'ES A KITTEN.</blockquote>ROFL.Wonder how much we'd have to pay Aditu to lower the displayed Fighter DPS by say, 30% ...... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />

victer

02-09-2009, 02:22 PM

im gonna get in trouble for this by alot of people but it has got to be said.SKs are currently overpowered. That is a fact. Anyone that knows me knows that I am very careful when i use the word "overpowered". But this is a no brainer.Explain to me how 1 tank type is parsing zonewide 14k+ on single pulls while wearing a shield, while the other tanks are dual wielding and barely hitting 10k? Could you imagine if we started seeing parses with multi pulls? Wow.Its easy to see for yourself just do comparisons of the highest number parses shown in DPS threads on eq2flames.SK's had it rough for years so im happy they got boosted. But parseing like that with a shield is certainly overpowered.The main problem i can point out is that the majority of procs from items and raid members (which is a huge portion of tank DPS) is spell based. And SK's have access to Spell crit which works off these procs. When devs boosted SK ability's im not sure they took all these factors into thier calculations.

Caetrel

02-09-2009, 02:24 PM

epyon333

02-09-2009, 02:29 PM

Kordran

02-09-2009, 02:38 PM

<cite>Victer@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>SKs are currently overpowered. That is a fact. Anyone that knows me knows that I am very carefull when i use the word "overpowered". But this is a no brainer.</blockquote>Well, that's typical SOE game balancing at work. Take an underperforming class and instead of making small, incremental changes, go in the opposite direction and make that class FOTM. Evidence of this is as easy to find as looking at the number of noob SKs that have been rolled up since TSO was released.That said, there is some distortion on the high end with the few long-time raiding SKs out there who learned how to perform in spite of the limitations of the class; now, with those limitations largely removed and the class buffed up, they're stellar. It's like someone who's been running sprints in Doc Martens, and then they're given a pair of Nike Superflys.

Windowlicker

02-09-2009, 02:56 PM

There be too many cooks in this kitchen

RafaelSmith

02-09-2009, 03:14 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fidelus@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>You think raiders don't run instances and know how groups work? Lol. The warlock and necro in my guild will own my dps and any other tanks dps out there in ANY situation. Not my fault all those pug dps players are suck.</blockquote>Yea just beause a raid geared fighter is out DPS a ledgendary geared mage means the mage sucks and gear has nothing to do with it. /sigh</blockquote>A well played raid geared fighter should be able to out DPS a legendary geared mage.Its not that the mage sucks......he should easily be doing more DPS than legendary geared fighters.That is what everyone is not understanding. The only time I ever see a fighter out DPS the DPS classes on live, is when the fighter is better geared, better speced and better optimized.If you take equally "geared/skilled" fighter and mage and the fighter does more DPS then yeah the mage sucks.

Yimway

02-09-2009, 03:36 PM

<cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>A well played raid geared fighter should be able to out DPS a legendary geared mage.Its not that the mage sucks......he should easily be doing more DPS than legendary geared fighters.That is what everyone is not understanding. The only time I ever see a fighter out DPS the DPS classes on live, is when the fighter is better geared, better speced and better optimized.If you take equally "geared/skilled" fighter and mage and the fighter does more DPS then yeah the mage sucks.</blockquote>To be honest, I have a raid geared guardian and a legendary coercer alt. My coercer averages about 5% higher than the guard, so almost identical dps.A legendary dps should be able to get close to a fabled tank dps output, if they've taken the time to really learn their craft and choose upgrades wisely.Regarding a previous post, I don't think anyone anywhere is suggesting that SK's are not completely OP at the moment.

Master71

02-09-2009, 04:08 PM

<cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you take equally "geared/skilled" fighter and mage and the fighter does more DPS then yeah the mage sucks.</blockquote>I run ACT, I grouped with a legendary geared zerk.I'm legendary to fabled, and specced to maximize DPS output on both me and my pet.I run every bit of knoledge of my class, in order to maximize my DPS output.I ran 3.7K DPS.The zerk ran 8.5K.I don't suck, game mechanisme is broken.

Landiin

02-09-2009, 04:08 PM

<cite>Fidelus@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fidelus@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>You think raiders don't run instances and know how groups work? Lol. The warlock and necro in my guild will own my dps and any other tanks dps out there in ANY situation. Not my fault all those pug dps players are suck.</blockquote>Yea just beause a raid geared fighter is out DPS a ledgendary geared mage means the mage sucks and gear has nothing to do with it. /sigh</blockquote>Huh? Not sure what you are trying to say. All I said is tanks cannot out dps Necros, unless the necro sucks bad. </blockquote>Exactly; IF the necro is equal in gear perhaps. If the tank is RAID geared and the Necro is legendary geared then most likely the tank is going to out DPS them. I just have a hudge issue with people saying other suck when Its all about the gear in this game and if you are able to obtain it, the rest is just pressing buttons, any rteard can press buttons.I do PUG all the time because I like getting to know people on my server. I inspect every one in my group befor we get going so I know wha to expect and get a feel for how the zone will go. Just because I out parse someone or the healer is struggling to solo heal doen't make me assume they suck. I know its all about the gear they have been able to obtain.Ok I'll admit sometimes there is that someone you just /boggle at but I don't let it ruin my fun.

epyon333

02-09-2009, 04:13 PM

<cite>Master71 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you take equally "geared/skilled" fighter and mage and the fighter does more DPS then yeah the mage sucks.</blockquote>I run ACT, I grouped with a legendary geared zerk.I'm legendary to fabled, and specced to maximize DPS output on both me and my pet.I run every bit of knoledge of my class, in order to maximize my DPS output.I ran 3.7K DPS.The zerk ran 8.5K.I don't suck, game mechanisme is broken.</blockquote>Where were you when you parsed this? Single or group encounter? Dont conji's need to be fixed any way?

Yimway

02-09-2009, 04:13 PM

<cite>Master71 wrote:</cite><blockquote>I ran 3.7K DPS.The zerk ran 8.5K.I don't suck, game mechanisme is broken.</blockquote>This is of course a zonewide parse? Not just a single fight where every dps short term was available for use against a large multi-encounter fight that favors said zerk more favorably than you?Cause honestly, I'ld like to get to know this zerker parsing 8.5k zonewides in legendary.FWIW, sorry summoners are so broken =/

Master71

02-09-2009, 04:29 PM

<cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Where were you when you parsed this? Single or group encounter? Dont conji's need to be fixed any way?</blockquote>A run trough Miragul 1, 2 and 3.mix of single and group encounter.I toped at 4.1, the zerk toped at 10.3.I was... disapointed.

Aull

02-09-2009, 04:40 PM

Aull

02-09-2009, 04:53 PM

<cite>Victer@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>im gonna get in trouble for this by alot of people but it has got to be said.SKs are currently overpowered. That is a fact. Anyone that knows me knows that I am very careful when i use the word "overpowered". But this is a no brainer.Explain to me how 1 tank type is parsing zonewide 14k+ on single pulls while wearing a shield, while the other tanks are dual wielding and barely hitting 10k? Could you imagine if we started seeing parses with multi pulls? Wow.Its easy to see for yourself just do comparisons of the highest number parses shown in DPS threads on eq2flames.SK's had it rough for years so im happy they got boosted. But parseing like that with a shield is certainly overpowered.The main problem i can point out is that the majority of procs from items and raid members (which is a huge portion of tank DPS) is spell based. And SK's have access to Spell crit which works off these procs. When devs boosted SK ability's im not sure they took all these factors into thier calculations.</blockquote>If this double posts I am sorry. I am in total agreement with you on this. Sk's did need some help but I see what you are stating here. I play both a zerker and sk and in no way should an sk with a shield be putting up the numbers they do nor should any other plate fighter with a shield.I would say that maybe brawlers should be approaching dps numbers like that if properly geared and buffed but it would be hard to do.

Elanjar

02-09-2009, 05:02 PM

<cite>Master71 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you take equally "geared/skilled" fighter and mage and the fighter does more DPS then yeah the mage sucks.</blockquote>I run ACT, I grouped with a legendary geared zerk.I'm legendary to fabled, and specced to maximize DPS output on both me and my pet.I run every bit of knoledge of my class, in order to maximize my DPS output.I ran 3.7K DPS.The zerk ran 8.5K.I don't suck, game mechanisme is broken.</blockquote>Give me the name of that zerker. Cause I'm pretty darn sure I know how to play my class and I've got T2 shard gear + some raid gear (RoK/Tombs) and my highest parse ever is 6k in cavern with mutagenic burst procs fighting like 10 encounters at once.

Caetrel

02-09-2009, 05:27 PM

<cite>Master71 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you take equally "geared/skilled" fighter and mage and the fighter does more DPS then yeah the mage sucks.</blockquote>I run ACT, I grouped with a legendary geared zerk.I'm legendary to fabled, and specced to maximize DPS output on both me and my pet.I run every bit of knoledge of my class, in order to maximize my DPS output.I ran 3.7K DPS.The zerk ran 8.5K.I don't suck, game mechanisme is broken.</blockquote>Send a tell to my buddy guk.guiddian and he might be able to give you some tips. That parse is silly low, no offense. No berserker can outparse our conj, period. I wish people would stop saying that fighters outparse DPS toons, it is simply not true on a consistent basis at all, ever. Not unless there are major differences in gear/ specs/ skill.

Yimway

02-09-2009, 05:39 PM

<cite>Master71 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Where were you when you parsed this? Single or group encounter? Dont conji's need to be fixed any way?</blockquote>A run trough Miragul 1, 2 and 3.mix of single and group encounter.I toped at 4.1, the zerk toped at 10.3.I was... disapointed.</blockquote>Post the zonewide screenshots please. I don't believe you.Actually, scratch that, we're diverging from testing discussion...

Bruener

02-09-2009, 06:54 PM

<cite>Aull wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Victer@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>im gonna get in trouble for this by alot of people but it has got to be said.SKs are currently overpowered. That is a fact. Anyone that knows me knows that I am very careful when i use the word "overpowered". But this is a no brainer.Explain to me how 1 tank type is parsing zonewide 14k+ on single pulls while wearing a shield, while the other tanks are dual wielding and barely hitting 10k? Could you imagine if we started seeing parses with multi pulls? Wow.Its easy to see for yourself just do comparisons of the highest number parses shown in DPS threads on eq2flames.SK's had it rough for years so im happy they got boosted. But parseing like that with a shield is certainly overpowered.The main problem i can point out is that the majority of procs from items and raid members (which is a huge portion of tank DPS) is spell based. And SK's have access to Spell crit which works off these procs. When devs boosted SK ability's im not sure they took all these factors into thier calculations.</blockquote>If this double posts I am sorry. I am in total agreement with you on this. Sk's did need some help but I see what you are stating here. I play both a zerker and sk and in no way should an sk with a shield be putting up the numbers they do nor should any other plate fighter with a shield.I would say that maybe brawlers should be approaching dps numbers like that if properly geared and buffed but it would be hard to do.</blockquote>I have to address this post because I am a SK and it is wrong. The parses you are seeing are parses of palace trash ZWs where SKs are wearing all the dps gear they have and loading themselves into stacked groups to see what kind of dps they can put out. They sacrifice a lot of survivability doing so and it is not how ZWs go for every zone all the time.Example, I know the humdinger on the site shows a SK parsing 15k ZW on palace trash. Take a look at what he has for group make up though and try and check out his gear sometime if he is in it. We are talking the best DPS gear for parsing on trivial content. I am sure he is wearing a choker and JoA, and some of the other best dps items in the game. His group consisted of an illu, a troub, a dirge, an inq, and a wizard. His group alone gave him tons of dps through procs and buffs...probably more so because SKs being both spell and melee oriented he was getting the best of both worlds...something that would definitely not be the norm on a constant raid group. As a pretty good parsing SK myself my number 2 dps item on the parse is fanatical devotion from the inq, number 3 is PoTM, number 4 is PoM...see a pattern here? Truth is a top geared predator or rogue in the same group set up, with his void bane proc gear on would parse much higher. Don't believe everything parses are showing you because there is a lot more to it than that. I have seen Warlocks parsing 60k+ on 1+min fights. Good T1 on palace trash can crush 15k ZW. Stop looking at the best in class examples.Its funny because people are complaining about fighter hate being reliant on others but DPS is no different. The amount other classes increase DPS of individuals is HUGE. When you strip classes down to bare essentials the tiers of DPS line up well. However, you can have a fighter thrown in a fantastic DPS group out parse T1 classes that are put into the fat kid group. Group relevency is a big difference on DPS...and yet SOE finds a problem with this when it comes to hate?

Full_Metal_Mage

02-09-2009, 07:43 PM

It's never cool to ask for a nerf to somebody else's class. Unless the class to be nerfed is assassin. It's always cool to call for assassin nerfs. Oh, and dark elves; not a class, but they need a nerf. Just because.

victer

02-09-2009, 09:03 PM

<cite>Bruener wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have to address this post because I am a SK and it is wrong. The parses you are seeing are parses of palace trash ZWs where SKs are wearing all the dps gear they have and loading themselves into stacked groups to see what kind of dps they can put out. They sacrifice a lot of survivability doing so and it is not how ZWs go for every zone all the time.</blockquote>other tanks duel wield.what makes you think there arent zerkers or brawlers with all the top dps gear trying to do the same thing? If they were doing 11K+ zonewides trust me they would be posting them.

Bruener

02-09-2009, 09:36 PM

<cite>Victer@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Bruener wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have to address this post because I am a SK and it is wrong. The parses you are seeing are parses of palace trash ZWs where SKs are wearing all the dps gear they have and loading themselves into stacked groups to see what kind of dps they can put out. They sacrifice a lot of survivability doing so and it is not how ZWs go for every zone all the time.</blockquote>other tanks duel wield.what makes you think there arent zerkers or brawlers with all the top dps gear trying to do the same thing? If they were doing 11K+ zonewides trust me they would be posting them.</blockquote>That is not a ZW, that is palace TRASH. Huge difference. And there are Bezerkers and Brawlers pulling out that kind of DPS, maybe unlike the stupid SKs they aren't hiping themselves up about it so that suddenly people that can't seem to get those kind of numbers come to the boards asking for nerfs to their classes. The SKs posting those are just hurting the class. I wonder what the other classes were doing on their raid though when they are parsing 200k ZW on that stuff....

victer

02-09-2009, 09:44 PM

<cite>Bruener wrote:</cite><blockquote>That is not a ZW, that is palace TRASH. Huge difference. And there are Bezerkers and Brawlers pulling out that kind of DPS, maybe unlike the stupid SKs they aren't hiping themselves up about it so that suddenly people that can't seem to get those kind of numbers come to the boards asking for nerfs to their classes. The SKs posting those are just hurting the class. I wonder what the other classes were doing on their raid though when they are parsing 200k ZW on that stuff....</blockquote>people that try to maximize thier dps during palace trash and then flaunt it by posting the parse are not restricted to only your class bro.If people were parseing as high as SK's are those posts would be viewable by now. Its just not happeneing. Not on single pulls anyway. And especially not with a shield.

Aull

02-09-2009, 10:53 PM

<cite>Victer@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Bruener wrote:</cite><blockquote>That is not a ZW, that is palace TRASH. Huge difference. And there are Bezerkers and Brawlers pulling out that kind of DPS, maybe unlike the stupid SKs they aren't hiping themselves up about it so that suddenly people that can't seem to get those kind of numbers come to the boards asking for nerfs to their classes. The SKs posting those are just hurting the class. I wonder what the other classes were doing on their raid though when they are parsing 200k ZW on that stuff....</blockquote>people that try to maximize thier dps during palace trash and then flaunt it by posting the parse are not restricted to only your class bro.If people were parseing as high as SK's are those posts would be viewable by now. Its just not happeneing. Not on single pulls anyway. And especially not with a shield.</blockquote>I don't wish to continue getting of the true purpose of this thread but I will agree again with Victer on this one too. I think that the changes to the sk's were needed no doubt about it. However there has to be some unseen factors that were not thought of when these changes were actually made.Not trying to say that sk's are needing nerfing but if this continues on this spectrum no other fighter will be needed.

AziBam

02-09-2009, 10:54 PM

<cite>Victer@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Bruener wrote:</cite><blockquote>That is not a ZW, that is palace TRASH. Huge difference. And there are Bezerkers and Brawlers pulling out that kind of DPS, maybe unlike the stupid SKs they aren't hiping themselves up about it so that suddenly people that can't seem to get those kind of numbers come to the boards asking for nerfs to their classes. The SKs posting those are just hurting the class. I wonder what the other classes were doing on their raid though when they are parsing 200k ZW on that stuff....</blockquote>people that try to maximize thier dps during palace trash and then flaunt it by posting the parse are not restricted to only your class bro.If people were parseing as high as SK's are those posts would be viewable by now. Its just not happeneing. Not on single pulls anyway. And especially not with a shield.</blockquote>A) Crusaders can't DWB) A crusader with myth will do more dps with a shield than without due to TSO AAs that enhance it.C) Those parses on flames have RW dps of 150-200,000. They are completely and utterly irrelevant when discussing whether ANY class is OP in a broad sense. Very few raid forces muster that type of damage and those that do will have ALL their classes cranking out insane numbers. D) I still haven't seen anything that shows me that 3 of the other fighter classes (figure it out) can't do equal or more dps to an SK on single targets. I'll agree that they are top two on AE.

victer

02-10-2009, 03:22 AM

<cite>Azian@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>D) I still haven't seen anything that shows me that 3 of the other fighter classes (figure it out) can't do equal or more dps to an SK on single targets. I'll agree that they are top two on AE.</blockquote>i say show me anything that DOES show that any other tank type is parseing 12k+ on singles zonewide on palace trash.Cause right now i can for sure show you 2 SK parses from 2 different people that are that high.

AziBam

02-10-2009, 10:56 AM

<cite>Victer@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Azian@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>D) I still haven't seen anything that shows me that 3 of the other fighter classes (figure it out) can't do equal or more dps to an SK on single targets. I'll agree that they are top two on AE.</blockquote>i say show me anything that DOES show that any other tank type is parseing 12k+ on singles zonewide on palace trash.Cause right now i can for sure show you 2 SK parses from 2 different people that are that high.</blockquote>That isn't needed. Let me help you out here...<cite>Azian@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>C) Those parses on flames have RW dps of 150-200,000. They are completely and utterly irrelevant when discussing whether ANY class is OP in a broad sense. Very few raid forces muster that type of damage and those that do will have ALL their classes cranking out insane numbers. </blockquote>

Cruymb

02-10-2009, 11:15 AM

Ok i havnt posted in a long while, but you guy's are getting stupid!First what is the tank's objective, what was it again, OHHH yeah to holdaggro and to have the abililty to take the hit non tanks could not. For those out therewho havnt been on test and are posting from 2nd hand knowledge STOP unless you want to testcopy over then keep you view's to yourself. I have personally test the system numerous times ingroup and duoing. I can say that there was nothing wrong with it origanally it needed to be tweekedbut not overhauled. There also the idea of parses when a tank parses above 4k there something wrong inthe system then there no real use for any other classes. Those instance where you need 12k + dps for a mobHell just grab 3 tank a dirge and healer other class invalid. Sony not taking anything away w/o giving a little somethingback you lose DPS to gain more taunts increase. Lemme see loss and gain. It seems SOE only listen's to the people thatWhine, the most and loudest,but that isnt your fault it in your genes get the most you can with the least work. Thatwhat everyone wants. Hey find me a job like that and im in.OK back to aggro! I test the aggro in quite few different way , by the way 80 guard legendary, fabled mix, no myth,and in a grouping 3 different zones DF,Veks2,and HOForsaken. we had different set on all 3 the only issues i had wasin HOF the the mythed warlock in the halls but then that not a guard forte, but from my ability to gain aggro back andkeep her alive a berserker would own em.I also Duo with three different peeps a assassin,wizard and ranger , we were killing in Karnors, trash mobs,no hate tranfers on any of us the mobs never turned. Did i mention that 2 of them were Mythed. To see how much aggroi could really take back the wizard and myself tried soemthing. She root nuked the mobs for the first 30% . I went in justtaunting and DPSing, no rescue or increase hate position and i could get aggro back easily. We need to remeber Tank'sAre not a DPS class when we forget that then we might as well give Warlock and wizzies a 6.5kmit and a 12kavoidance. Yes tank's can DPS but REMEMBER YOUR ROLE ! We tank we Take the hit's other's can't and dontcomplain that our role!80 guardian80 templar80 assasin80 warlock80 CoercerAll Najena

Xanrn

02-10-2009, 11:41 AM

You expect anyone to actually bother to read that rambling wall of text.L2T.

epyon333

02-10-2009, 11:58 AM

<cite>Cruymb wrote:</cite><blockquote>First what is the tank's (I Though the Class was FIGHTER and that Tank was a role. Why would you chose to limit your class to one of 6 spots in a group and 2 of 24 in a raid, not helping yourself much.) objective, what was it again, OHHH yeah to holdaggro and to have the abililty to take the hit non tanks could not. For those out therewho havnt been on test and are posting from 2nd hand knowledge STOP unless you want to testcopy over then keep you view's to yourself. I have personally test the system numerous times ingroup and duoing. I can say that there was nothing wrong with it origanally it needed to be tweekedbut not overhauled. I kinda agree with this but its live that just needed to be tweaked, and again if you want to talk overhauls look at LU 13 and SWGs NGE. Their great examples of how sucsessful overhauls are.80 guardian Speak for your own single mob defensive fighter, ill speak for my offensive AOE fighter.80 templar80 assasin80 warlock80 CoercerAll Najena</blockquote>

Obadiah

02-10-2009, 12:14 PM

I don't really think this is an "overhaul" of Fighters either, with the exception of the Paladin. By and large the changes are very good. Although they impact a lot of different skills, they do so MOSTLY in a positive way.If we could get a thread going that stayed free of a few people we'd have about 30 pages less on the subject and a lot less arguing and some better directed feedback. There's no sense debating with people who insist on making up numbers to serve their purpose.The more I see the more I think the 5-second rule on stances is sort of pointless, and the -0.5 multiplier in defensive stance is overkill, but otherwise it's pretty good stuff for Fighters.And the more I see the happier I am that my Swash isn't my main. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />

epyon333

02-10-2009, 12:29 PM

<cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>I don't really think this is an "overhaul" of Fighters either, with the exception of the Paladin. By and large the changes are very good. Although they impact a lot of different skills, they do so MOSTLY in a positive way.If we could get a thread going that stayed free of a few people we'd have about 30 pages less on the subject and a lot less arguing and some better directed feedback. There's no sense debating with people who insist on making up numbers to serve their purpose.The more I see the more I think the 5-second rule on stances is sort of pointless, and the -0.5 multiplier in defensive stance is overkill, but otherwise it's pretty good stuff for Fighters.And the more I see the happier I am that my Swash isn't my main. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>heres some feedback for them. Everything is fine the way it is with berzerkers on live, only complaint i have is theres no hate bounse when im in my def stance to help me keep aggro like i can in the off stance.

Yimway

02-10-2009, 12:32 PM

<cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>The more I see the more I think the 5-second rule on stances is sort of pointless, and the -0.5 multiplier in defensive stance is overkill, but otherwise it's pretty good stuff for Fighters.And the more I see the happier I am that my Swash isn't my main. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>This is not meant as a dig at all, but...All the really great tanks I know are drastically upset with the changes, the feel kneecapped and pidgeon holed and that the arhctype in general is more vanilla to play with less options.All the 'alt tanks' and other less effective tanks I know are really excited about the changes, as they see they'll be able to easily do what they currently aren't so good at on live.I personally feel they can accomplish making taunting/deffensive play better without removing so many options that are upsetting the veteran tanks.

Obadiah

02-10-2009, 12:32 PM

<cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>heres some feedback for them. Everything is fine the way it is with berzerkers on live, only complaint i have is theres no hate bounse when im in my def stance to help me keep aggro like i can in the off stance.</blockquote>Well, there not staying the way they are on live. They're changing to something close to what they are on Test. So whatever you see THERE that needs to be changed would help.

epyon333

02-10-2009, 12:45 PM

<cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>heres some feedback for them. Everything is fine the way it is with berzerkers on live, only complaint i have is theres no hate bounse when im in my def stance to help me keep aggro like i can in the off stance.</blockquote>Well, there not staying the way they are on live. They're changing to something close to what they are on Test. So whatever you see THERE that needs to be changed would help.</blockquote>Ok. Heres the changes to test id like to see. Un merge the buffs from the stances, remove the 5 second recast timer for stances, remove the taunts dont increase threat in the off stance, give the def stance a hate bounse, and decrease the amount of threat from taunt so aggro isnt certain.

AziBam

02-10-2009, 12:58 PM

<cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ok. Heres the changes to test id like to see. Un merge the buffs from the stances, remove the 5 second recast timer for stances, remove the taunts dont increase threat in the off stance, give the def stance a hate bounse, and decrease the amount of threat from taunt so aggro isnt certain.</blockquote>I think the Dev's would eliminate about 95% of the complaints we are seeing by taking care of those two right there. Overall, I'm ok with the changes now that they have been tweaked some. Although, it isn't perfect. I'd rather see EITHER the .5 reduc OR the skills penalty not both. I'd like special abilities (Rescue and the assorted class specific ones) to still have their threat in offensive stance. That said, what I'm looking forward to is the ability to actually hold aggro while in DEF stance which generally isn't an option right now.

Hirofortis

02-10-2009, 01:02 PM

Just overhall the guard and zerk completly and merge them. As long as your completly revamping the whole thing anyway, just combine the best of them and make it so AA's define these nuetral classes. Then everyone can spec the way they want and tank how they want. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I know this sounds good on paper and it would free up a slot for me since I run a guard and a zerk LOL, but not sure that we are ever gonna see the classes get fixed. It really is maddening to see such polarization between the classes in an attempt to balance things out.I wish there was some way to pull it together as right now a lot of tanks are burning out just waiting for SOE to do something or even anything.Realistically, every encounter in the game is balanced around either a single tank or a dual tank structure. While this makes for some arguable points on which tank is better for which situation, the basis is you need up to 2 tanks to do most of the game. The problem is which two tanks. The answer is, whichever works. The problem is, at higher end content, you can't afford to bring in one of every type of tank to do the job, which means someone is ineveitably sitting on the side waiting for the moment they say, ok, this is your perfect mob, your turn. To have a class set aside to have such a limited role is maddening at best. Please work towards balancing the abilities and roles so we can say, hey we can go with whichever we need as it is the players skill that is needed here, not this specific class to be able to have a chance to be successful.

Full_Metal_Mage

02-10-2009, 02:51 PM

<cite>Krunck@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just overhall the guard and zerk completly and merge them. As long as your completly revamping the whole thing anyway, just combine the best of them and make it so AA's define these nuetral classes. Then everyone can spec the way they want and tank how they want. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> Please work towards balancing the abilities and roles so we can say, hey we can go with whichever we need as it is the players skill that is needed here, not this specific class to be able to have a chance to be successful.</blockquote>Wouldn't it be nice if a player's raiding ability was not determined by the initial character creation process?

Caetrel

02-10-2009, 05:00 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>The more I see the more I think the 5-second rule on stances is sort of pointless, and the -0.5 multiplier in defensive stance is overkill, but otherwise it's pretty good stuff for Fighters.And the more I see the happier I am that my Swash isn't my main. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>This is not meant as a dig at all, but...All the really great tanks I know are drastically upset with the changes, the feel kneecapped and pidgeon holed and that the arhctype in general is more vanilla to play with less options.All the 'alt tanks' and other less effective tanks I know are really excited about the changes, as they see they'll be able to easily do what they currently aren't so good at on live.I personally feel they can accomplish making taunting/deffensive play better without removing so many options that are upsetting the veteran tanks.</blockquote>Yes you are correct. Only scrubs want this because they have nowhere to go but up. These fighter changes are the most spectacular unneeded debacle the game has ever seen. IMO Aerilik et. al. acted on very poor intel.My guild currently runs 1 guard, 1 pally, 1 sk, and 1 monk, and we have some awesome DPS players. I wish a Dev would come along on one of our raid nights on live. I could prolly dispel some of the bizarre myths the PUG community are spreading on the forums.

Elanjar

02-10-2009, 05:07 PM

<cite>Azian@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ok. Heres the changes to test id like to see. Un merge the buffs from the stances, remove the 5 second recast timer for stances, remove the taunts dont increase threat in the off stance, give the def stance a hate bounse, and decrease the amount of threat from taunt so aggro isnt certain.</blockquote>I think the Dev's would eliminate about 95% of the complaints we are seeing by taking care of those two right there. Overall, I'm ok with the changes now that they have been tweaked some. Although, it isn't perfect. I'd rather see EITHER the .5 reduc OR the skills penalty not both. I'd like special abilities (Rescue and the assorted class specific ones) to still have their threat in offensive stance. That said, what I'm looking forward to is the ability to actually hold aggro while in DEF stance which generally isn't an option right now.</blockquote>95% of the complaints and balance issues are actually cause of AoE vs ST distinction. I dont have any solutions to that though so i wont post about it. What I would like to see from test is:keep:-increased taunt values-taunt crit / agression changes-hate gain in defensive stance (ie the new defensive stance)-(i actually dont mind the buff merges tbh)change/lose:-remove 5s recast on stance OR unlink the timers on the stances-remove the "no taunts in offensive stance" (change this to reduced taunt values similar to live)-for zerkers at least I'd like to see additional offensive stats added to our o-stance berserk proc, since additional hate gain was added to the d-stance version-remove EITHER the -skills in defensive, or the -0.5 damage (note* this would require a change to warrior WISDOM endline aa ability)

victer

02-10-2009, 05:34 PM

Suggestions to balance out tanks on test... keep the fun for all tanks... and stop players from tanking in o stance too often.<ul><li>Make it so that stances overright each other and do not require to be turned off first. Increase reuse time of each to 15 seconds. This will allow for fast switching from 1 stance to the other with 1 click but you cannot do it again for another 15 seconds.</li><li>Dstance<ul><li>Remove -0.5 melee modifier keep the - to skills. (DPS for all tanks is already very low on live server's while in DStance... the melee modifier is overkill!!)</li><li>Add +taunt crit or +taunt# adjustments. </li><li>Add reactive taunts or reactive avoidance(stoneskins?).</li><li>Make hate mod effect taunts in this stance only.</li></ul></li><li>OStance<ul><li>Allow taunts but taunts are 50% less effective</li><li>Remove possitional taunts or reduce them dramaticly</li><li>Increase taunt recasts 50%.</li><li>Remove the 10% inc dammage increaser (we should have no penalty's while soloing).</li></ul></li></ul>As far as balancing the tanks DPS wise i belive that SK/Zerker/Bruiser needs to be on the same playing field. Right now SKs are dramaticly higher in the DPS department (about 1.5 times as effective as brusiers and zerkers).Suggestions:<ul><li>Re-calculate the SK's abilitys and take into effect that they are allowed to have thier Spell crit effect the majority of procs in the game. Procs are the second highest parse on every tanks parse list. The only thing higher is autoattack.</li></ul>or<ul><li>Boost Bruiser/Zerker combat arts.</li></ul>As far as agro generation and dammage taking abilitys i think the Gaurdian/Pally/Monk needs to be on the same playing field. Right now Gaurdians are dramaticly higher in dammage taking department. (about 2 times as effective as monks and Pallys)Suggestions (forgive me if i say some stupid things as i have never played these classes):<ul><li>Boost pally and monk chances to Stoneskin. </li><li>Reduce pallys chance to be interupted or cast times. </li><li>Give pally and monk reactive hate skills.</li></ul>

AziBam

02-10-2009, 07:52 PM

<cite>Victer@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>As far as balancing the tanks DPS wise i belive that SK/Zerker/Bruiser needs to be on the same playing field. Right now SKs are dramaticly higher in the DPS department (about 1.5 times as effective as brusiers and zerkers).</blockquote>Lord, I love this garbage. So, the thread everyone is worked up over on the SK boards from flames shows a couple of 12k and also a couple 15k parses. No doubt those are spectacular numbers.I couldn't find RW dps from the 15k posters but I know the guild of one of them and it's one of the very best in the game across all servers so it's likely upwards of 200,000. That of course is just a guess. I'll work with what I know. The 12.5k parse noted a raid wide dps of 161,000 which = 7.7% of the raid dps for the SK. Check your own zerker parses from a similar thread on flames and there are zerks doing 10k parses in a raid force doing 70,000 dps = 14.2% of the total raid dps. So who is OP? The zerk is doing a far larger % of the overall raid dps than those SKs people are so worked up over. Roughly double. Maybe SKs need some more love so they can do 14% of their raids dps too. /rolls eyes. I've seen 12k parses posted on the monk boards too. A rising tide lifts all ships. You can't just look at a parse from some of the absolute best geared players in the best parsing raid guilds and then extrapolate that over to the common SK (or any class for that matter.)

Bruener

02-10-2009, 08:54 PM

<cite>Victer@Oasis wrote</cite><blockquote>Suggestions:<ul><li>Re-calculate the SK's abilitys and take into effect that they are allowed to have thier Spell crit effect the majority of procs in the game. Procs are the second highest parse on every tanks parse list. The only thing higher is autoattack.</li></ul></blockquote>So for years SKs have had to balance multiple stats and increasers to acheive the same gain a Warrior or brawler gained from half the stats and now you want them to take that away? Tell you what, instead why don't you have Warriors and brawlers start spec'ing with more spell crit to make up for it.The dps you see on SKs are mostly coming from other classes with the procs like PoM, PotM, CoB, Fanatical devotion, etc. Its just because SKs have always HAD to worry about balancing spell increasers with melee increasers that they are taking much better advantage of this. Last I checked most gear is still made with almost all melee stats, meaning that SKs are still gathering up some of the best caster pieces to do what they do.

victer

02-10-2009, 11:17 PM

i dont blame people comming in to try and defend thier class. I knew it would create some backlash.All i can say is show me otherwise. Show me the parses that are more then 1 encounter with any other tank parseing zw 11K+ on single pulls. I can show you 2 seperate SK parses (from the same server mind you where 1 guild is a avatar guild and the other has killed maybe 2 avatars thier entire time). The best you guys can show me so far is a single encounter pull where the zerker did 10k once while duel wielding.The high parseing raid excuse does not fly with me. Like it or not there are at least 1-3 raid forces per server that can parse 150k+ easly. If you dont think that there are brawlers or zerkers out there that want to flaunt huge palace trash parses then you are not being realistic.

Full_Metal_Mage

02-11-2009, 02:12 AM

Victer, while I have a bit of SK envy myself, SKs are not overpowered. They got fixed is all. I suggest either getting over it or roll up your own SK. Either way, put the SK whining to rest.

Elanjar

02-11-2009, 03:30 PM

<cite>Full_Metal_Mage wrote:</cite><blockquote>Victer, while I have a bit of SK envy myself, SKs are not overpowered. They got fixed is all. I suggest either getting over it or roll up your own SK. Either way, put the SK whining to rest.</blockquote>I'm going to have to agree with Victer on this one. While I hesitate to call nerf bat on them (only cause knowing SOE, they will beat them back to where they were before), they are a bit too powerful.A class can be considered OP, when anyone can pick said class up and use it with no problems even if they have no experience with the class. People dont even have to know how to play an SK to tank effectively. This just overephasizes their power when someone who does know how to use an SK plays because their parses become outrageous.

Aeralik

02-11-2009, 03:55 PM

This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Kordran

02-11-2009, 04:03 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Is there any word on when the next fighter changes will be pushed to Test? The update was pushed back, but there hasn't really been much word on what's been going on behind the scenes in terms of design changes; aside from a few posts here and there, you guys have pretty much "gone dark" since announcing that the fighter changes were being postponed.

Aeralik

02-11-2009, 04:06 PM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Is there any word on when the next fighter changes will be pushed to Test? The update was pushed back, but there hasn't really been much word on what's been going on behind the scenes in terms of design changes; aside from a few posts here and there, you guys have pretty much "gone dark" since announcing that the fighter changes were being postponed.</blockquote>Really isnt much changing. Some small adjustments here and there but otherwise its largely going to be what it is now.

Bremer

02-11-2009, 04:09 PM

Bruener

02-11-2009, 04:19 PM

<cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Full_Metal_Mage wrote:</cite><blockquote>Victer, while I have a bit of SK envy myself, SKs are not overpowered. They got fixed is all. I suggest either getting over it or roll up your own SK. Either way, put the SK whining to rest.</blockquote>I'm going to have to agree with Victer on this one. While I hesitate to call nerf bat on them (only cause knowing SOE, they will beat them back to where they were before), they are a bit too powerful.A class can be considered OP, when anyone can pick said class up and use it with no problems even if they have no experience with the class. People dont even have to know how to play an SK to tank effectively. This just overephasizes their power when someone who does know how to use an SK plays because their parses become outrageous.</blockquote>This made me laugh. Show me where people are just picking up SKs and being able to tank effectively. There are a ton of new SKs out there that are not great tanks at all. The ones that are truly effective are the ones that have been playing the class long before the recent changes.To Aeralick's post. I hope this is not just concerning "fighters" than because there are several other classes that "seem" to be jumping out of their DPS tiers. Right now you have a SK brought on raids as the third or fourth fighter because while a 3rd or 4th fighter will hardly ever be tanking on a raid, at least they are providing DPS in that slot. I just don't understand why SOE thinks they need to make these changes when in fact fighters are FINALLY being accepted in more numbers on raids. Raiding requires 1-2 tanks for 90+% of the content meaning always leaving those other fighters on the side lines, or bringing in alts for when another tank is needed. Now guilds are bringing 4 fighters on a raid and suddenly it is OMG nerf tank DPS and force them into stances so that those spots can be opened back up to bring more bards/chanters/T1 dps on the raids.Also, with the changes you are making I hope that you are in fact taking into account that you are making it so to do DPS a fighter has to be in offensive stance giving up a huge amount of survivability and agro...meaning they are basically just DPS at that point. To top it off you are making a 5 sec recast on a stance so no longer can a fighter switch roles fast. This should mean very good DPS in offensive.

Raidyen

02-11-2009, 04:20 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Is there any word on when the next fighter changes will be pushed to Test? The update was pushed back, but there hasn't really been much word on what's been going on behind the scenes in terms of design changes; aside from a few posts here and there, you guys have pretty much "gone dark" since announcing that the fighter changes were being postponed.</blockquote>Really isnt much changing. Some small adjustments here and there but otherwise its largely going to be what it is now.</blockquote>Well thanks for the update that there is nothing to update <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Kind of what i figured after reading the producers letter. Just a matter of letting the population cool down a bit before pushing things to live.

Yimway

02-11-2009, 04:29 PM

Tiberuis

02-11-2009, 04:32 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Don't you do it you silly assassin...I know what you are thinking...sir, put the foam bat down and step away from the keyboard...Jeez Aeralik, you just fixed the darn class...it took FOREVER for you to finally pay us some attention...please tell me you are not thinking about doing what I think you are thinking about doing...Yikes...I can't even watch... ' - - '

RafaelSmith

02-11-2009, 04:36 PM

So just some minor tweaks?Why was it held back then?

Raidyen

02-11-2009, 04:38 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Why was it held back then? Minor dps adjustments could be made at any time...</blockquote>See post above. happens all the time in MMO's. Was fairly obvious when these changes went in the Devs had already made up thier minds. Nothing has been changed based off any testing we have done over the last month, with the exception of the bug fixes. The vision and these changes were going to happen no matter how loud we got or how many problems we found with it on test. Like these changes just turned Tanking into Easymode.Only changes i saw were things done to specific classes that seemed to have the biggest voice against these changes. For example the Paladin Death prevention. The second that change came out, Paladins across Norrath didnt say another word about loosing amends. Swashies were content with loosing the hate transfer since our Mythical was getting a really nice overhaul. Coarse Now based on no testing at all, that Mythical has been turned back into junk for us. But MMO communties never have the staying power to continue pushing thier agenda's, and the Dev's know this. They just have to wait it out.

Gungo

02-11-2009, 04:42 PM

<cite>Tiberuis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Don't you do it you silly assassin...I know what you are thinking...sir, put the foam bat down and step away from the keyboard...Jeez Aeralik, you just fixed the darn class...it took FOREVER for you to finally pay us some attention...please tell me you are not thinking about doing what I think you are thinking about doing...Yikes...I can't even watch... ' - - '</blockquote>If i think what you think he is thinking, then you must be thinking the same thing he is thinking which is what everyone else is thinking which means. Everyone thinks there is an issue or at least they are thinking about it.

Landiin

02-11-2009, 04:43 PM

<cite>Tiberuis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Don't you do it you silly assassin...I know what you are thinking...sir, put the foam bat down and step away from the keyboard...Jeez Aeralik, you just fixed the darn class...it took FOREVER for you to finally pay us some attention...please tell me you are not thinking about doing what I think you are thinking about doing...Yikes...I can't even watch... ' - - '</blockquote>We all knew it was coming so why do you act surprised?

Tiberuis

02-11-2009, 04:51 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tiberuis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Don't you do it you silly assassin...I know what you are thinking...sir, put the foam bat down and step away from the keyboard...Jeez Aeralik, you just fixed the darn class...it took FOREVER for you to finally pay us some attention...please tell me you are not thinking about doing what I think you are thinking about doing...Yikes...I can't even watch... ' - - '</blockquote>We all knew it was coming so why do you act surprised?</blockquote>'Cos SK's have sucked (compared to the other plate tank classes) in every edition and expansion of EQII, except KOS. When they fixed our class to be decent again in TSO, I thought mabey...just mabey...SK's would rock again, all the way until the next expansion...I know, I am being idealistic and shamefully optomistic...Both fingers and toes crossed that the nerf bat won't land on us...again...so soon...

Kordran

02-11-2009, 04:55 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Is there any word on when the next fighter changes will be pushed to Test? The update was pushed back, but there hasn't really been much word on what's been going on behind the scenes in terms of design changes; aside from a few posts here and there, you guys have pretty much "gone dark" since announcing that the fighter changes were being postponed.</blockquote>Really isnt much changing. Some small adjustments here and there but otherwise its largely going to be what it is now.</blockquote>That being the case, do you have any timeframe for when they're going to be published? In another post where I asked about the new raid content, etc. they were talking about it being made available for testing next week. So are we looking for March 3rd (roughly) being the release date for GU51 which contains everything? I know "stuff happens" and things may get pushed back, but I think we'd like to know a general target date.Personally, if things aren't significantly changing, I'd prefer to just have the fighter changes released next week to give us some time to adjust before the new raid content is released. Learning new content and the sweeping changes being made to fighters might be too much at one time. I don't know if that's really feasible, but something you guys might want to consider.

Full_Metal_Mage

02-11-2009, 04:56 PM

Freliant

02-11-2009, 05:01 PM

<cite>Full_Metal_Mage wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Is there any word on when the next fighter changes will be pushed to Test? The update was pushed back, but there hasn't really been much word on what's been going on behind the scenes in terms of design changes; aside from a few posts here and there, you guys have pretty much "gone dark" since announcing that the fighter changes were being postponed.</blockquote>Really isnt much changing. Some small adjustments here and there but otherwise its largely going to be what it is now.</blockquote>So you're actually admitting that you don't listen to feedback and are going to shove this garbage on everyone anyway.</blockquote>Since when does listening to feedback = automatically make the change?I can listen to you all the time, and not think you are correct.I thought the changes were really good, cept for the bugs, and as soon as those were addressed I was looking forward to them going in, but of course... the community being as it is, and prone to fighting because they don't like change, it got delayed.

Kordran

02-11-2009, 05:08 PM

<cite>Tiberuis wrote:</cite><blockquote>'Cos SK's have sucked (compared to the other plate tank classes) in every edition and expansion of EQII, except KOS. When they fixed our class to be decent again in TSO, I thought mabey...just mabey...SK's would rock again, all the way until the next expansion...I know, I am being idealistic and shamefully optomistic...Both fingers and toes crossed that the nerf bat won't land on us...again...so soon...</blockquote>With the stance changes, SKs are going to see a damage reduction when tanking. But honestly, I think they did push SKs a little too far the other way with TSO. I know that some players feel that they "deserve" to be a little overpowered because of all the time they spent on the left side of the curve, but that's not how you balance classes. IMO they should be on par with Berserkers, not superior to them (as they clearly are now).To be honest though, the whole "SKs sucked" thing was overblown. The primary problem, from what I've seen and from the SKs that I've played with, wasn't so much the class per se. Because SKs were so incredibly easy to solo with, and they're a fun class to play in general, you had a lot of casual, primarily solo players running them. The problem is they would hit 80 and have no idea what they were doing as tanks. And honestly, you still see that today with the new crop of SKs coming up who are pretty clueless. On the other hand, classes like the Guardian tend to group earlier and more often because soloing on them is less than a spectacular experience. So when they hit 80, they're already pretty well versed on group dynamics, how to tank effectifvely and all the rest. They're better simply because they have a lot more experience at actually playing a tank. That's not to say that there were no problems with SKs, but I've seen plenty of SKs pre-TSO who did just fine.I probably sound like a broken record, but player skill is always more important than class mechanics.

Full_Metal_Mage

02-11-2009, 05:08 PM

<cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Full_Metal_Mage wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>This next update will see a few dps adjustments. Some will go down a little while others are getting a little bonus to even things out a bit more.And as a side note isnt the Love tag next to my name a little ironic considering we are dealing with hate changes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Is there any word on when the next fighter changes will be pushed to Test? The update was pushed back, but there hasn't really been much word on what's been going on behind the scenes in terms of design changes; aside from a few posts here and there, you guys have pretty much "gone dark" since announcing that the fighter changes were being postponed.</blockquote>Really isnt much changing. Some small adjustments here and there but otherwise its largely going to be what it is now.</blockquote>So you're actually admitting that you don't listen to feedback and are going to shove this garbage on everyone anyway.</blockquote>Since when does listening to feedback = automatically make the change?I can listen to you all the time, and not think you are correct.I thought the changes were really good, cept for the bugs, and as soon as those were addressed I was looking forward to them going in, but of course... the community being as it is, and prone to fighting because they don't like change, it got delayed.</blockquote>Are you looking at the fighter destruction from the perspective of an experienced fighter player, or from the perspective of yet another AFK wizard?

Elanjar

02-11-2009, 05:14 PM

Matia

02-11-2009, 05:14 PM

<cite>Deekin@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite>Really isnt much changing. Some small adjustments here and there but otherwise its largely going to be what it is now.</blockquote>Well thanks for the update that there is nothing to update <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Kind of what i figured after reading the producers letter. Just a matter of letting the population cool down a bit before pushing things to live.</blockquote>Ding Ding!! Exactly.This was another case of "We're asking for your feedback and if enough people it actually affects dislike the plan we have, we'll delay it and then do it anyway so we can say we listened."Of course, that could be a mistaken belief, but those "small adjustments" would need to be explained first.

Kordran

02-11-2009, 05:15 PM

<cite>Full_Metal_Mage wrote:</cite><blockquote>So you're actually admitting that you don't listen to feedback and are going to shove this garbage on everyone anyway. </blockquote>Realistically, I don't think anyone expected them to just chuck the whole thing out the window and start over from scratch. It was clear that they were committed to the overall design changes they were making. I was hoping for some more changes (particluarly with regards to this notion of ST/AE tanks), but it is what it is.At this point, we either adjust, or not. As I mentioned in my followup to his answer, given that things aren't changing much, I think they should just publish it and give us the time to make those adjustments before the new content is released.There's going to be a learning curve for tanks and DPS alike. I am curious as to what's going to happen to the overall tank population in the game, particularly the more casual (non-raiding) players who mostly tank instances. I see people regularly begging for tanks as it is; my suspicion is that this is going to make that even tougher, but I could be wrong.

backtostart

02-11-2009, 05:20 PM

It may be boring but the solution is easy. ALL classes do the same amount of damage. Everyone is balanced that way.Now the delivery of that damage is something else, but haveing a ranger, wizard, or anyother class do 20k damage and a guardian does 5k is just stupid. Tuants on fighters would be included in damage as would casting times, so a wizard may still do more damage in 1 shot but a guards recast would be significantly faster. Problem solved.If everyone is not the same then everyone is diffrent. To be balanced is to be the same. You dont want classes to be the same then you don't want balance and there will be some classes that people play and others they ignore and dont play.

Tiberuis

02-11-2009, 05:24 PM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tiberuis wrote:</cite><blockquote>'Cos SK's have sucked (compared to the other plate tank classes) in every edition and expansion of EQII, except KOS. When they fixed our class to be decent again in TSO, I thought mabey...just mabey...SK's would rock again, all the way until the next expansion...I know, I am being idealistic and shamefully optomistic...Both fingers and toes crossed that the nerf bat won't land on us...again...so soon...</blockquote>With the stance changes, SKs are going to see a damage reduction when tanking. But honestly, I think they did push SKs a little too far the other way with TSO. I know that some players feel that they "deserve" to be a little overpowered because of all the time they spent on the left side of the curve, but that's not how you balance classes. IMO they should be on par with Berserkers, not superior to them (as they clearly are now).To be honest though, the whole "SKs sucked" thing was overblown. The primary problem, from what I've seen and from the SKs that I've played with, wasn't so much the class per se. Because SKs were so incredibly easy to solo with, and they're a fun class to play in general, you had a lot of casual, primarily solo players running them. The problem is they would hit 80 and have no idea what they were doing as tanks. And honestly, you still see that today with the new crop of SKs coming up who are pretty clueless. On the other hand, classes like the Guardian tend to group earlier and more often because soloing on them is less than a spectacular experience. So when they hit 80, they're already pretty well versed on group dynamics, how to tank effectifvely and all the rest. They're better simply because they have a lot more experience at actually playing a tank. That's not to say that there were no problems with SKs, but I've seen plenty of SKs pre-TSO who did just fine.I probably sound like a broken record, but player skill is always more important than class mechanics.</blockquote>Yes, skill is more important than mechanics. But I am not referring to skill. I am referring specifically to mechanics.I would love to tell you "nice conspiracy theory, we were all wrong about plate tank class imbalance...it was really just player skill that made those Warrior class toons on our servers so uber all along..."But we all know that would be just silly a bit now, don't you think?They finally have plate tank class balance working within reasonable parameters, and going in the right direction...I just hope they don't choke the life out of the SK class again so soon, is all.

Tiberuis

02-11-2009, 05:28 PM

Dasein

02-11-2009, 05:29 PM

<cite>Tiberuis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tiberuis wrote:</cite><blockquote>'Cos SK's have sucked (compared to the other plate tank classes) in every edition and expansion of EQII, except KOS. When they fixed our class to be decent again in TSO, I thought mabey...just mabey...SK's would rock again, all the way until the next expansion...I know, I am being idealistic and shamefully optomistic...Both fingers and toes crossed that the nerf bat won't land on us...again...so soon...</blockquote>With the stance changes, SKs are going to see a damage reduction when tanking. But honestly, I think they did push SKs a little too far the other way with TSO. I know that some players feel that they "deserve" to be a little overpowered because of all the time they spent on the left side of the curve, but that's not how you balance classes. IMO they should be on par with Berserkers, not superior to them (as they clearly are now).To be honest though, the whole "SKs sucked" thing was overblown. The primary problem, from what I've seen and from the SKs that I've played with, wasn't so much the class per se. Because SKs were so incredibly easy to solo with, and they're a fun class to play in general, you had a lot of casual, primarily solo players running them. The problem is they would hit 80 and have no idea what they were doing as tanks. And honestly, you still see that today with the new crop of SKs coming up who are pretty clueless. On the other hand, classes like the Guardian tend to group earlier and more often because soloing on them is less than a spectacular experience. So when they hit 80, they're already pretty well versed on group dynamics, how to tank effectifvely and all the rest. They're better simply because they have a lot more experience at actually playing a tank. That's not to say that there were no problems with SKs, but I've seen plenty of SKs pre-TSO who did just fine.I probably sound like a broken record, but player skill is always more important than class mechanics.</blockquote>Yes, skill is more important than mechanics. But I am not referring to skill. I am referring specifically to mechanics.I would love to tell you "nice conspiracy theory, we were all wrong about plate tank class imbalance...it was really just player skill that made those Warrior class toons on our servers so uber all along..."But we all know that would be just silly a bit now, don't you think?They finally have plate tank class balance working within reasonable parameters, and going in the right direction...I just hope they don't choke the life out of the SK class again so soon, is all.</blockquote>The plate tank imbalance becomes more pronounced with higher-end content. A similarly-equipped and levelled SK and guardian will do about equally well in most heroic content, save for a few TSO zones. It is at the raid level where guardians start to have the adantages.

Kordran

02-11-2009, 05:37 PM

<cite>Tiberuis wrote:</cite><blockquote>I would love to tell you "nice conspiracy theory, we were all wrong about plate tank class imbalance...it was really just player skill that made those Warrior class toons on our servers so uber all along..."But we all know that would be just silly a bit now, don't you think?They finally have plate tank class balance working within reasonable parameters, and going in the right direction...I just hope they don't choke the life out of the SK class again so soon, is all.</blockquote>To some extent, I see it as a matter of perspective. The people who really had the most trouble with SKs were the average players. Great players could play beyond any of the limitations of the SKs class mechanics and perform well. Poor players were, well, just poor players. The sticking point was that it was easier to be mediocre on a Warrior and still do an "acceptable" job, than it was on a Crusader, particularly SKs. Frankly, what made those Warriors preferred wasn't so much their uberness, but rather that they permitted a wider latitude of suck in gameplay.I think with SKs tuned down a little bit, and Berserkers beefed up a little bit, then you'll have some parity between those two counterparts in the Warrior and Crusader classes. No wholesale nerfs should be dealt to any of the fighter classes, IMO.

Mathafern

02-11-2009, 05:40 PM

It is true that SK DPS rose abruptly with TSO- from having changes made to spells, from having gear added to the game which actually suited the class, and from having instances which are actually appropriate for an AoE oriented class.The demands for balance based on flames posts of palace trash are waaaay off, however. I was pretty impressed with those until I actually tanked palace trash myself- and discovered that palace trash a) hits like a little girl and b) has a ton of hitpoints. People were pretty much falling asleep during these trash fights. The combination means everyone in the raid can focus on DPS DPS DPS. A swashy could tank palace trash and manage an uber parse- does that mean swashy avoidance should be nerfed? With the right reactives on, either crusader class could go linkdead and still have a really nice parse.To the individual who says zerkers and SK should have the same DPS potential I say absolutely! as long as they have the same mitigation avoidance and threat too. Wait, that makes them the same class... boring.

Kordran

02-11-2009, 05:41 PM

<cite>Dasein wrote:</cite><blockquote>The plate tank imbalance becomes more pronounced with higher-end content. A similarly-equipped and levelled SK and guardian will do about equally well in most heroic content, save for a few TSO zones. It is at the raid level where guardians start to have the adantages.</blockquote>That is true with any fighter class, not just SKs. Guardians are designed from the ground up to be the premier raiding tank, bar none. This is the intention of the developers, and not an accident of class imbalance.If you want to be the best raid MT, you play a Guardian. Other classes may be viable, but they're not optimal. And for raids, 9 times out of 10, people are going to want to make the optimal choice. Even with the fighter changes and Paladins being declared as "close behind" the Guardian in terms of raid tanking, they're still #2. Bottom line, Guardians will always be king of the hill when it comes to raiding, and I don't see that ever changing.

Tiberuis

02-11-2009, 05:59 PM

<cite>Mathafern@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>It is true that SK DPS rose abruptly with TSO- from having changes made to spells, from having gear added to the game which actually suited the class, and from having instances which are actually appropriate for an AoE oriented class.The demands for balance based on flames posts of palace trash are waaaay off, however. I was pretty impressed with those until I actually tanked palace trash myself- and discovered that palace trash a) hits like a little girl and b) has a ton of hitpoints. People were pretty much falling asleep during these trash fights. The combination means everyone in the raid can focus on DPS DPS DPS. A swashy could tank palace trash and manage an uber parse- does that mean swashy avoidance should be nerfed? With the right reactives on, either crusader class could go linkdead and still have a really nice parse.To the individual who says zerkers and SK should have the same DPS potential I say absolutely! as long as they have the same mitigation avoidance and threat too. Wait, that makes them the same class... boring.</blockquote>Dude, you are WAY off base. Guardians and Zerkers have not been the preferred plate tank classes for years over the SK due to the fact they had higher mitigation, higher avoidance, more powerful aggro management tools, and WAY higher DPS...It's because they had a "higher latitude of suck."ROFLBTW, if you don't like it roll your own Shadowknight and quit your whining...OMG did I just really say that? Am I dreaming? Someone pinch me please...

Seolta

02-11-2009, 07:35 PM

So it's the horse nerf all over again huh? Enough class haters cry about something and it becomes policy?People scream about SK dps when they see a top geared SK in a tailor made DPS group in an AE zone doing a really high parse so OMG we must be nerfed.Nevermind that:<ul><li>A Zerker in the same situation will do just about the same.</li></ul><ul><li>Zerk, Guard AND Paly still have the defensive advantage over SK.</li></ul><ul><li>You will see a similar DPS disparity with Warlocks vs. other mages when dealing with AE encounters.</li></ul><ul><li>For the last few YEARS very few self respecting raid guilds even TOLERATED SK's on the roster until we got our long overdue class fix.</li></ul><ul><li>The upcoming fighter revamp will drop our DPS anyway.</li></ul>Ok...flame on with your "Nevermind that..." attempted humor rebuttals...

Aeralik

02-11-2009, 07:41 PM

<cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm hoping small adjustments means:taunts work in offensive with reduced effectiveness ANNNNNDDDDstance recast timers are unlinked....fix those and even though its not perfect I'd accept it.</blockquote>Those are not going away. These changes enforce the player making a decision about how they want to go. Healers have a similar setup with their achievement based stances. If they want to heal they pick the heal stance if healing isnt crucial they have the option to improve dps but they can't instantly switch between them. For fighters the idea is similar. If you want to dps then you need to commit to that and take the positives with the negatives. If you want to be the tank then you need to realize that your role is not that of dps anymore. These aspects are fundamental to this update and are not at all likely to change.

Morrolan V

02-11-2009, 07:43 PM

<cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>So it's the horse nerf all over again huh? Enough class haters cry about something and it becomes policy?People scream about SK dps when they see a top geared SK in a tailor made DPS group in an AE zone doing a really high parse so OMG we must be nerfed.Nevermind that a Zerker in the same situation will do just about the same.Nevermind that Zerk, Guard AND Paly still have the defensive advantage over SK.Nevermind that you will see a similar DPS disparity with Warlocks vs. other mages when dealing with AE encounters.Nevermind that for the last few YEARS very few self respecting raid guilds even TOLERATED SK's on the roster until we got our long overdue class fix. Nevermind that the upcoming fighter revamp will drop our DPS anyway.</blockquote>Get your facts straight. There are no multiple target pulls in Palace of the Ancient One. Those parses are on single target fights. If they HAD been multiple target fights, the numbers would have been 50 to 100% higher.I have seen shard armored, non-myth SKs parse consistently over 10K in multiple target instances, in non-optimal groups.I'm sorry - I know that SKs had it rough in ROK. But it's over the top right now.

Glerin

02-11-2009, 07:44 PM

Glerin

02-11-2009, 07:46 PM

<cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>So it's the horse nerf all over again huh? Enough class haters cry about something and it becomes policy?People scream about SK dps when they see a top geared SK in a tailor made DPS group in an AE zone doing a really high parse so OMG we must be nerfed.Nevermind that:<ul><li>A Zerker in the same situation will do just about the same.</li><li>I yet have to see a instance geared zerker hit my instance geared SK buddy's DPS</li></ul><ul><li>Zerk, Guard AND Paly still have the defensive advantage over SK.</li><li>SK > paladin Survivability, it have been that way quite some time now</li></ul><ul><li>You will see a similar DPS disparity with Warlocks vs. other mages when dealing with AE encounters.</li></ul><ul><li>For the last few YEARS very few self respecting raid guilds even TOLERATED SK's on the roster until we got our long overdue class fix.</li></ul><ul><li>The upcoming fighter revamp will drop our DPS anyway.</li><li>As it will drop everyone elses too!</li></ul>Ok...flame on with your "Nevermind that..." attempted humor rebuttals...</blockquote>but tbh, dont nerf sk's, bring the other tanks up alongside them!

Morrolan V

02-11-2009, 07:48 PM

Gisallo

02-11-2009, 07:53 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm hoping small adjustments means:taunts work in offensive with reduced effectiveness ANNNNNDDDDstance recast timers are unlinked....fix those and even though its not perfect I'd accept it.</blockquote>Those are not going away. These changes enforce the player making a decision about how they want to go. Healers have a similar setup with their achievement based stances. If they want to heal they pick the heal stance if healing isnt crucial they have the option to improve dps but they can't instantly switch between them. For fighters the idea is similar. If you want to dps then you need to commit to that and take the positives with the negatives. If you want to be the tank then you need to realize that your role is not that of dps anymore. These aspects are fundamental to this update and are not at all likely to change.</blockquote>And unlinking the stance would still enforce this Aeralik. You yourself previously stated that an OT should be able to burn in offensive stance and then drop into Defensive stance when necessary. You know as well as anyone that 5 seconds is a lifetime on a raid where the mobs are not on farm status and that 5 seconds without hate (either from DPS old school of defensive test school) is going to BEG the mob to start slamming squishies into oblivion and you might as well wipe it at that point.Also you seem to forget that this is NOT an issue that is going to effect Fighters only when they get to max AA's. This is part of their core nature, always has been always will it has nothing to do with AA choice and progression, nothing to do with the end game players where even in heal mode, since he has the gear, a healer will still be able to do his job in no stance whatsoever because his foundation is still the same. When you make this comparison you are comparing apples and oranges. Its like saying "the same thing applies to the grad student when he decides to get his PHD in Astro or Quantum Physics. These stances ARE not grad school for fighters, they are high school, the very Foundation that later progression (or education) is based upon and so the comparison you make here is really not relevant.Simply because something is fundamental does not mean it is correct. The fact that you believe the foundation of the fighters is identical to an end line AA ability which is optional I think is evidence of the fundamental flaw in this revamp.

Seolta

02-11-2009, 08:06 PM

<cite>Morrolan V wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>So it's the horse nerf all over again huh? Enough class haters cry about something and it becomes policy?People scream about SK dps when they see a top geared SK in a tailor made DPS group in an AE zone doing a really high parse so OMG we must be nerfed.Nevermind that a Zerker in the same situation will do just about the same.Nevermind that Zerk, Guard AND Paly still have the defensive advantage over SK.Nevermind that you will see a similar DPS disparity with Warlocks vs. other mages when dealing with AE encounters.Nevermind that for the last few YEARS very few self respecting raid guilds even TOLERATED SK's on the roster until we got our long overdue class fix. Nevermind that the upcoming fighter revamp will drop our DPS anyway.</blockquote>Get your facts straight. There are no multiple target pulls in Palace of the Ancient One. Those parses are on single target fights. If they HAD been multiple target fights, the numbers would have been 50 to 100% higher.I have seen shard armored, non-myth SKs parse consistently over 10K in multiple target instances, in non-optimal groups.I'm sorry - I know that SKs had it rough in ROK. But it's over the top right now.</blockquote>For every parse you have of an SK there is a parse of a Zerk doing nearly the same, but nobody's posting maximized Zerk parses.I guess it's just fashionable at the moment to QQ about us because we finally got spotlight.You do know that group setup/buffs/encounter type account for most of any class's DPS right?You do know that long fights benefit SK's with our mass tap dmg...right?IF WE DONT HAVE A DPS ADVANTAGE THERE IS NO REASON TO PLAY AN SK OVER A ZERK OTHER THAN ROLEPLAY...which you may find fulfilling, but most of us don't.

Matia

02-11-2009, 08:10 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm hoping small adjustments means:taunts work in offensive with reduced effectiveness ANNNNNDDDDstance recast timers are unlinked....fix those and even though its not perfect I'd accept it.</blockquote>Those are not going away. These changes enforce the player making a decision about how they want to go. Healers have a similar setup with their achievement based stances. If they want to heal they pick the heal stance if healing isnt crucial they have the option to improve dps but they can't instantly switch between them. For fighters the idea is similar. If you want to dps then you need to commit to that and take the positives with the negatives. If you want to be the tank then you need to realize that your role is not that of dps anymore. These aspects are fundamental to this update and are not at all likely to change.</blockquote>I'm sorry, but I must disagree. This is not in any way similar. Beyond the differences between base starting spells/combat arts and AA choices.... which others have stated...The other classes aren't forced into those "stances" to do their core job. To the best of my knowledge... those healers can go and do their core job.. and even their secondary jobs... not only without using those stances, but without even having gained access to them yet. And not only that, but they aren't penalized for not having them.You constantly harp on this being a decision. This is true, but you are making it a decision of "should I take the penalties and play the way Aeralik wants, or take the harsher penalties and play they way that is fun and I want to play?"Either way it's a penalty, with the only winner being they ones who get to say "Now I'm happy that you have to do what I say".And to paraphrase you, if you are going to work on classes, then you need to realize that the classes' roles are their choice and you should take their views into the equation.What is fundamental is that this is a change to make the "less appealing option" better than the others by torpedoing the others instead of actually improving the one you prefer.

Seolta

02-11-2009, 08:12 PM

<cite>Glerin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>So it's the horse nerf all over again huh? Enough class haters cry about something and it becomes policy?People scream about SK dps when they see a top geared SK in a tailor made DPS group in an AE zone doing a really high parse so OMG we must be nerfed.Nevermind that:<ul><li>A Zerker in the same situation will do just about the same.</li><li>I yet have to see a instance geared zerker hit my instance geared SK buddy's DPS</li></ul><ul><li>Zerk, Guard AND Paly still have the defensive advantage over SK.</li><li>SK > paladin Survivability, it have been that way quite some time now</li></ul><ul><li>You will see a similar DPS disparity with Warlocks vs. other mages when dealing with AE encounters.</li></ul><ul><li>For the last few YEARS very few self respecting raid guilds even TOLERATED SK's on the roster until we got our long overdue class fix.</li></ul><ul><li>The upcoming fighter revamp will drop our DPS anyway.</li><li>As it will drop everyone elses too!</li></ul>Ok...flame on with your "Nevermind that..." attempted humor rebuttals...</blockquote>but tbh, dont nerf sk's, bring the other tanks up alongside them!</blockquote><ul><li>Random ppl vs. your buddy doesn't make a very convincing argument man sorry. Can't prove something negatively.</li><li>Paly buffs/AA give a slight defensive stat edge over SK, not huge, but it's there nonetheless. As far as playstyles etc YMMV</li><li>Yupper it will...but my big point is SK's SHOULD have a DPS advantage because it's the only real advantage we've got. Unless you count shiney farming as a reason to play a class, but even there...Brawler owns us. /shrug</li></ul>

Gungo

02-11-2009, 08:23 PM

<cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>For every parse you have of an SK there is a parse of a Zerk doing nearly the same, but nobody's posting maximized Zerk parses.I guess it's just fashionable at the moment to QQ about us because we finally got spotlight.You do know that group setup/buffs/encounter type account for most of any class's DPS right?You do know that long fights benefit SK's with our mass tap dmg...right?IF WE DONT HAVE A DPS ADVANTAGE THERE IS NO REASON TO PLAY AN SK OVER A ZERK OTHER THAN ROLEPLAY...which you may find fulfilling, but most of us don't.</blockquote>My BS alarm just went off.......Its time to play the game called "prove those statements"The rules are simple put up or shut up.Put up that 15k+ zone wide single target zerker parse from Palace using a detailed ACT report.......I have yet to see it from any guild. If you fail to post those parse feel free to come on the boards and admit your failure. We are all awaiting eagerly for this response. To prove the entire eq2 community wrong and that you alone knew that all tanks were secretly parsing insanely high dps numbers.Btw I only think that Sk need a dps adjustment in defensive probably to the effect of base spell damage reduction. Its a bit over the top and as you said sk are a hybrid and only half of that hybrid was nerfed.Personally i am awaiting to see [Removed for Content] do bruisers fit in this aoe tank department because other then aerilik I dont think a single person playing eq2 thinks of bruisers when someone mentions aoe agro. He seriously needs to turn at minimum our stance procs into an encounter proc.btw +1 for the removal of the stance recast.... I am serious it is not needed and severly hinders on the fly adjustments in tanking. Any stance dancing will be at a minimum. It takes away one of the best and most fun features of being a fighter.

Aeralik

02-11-2009, 08:24 PM

<cite>Matia wrote:</cite><blockquote>And to paraphrase you, if you are going to work on classes, then you need to realize that the classes' roles are their choice and you should take their views into the equation.</blockquote>Which is exactly what this update is all about enhancing the fighters primary role which is tanking. Tanking means dealing with the damage from your target and holding the targets attention with taunts( ie threat). We dealt with damage in the first part with some additional enhancements in the second part. The second part deals with your threat generation which was lacking and not scaling properly which forced you to rely on others and doing high dps to have a chance. This update then helps attack those deficiences so that you can focus on your core role of threat generation and defense while leaving the dps to the scouts and mages.

Morrolan V

02-11-2009, 08:34 PM

Glerin

02-11-2009, 08:49 PM

<cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><ul><li>Random ppl vs. your buddy doesn't make a very convincing argument man sorry. Can't prove something negatively.</li><li>I agree, random people dosnt really compare, but he is still a casual gaming SK (albeit a good one)</li><li>Paly buffs/AA give a slight defensive stat edge over SK, not huge, but it's there nonetheless. As far as playstyles etc YMMV</li><li>Lets see, pallies get enchance hp buff by60% (our hp buff gives us 824hp at M1 with this aa), Blocking mastery (24% shield effectiveness) Blessed warding (a small ward-over time, unknown of tickrate, but its a measly 248ward with 5 aa's), stone wall (block 1attack), then ofcourse the heal line which very few takes that can reduce our heals to roughly 0.75casting time, we have to stop casting to use those, we also have Divine favor (if we die it heals us for 21%, and come GU51, it will also put up a 2hit stoneskin)</li><li>SK's get reaver (each successfull spell will heal 2,5% hp), lifetaps (unsure of all amounts, but generally i can see my buddy pull off up tp 700-800HPS depending on encountertype, shadowknights Fury (riposte / parry 100% attacks for 16seconds, 4ish minute recast i think?), bloodletter (full heal at the cost of 20% of each groupmembers health, with 6set bonus this is a 2trigger spell)</li><li>Yupper it will...but my big point is SK's SHOULD have a DPS advantage because it's the only real advantage we've got. Unless you count shiney farming as a reason to play a class, but even there...Brawler owns us. /shrug</li><li>SK should have the same dps as zerkers, which should be slightly above guard / pallies, and below both brawler types on single target but not aoes, but thats just my opinion</li></ul></blockquote>then we have LoH / HT, LoH is undoubtly slightly better, since we can cast it on others and it can crit for up to 7-8k (rarely does, but it -can- happen) at a roughly 500power cost, HT is power free, can crit for up to 20-25k dmg and 4-5k heal or so? buffwise pallies buff base heal by 5%, thats it, sk's have lifetap-procs and cast / recast buffs, increase spelldamage buffs instead.but ofcourse, i always thought SK's wasnt what they were supposed to be, if anything now they are how i always imagined them; killingmachines, but theres no reason they should be the best killingmachine, have among the best survivability, and utility, among all tanks.among the crusaders, SK's are higher dps, higher single target HPS while tanking, more power effective, more utility buffing then the paladin, come GU51, this will just become bigger i think <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Elanjar

02-11-2009, 08:52 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm hoping small adjustments means:taunts work in offensive with reduced effectiveness ANNNNNDDDDstance recast timers are unlinked....fix those and even though its not perfect I'd accept it.</blockquote>Those are not going away. These changes enforce the player making a decision about how they want to go. Healers have a similar setup with their achievement based stances. If they want to heal they pick the heal stance if healing isnt crucial they have the option to improve dps but they can't instantly switch between them. For fighters the idea is similar. If you want to dps then you need to commit to that and take the positives with the negatives. If you want to be the tank then you need to realize that your role is not that of dps anymore. These aspects are fundamental to this update and are not at all likely to change.</blockquote>There are better ways to accomplish this goal. This doesnt force us to make a decision about how we want to play. It gives us only one option. Since a fighters role is no longer dps (not that it ever was, that was just a supplement they could provide) that means our ONLY role is tanking. And by your definition of tanking that means holding agro via taunts (a big change since the launch of the game) and absorbing damage. Therefore since we are not supposed to dps and are only supposed to tank our ONLY option is defensive stance. This is not forcing us to choose one or the other it is forcing us to choose d-stance or not play.In addition by not allowing quick changing of stance (at least unlinked recast so we can switch fast once) you are not allowing off tanks to do their job. One of the benefits of having more than one fighter is that the 2nd fighter could do decent dps, but pick up the mob and become defensive relatively fast then the stuff hits the fan.A better way to encourage proper tanking is to increase the survivability gap between o-stance and d-stance.THESE CHANGES ARE REMOVING THE DYNAMICS OF TANKING THAT ARE UNIQUE TO EQ2! THE DYNAMICS THAT MAKE EQ2 MORE FUN THAN OTHER MMO'S FOR THE TANKS WHO CHOOSE THIS GAME!

Elanjar

02-11-2009, 09:00 PM

I'd also like to add to my previous post that comparing fighter stances to healer stances is an unfair comparisson.Fighter stances have been necessary since day 1 of the game to doing our job. Healer stances on the other hand are not even usable till you get a high amount of AA. They can do their job without them and their stances only enhance whatever job they are currently doing. A healer can still HEAL (albeit less effectively) when in dps stance, however a fighter cannot TAUNT in offensive (it should be at reduced effectiveness).If you insist on following this foolish (in my opinion) direction then the dps increases gained by offensive stance need to give enough dps potential to bring as much dps as a rogue since we have no other utility and will be unable to provide back-up tanking skills since picking up the mob wont be possible.(sure i can drop stance and rescue but with no stance i get what... 2 shotted (swashies survive longer). ooo look adrenaline wait cant cast/benefit from it since berserk is part of my stances...)

644446592

02-11-2009, 09:09 PM

<cite>Glerin wrote:</cite><blockquote><ul><li>Lets see, pallies get enchance hp buff by60% (our hp buff gives us 824hp at M1 with this aa), Blocking mastery (24% shield effectiveness) Blessed warding (a small ward-over time, unknown of tickrate, but its a measly 248ward with 5 aa's), stone wall (block 1attack), then ofcourse the heal line which very few takes that can reduce our heals to roughly 0.75casting time, we have to stop casting to use those, we also have Divine favor (if we die it heals us for 21%, and come GU51, it will also put up a 2hit stoneskin)</li><li>AND 20% damage absorb over time, +20 mit. incr. (with new 4 set piece bonus)</li><li>SK's get reaver (each successfull spell will heal 2,5% hp), lifetaps (unsure of all amounts, but generally i can see my buddy pull off up tp 700-800HPS depending on encountertype, shadowknights Fury (riposte / parry 100% attacks for 16seconds, 4ish minute recast i think?), bloodletter (full heal at the cost of 20% of each groupmembers health, with 6set bonus this is a 2trigger spell)</li></ul></blockquote>If you nerf our DPS, give us more survival (more mit. incr, more block or so).

victer

02-11-2009, 09:45 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>Those are not going away. These changes enforce the player making a decision about how they want to go. Healers have a similar setup with their achievement based stances. If they want to heal they pick the heal stance if healing isnt crucial they have the option to improve dps but they can't instantly switch between them. For fighters the idea is similar. If you want to dps then you need to commit to that and take the positives with the negatives. If you want to be the tank then you need to realize that your role is not that of dps anymore. These aspects are fundamental to this update and are not at all likely to change.</blockquote>I'm still worried about the stance changing.You say that healers have to decide if they want to heal or do dps and cant instantly go from one to the other. You think that it should be the same way for tanks.What we offtanks need you to understand is that we dont decide when we want to tank or do dps it is pretty much default. For instance, when we are not tanking we are expected to do as much dps to the mob as possible but at the same time we are expected to be ready to tank the mob and take hard hits if the MT ever goes down.What we are asking for is the ability to switch stances quickly once only. Any recast time you want to add after that will work (i think 5 secsonds would be too low for this actually).We dont want to stance dance. We just want to be 100% sure we are doing everything possible to fulfill our role. 5 seconds to wait for DStance and all the bonuses to inc dammage it gives it too long in a hard hitting raid encounter.

Seolta

02-11-2009, 09:46 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>For every parse you have of an SK there is a parse of a Zerk doing nearly the same, but nobody's posting maximized Zerk parses.I guess it's just fashionable at the moment to QQ about us because we finally got spotlight.You do know that group setup/buffs/encounter type account for most of any class's DPS right?You do know that long fights benefit SK's with our mass tap dmg...right?IF WE DONT HAVE A DPS ADVANTAGE THERE IS NO REASON TO PLAY AN SK OVER A ZERK OTHER THAN ROLEPLAY...which you may find fulfilling, but most of us don't.</blockquote>My BS alarm just went off.......Its time to play the game called "prove those statements"The rules are simple put up or shut up.Put up that 15k+ zone wide single target zerker parse from Palace using a detailed ACT report.......I have yet to see it from any guild. If you fail to post those parse feel free to come on the boards and admit your failure. We are all awaiting eagerly for this response. To prove the entire eq2 community wrong and that you alone knew that all tanks were secretly parsing insanely high dps numbers.Btw I only think that Sk need a dps adjustment in defensive probably to the effect of base spell damage reduction. Its a bit over the top and as you said sk are a hybrid and only half of that hybrid was nerfed.Personally i am awaiting to see [Removed for Content] do bruisers fit in this aoe tank department because other then aerilik I dont think a single person playing eq2 thinks of bruisers when someone mentions aoe agro. He seriously needs to turn at minimum our stance procs into an encounter proc.btw +1 for the removal of the stance recast.... I am serious it is not needed and severly hinders on the fly adjustments in tanking. Any stance dancing will be at a minimum. It takes away one of the best and most fun features of being a fighter. </blockquote>Here's the guy that did the FAMOUS 15k parse on palace trash with a "perfect" group: sk/illy/dirge/troub/wizzy/inq and alot of the best SK dps gear in the game AND a Raidwide DPS of over 150k:<a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/characters/character_profile.vm?characterId=445684206">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...terId=445684206</a>Here's a Zerker pulling 9591k(approx 50% less) with mediocre gear in comparison, NON optimal group: zerk/templar/mystic/Dirge/Coercer/pally AND lost the coercer halfway through the raid! "Coercer had not enough AA to get peace of mind and we lost her half the way in the zone." Raidwide DPS of only 93k(approx 50% less than the SK's raid...hmm starting to see a trend here):<a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/characters/character_profile.vm?characterId=466164302">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...terId=466164302</a><a href="http://www.eq2flames.com/berserkers/20169-random-berserker-zonewides-13.html">http://www.eq2flames.com/berserkers...newides-13.html</a> (original thread on flames so you don't have to trust me, you can read the guy's own words)Give this zerk much better gear, perfect group (or even one that contains a coercer/illy for more than half the raid) and a similar boost in gear etc to everyone in his guild....hmm....he's gonna be pretty close to the SK now isnt he?<img src="http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/1706/palacedpsmi2.jpg" width="752" height="686" />p.s. the 15k Zerker parse is safely on someone's hard-drive because unlike our SK friend, most top-end plate tanks are smart enough to know that if they post a 15k parse all the class envy QQ'ers are gonna cry for a nerf wether it's justified or not.

victer

02-11-2009, 10:03 PM

your not reading the parses well11 pulls in the zerkers parse25 pulls in the sk's parseMeans the zerker was fighting more then 1 at a timenote they both do 13m total damage

Squeecha

02-11-2009, 10:13 PM

... wrong thread

Bruener

02-11-2009, 10:17 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Matia wrote:</cite><blockquote>And to paraphrase you, if you are going to work on classes, then you need to realize that the classes' roles are their choice and you should take their views into the equation.</blockquote>Which is exactly what this update is all about enhancing the fighters primary role which is tanking. Tanking means dealing with the damage from your target and holding the targets attention with taunts( ie threat). We dealt with damage in the first part with some additional enhancements in the second part. The second part deals with your threat generation which was lacking and not scaling properly which forced you to rely on others and doing high dps to have a chance. This update then helps attack those deficiences so that you can focus on your core role of threat generation and defense while leaving the dps to the scouts and mages.</blockquote>Oh, thank HEAVENS. I was so worried about scout and mage representation on raids. Please don't stop there. While you are at it raise Bard and Enchanter DPS more so that we can bring even more of them along on raids. I mean 4-5 slots for bards and 4-5 slots for enchanters isn't nearly enough. While we are at it please increase the DPS of rogues since their Debuffs don't already make reasons to bring them to raids. Or is the plan to just have T1 DPS, like assassins, make up all the difference in DPS by parsing 30k+....woot more ASSASSINS on raids.Seriously what is the vision here? Do you want less fighters on raids? Do you want more of the classes that are already on raids? Are you trying to make room for summoners? If that is the case than look at taking those spots from the bards and chanters.

victer

02-11-2009, 10:20 PM

<cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>p.s. the 15k Zerker parse is safely on someone's hard-drive because unlike our SK friend, most top-end plate tanks are smart enough to know that if they post a 15k parse all the class envy QQ'ers are gonna cry for a nerf wether it's justified or not.</blockquote>if i could parse that with a spoon i would post screens all day

Cyrdemac

02-11-2009, 10:21 PM

Matia

02-11-2009, 10:31 PM

Gungo

02-11-2009, 10:57 PM

<cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>For every parse you have of an SK there is a parse of a Zerk doing nearly the same, but nobody's posting maximized Zerk parses.I guess it's just fashionable at the moment to QQ about us because we finally got spotlight.You do know that group setup/buffs/encounter type account for most of any class's DPS right?You do know that long fights benefit SK's with our mass tap dmg...right?IF WE DONT HAVE A DPS ADVANTAGE THERE IS NO REASON TO PLAY AN SK OVER A ZERK OTHER THAN ROLEPLAY...which you may find fulfilling, but most of us don't.</blockquote>My BS alarm just went off.......Its time to play the game called "prove those statements"The rules are simple put up or shut up.Put up that 15k+ zone wide single target zerker parse from Palace using a detailed ACT report.......I have yet to see it from any guild. If you fail to post those parse feel free to come on the boards and admit your failure. We are all awaiting eagerly for this response. To prove the entire eq2 community wrong and that you alone knew that all tanks were secretly parsing insanely high dps numbers.Btw I only think that Sk need a dps adjustment in defensive probably to the effect of base spell damage reduction. Its a bit over the top and as you said sk are a hybrid and only half of that hybrid was nerfed.Personally i am awaiting to see [Removed for Content] do bruisers fit in this aoe tank department because other then aerilik I dont think a single person playing eq2 thinks of bruisers when someone mentions aoe agro. He seriously needs to turn at minimum our stance procs into an encounter proc.btw +1 for the removal of the stance recast.... I am serious it is not needed and severly hinders on the fly adjustments in tanking. Any stance dancing will be at a minimum. It takes away one of the best and most fun features of being a fighter. </blockquote>Here's the guy that did the FAMOUS 15k parse on palace trash with a "perfect" group: sk/illy/dirge/troub/wizzy/inq and alot of the best SK dps gear in the game AND a Raidwide DPS of over 150k:<a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/characters/character_profile.vm?characterId=445684206">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...terId=445684206</a>Here's a Zerker pulling 9591k(approx 50% less) with mediocre gear in comparison, NON optimal group: zerk/templar/mystic/Dirge/Coercer/pally AND lost the coercer halfway through the raid! "Coercer had not enough AA to get peace of mind and we lost her half the way in the zone." Raidwide DPS of only 93k(approx 50% less than the SK's raid...hmm starting to see a trend here):<a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/characters/character_profile.vm?characterId=466164302">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...terId=466164302</a><a href="http://www.eq2flames.com/berserkers/20169-random-berserker-zonewides-13.html">http://www.eq2flames.com/berserkers...newides-13.html</a> (original thread on flames so you don't have to trust me, you can read the guy's own words)Give this zerk much better gear, perfect group (or even one that contains a coercer/illy for more than half the raid) and a similar boost in gear etc to everyone in his guild....hmm....he's gonna be pretty close to the SK now isnt he?<img src="http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/1706/palacedpsmi2.jpg" width="752" height="686" />p.s. the 15k Zerker parse is safely on someone's hard-drive because unlike our SK friend, most top-end plate tanks are smart enough to know that if they post a 15k parse all the class envy QQ'ers are gonna cry for a nerf wether it's justified or not.</blockquote>Not only do you NOT put up the parse i asked for.You put up a parse with a zerker doing multi mobs for less dps then the shadowknight does on single targets.WTG, You fail at life.......I didn't ask for a bunch of crappy players with [Removed for Content] poor raid dps......Again put up a 15k zone wide for a zerker on SINGLE target trash in Palace.Waiting......Waiting.......Waiting........Edit: we will be nice in this game. I will give you 3 strikes. So far you have 1. Lets see if you can back up those statements.

Danelin

02-12-2009, 12:35 AM

Before these changes were as far along in testing, Aeralik stated that offtanks would love them because they would be able to DPS in offstance then rapidly switch to defensive to pick up adds. Now suddenly it is 'force you to decide your role and not be able to switch suddenly like a healer'...This is comparing apples and oranges, not to mention completely reversing your stance about what the changes meant for non main-tank fighters.1 - A healer's stances are not an inherent part of their character. They are not an essential part of their job. My inquisitor had to earn nearly 200 AA to get the stances in the first place.2 - A healer does NOT lose access to all of their buffs during the stance switching time. They do not lose access to any essential abilities of their roles while IN either of those stances, they simply have them at reduced effectiveness.3 - A healer's emergency abilities are not in any way impacted by the stance switch. My inquisitor can throw her emergency life transfer heal in the same macro that drops her offensive stance, then be throwing her heals at above the full basic power of the heal (due to gear) before switching to healing stance and only losing one AA buff to offense and paying higher power cost for her offense, while getting EVEN MORE HEALING... This is comparing apples to oranges. A well played healer does not pay nearly the penalty with their stance switches that a tank does. It is not as critical for a healer to be able to switch instantly between roles, and healers do not lose ALL HEALING to do offense, or ANY BASE DAMAGE to heal.Next - You are trying to reduce the rich and varied mixture of tanking styles that this game has benefited from since launch down to one tanking style. You are saying you are getting a BIG BUFF TO YOUR PRIMARY ROLE, BEING A PURE MEATSHIELD!... Wakeup call time. Paladins and Guardians are the pure meatshield tanks. They are the only ones that have gone into their tanking expecting to be nothing more than a damage absorber, either with tons of pure defense, or some utility healing.Since the game went live there have been three basic flavors of tank, which can be boiled down even further into AE and single target, balanced by player skill and gear, etc etc. When the game launched, berserkers, shadowknights, and both brawlers knew that they were sacrificing some of the guardian and paladin toughness for better offense. The addition of stances allowed us to shift this further one way or the other, based on our gear and playstyle. The changes you are making are trying to give us two tanks x3, not six tanks. The community as a whole does not like this. If you look at most of the people posting as widely in favor of all changes, almost EVERY one of them is a player who likes the PURE MEAT SHIELD mindset. Which is fine for them. This playstyle needs an upgrade. It was badly hurting in recent times. Having the ability to shift back and forth for every tank would be a great benefit!You have never given us one reason behind the nerfs to fighter DPS. You keep telling us to let the scouts and mages do their jobs, but when 99% of us made our characters, enchanters and bards were EXPECTED to do lower DPS than a tank. They are scouts and mages. You have since increased enchanter damage output to be comperable to other DPS mages without penalizing their utility. But you have never shared with the community your views about what you expect, other than a general statement that boils down to 'we are going to make all tanking generic and easy.'Why is it that fighters are suddenly ALL needing to lose the ability to DPS? Why are you suddenly talking about minor tweaks to 'balance post-change dps' ... Fighters were never supposed to have equal DPS in the first place. Shortly after launch there was a specific listing of expected class DPS, divided into tiers. I am pulling this strictly from vague memory, but it went something like this:Tier 1 - Predators = Sorcerors > Summoners with Mage pets: All of these classes are virtually pure DPS. They have very few utility tricks, buffs, or debuffs. Mostly they go *boom*.Tier 2 - Rogues = Summoners with scout pets> brawlers> shadowknights = berskers while in offensive focus Tier 3 - Berserkers = Shadowknights while defense focused > Enchanters = Bards > Guardian = Paladin while offensive > Offensive healersTier 4 - Guardian = Paladin while defensive > non offensive HealersI have simplified this a bit rather than doing a pure class-by-class listing. Now, other than Enchanter moving up to be in the T2 bracket, the vast majority of raid parses I have seen come out looking pretty similar to this even now, provided all things are equal. (They never are in a single parse of course. Someone is always better geared or better buffed, the mobs all have way too much resist for the casters to even look cross eyed at the predators and assassins are way broken compared to ranger atm)I am curious to know what precisely you think a Tier by Tier breakdown would look like now, all things being equal? Where precisely is the problem with our damage output? Is it getting too close to the Tier2 dps classes? Did your changes to the Shadowknight presuppose these changes going live, and the fact that they are now parsing so high is giving you excuses to nerf down ALL fighter DPS completely into the basement?Some of the proposed changes are very good. The shift away from reliance on other classes to generate our aggro and freeing up wider group makeup are very welcome. The ability to choose the defensive option from the getgo on an offensive tank rather than having to struggle and get into topend gear to even have the option of doing it without losing aggro left right and center would be great!The nerfing of the existing ability to tank in offensive stance would be fine, if it were something small, that discourages doing it in difficult content, provided the ability to rapidly switch (Note, I don't mean frequent dancing, I mean switch - A long reuse would be fine) were preserved. Something like a 10 second un-linked reuse on stances coupled with a 5% increase in damage taken while offensive would do this just fine. Even better would be a change that makes all avoidance contested while in offensive and leaves mitigation alone. This would guarantee nobody would want to tank offensive on anything higher than a low-yellow mob, no matter how nice their gear was.Other than that, build up the defensive stance and taunts so that tanking defensive works again. The PURE MEAT SHIELD tanking style should definitely be a viable one. In some content (like say raids?) it has always been the best, and this is where Guardians should shine.Aeralik's posts almost universally have the tone of 'I am doing you a favor by making your ONLY VALID PLAYSTYLE CHOICE the ONLY POSSIBLE ONE' to anyone who understands the tanking mechanics of the game in depth. It is NOT a welcome change to most of the tanking community. Freeing us up to not HAVE to focus on DPS can be accomplished without punishing us for actively using our secondary role. Many of us created our characters with DPS TANKING being the primary role we had in mind, especially brawlers and berserkers. (This will vary a lot more from shadowknight to shadowknight) ...Members of the Everquest 2 community want the REASONING and GOALS for changes explained to us along with how the mechanics will work, and we want the developers to LISTEN when we posit reasons the changes, or even the reasoning behind those changes, are flawed. We want this to be a two-way street in more than appearance. We need the developers to recognize that many of the long-standing players of this game know the player's end of the game as well as or even better than you do! I realize this is not something simple and easy. Pulling the wheat from the chaff in these forums has to be a logistical nightmare, but another NGE would be a worse nightmare for all involved. The tank changes as they are written now will cause many, many of the skilled tanks of the game to become disillusioned with their characters and either quit the game or stop tanking. I personally do NOT want to go back to my late-game EQ1 experiences where tanks were the most boring toons to play, so they were impossible to find.

Slowin

02-12-2009, 12:42 AM

Comparing fighter stances to healer stances was completely horrible analogy in every way hehe. Anyway, to people that disagree with how stances work right now -- our main tank never uses offensive stance on raids at all on live. Our offtank will use offensive stance but only if there is no chance of him tanking. As it is.. there are very VERY few times when the offtank randomly has to pick up aggro when he is not expecting to.How often does your MT die on trash pulls that the offtank will have to try and toggle between stances in order to effectively pick up the mob.. i mean even if he needs to do this.. click off stance.. burn rescue etc. and put on defensive.If you're fighting a mob like switchmaster then you better be offtanking in defensive anyway ready to grab the mob if MT gets yellowed and who cares if you lose a little dps.. thats not your job on that fight and i know none of our tanks are in the habit of fighting named they know they will be needed on in offensive -- it just doesn't make sense to do so.The only raid encounter i've experienced where i could see a possible gripe is snake in tomb but in this case its such an easy mob that if your MT gets cursed its easy to switch stances and burn rescue, and if you're the MT you'll have more than 5 seconds to switch stances in order to burn your add. I just am failing to come up with situations where tanks really need the ability to switch stances within 1 second. At worst, you lose the ability to tank trash in offensive as a MT (but this has not been tested by anyone to my knowledge in a raid setting and if it has and its shown to be impossible please post here and confirm it) due to the fact that other raid members would be losing a ton of deaggro from troubs and the tank now gains much less passive hate, but honestly, losing at best 6k dps having to tank in defensive is really pretty small when your raid should be doing over 100k dps.I honestly just wish this were pushed live because until i can test this in a raid setting alot of this discussion is just speculation based on the numbers only. Personally it seems like in theory, hate transfers were nerfed a little too much, such that it breaks the cool class relying on other classes dynamic that this game has done fairly well so far. But again, till i can really test this in a raid setting its just speculation.my vote is we get this to live ASAP -- everything seems to be fairly well in order and any remaining issues will become apparent real quick at which point this discussion will become alot more meaningful.EDIT: and p.s. brawlers really could use some lovin... i hope that their issues get addressed.. they need a defined role... there should be no question about them being the very top tier of dps fighters for how much they sacrifice in survivability without the perfectly stacked group and gear.

Danelin

02-12-2009, 12:47 AM

Just real fast since I need to go off and do work stuff. Slowin - The loss of the fast ability to switch is more of a big deal for off-off tanks, but the ability to rapidly adapt to unexpected changes (MT goes LD etc) has always been the mark of a skilled tank and a strong raid force. This diminshes the ability of that to be done. That coupled with the fact that Aeralik was trying to sell us these changes with 'you'll be able to DPS harder with no fear of ripping then rapidly switch to defensive when you need to tank' initially then completely reversed his stance on the subject with NO explanation as to WHY is the reasoning. The only thing he has said was he didn't want people to stance dance, but we have given MANY suggestions on ways to avoid the dance while still preserving flexibility and until today he said nothing, then he simply said we needed to decide what we are doing in advance.

Full_Metal_Mage

02-12-2009, 12:57 AM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Full_Metal_Mage wrote:</cite><blockquote>So you're actually admitting that you don't listen to feedback and are going to shove this garbage on everyone anyway. </blockquote>Realistically, I don't think anyone expected them to just chuck the whole thing out the window and start over from scratch. It was clear that they were committed to the overall design changes they were making. I was hoping for some more changes (particluarly with regards to this notion of ST/AE tanks), but it is what it is.At this point, we either adjust, or not. As I mentioned in my followup to his answer, given that things aren't changing much, I think they should just publish it and give us the time to make those adjustments before the new content is released.There's going to be a learning curve for tanks and DPS alike. I am curious as to what's going to happen to the overall tank population in the game, particularly the more casual (non-raiding) players who mostly tank instances. I see people regularly begging for tanks as it is; my suspicion is that this is going to make that even tougher, but I could be wrong.</blockquote>Apparently, if you want to play a Paladin in an MMO, you have to play WoW. That's just sad.Guess I'll play an SK for a while. If that doesn't work out for me then it's time for a different hobby.

Slowin

02-12-2009, 01:00 AM

<cite>Danelin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just real fast since I need to go off and do work stuff. Slowin - The loss of the fast ability to switch is more of a big deal for off-off tanks, but the ability to rapidly adapt to unexpected changes (MT goes LD etc) has always been the mark of a skilled tank and a strong raid force. This diminshes the ability of that to be done. That coupled with the fact that Aeralik was trying to sell us these changes with 'you'll be able to DPS harder with no fear of ripping then rapidly switch to defensive when you need to tank' initially then completely reversed his stance on the subject with NO explanation as to WHY is the reasoning. The only thing he has said was he didn't want people to stance dance, but we have given MANY suggestions on ways to avoid the dance while still preserving flexibility and until today he said nothing, then he simply said we needed to decide what we are doing in advance.</blockquote>Yeah, in my post i guess i'm more trying to think how difficult coping with the changes would be, but on the other hand, why does there need to be the 5 second cooldown in the first place for switching stances -- it doesn't really make any sense because i fail to see how switching stances can even be exploited. As others have suggested, make the reuses independent of each other if you don't want "dancing." But what is the good reason for requiring a 5 second delay between an initial switch of offensive to defensive or vice versa.The biggest point i wanted to make in my post is that these changes need to go live so we can actually see how they will turn out in ALL aspects of gameplay and then the obvious problems will become apparently and people will have evidence from their personal experience to back it up.

Danelin

02-12-2009, 01:29 AM

<cite>Slowin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, in my post i guess i'm more trying to think how difficult coping with the changes would be, but on the other hand, why does there need to be the 5 second cooldown in the first place for switching stances -- it doesn't really make any sense because i fail to see how switching stances can even be exploited. As others have suggested, make the reuses independent of each other if you don't want "dancing." But what is the good reason for requiring a 5 second delay between an initial switch of offensive to defensive or vice versa.The biggest point i wanted to make in my post is that these changes need to go live so we can actually see how they will turn out in ALL aspects of gameplay and then the obvious problems will become apparently and people will have evidence from their personal experience to back it up.</blockquote>I totally understand your perspective, and were it not for over a decade of playing SOE games I would heartily agree with it. As it is, this whole change process is a perfect example of what they tend to do with game revisions. They historically often give inadequate information, ignore feedback, and plough through like a mindless juggernaut to push things through to live, regardless of feedback. Once a set of changes makes it to live, it is VERY slow to change, and often we are simply expected to accept status quo, no matter how unacceptable we find it.When EQ1 was the only game on the block, this caused a lot of moaning and wailing but very few long term effects. Since that time it has tended to cause massive shifts in game population back and forth between different games, even for all intents and purposes completely destroying the SWG franchise with the NGE.I am concerned that if the changes get pushed through to live as they currently stand, it will murder the tank population, resulting in a big shift away from the ability to find groups (moreso than currently) and leading to a major decline in the game population. This is an especially big risk with a change this major, as they are revising every aspect of the aggro mechanics and nearly every class effected by pure aggro management, which is pretty much everyone. Not only are they 're-envisioning' the game on the fly, but they are ignoring large portions of the feedback related to it, and changing their stances regarding what the classes will and won't be able to do after the changes while the changes are undergoing testing, while ignoring all feedback on the subject. The 'you will take it and you will like it' philosophy is probably the single worst customer service model there is. It angers customers, especially in situations like this where they are using changes that ARE needed (Improving defensive tanking, reducing reliance on outside aggro for tanks) to justify wide sweeping changes that are NOT needed (Universal nerfing of DPS while tanking for all tank classes coupled with the inability to tank while being offensive). It is fixing a loose screw with a sledgehammer instead of a screwdriver. If one of the tank classes is completely out of line in DPS while offensive, then fix it. Suddenly making us unable to tank while offensive because it 'Is not our primary role' is assuming that every fighter is a guardian/paladin and wants to fight like one, was designed to fight like one, and has fought like one from the beginning. None of those things are true.Also taking away from the flexibility and ability to have variety of tanking just plain detracts from the game. Right now many EQ2 players chose it for the level of complexity involved vs WoW, and the more mature player base that additional complexity attracts. I am concerned for the health of the game, as well as the fun of playing my tank. I did not make a berserker with the intent of being a super-low-damage-output cautious guy who stands back and just meat shields. I would have been guardian all the way if that had been my goal, doubly so during RoK when Guardians were insanely OP.

DMIstar

02-12-2009, 02:20 AM

<cite>Morrolan V wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have seen shard armored, non-myth SKs parse consistently over 10K in multiple target instances, in non-optimal groups.I'm sorry - I know that SKs had it rough in ROK. But it's over the top right now.</blockquote>Only 10k ? name me any aoe Caster, That can't beat an SK in AoE damage. and Ill tell you they have no Fn Clue how to play thier dam class.Berserkers would be close, but sk's will beat them. but this was mentioned on Beta thats how it was going to be. so they can get over it.Bruisers I have no clue atm where the hell they stand.... ------------------------------------------------------------ Parses are nothing more then trying to dictate that two people are playing the same exact way and mindset, which is pure BS anyway which makes the dam things null.Have yet to see anyone Come here and show Visually number wise how "SK"s are so superior in Damage vs cast time, Vs Recast time, against any other class ... at an equal lvl plane .. which means no giveing the zerker 500str and matching it to an sk with 900str ...Hell aoe wise the, recasts is ridiculous on Grave sacrement and doomrays already .. which is the major AoEs of the class ..I guess for great parses to suit others needs we need to stop between pulls and make specialty time for the sk to refresh .. As for the statement "Anyone can go onto an sk and play it right" Well this was already done in Beta and the parses given dureing that time since gear and myths where handed out like candy, completly showed this wrong as hell. and as what ive seen on live its the same thing ..

Chaaz

02-12-2009, 02:33 AM

Actually, don't discredit the parse for Vormav just yet. It actually illistrates the issue very well. NOTE: I can only go with what I see, as Cody's list of damage sources is cut off. <table style="color:white;" ><tbody><tr><td colspan="3">Vormav - Berserker - 179 INT</td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3">Melee Statistics</td></tr> <tr><td>Hits</td><td>Crits</td><td>Crit %</td></tr> <tr><td>4246</td><td>4201</td><td>98.94</td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3">Spell Statistics</td></tr> <tr><td>Hits</td><td>Crits</td><td>Crit %</td></tr> <tr><td>1940</td><td>186</td><td>9.58</td></tr></tbody></table> <table style="color:white;" ><tbody><tr><td colspan="3">Cody - Shadowknight - 872 INT</td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3">Melee Statistics</td></tr> <tr><td>Hits</td><td>Crits</td><td>Crit %</td></tr> <tr><td>667</td><td>539</td><td>80.81</td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3">Spell Statistics</td></tr> <tr><td>Hits</td><td>Crits</td><td>Crit %</td></tr> <tr><td>5119</td><td>4637</td><td>90.58</td></tr></tbody></table> I would bet the gap would close more if Berserker itemization would simply add Spell Crit and Int. From what I've seen just briefly viewing different class parse threads, all the gear procs and class buff procs get quite a bit meaner with high Spell Crit. Cerebral Mindlash for Crusaders is averaging mid 800s while only averaging around 400s for Berserkers, and this is only 1 proc. Some of the higher end Assassin parses have 50%+ Spell Crit. I for one, would love to see a parse from a Berserker with high Melee and Spell Crit and a decent INT. Unfortunatly, I don't see this being easy with the way items are built for the class.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 04:16 AM

<cite>Morrolan V wrote:</cite><blockquote>There are no multiple target pulls in Palace of the Ancient One.</blockquote>Yes there are, though maybe 30 guilds have reached them so far.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 04:33 AM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am curious as to what's going to happen to the overall tank population in the game, particularly the more casual (non-raiding) players who mostly tank instances. I see people regularly begging for tanks as it is; my suspicion is that this is going to make that even tougher, but I could be wrong.</blockquote>Instance tanks stand to gain the most from this update.As it is on live, if there is no hate transfer (or troubador) in a group, I simply don't bother tanking it. I don't look at the makup of the rest of the group until I know a swashbuckler, assassin, coercer or bard are present. Its this choice that I have made that has given me a reputation on my server (as a guardian) for being a decient tank, with few players having realised that I am only decient due to the rest of the group.It may be a bit of a learning curve (it shouldn't be, as the actual in combat use for each combat art has not changed), it is one that will make tanking an instance more fun for those that enjoy tanking for the actual tanking aspect of the game, though not those that enjoy a good parse.I'm going to be very intersted to see the next wave of changes to test. I was expecting a slight downgrade to SK and zerker DPS (as anyone reading the testing forums would be aware), but I wass expecting them to come after the majority of the changes went live.

Morrolan V

02-12-2009, 05:15 AM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Morrolan V wrote:</cite><blockquote>There are no multiple target pulls in Palace of the Ancient One.</blockquote>Yes there are, though maybe 30 guilds have reached them so far.</blockquote>I stand corrected. The correction, however is completely irrelevant to the point at hand.There are no multiple target pulls in the Palace trash parses being discussed above.

Vulkan_NTooki

02-12-2009, 05:52 AM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Matia wrote:</cite><blockquote>And to paraphrase you, if you are going to work on classes, then you need to realize that the classes' roles are their choice and you should take their views into the equation.</blockquote>Which is exactly what this update is all about enhancing the fighters primary role which is tanking. Tanking means dealing with the damage from your target and holding the targets attention with taunts( ie threat). We dealt with damage in the first part with some additional enhancements in the second part. The second part deals with your threat generation which was lacking and not scaling properly which forced you to rely on others and doing high dps to have a chance. This update then helps attack those deficiences so that you can focus on your core role of threat generation and defense while leaving the dps to the scouts and mages.</blockquote>This is where your reasoning fails...High dps for fighters was a choice fighters made sacrificing surviveability to be able to hold aggro better. It was not a mechanic added in game, nor was the dps forced upon us. U could arguable say it was a forced choice though, cause without the highest dps possible, the other dps classes couldnt go all out as they wanted to, and the group would go slower doing content. This change will force content to be cleared slower as well btw.. but I guess thats one of your goals?Now.. to fix this you should simply make it a viable choice to hold aggro through taunts alone.. improving dps should just make that threat stronger.. this would seperate the good tanks from the run of the mill tanks.. A good tank will adjust surviveability vs dps for the best of the group depending on the encounters at hand. A bad tank will just go full defensive and click his neener neener buttons regardless of challenge..If your view on tanking is a bad mouthed meat shield, then you seriously need to discuss things with a proper tank.But if this is the path you gonna take, then so be it.. I just hope it will make it easier for those run of the mill tanks and maybe we will see a higher number of online tanks again..

Noaani

02-12-2009, 06:18 AM

<cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>High dps for fighters was a choice fighters made sacrificing surviveability to be able to hold aggro better. It was not a mechanic added in game, nor was the dps forced upon us.</blockquote>Wrong, fighters went DPS first because it was the only way of generating hate to keep up with the increased hate DPS classes were generating. This was from back in late DoF.A lot of fighters rolled up because of the DPS they saw, as it looked like a fun class to play (high DPS, high survivability). It wasn't until later on that fighters started sacrficing any sort of survivability in order to DPS outside of the stance options.

JinjAB

02-12-2009, 07:13 AM

<cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Matia wrote:</cite><blockquote>And to paraphrase you, if you are going to work on classes, then you need to realize that the classes' roles are their choice and you should take their views into the equation.</blockquote>Which is exactly what this update is all about enhancing the fighters primary role which is tanking. Tanking means dealing with the damage from your target and holding the targets attention with taunts( ie threat). We dealt with damage in the first part with some additional enhancements in the second part. The second part deals with your threat generation which was lacking and not scaling properly which forced you to rely on others and doing high dps to have a chance. This update then helps attack those deficiences so that you can focus on your core role of threat generation and defense while leaving the dps to the scouts and mages.</blockquote>This is where your reasoning fails...High dps for fighters was a choice fighters made sacrificing surviveability to be able to hold aggro better. It was not a mechanic added in game, nor was the dps forced upon us. U could arguable say it was a forced choice though, cause without the highest dps possible, the other dps classes couldnt go all out as they wanted to, and the group would go slower doing content. This change will force content to be cleared slower as well btw.. but I guess thats one of your goals?Now.. to fix this you should simply make it a viable choice to hold aggro through taunts alone.. improving dps should just make that threat stronger.. this would seperate the good tanks from the run of the mill tanks.. A good tank will adjust surviveability vs dps for the best of the group depending on the encounters at hand. A bad tank will just go full defensive and click his neener neener buttons regardless of challenge..If your view on tanking is a bad mouthed meat shield, then you seriously need to discuss things with a proper tank.But if this is the path you gonna take, then so be it.. I just hope it will make it easier for those run of the mill tanks and maybe we will see a higher number of online tanks again..</blockquote>Aerilik, the above is another good example of someone trying to provide useful critique. There are many many similar posts. It would actually be amazing if you and the team responded to some of the plethora of ideas being offered up and let us know why the team is ignoring/dismissing them in favour of the original plan. What is In Testing Feedback for? It feels as though you and the team have changed precious little since the intial build went to test, other than some obvious fixes. Is that it's only goal, bug identification?Please listen to the community and respond. No one is asking for anything game-breaking, unless you consider choice game-breaking? Look at how the game and the roles have organically developed and guide them, don't just cut them back and start again. What is actually wrong with having taunts in offensive? You are doing more damage, taking more damage, yet you still have control of the threat/mob. If you choose to make your healers work, or are in a two healer group then you should be able to CHOOSE!Remember that this is our freetime. It may be your job with all the pressures that entails, but this, for us, the fee payers, is something we choose to do for fun. We dont have deadlines, targets that will get us sacked. We do it for pleasure. Now, if the team can't run with that and understand it, you need to refocus & reassess. You need to keep this game fun for us, otherwise we vote with our feet. You won't lose half the community overnight, but you will contribute to the attrition. Or is there a master plan and something else is coming. Give us a clue, keep us enticed to accept these unpopular changes.The methodology of controlling your own agro is sound. It gives the tank a purpose, it is their role. They have this role as they are the best at dealing with or avoiding (remember brawlers?) the damage. It should be their CHOICE if they want to suck it up and go best dps at the expense of survivability.Is there a real reason that a zerker with two short swords can keep the attention of a mob better than an amazingly fast monk with an 8 foot staff? Does it matter? In what situation do we need to penalise a tanking class like this?Does rapid stance switching spoil the game? Can there be an AA or an item that allows it? Come on think out of the box, work with us and develop with us. This can be rewarding for both sides (yes, we have sides now sadly in this debate over change). The post you put up a few weeks ago about the changes was a positive thing. Now please, elaborate, tell us why this idea and that idea are not going to work. You have an opportunity to earn our respect here and show us that our free time, our play time, the thing that we decide to do rather than anything else, the thing that is passionate to us, is in good hands.

Vulkan_NTooki

02-12-2009, 08:02 AM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>High dps for fighters was a choice fighters made sacrificing surviveability to be able to hold aggro better. It was not a mechanic added in game, nor was the dps forced upon us.</blockquote>Wrong, fighters went DPS first because it was the only way of generating hate to keep up with the increased hate DPS classes were generating. This was from back in late DoF.A lot of fighters rolled up because of the DPS they saw, as it looked like a fun class to play (high DPS, high survivability). It wasn't until later on that fighters started sacrficing any sort of survivability in order to DPS outside of the stance options.</blockquote>So you've decided to say the same thing I do, but with other words... Its still a choice.. go defensive and force your dps to reduce their dps to avoid getting aggro, or go offensive and letting dps do more dps too.. Going offensive was the obvious choice, but a choice still.. and to get better dps u sacrifice surviveability.. simple as that.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 08:18 AM

<cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>So you've decided to say the same thing I do, but with other words... Its still a choice.. go defensive and force your dps to reduce their dps to avoid getting aggro, or go offensive and letting dps do more dps too.. Going offensive was the obvious choice, but a choice still.. and to get better dps u sacrifice surviveability.. simple as that.</blockquote>The first job of a tank is to hold aggro, since increasing DPS was the only way to do that, it wasn't a choice as I would discribe a choice.In order for something to be an actual choice, there needs to be at least two viable options, since there was no way to do a fighters primary job other than DPS, there was no choice to be made.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 08:22 AM

<cite>Jinj@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Aerilik, the above is another good example of someone trying to provide useful critique. There are many many similar posts. It would actually be amazing if you and the team responded to some of the plethora of ideas being offered up and let us know why the team is ignoring/dismissing them in favour of the original plan.</blockquote>A lot of ideas that still held to the original idea behind these changes have been listened to.The idea you quoted basically goes against one of the core things this update is about, which is to remove the ability for fighters to DPS well while tanking. They are still allowing fighters to do some fairly good DPS, its just that it will not happen while they are tanking.Why should any developer respond to any post that is making a suggestion that is against the publically stated direction the developers are heading?

Vulkan_NTooki

02-12-2009, 08:39 AM

Jurmoon

02-12-2009, 08:45 AM

<cite>Danelin wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am concerned that if the changes get pushed through to live as they currently stand, it will murder the tank population, resulting in a big shift away from the ability to find groups (moreso than currently) and leading to a major decline in the game population. This is an especially big risk with a change this major, as they are revising every aspect of the aggro mechanics and nearly every class effected by pure aggro management, which is pretty much everyone. Not only are they 're-envisioning' the game on the fly, but they are ignoring large portions of the feedback related to it, and changing their stances regarding what the classes will and won't be able to do after the changes while the changes are undergoing testing, while ignoring all feedback on the subject. The 'you will take it and you will like it' philosophy is probably the single worst customer service model there is. It angers customers, especially in situations like this where they are using changes that ARE needed (Improving defensive tanking, reducing reliance on outside aggro for tanks) to justify wide sweeping changes that are NOT needed (Universal nerfing of DPS while tanking for all tank classes coupled with the inability to tank while being offensive). It is fixing a loose screw with a sledgehammer instead of a screwdriver.</blockquote> This really is the biggest issue I have. Like most players, I don't like the changes, and I'm concerned about what they are going to do to the game. SoE's response has been mind-blowing arrogance and disregard for customer satisfaction. Why would *any* company intentionally anger its customers with an unnecessary change to its product? And then follow that by informing the customers that if they don't like it they can go stuff it "where the sun don't shine"? It makes me think of the move "Major League" where the owner was intentionally sabotaging her own team so that she could get out of a lease, or "The Producers" intentional making of a flop. I just don't get it. If you don't want my business, just tell me. I can find something else to do.

madha

02-12-2009, 09:01 AM

Noaani

02-12-2009, 09:29 AM

<cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>Thats just wrong Noaani.. U know that.. U could get a dirge, a corcer, a swashy ,an assassin for your group and u could stick anything on ye even in defensive.. Or you could have a pally tank and he could go defensive if he had a great amend target, or you could ask your dps that keeps dying to aggro to slow down on dps.. There's alot of choice right there. Is it the best choice? No.. the best choice would be to generate as much aggro as possible.. Hence most tanks went down that route..A group consisting of a defensive pally tank, a dirge (for increased dps and aggro) a coercer for aggro, a swashy for aggro, and an assassin for aggro.. would generate less aggro than an offensive pally tank with same classes.. The mobs would die quicker if surviveability wasnt an issue. But even tho one choice is better than the other, its still a choice.</blockquote>So, you are saying that if you were given a "choice" between doing DPS (hate) and having enough survivability to do any instance you want, or having more survivability than you need for anything but not enough hate, and less DPS, you would actually consider that an option?Its not like fighters were sacrficing any worthwhile survivability in order to get the DPS they had, and you simply can not argue otherwise.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 09:33 AM

<cite>madhatr wrote:</cite><blockquote>Then why would we every bring a 3rd tank on raids? 3 tanks in defensive all the time is waist of a dps slot. Monks may dps well but another wizard or in fact anythign else will dps higher then a 3rd tank and be mpre benifit to the raid. gratz on killing 3rd tank slot in raids.</blockquote>Because several raid mobs require three tanks.Its not like they need to be in defensive stance for every encounter, only the ones they are expected to tank.

JinjAB

02-12-2009, 09:45 AM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jinj@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Aerilik, the above is another good example of someone trying to provide useful critique. There are many many similar posts. It would actually be amazing if you and the team responded to some of the plethora of ideas being offered up and let us know why the team is ignoring/dismissing them in favour of the original plan.</blockquote>A lot of ideas that still held to the original idea behind these changes have been listened to.The idea you quoted basically goes against one of the core things this update is about, which is to remove the ability for fighters to DPS well while tanking. They are still allowing fighters to do some fairly good DPS, its just that it will not happen while they are tanking.Why should any developer respond to any post that is making a suggestion that is against the publically stated direction the developers are heading?</blockquote>It was just an easy example of someone offering an idea, I did not say I supported it. A good example vs an example that is a good solution.Why should a dev respond... no one expects every post to be answered. However, alot of ideas are of a similar nature. If you want to win support how hard is it to collate some of the ideas and respond?And on the DPS... I like that when I choose to go defensive, against a tough target, I can have effective taunts. It validates going into defensive. In this scenario, my DPS don't matter, it matters that I live/survive in order to control the mob and protect everyone else. Previously, defensive was poor. However, there is no need to go defensive on many many mobs, nor for some classes (zerker) does it feel in the flavour of the class. The fun is to go offensive, run a bit of a risk of less survivability but why can't I still taunt while hitting harder and more consistently? It's fun! I can wind up the warlock who is slacking, there is banter! Now and then I can do a big parse. My only choice now, in order to keep mobs off people is to be in defensive. There is however no need for additional survivability, the mobs are not sufficient challenge, but I HAVE to be defensive only for taunts. It is gloomy, I may as well be a training dummy.

Vulkan_NTooki

02-12-2009, 09:59 AM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>Thats just wrong Noaani.. U know that.. U could get a dirge, a corcer, a swashy ,an assassin for your group and u could stick anything on ye even in defensive.. Or you could have a pally tank and he could go defensive if he had a great amend target, or you could ask your dps that keeps dying to aggro to slow down on dps.. There's alot of choice right there. Is it the best choice? No.. the best choice would be to generate as much aggro as possible.. Hence most tanks went down that route..A group consisting of a defensive pally tank, a dirge (for increased dps and aggro) a coercer for aggro, a swashy for aggro, and an assassin for aggro.. would generate less aggro than an offensive pally tank with same classes.. The mobs would die quicker if surviveability wasnt an issue. But even tho one choice is better than the other, its still a choice.</blockquote>So, you are saying that if you were given a "choice" between doing DPS (hate) and having enough survivability to do any instance you want, or having more survivability than you need for anything but not enough hate, and less DPS, you would actually consider that an option?Its not like fighters were sacrficing any worthwhile survivability in order to get the DPS they had, and you simply can not argue otherwise.</blockquote>And you think thats a fighter issue? Lol.. that my friend.. is a different discussion.. U cant go change fighters based on an issue with diminishing returns..And to your question.. Yes..thats an option.. Do keep in mind tho, that not everyone has the surviveability to do all zones in offensive.. But most can do like the easy heroic instances(tso) in offensive.. atleast with t1 shard gear. To tank harder ones they HAVE to go in defensive and will then HAVE to ask the group mates to slack on dps, or have the said dirge, swash, coercer, assassin in group.. Ergo, they made a choice.. Slack on getting gear upgrades = another fighting style with less efficiency.But anyways.. I believe this change will make it easier for any1 to just start a tank and actually play one at end game.. Hopefully it will bring more tanks to the table, so I dont have to spend an hour getting one for my wiz..Tanks will become more what Wizards are today.. the most slack/easy class to play.. I dont care anymore..

Noaani

02-12-2009, 10:04 AM

<cite>Jinj@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>It was just an easy example of someone offering an idea, I did not say I supported it. A good example vs an example that is a good solution.Why should a dev respond... no one expects every post to be answered. However, alot of ideas are of a similar nature. If you want to win support how hard is it to collate some of the ideas and respond?And on the DPS... I like that when I choose to go defensive, against a tough target, I can have effective taunts. It validates going into defensive. In this scenario, my DPS don't matter, it matters that I live/survive in order to control the mob and protect everyone else. Previously, defensive was poor. However, there is no need to go defensive on many many mobs, nor for some classes (zerker) does it feel in the flavour of the class. The fun is to go offensive, run a bit of a risk of less survivability but why can't I still taunt while hitting harder and more consistently? It's fun! I can wind up the warlock who is slacking, there is banter! Now and then I can do a big parse. My only choice now, in order to keep mobs off people is to be in defensive. There is however no need for additional survivability, the mobs are not sufficient challenge, but I HAVE to be defensive only for taunts. It is gloomy, I may as well be a training dummy.</blockquote>DPS does not matter. Killing a mob matters, and topping a parse is fun.If you want to be able to achieve that still, I suggest you ask the ACT developer to add in a function to add positive hate generated to damage dealt, and allow a total threat per second readout to be generated from the sum. This will give fighters a number that should see them at or close to the top of a parse, and gives them an accurate number to compare with eachother.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 10:05 AM

<cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>And you think thats a fighter issue? Lol.. that my friend.. is a different discussion.. U cant go change fighters based on an issue with diminishing returns..</blockquote>Its not a diminishing returns issue, its more the fact that the better DPS lines in the KoS achievement tree also happen to have some decient survivability gains, so the overall loss in survivability is minimal.<cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><<blockquote>But anyways.. I believe this change will make it easier for any1 to just start a tank and actually play one at end game.. Hopefully it will bring more tanks to the table, so I dont have to spend an hour getting one for my wiz..Tanks will become more what Wizards are today.. the most slack/easy class to play.. I dont care anymore..</blockquote>I agree. Tanks will not be hard to come by because of this change, even though tanking itself will be made ever so slightly harder in a lot of groups. If you previously had a hate transfer, they were equally to blame if you lost aggro, on test though, if you lose aggro it is totally your own fault (don't blame DPS, there are enough tools for tanks to hold aggro without issue).And yes, I agree that playing a wizard is the (third) easiest class in the game. Rangers are easier, as simply hitting ranged auto attack will give you 65% of your DPS, and assassins are easier, as they have no need for CA timing, and no need for a detailed combat art rotation. Wizards can simply spam some buttons to get good damage, but only until you want to get absolutly top end DPS, at which point no class is easy.

Vulkan_NTooki

02-12-2009, 10:33 AM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>And you think thats a fighter issue? Lol.. that my friend.. is a different discussion.. U cant go change fighters based on an issue with diminishing returns..</blockquote>Its not a diminishing returns issue, its more the fact that the better DPS lines in the KoS achievement tree also happen to have some decient survivability gains, so the overall loss in survivability is minimal.<cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><<blockquote>But anyways.. I believe this change will make it easier for any1 to just start a tank and actually play one at end game.. Hopefully it will bring more tanks to the table, so I dont have to spend an hour getting one for my wiz..Tanks will become more what Wizards are today.. the most slack/easy class to play.. I dont care anymore..</blockquote>I agree. Tanks will not be hard to come by because of this change, even though tanking itself will be made ever so slightly harder in a lot of groups. If you previously had a hate transfer, they were equally to blame if you lost aggro, on test though, if you lose aggro it is totally your own fault (don't blame DPS, there are enough tools for tanks to hold aggro without issue).And yes, I agree that playing a wizard is the (third) easiest class in the game. Rangers are easier, as simply hitting ranged auto attack will give you 65% of your DPS, and assassins are easier, as they have no need for CA timing, and no need for a detailed combat art rotation. Wizards can simply spam some buttons to get good damage, but only until you want to get absolutly top end DPS, at which point no class is easy.</blockquote>Not entirely true tho.. hehe.. you have something called an aggro meter.. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> If your high on it, dont expect to fission on a group encounter without getting aggro, or spike 85k+ icebolt.. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Wouldnt excactly call that the tanks fault..

Danelin

02-12-2009, 11:02 AM

I have yet to see a solid reasoning why all fighter DPS needs to be flushed down the toilet. Small modifications to individual classes can be made if they are out of line (For example taking a look at the AA that gives SKs insane DPS with a 1h/shield could help with their absurdly high autoattack hits) But this forcing of ALL fighters to toe the line of what the Devs have arbitrarily decided is the ONE WAY TO TANK is absurd. It does not benefit the player base in any way, it doesn't benefit the gameplay in any way. It majorly detracts from the fun of the fighter class.Making it impossible to rapidly switch from DPS to Tanking is stupid. I understand not wanting fighters to dance back and forth constantly between stances for the best of both worlds between amped up taunts and high hits. MANY suggestions that could fix this have been made. Aeralik has ignored all of them, then spontaneously switched what he said from "offtanks will be able to DPS then tank" to "you have to decide what you are doing before the fight" ... Why this sudden change? Why is flexibility in how we tank bad? Why is making us LESS USEFUL IN RAIDS in any way beneficial to the game? A once per 10, 20, even 30 second limited rapid stance switch would NOT break us in any other content. But that is out. He wants us defensive all the time. He wants us to have some minor DPS still on paper, but be unable to use it if we ever want to do our jobs. He wants us out of the parse altogether. nevermind the fact that some of us have been there since the beginning, nevermind the fact that many people made their characters with this in mind. Nevermind the fact that the vast majority of fighters HATE this change, and other than a few guardian/paladin players who are in favor of it, the closest I have heard to an in-favor response of the changes as they are now is a resigned attitude of 'we can't change what they will do anyway' ... Well, why the hell have I been handing SOE my hard earned cash if none of my feedback is ever paid attention to?Finally, Nooani, if you think this is going to make tanking in ANY way harder, you REALLY need to do the math over.My biggest complaint about these changes outside of raid viability for multiple tanks (something that was desperately needed given that every group needs 1 tank but every raid does NOT need 4. We have gotten to the point that running with 3 is not uncommon, and these changes will definitely reverse/remove that trend) is the fact that it is just like the racial changes that made my 'against the grain' characters significantly underpowered compared to their class/race paradigm compatriots. It is counter to what we were told our classes were when we made them. It is counter to how gameplay has worked for the vast majority of the time the game has been live, and it is not being made for any kind of well-defined reason. 'Moving tanks back to being tanks' Is an interesting concept. Even with the current mechanics I have NEVER seen a raid bypass a DPS class for a tank in order to fill a DPS slot. Generally you have one tank, one offtank, and one 3rd tank who doubles as a dps/utility for a melee dps group (brawler or berserker). Even if that SK parsed 15k, the pure casters in the same group similarly geared should have been parsing much higher. Now, I am not arguing that our DPS shouldn't be reduced at all. I am arguing that taking all flexibility out of tanking HURTS THE GAME. It hurts all of the tanks who know how to play well, who balance things like dps vs survivability and know which tanks to switch on. The tanks who know what outside aggro buffing an instance requires and plan appropriately. The tanks who know how many healers they will need for which stance in which instance.Making defensive WORK is a great idea. Many of the changes as they are proposed are really good. Making it so that Offensive is not the tanking arrangement of choice in most content is also fine. But changes that accomplish that without completely butchering the entire mechanic of how fighters work are perfectly reasonable. Changes that let flexibility remain and allow fighters to continue to be more than 'hit defensive, push taunts', and therefore fun to play, are possible to design. They require Aeralik to do more work, and interact more closely with the community while doing the changes. Apparently that is too much to ask. He wants a big broad sweeping 'Fix it to be what Aeralik wants it to be' and to hell with the general population.Frankly, I feel that Aeralik needs to be replaced badly. I think someone more like Domino, who actively participates in all aspects of the game that she has impact on and tries to interact and make decisions based on what people want needs to be in his job.I have lost all faith in his ability to be impartial in his changes - he favors assassins blatantly to the detriment of every other DPS class. He favors melee dps over casters and improves them even when casters are already significantly behind. Now he is trying to move fighters 'out of the realm of the dps classes' when some of them have been in the low end of that realm since the beginning and aren't terribly pleased to be getting kicked out for no reason other than it not matching what Aeralik has re-invisioned the game as.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 11:19 AM

<cite>Danelin wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have yet to see a solid reasoning why all fighter DPS needs to be flushed down the toilet. </blockquote>Instead of looking at it like this, look at it like Paladins are doing the amount of damage a fighter should be doing while tanking, and the other fighters are simply being bought in line with them.The reason for this has been stated several times by myself and others, either you skipped over a lot of threads or you simply do not agree with that reason.<blockquote>Finally, Nooani, if you think this is going to make tanking in ANY way harder, you REALLY need to do the math over.</blockquote>The only way this makes tanking harder is when in groups with multiple hate management classes. It is harder only because hate is the responsibility of the tank, he no longer has other classes to generate ~20% of his hate for him, and he no longer has classes to make it so he only needs to generate 65% of the hate he would without that class present. Fortunatly for tanks, they are given tools to be able to do this.Its harder in this respect, but in a very good way. And about the multiple tanks on raids, this change will not remove a third fighter from raids, as that fighter is in there to tank stuff, not to DPS.Reguardless of what happens with fighters, when given the choice, raids will only take as many fighters as is needed to tank the content. For most current instances, that is three, although a fourth helps in some cases.

EvilAstroboy

02-12-2009, 11:42 AM

There is nothing wrong with where fighter DPS is at the moment. If your DPS classes are doing less than any tank class, Shadowknights included, they should be replaced as soon as possible because they suck.This update is just shoving all tanks into the cookie cutter mould of Guardians with low DPS high taunt values. There is no reason why Bezerkers and Shadowknights shouldnt continue to generate hate through DPS, as this would suit the class descriptions far better than this failed model.Only thing I see these changes doing is making Guardians hold aggro without transfers and making every other tank class boring lesser versions of Guards. Lets see how fun the game is once all the tanks leave from boredom.

Seolta

02-12-2009, 11:56 AM

Gungo, i'll get right on that man...i'm sure i'll have no problem surveying all the top WW Berserkers in order to find one who wants to get his class nerfed.On the other hand, it took me 2min RL to hop on flames and find mediocre geared zerkers parsing 10kish in POAO. You go get the literal top WW Zerker and YOU have him go with a perfect group setup and do 25 single pulls of POAO trash and see what he gets. Oh wait...he could easily throw the parse...or his connection might not be as fast, or the sun could get in his eyes or....hmm, ok nm.I'd love to sit and demand parses of you while handing out "Interweb Strikes" like some kind of pitiful nerdly umpire, but I realise the futility of tossing very subjective(and random)forum parses around.If it makes you feel any better you can load me up with nerd strikes and toss me out of your imaginary game, but I can only wonder...after the upcoming SK nerf, which class are you gonna choose to QQ rage at? Better get on that now bud, you don't miss out on some more fun interwebs barshings!

Noaani

02-12-2009, 12:01 PM

<cite>EvilAstroboy wrote:</cite><blockquote>This update is just shoving all tanks into the cookie cutter mould of Guardians with low DPS high taunt values. There is no reason why Bezerkers and Shadowknights shouldnt continue to generate hate through DPS, as this would suit the class descriptions far better than this failed model.</blockquote>Failed model?Show me where this model failed...

Couching

02-12-2009, 12:11 PM

The is nothing wrong to tank in offensive with high dps and agro as long as you have significant less survivability comparing to defensive. Problems on live server:(a) Plate tanks have same good uncontested avoidance in offensive and defensive. It makes them too good to tank most raid content in offensive.(b) Taunts are too weak comparing to dps generated by dps classes.(c) Not enough tank gear to help tanks to hold agro.Solutions:(a) Make block contested avoidance in offensive and uncontested avoidance in defensive. I can assure you that less tanking in offensive for plate tanks and no more high dps while tanking in defesnive. If they try to tank in offensive, they get incredible damage spike. In this case, they deserve good dps and better agro than tanking in defensive.(b) Taunt needs a boost but don't make holding agro trivial with just clicking two taunt buttons. Currently on test sever, it's no fun and very poor design. There is no progression for tank to better their agro since most hate generated by several taunts/combat arts. A master craft geared tank should always be worse than fable geared tank in everything including holding agro.(c) Make hate proc on tank gear be something rather than weak hate proc, such as 500 hate or 1000 hate. It's useless. Make it 5k or 10k hate proc so that tank can get benefit from it and hold agro in defensive with the improved taunt.With the changes listed above, small group won't get any nerf. They can still enjoy the game.For casual plate tanks, they can still enjoy the game and tank in offensive for better dps and agro in heroic instances. The change of block from uncontested to contested doesnt matter in heroic instances. For raiders, they have to switch to defensive in tanking even raid trash mobs and fixed the problem of tank dealing too much dps in tanking with offensive stance.

Seolta

02-12-2009, 12:15 PM

Yimway

02-12-2009, 12:16 PM

epyon333

02-12-2009, 12:17 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm hoping small adjustments means:taunts work in offensive with reduced effectiveness ANNNNNDDDDstance recast timers are unlinked....fix those and even though its not perfect I'd accept it.</blockquote>Those are not going away. These changes enforce the player making a decision about how they want to go. Healers have a similar setup with their achievement based stances. If they want to heal they pick the heal stance if healing isnt crucial they have the option to improve dps but they can't instantly switch between them. For fighters the idea is similar. If you want to dps then you need to commit to that and take the positives with the negatives. If you want to be the tank then you need to realize that your role is not that of dps anymore. These aspects are fundamental to this update and are not at all likely to change.</blockquote>Again i think the development staff needs to revisit the negitive effects major changes such as in LU 13 and SWG's NGE had on the games. I dont know how long youve been with SOE but EQ2 took awhile to recover after the many mistakes from LU13 were corrected. SWG never recoved and caused Lucus arts to go to Biowear for a new MMO. Just take thing one step at a time. If you dont want players out putting so much DPS while tanking give a defencive stance in which we can hold aggro. But dont take away the option to tank in the offencive stance. As a zerker im an AOE tank, why shouldnt i be able to tank in the offensive stance in group encounters where there are only double and single up arrow mob or even many normal mobs. My DSP is going up anyway in that situation and it would help the group more for me to be in offensive.Oh any by the way if these changes are not likely to change before they hit live im sure just like me many players, mostly fighters that like things as, are not likely to stay once they do hit live.

Dasein

02-12-2009, 12:33 PM

<cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm hoping small adjustments means:taunts work in offensive with reduced effectiveness ANNNNNDDDDstance recast timers are unlinked....fix those and even though its not perfect I'd accept it.</blockquote>Those are not going away. These changes enforce the player making a decision about how they want to go. Healers have a similar setup with their achievement based stances. If they want to heal they pick the heal stance if healing isnt crucial they have the option to improve dps but they can't instantly switch between them. For fighters the idea is similar. If you want to dps then you need to commit to that and take the positives with the negatives. If you want to be the tank then you need to realize that your role is not that of dps anymore. These aspects are fundamental to this update and are not at all likely to change.</blockquote>Again i think the development staff needs to revisit the negitive effects major changes such as in LU 13 and SWG's NGE had on the games. I dont know how long youve been with SOE but EQ2 took awhile to recover after the many mistakes from LU13 were corrected. SWG never recoved and caused Lucus arts to go to Biowear for a new MMO. Just take thing one step at a time. If you dont want players out putting so much DPS while tanking give a defencive stance in which we can hold aggro. But dont take away the option to tank in the offencive stance. As a zerker im an AOE tank, why shouldnt i be able to tank in the offensive stance in group encounters where there are only double and single up arrow mob or even many normal mobs. My DSP is going up anyway in that situation and it would help the group more for me to be in offensive.Oh any by the way if these changes are not likely to change before they hit live im sure just like me many players, mostly fighters that like things as, are not likely to stay once they do hit live.</blockquote>LucasArts were the ones pushing the NGE, not SOE. I don't think SOE has any desire to work with LucasArts at this point either, and I think BioWare will come out feeling the same way.

epyon333

02-12-2009, 12:43 PM

epyon333

02-12-2009, 12:54 PM

<cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'd also like to add to my previous post that comparing fighter stances to healer stances is an unfair comparisson.Fighter stances have been necessary since day 1 of the game to doing our job. Healer stances on the other hand are not even usable till you get a high amount of AA. They can do their job without them and their stances only enhance whatever job they are currently doing. A healer can still HEAL (albeit less effectively) when in dps stance, however a fighter cannot TAUNT in offensive (it should be at reduced effectiveness).If you insist on following this foolish (in my opinion) direction then the dps increases gained by offensive stance need to give enough dps potential to bring as much dps as a rogue since we have no other utility and will be unable to provide back-up tanking skills since picking up the mob wont be possible.(sure i can drop stance and rescue but with no stance i get what... 2 shotted (swashies survive longer). ooo look adrenaline wait cant cast/benefit from it since berserk is part of my stances...)</blockquote>Incorrect. The stances didnt show up until live update 13 which was a year after launch. They both sucked and caused problems. The d stance got you killed cuz you didnt do enough dsp ( as far as soloing goes). the o stance got you killed because you didnt have enough defence. Either why you died and it made the game every unfun. And now the stances are fine except aggro control in the d stance and someone want to screw all that up because of what he thinks the game needs.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 12:55 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>This change goes live like this, I will not log my tank in again, period. The idea of this mindless vanila tanking has no appeal to me.</blockquote>You mean the idea of tanking without getting top 3 on a parse does not interest you.Big difference.To say that tanking after these changes is going to be any less than it is before them is odd, while its true you have lss buffs to cast, the argument that you have less thought to put into buffing is pointless, a most classes simply had no thought to put into it, as offensive was the only buff worth using. Also, after these changes, the combat arts you use will mean more than they do before the changes. The use of your combat arts may not register as highly on the DPS parse as they do now, but they will register on the hate generation parse.

Nero

02-12-2009, 12:56 PM

<cite>EvilAstroboy wrote:</cite><blockquote>There is nothing wrong with where fighter DPS is at the moment. If your DPS classes are doing less than any tank class, Shadowknights included, they should be replaced as soon as possible because they suck.This update is just shoving all tanks into the cookie cutter mould of Guardians with low DPS high taunt values. There is no reason why Bezerkers and Shadowknights shouldnt continue to generate hate through DPS, as this would suit the class descriptions far better than this failed model.Only thing I see these changes doing is making Guardians hold aggro without transfers and making every other tank class boring lesser versions of Guards. Lets see how fun the game is once all the tanks leave from boredom.</blockquote>Yeah, devs seem to want all fighters to be Guardian-ish.5 fighters except Guardian will become lesser versions of Guardian.Very boring. Never enjoyable.Why did I choose Shadowknight?Because I liked Shadowknight.Not because I wanted to become Guardian.Devs, stop making all fighters become Guardian-ish.I hate to become Guardian.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 01:03 PM

<cite>Nero wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, devs seem to want all fighters to be Guardian-ish.5 fighters except Guardian will become lesser versions of Guardian.Very boring. Never enjoyable.Why did I choose Shadowknight?Because I liked Shadowknight.Not because I wanted to become Guardian.Devs, stop making all fighters become Guardian-ish.I hate to become Guardian.</blockquote>SKs won't become guardians, they may end up with only slightly higher DPS, but they will not become guardians.Unless of course they give guardians life taps, Deathmarch and Harm Touch, then SKs would be like guardians.

Nero

02-12-2009, 01:27 PM

<cite>EvilAstroboy wrote:</cite><blockquote>There is nothing wrong with where fighter DPS is at the moment. If your DPS classes are doing less than any tank class, Shadowknights included, they should be replaced as soon as possible because they suck.This update is just shoving all tanks into the cookie cutter mould of Guardians with low DPS high taunt values. There is no reason why Bezerkers and Shadowknights shouldnt continue to generate hate through DPS, as this would suit the class descriptions far better than this failed model.Only thing I see these changes doing is making Guardians hold aggro without transfers and making every other tank class boring lesser versions of Guards. Lets see how fun the game is once all the tanks leave from boredom.</blockquote>I agree with your opinion.<blockquote>This update is just shoving all tanks into the cookie cutter mould of Guardians with low DPS high taunt values.</blockquote>If devs want all tanks to be Guardian-ish, why don't they merge all fighters into one fighter, Guardian?If devs like Guardian so much, leave only one Guardian and throw other 5 fighters away.If devs do it, I can cancel my subscription with no regret.Devs, don't make 5 fighters become like lesser versions of Guardian in a halfway manner.Welcome to no-diversity city.

Matia

02-12-2009, 01:30 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>So you've decided to say the same thing I do, but with other words... Its still a choice.. go defensive and force your dps to reduce their dps to avoid getting aggro, or go offensive and letting dps do more dps too.. Going offensive was the obvious choice, but a choice still.. and to get better dps u sacrifice surviveability.. simple as that.</blockquote>The first job of a tank is to hold aggro, since increasing DPS was the only way to do that, it wasn't a choice as I would discribe a choice.In order for something to be an actual choice, there needs to be at least two viable options, since there was no way to do a fighters primary job other than DPS, there was no choice to be made.</blockquote>So where's the choice now then? Oh wait.. there isn't. So this is better how?<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite> <blockquote><cite>Jinj@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Aerilik, the above is another good example of someone trying to provide useful critique. There are many many similar posts. It would actually be amazing if you and the team responded to some of the plethora of ideas being offered up and let us know why the team is ignoring/dismissing them in favour of the original plan.</blockquote>A lot of ideas that still held to the original idea behind these changes have been listened to.The idea you quoted basically goes against one of the core things this update is about, which is to remove the ability for fighters to DPS well while tanking. They are still allowing fighters to do some fairly good DPS, its just that it will not happen while they are tanking.Why should any developer respond to any post that is making a suggestion that is against the publically stated direction the developers are heading?</blockquote> Correction.. the ideas go against the ideas of the some individuals who have decided that no matter what anyone else says that they don't care and will do whatever they want because they want to.The stated goal could be met in a number of ways. Since those other ways aren't even being considered, discussed, or mentioned by the developers, that means it isn't about the goal but about the way the goal is being reached.In otherwords.. they want to get a group somewhere but only want to take the train. When someone suggests the bus or the plane, they ignore that because it isn't about the destination but about taking the train. They don't want the place they are going so much as to force everyone else to get on the train.And why should the developers respond? Let's see.. maybe because they ASKED for the feedback, not compliments and agreements only.If all they want is "tell us what you like about it and otherwise we don't care", then they should stop asking for feedback and just tell everyone what they are supposed to say. After all, they are already telling everyone how they are supposed to play their own characters.Now.. that aside.. I agree with a lot of the stated goals, and a number of the changes. But I don't agree with forcing everyone to change their entire gameplay because it doesn't match the worldview of a few people.. and I especially don't like forcing everyone to do things a certain way only.The goal is fine. The method being used is the problem.

Yimway

02-12-2009, 01:31 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>This change goes live like this, I will not log my tank in again, period. The idea of this mindless vanila tanking has no appeal to me.</blockquote>You mean the idea of tanking without getting top 3 on a parse does not interest you.Big difference.To say that tanking after these changes is going to be any less than it is before them is odd, while its true you have lss buffs to cast, the argument that you have less thought to put into buffing is pointless, a most classes simply had no thought to put into it, as offensive was the only buff worth using. Also, after these changes, the combat arts you use will mean more than they do before the changes. The use of your combat arts may not register as highly on the DPS parse as they do now, but they will register on the hate generation parse.</blockquote>FOR THE LAST [Removed for Content] TIME NOAANI.I DO NOT WANT TO BE IN A SURVIVABILITY STANCE / BUFF SETUP FOR TANKING TRIVIAL CONTENT.WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR YOU TO GET THRU YOU THICK SKULL?This has nothing about being top 3 in parse, cause in fact I'm like 10th on parse you fool.With the changes, its create one macro that spams 4 abilities, turn on an auto click abilitiy and go make a sandwhich.

Morrolan V

02-12-2009, 01:37 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>And about the multiple tanks on raids, this change will not remove a third fighter from raids, as that fighter is in there to tank stuff, not to DPS.Reguardless of what happens with fighters, when given the choice, raids will only take as many fighters as is needed to tank the content. For most current instances, that is three, although a fourth helps in some cases.</blockquote>How many raid encounters are there that need three tanks, let alone four?So, let me get this straight - you expect folks in raid guilds to play their swash/brig/assassin/dirge, etc. for the raid and then log to their alt tanks for instance groups? Because there already aren't enough tanks out there for the groups who want to run instances.IF you are going to force a choice between DPS and tanking, WHY would you not give a DPS-ing fighter the potential for acceptable damage output? Don't tell me it's becuase they can tank -- Rogues who are properly spec'ed and geared can tank, and presently have far higher damage potential AND utility than a fighter in DPS mode.

epyon333

02-12-2009, 01:50 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am curious as to what's going to happen to the overall tank population in the game, particularly the more casual (non-raiding) players who mostly tank instances. I see people regularly begging for tanks as it is; my suspicion is that this is going to make that even tougher, but I could be wrong.</blockquote>Instance tanks stand to gain the most from this update.As it is on live, if there is no hate transfer (or troubador) in a group, I simply don't bother tanking it. I don't look at the makup of the rest of the group until I know a swashbuckler, assassin, coercer or bard are present. Its this choice that I have made that has given me a reputation on my server (as a guardian) for being a decient tank, with few players having realised that I am only decient due to the rest of the group.It may be a bit of a learning curve (it shouldn't be, as the actual in combat use for each combat art has not changed), it is one that will make tanking an instance more fun for those that enjoy tanking for the actual tanking aspect of the game, though not those that enjoy a good parse.I'm going to be very intersted to see the next wave of changes to test. I was expecting a slight downgrade to SK and zerker DPS (as anyone reading the testing forums would be aware), but I wass expecting them to come after the majority of the changes went live.</blockquote>OH please you tank?! Why dont know allow access to your eq2players profile so we can all see what fighter you are and your level.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 02:02 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>This change goes live like this, I will not log my tank in again, period. The idea of this mindless vanila tanking has no appeal to me.</blockquote>You mean the idea of tanking without getting top 3 on a parse does not interest you.Big difference.To say that tanking after these changes is going to be any less than it is before them is odd, while its true you have lss buffs to cast, the argument that you have less thought to put into buffing is pointless, a most classes simply had no thought to put into it, as offensive was the only buff worth using. Also, after these changes, the combat arts you use will mean more than they do before the changes. The use of your combat arts may not register as highly on the DPS parse as they do now, but they will register on the hate generation parse.</blockquote>FOR THE LAST [Removed for Content] TIME NOAANI.I DO NOT WANT TO BE IN A SURVIVABILITY STANCE / BUFF SETUP FOR TANKING TRIVIAL CONTENT.WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR YOU TO GET THRU YOU THICK SKULL?This has nothing about being top 3 in parse, cause in fact I'm like 10th on parse you fool.With the changes, its create one macro that spams 4 abilities, turn on an auto click abilitiy and go make a sandwhich.</blockquote>Its not. If you want to lower your survivability and increase your DPS, just slap on some scout or brawler gear.Saying that tanking is becoming vanilla with this update and saying you want higher DPS in trivial zones are totally different statements. The first I disagree with, the second I am apathetic towards.And again, tanking is more involved after these changes than before, assuming your DPS are at the same level as you are. Buffing up for tanking is less involved, tanking itself, the part where you are supposed to be holding aggro against a mob or a group of mobs, involves more actual pushing of the buttons and stuff. The order in which you push those buttons also becomes far more important, and a good tank will quickly seperate hiself from a bad tank.

epyon333

02-12-2009, 02:07 PM

Noaani

02-12-2009, 02:09 PM

<cite>Morrolan V wrote:</cite><blockquote>How many raid encounters are there that need three tanks, let alone four?</blockquote>I am going to list encounters made easier by three tanks, not encounters that need three tanks.XebnokGynokStrange StalkerKultakTythusPentaclyps/UltaclypsSince there is two one encounters from each of the three major zones, and each of those tanks needs to be geared up, it is foolish for any guild to ever run with less than three tanks in any TSO instance. I do not doubt that there will be more to add to that list, but of the encounters that I have killed, these benefit greatly from three tanks (as in, good luck killing them your first time with less than three tanks).As to tanks for heroic instances, I prefer tanking than playing my wizard in heroic instances. This change will only increase that, so that is one tank that will be avalible more often. As to the rest of the raiders out there... there is nothing a raider can gain on a raiding main from a heroic instance that they should not already have, but their alts still have gains to make.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 02:11 PM

<cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Oh and did you think we might not like the publically stated direction?</blockquote>Why would that matter?Of course you don't like it, the publically stated direction is a nerf to your class' DPS. Thats the idea, of course you won't like it as a bezerker. Your not supposed to like it.

epyon333

02-12-2009, 02:17 PM

Yimway

02-12-2009, 02:19 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>And again, tanking is more involved after these changes than before, assuming your DPS are at the same level as you are. Buffing up for tanking is less involved, tanking itself, the part where you are supposed to be holding aggro against a mob or a group of mobs, involves more actual pushing of the buttons and stuff. The order in which you push those buttons also becomes far more important, and a good tank will quickly seperate hiself from a bad tank.</blockquote>You are so full of BS it would be funny if it wasn't epically annoying.I've played on test, holding aggro on test is TRIVIAL as compared to live.In fact, in live it is MUCH more important what abilities you hit in which order. On test, taunt, taunt, retaunt, retaunt, it is unbelievably trivial to hold aggro off a group doing 25k+ on test vs the same group on live. The difference is my personal output is cut in half, and I'm a bored tank on test.On test, macro each of your CA's and put your 2 taunts that have the rediculously low recasts first on the macro. So that each time you hit a CA it first checks and fires either taunt if available.Do this, and grats, any one can hold aggro, it is rediculously trivial. But that alone I don't have a problem with. I have a problem with we're swapping out trading survivability for dps while tanking. The entire notion that tank stances should be about tanking OR dps is flawed, it absolutely should be about SURVIVABILITY or DPS. Changes that further enforce that tradeoff I will fully support. Making offensive more dps and less survivabilty is fine, quite screwing with lowering hate generation in it. Could you imagine a rogue's offensive stance making them immune to aggro? How stupid that mechanic would be? Why is that ok on fighter exactly?On live I can switch stances, buffs, gear, etc for tanking trivial content so that I can focus on max dps when survivability is trivial. On test, no, sorry, you MUST be deffensive if you want to have aggro. It represents a tremendously narrow view of what tanking is about. I flat out reject it, and no I will no longer play a tank in this vanilla world.I love your idea that swapping scout gear on would add dps. You realize all the fighter gear has almost the same dps effects as the scout gear? The encounters I do right now that I don't already run max crit/dps/da gear on I can count on one hand, cause only those few encounters actually require survivability. Everything else is tank/spank/burn move on.Holding aggro IS only a mildly difficult task in live now, in test it is TRIVIAL.

epyon333

02-12-2009, 02:33 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>And you think thats a fighter issue? Lol.. that my friend.. is a different discussion.. U cant go change fighters based on an issue with diminishing returns..</blockquote>Its not a diminishing returns issue, its more the fact that the better DPS lines in the KoS achievement tree also happen to have some decient survivability gains, so the overall loss in survivability is minimal.<cite>Akuu@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><<blockquote>But anyways.. I believe this change will make it easier for any1 to just start a tank and actually play one at end game.. Hopefully it will bring more tanks to the table, so I dont have to spend an hour getting one for my wiz..Tanks will become more what Wizards are today.. the most slack/easy class to play.. I dont care anymore..</blockquote>I agree. Tanks will not be hard to come by because of this change, even though tanking itself will be made ever so slightly harder in a lot of groups. If you previously had a hate transfer, they were equally to blame if you lost aggro, on test though, if you lose aggro it is totally your own fault (don't blame DPS, there are enough tools for tanks to hold aggro without issue).And yes, I agree that playing a wizard is the (third) easiest class in the game. Rangers are easier, as simply hitting ranged auto attack will give you 65% of your DPS, and assassins are easier, as they have no need for CA timing, and no need for a detailed combat art rotation. Wizards can simply spam some buttons to get good damage, but only until you want to get absolutly top end DPS, at which point no class is easy.</blockquote>Do you read what you write? or is everyday opposite day for you? or do you have converstation dyslexia? Or are you trying to prove you can hold aggro with only words? woot youve created annoyance tanking!Tanking will get mind numbingly easier. Whats hard about being forced to tank in the def stance with way better taunts? We'll have no choice, we'll have better def, and near guaranteed agrro control. Wait you might be right about tanks not being hard to come by because you could probably two box with them after these changes. Have the tank on auto-follow, and macro him to taunt spam? Woot tank bots.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 02:35 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>In fact, in live it is MUCH more important what abilities you hit in which order. On test, taunt, taunt, retaunt, retaunt, it is unbelievably trivial to hold aggro off a group doing 25k+ on test vs the same group on live. The difference is my personal output is cut in half, and I'm a bored tank on test.</blockquote>I just realised you are talking about running a raid geared toon through heroic content, and complaining that its too trivial.All I can say to that is, no S**t Sherlock...Stances, gear, group makup... it doesn't matter if you have raid gear in current heroic instances. Your complaint is more about content than mechanics, though it is the new mechanics that are providing you with the realization that you are working through now.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 02:40 PM

<cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Lol thats not a choice, thats how things are. And instead of the preposed changes all we really need is more aggro in the d stance so we can hold aggro while having better survivability. Most fighters would be happy and use the d stance more.</blockquote>Any fighter that is able to get by in offensive stance will do so. The reaction to these changes from second/third teir fighters is evidance enough.Notice though, the lack of complaints from top end plate fighters?

Yimway

02-12-2009, 02:43 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>In fact, in live it is MUCH more important what abilities you hit in which order. On test, taunt, taunt, retaunt, retaunt, it is unbelievably trivial to hold aggro off a group doing 25k+ on test vs the same group on live. The difference is my personal output is cut in half, and I'm a bored tank on test.</blockquote>I just realised you are talking about running a raid geared toon through heroic content, and complaining that its too trivial.All I can say to that is, no S**t Sherlock...Stances, gear, group makup... it doesn't matter if you have raid gear in current heroic instances. Your complaint is more about content than mechanics, though it is the new mechanics that are providing you with the realization that you are working through now.</blockquote>No, try most raid content we do too. Surivability is trivial except for a handful of encounters. My point is, when things are trivial, we should be able to run max dps and still 'tank'. With the changes on test, no you can no longer do that. My point remains, Off vs Def should be Dps vs Survivability. Not DPS vs Tank. We're a tank no matter what we do.Unless... You're going to give me T1 dps in offensive? *eyeroll*

Yimway

02-12-2009, 02:44 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Lol thats not a choice, thats how things are. And instead of the preposed changes all we really need is more aggro in the d stance so we can hold aggro while having better survivability. Most fighters would be happy and use the d stance more.</blockquote>Any fighter that is able to get by in offensive stance will do so. The reaction to these changes from second/third teir fighters is evidance enough.Notice though, the lack of complaints from top end plate fighters?</blockquote>Um, just the difference, its only the top end plate tanks I know that are complaining.The scrub tanks, and the 'alt tanks' are thrilled.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 02:46 PM

<cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>we'll have better def, and near guaranteed agrro control. </blockquote>AND YET PEOPLE COMPLAIN!As I said in the post you quoted, tanking will only be harder in groups without hate transfers, and even then it is only harder because you need to rely 100% on yourself, you can't duck away for 10 seconds like you can on live.Editted to make it red!

Noaani

02-12-2009, 02:47 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>Um, just the difference, its only the top end plate tanks I know that are complaining.</blockquote>Point to one...

Yimway

02-12-2009, 02:50 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>Um, just the difference, its only the top end plate tanks I know that are complaining.</blockquote>Point to one...</blockquote>I'm easily in the top 10 if not 5 plate tanks on my server, and I've spoken to 4 of the other in that list on numerous occasions about these changes and none of them are thrilled.My favorite response was 'it will be easier to box now'.I've also not spoken to one MT or OT that was lookign forward to these changes. Now if there is one in this thread that said positive things about it, please point them out.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 02:51 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>Um, just the difference, its only the top end plate tanks I know that are complaining.</blockquote>Point to one...</blockquote>I'm easily in the top 10 if not 5 plate tanks on my server </blockquote>Hi, your second teir at best!

epyon333

02-12-2009, 02:53 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Oh and did you think we might not like the publically stated direction?</blockquote>Why would that matter?Of course you don't like it, the publically stated direction is a nerf to your class' DPS. Thats the idea, of course you won't like it as a bezerker. Your not supposed to like it.</blockquote>Why would that matter?! ARE you kidding me?! Hows because i pay to play this game and if i dont like what if become ill leave and take my [Removed for Content] money with me. Seriously do you want this game to become the ghost town it was after LU 13 or like SWG was because of NGE?Im supposed to enjoy playing this game an the class ive choosen to play because i liked how the class was decribed the instruction book with out having to worry about someone coming alone and changing it in to something dull and lifeless!!!

Yimway

02-12-2009, 02:54 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hi, your second teir at best!</blockquote>uh uh, and point to one top tank in this thread that favors the changes.Point to one MT or OT in any of these threads that favors it?

epyon333

02-12-2009, 03:00 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>we'll have better def, and near guaranteed agrro control. </blockquote>AND YET PEOPLE COMPLAIN!</blockquote>AND YET YOU DONT UNDERSTAND WE DONT WANT TO PLAY A DULL BORING LIFELESS CLASS WHERE EVERY HEALER COULD KEEP US UP AND WE'D NEVER LOSE AGGRO. WHY DONT YOU UNDERSTAND WE WANT TO KEEP THE CHALLANGE TO BEING A TANK!!!!

Noaani

02-12-2009, 03:05 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hi, your second teir at best!</blockquote>uh uh, and point to one top tank in this thread that favors the changes.Point to one MT or OT in any of these threads that favors it?</blockquote>Most of them are keeping quiet, did you not get the memo?And yes, I would consider you mid second teir. Trak not dead, SoH not cleared, nothing of note in TSO dead. You and your guild obviously did a lot of VP farming, but the hard mobs seem to have you stumped.

Noaani

02-12-2009, 03:06 PM

<cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>we'll have better def, and near guaranteed agrro control. </blockquote>AND YET PEOPLE COMPLAIN!</blockquote>AND YET YOU DONT UNDERSTAND WE DONT WANT TO PLAY A DULL BORING LIFELESS CLASS WHERE EVERY HEALER COULD KEEP US UP AND WE'D NEVER LOSE AGGRO. WHY DONT YOU UNDERSTAND WE WANT TO KEEP THE CHALLANGE TO BEING A TANK!!!!</blockquote> I understand that you want to parse well, what I don't understand is how you can consider that to be good for game balance.

Yimway

02-12-2009, 03:09 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>Point to one MT or OT in any of these threads that favors it?</blockquote>Most of them are keeping quiet, did you not get the memo?</blockquote>Come on, just one, shouldn't be too hard, find one...

Obadiah

02-12-2009, 03:09 PM

It occurs to me ... if these forums had an /ignore feature, this thread would be about 50 posts instead of 200. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" />You can't convince everyone no matter how valid your point is or how solid the [real or fictional] numbers. Nor does convincing another player of the wisdom of your point of view do anything with regards to the changes.

Yimway

02-12-2009, 03:11 PM

Noaani

02-12-2009, 03:13 PM

<cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>It occurs to me ... if these forums had an /ignore feature, this thread would be about 50 posts instead of 200. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" />You can't convince everyone no matter how valid your point is or how solid the [real or fictional] numbers. Nor does convincing another player of the wisdom of your point of view do anything with regards to the changes.</blockquote>And a billion times less fun imo.The changes will speak for themselves in a few weeks, when they have gone live and players have become used to them.I'll be sure to find the posts about how these changes will be the end of EQ2 then (which someone posted, can't remember who though).Once again, all these changes are is a lowering of fighter DPS while tanking, and a decrease in fighter reliance on other classes to generate hate. Individuals liking or disliking the changes are 100% dependant on which of these they consider more important.

epyon333

02-12-2009, 03:19 PM

epyon333

02-12-2009, 03:22 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>It occurs to me ... if these forums had an /ignore feature, this thread would be about 50 posts instead of 200. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" />You can't convince everyone no matter how valid your point is or how solid the [real or fictional] numbers. Nor does convincing another player of the wisdom of your point of view do anything with regards to the changes.</blockquote>And a billion times less fun imo. Nuff said!The changes will speak for themselves in a few weeks, when they have gone live and players have become used to them.I'll be sure to find the posts about how these changes will be the end of EQ2 then (which someone posted, can't remember who though).Once again, all these changes are is a lowering of fighter DPS while tanking, and a decrease in fighter reliance on other classes to generate hate. Individuals liking or disliking the changes are 100% dependant on which of these they consider more important.</blockquote>And how long have you been playing?

RafaelSmith

02-12-2009, 03:30 PM

I am still pretty torn about how I feel about these changes....and from the looks of things they only held back going live in attempt to let people cool down...there really were not any intention of revamping the changes or anything like that. We will have to deal with their new fighter hate mechanics sooner or later.As a average geared tank...not VP flagged, only been able to kill the 1st named in Mad Crusader I guess I should be looking forward to the changes.....especially with regards to instance tanking.But as someone that understands what it takes to optimize gear, AA spec, cast order, buffs, etc I can see where these changes are not only elliminating alot of that but sorta punching people that have worked hard at it thus far in the stomach.I think all the talk about fighters doing "too much" DMG are hogwash. Given equal gear level, equal # of AAs and most importantly equal skill at your class....the fighters do not out DPS the DPS classes...at least not at the "level" of gameplay my guild and I are at.I do however agree that currently Tank DPS is simply too high a factor in aggro generation.....we need to tone that down and make threat and such mean more. But they way they are going about its extreme overkill......i keep thinking of the saying....."The operation was a success but the patient died".I do not want the job of tanking to be impossible or frustrating......I also do not want it to be easymode. You want your skilled tanks to have the ability to apply their skill and knowledge of the game and encounters to do the job. What you don't want if for any yahoo to be able to roll a tank class...go into D-stance and then spam taunts whenever they are up while the DPS are free to blast at will.As is typical in their entire history of MMOs SOE just cannot do anything in moderatation and they always seem to fall back on reinventing the wheel evertime something seems out of whack.I would be more than happy with a small subset of the changes....increased taunts and taunt crit would be just fine with me.

TheGeneral

02-12-2009, 03:31 PM

As much as I want to doomsay all these changes, I would be happy if they would just UNLINK the buffs they combined into the stances. They can make the changes without consolidating the spells.SoE is not going to back out of these changes, so we might as well try and get tweaked what we can. I feel like I am about to get demolished with the nerf bat. The least I can do is make sure it doesn't smash any vital organs.

Yimway

02-12-2009, 03:34 PM

Couching

02-12-2009, 03:36 PM

Guys, don't waste your time on Noaani. Let him speak out his opinions.For developers, this game is all about progressions, no matter in dps, survivability or aggro.On test server, the change just ruined the progression of aggro. It is why I am against of the change.A treasure geared tank shouldn't generate similar aggro as legendary geared tank. A legendary geared tank shouldn't generate similar aggro as fabled tank.On test server, the most aggro comes from taunt. It is stupid since you are killing the game you created.There is no progression for fighter to improve our aggro after dps nerf in defensive.If a treasure geared tank can generate similar aggro as fabled tank, is a treasure geared assassin going to generate similar dps as fabled assassin?

Matia

02-12-2009, 03:41 PM

<cite>TheGeneral wrote:</cite><blockquote>As much as I want to doomsay all these changes, I would be happy if they would just UNLINK the buffs they combined into the stances. They can make the changes without consolidating the spells.SoE is not going to back out of these changes, so we might as well try and get tweaked what we can. I feel like I am about to get demolished with the nerf bat. The least I can do is make sure it doesn't smash any vital organs.</blockquote>Agree on the first part at least. I don't know about being smacked with the nerf bat, but we're being hit with something.Unfortunately, that feedback on minor changes has been going in for the past however long since this hit Test and it has been steadily ignored. We can always hope that maybe these upcoming tweaks Aeralik mentioned might include some of the various ones though. And ones that actually came from real players and not the source for most of these changes.

RafaelSmith

02-12-2009, 03:41 PM

<cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>Guys, don't waste your time on Noaani. Let him speak out his opinions.For developers, this game is all about progressions, no matter in dps, survivability or agro.On test server, the change just ruined the progression of agro. It is why I am against of the change.A treasure geared tank shouldn't generate smiliar agro as legendary geared tank. A legendary geared tank shouldn't generate similar agro as fabled tank.On test server, the most agro comes from taunt. It is stupid since you are killing the game you created.There is no progression for fighter to improve our agro after our dps was seriouly nerfed in defensive.If a treasure geared tank can generate similar agro as fabled tank, is a treasure geared assassin going to generate similar dps as fabled assassin?</blockquote>I sorta see your point......but having the aggro is only part the equation.....being equipped and speced to actually handle the aggro is another.I could have a billion times more the aggro I currently have and I would still pick and choose which encounters/instances/mobs I want to MT given my gear and spec. I guess I like my healers and guildmates too much <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Morrolan V

02-12-2009, 03:50 PM

<cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>Guys, don't waste your time on Noaani. Let him speak out his opinions.For developers, this game is all about progressions, no matter in dps, survivability or agro.On test server, the change just ruined the progression of agro. It is why I am against of the change.A treasure geared tank shouldn't generate smiliar agro as legendary geared tank. A legendary geared tank shouldn't generate similar agro as fabled tank.On test server, the most agro comes from taunt. It is stupid since you are killing the game you created.There is no progression for fighter to improve our agro after our dps was seriouly nerfed in defensive.If a treasure geared tank can generate similar agro as fabled tank, is a treasure geared assassin going to generate similar dps as fabled assassin?</blockquote>QFE on all counts.A big part of the problem is that the game is itemized and balanced based on the current system. Specifically:<ul><li>There are no + to base taunt or + to taunt crit items, both of which will be needed</li><li>The items that exist with hate procs are scaled to the present system and produce threat amounts that won't even be rounding errors under the new system</li><li>There are many taunt immune mobs in the game - for them, the only way to hold aggro was tank dps and threat transfer. Has that been addressed?</li></ul>Couching's point about lack of progression in threat generation is VERY good. Aeralik, you are saying that threat per second, not damage per second is a tank's primary role. To create a satisfying game experience, you have to create a reasonable progression in that role.

Couching

02-12-2009, 03:51 PM

<cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>Guys, don't waste your time on Noaani. Let him speak out his opinions.For developers, this game is all about progressions, no matter in dps, survivability or agro.On test server, the change just ruined the progression of agro. It is why I am against of the change.A treasure geared tank shouldn't generate smiliar agro as legendary geared tank. A legendary geared tank shouldn't generate similar agro as fabled tank.On test server, the most agro comes from taunt. It is stupid since you are killing the game you created.There is no progression for fighter to improve our agro after our dps was seriouly nerfed in defensive.If a treasure geared tank can generate similar agro as fabled tank, is a treasure geared assassin going to generate similar dps as fabled assassin?</blockquote>I sorta see your point......but having the aggro is only part the equation.....being equipped and speced to actually handle the aggro is another.I could have a billion times more the aggro I currently have and I would still pick and choose which encounters/instances/mobs I want to MT given my gear and spec. I guess I like my healers and guildmates too much <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>See, the choice is on your hand. No matter what you do, it's your choice.On test server, your choice is stripped, aggro is done for every fighter since it tied to taunt/stance.There is no space to improve your aggro on test server.From the point of progression, developers need to lower the aggro generated from taunt/stances and enhance fighter gear. The progression of gear should be a bigger part of aggro generation.

RafaelSmith

02-12-2009, 03:55 PM

<cite>Morrolan V wrote:</cite><blockquote>QFE on all counts.A big part of the problem is that the game is itemized and balanced based on the current system. Specifically:<ul><li>There are no + to base taunt or + to taunt crit items, both of which will be needed</li><li>The items that exist with hate procs are scaled to the present system and produce threat amounts that won't even be rounding errors under the new system</li><li>There are many taunt immune mobs in the game - for them, the only way to hold aggro was tank dps and threat transfer. Has that been addressed?</li></ul>Couching's point about lack of progression in threat generation is VERY good. Aeralik, you are saying that threat per second, not damage per second is a tank's primary role. To create a satisfying game experience, you have to create a reasonable progression in that role.</blockquote>Agreed. I have yet to see anything on test that indicates that have even attempted to consider itemization with regards to the new threat mechanics.There is very very little gear in the game currently that will improve threat per second under the new mechanics...and what few +threat proc items I currently have become tiny tiny tiny under the new system.I would love to be a TPS king....but something bothers me about the fact that most likely when this stuff goes live my TPS will be pretty [Removed for Content] close to the top geared tanks in the game. That just screams of broken progression.

Aull

02-12-2009, 04:00 PM

Good post Couching. I couldn't agree more.However has anything changed on the test server since a month ago. Maybe I am not looking in the correct forum, but when this all first took place test players where actually giving the forum readers some insight. Now it seems noone is post anything as for any fighter change or enhancement at all.Where should I be looking for this info at?Thanks.

epyon333

02-12-2009, 04:02 PM

<cite>TheGeneral wrote:</cite><blockquote>As much as I want to doomsay all these changes, I would be happy if they would just UNLINK the buffs they combined into the stances. They can make the changes without consolidating the spells.SoE is not going to back out of these changes, so we might as well try and get tweaked what we can. I feel like I am about to get demolished with the nerf bat. The least I can do is make sure it doesn't smash any vital organs.</blockquote>If we just sit down and say we will then these changes will happen. If we contine to voice out opinions about them and that we will not continue to play if these changes go live then the pressure will be on the to come up with something what will keep ppl from canceling their accounts.

RafaelSmith

02-12-2009, 04:05 PM

<cite>Aull wrote:</cite><blockquote>Good post Couching. I couldn't agree more.However has anything changed on the test server since a month ago. Maybe I am not looking in the correct forum, but when this all first took place test players where actually giving the forum readers some insight. Now it seems noone is post anything as for any fighter change or enhancement at all.Where should I be looking for this info at?Thanks.</blockquote>Nothing has changed since around 1/28 i think...Which was the last time a patch/update was put on test server. Even then that update was rather minor.

Dasein

02-12-2009, 04:06 PM

There really doesn't need to be that much progression in threat generation, because a tank only needs just enough threat to hold agro. Beyond that, it's all wasted effort. Further, threat generation is useless in a soloing situation, or even in most small group situations. Also, creating to much progression in threat generation will make it that much harder to find suitable tanks - for example, a tank in mostly legendary gear would be ineffective in a group with raid-equipped DPS classes. Thus, overall grouping oportunities are diminished as DPS classes are forced to find tanks with suitable gear.

Aeralik

02-12-2009, 04:06 PM

Progression will unfortunately take some time. We have some items in this update getting the taunt critical and various other bonuses but higher end bonuses will take some time which will add in progression. You also have progression through the spell versions since a higher tier stance will generate more hate as do achievements. Also tanks are not purely about threat. It's also how they deal with damage. You arent going to group or raid with a tank in master crafter gear. The tradeskill gear might be ok on some of the easier instances but most groups would not take a poorly geared tank into some of the harder zones because they are going to be taking larger damage than someone who has much better gear.

Aull

02-12-2009, 04:06 PM

<cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Morrolan V wrote:</cite><blockquote>QFE on all counts.A big part of the problem is that the game is itemized and balanced based on the current system. Specifically:<ul><li>There are no + to base taunt or + to taunt crit items, both of which will be needed</li><li>The items that exist with hate procs are scaled to the present system and produce threat amounts that won't even be rounding errors under the new system</li><li>There are many taunt immune mobs in the game - for them, the only way to hold aggro was tank dps and threat transfer. Has that been addressed?</li></ul>Couching's point about lack of progression in threat generation is VERY good. Aeralik, you are saying that threat per second, not damage per second is a tank's primary role. To create a satisfying game experience, you have to create a reasonable progression in that role.</blockquote>Agreed. I have yet to see anything on test that indicates that have even attempted to consider itemization with regards to the new threat mechanics.There is very very little gear in the game currently that will improve threat per second under the new mechanics...and what few +threat proc items I currently have become tiny tiny tiny under the new system.I would love to be a TPS king....but something bothers me about the fact that most likely when this stuff goes live my TPS will be pretty [Removed for Content] close to the top geared tanks in the game. That just screams of broken progression.</blockquote>One of the issues that concerns me with dealing TPS would be a potential boredom factor. I hope there will be a combination of damage and threat while in defensive stance.I do think the changes to the defensive stance are very much needed. Currently tanking in defensive without the proper group settup is very very tough to do for all tanks. I just do not understand why such changes to offensive stance is being done.

RafaelSmith

02-12-2009, 04:10 PM

<cite>Dasein wrote:</cite><blockquote> for example, a tank in mostly legendary gear would be ineffective in a group with raid-equipped DPS classes. Thus, overall grouping oportunities are diminished as DPS classes are forced to find tanks with suitable gear.</blockquote>I think that is how it should be. A poorly geared/speced tank should NOT be able to tank for a raid equipped/mythicaled group. If the new system allows for that then all we really have are tank bots.

Yimway

02-12-2009, 04:23 PM

<cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dasein wrote:</cite><blockquote> for example, a tank in mostly legendary gear would be ineffective in a group with raid-equipped DPS classes. Thus, overall grouping oportunities are diminished as DPS classes are forced to find tanks with suitable gear.</blockquote>I think that is how it should be. A poorly geared/speced tank should NOT be able to tank for a raid equipped/mythicaled group. If the new system allows for that then all we really have are tank bots.</blockquote>The new system does that. It becomes only a matter of tank survivability. _Any_ tank can hold atleast single target aggro in a group as long as they can remain standing. Some classes still do better at multi-encounter aggro than others, but largely any class can do it.I found aoe aggro trivial on test as a guard if that has any significance for you.

epyon333

02-12-2009, 04:32 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>Progression will unfortunately take some time. We have some items in this update getting the taunt critical and various other bonuses but higher end bonuses will take some time which will add in progression. You also have progression through the spell versions since a higher tier stance will generate more hate as do achievements. Also tanks are not purely about threat. It's also how they deal with damage. You arent going to group or raid with a tank in master crafter gear. The tradeskill gear might be ok on some of the easier instances but most groups would not take a poorly geared tank into some of the harder zones because they are going to be taking larger damage than someone who has much better gear.</blockquote>Great!! This is BS!! Why do you keep restructing this game!! I refuse to play this game with those changes!! Good job on ruining the game, no one seems to be better at it then you guys!!

Santi Dominiti

02-12-2009, 04:33 PM

All this "update" will do is make the game that much more boring for tanks in instances. And yes there is no progression in Threat Progression... a "few" items doesnt equal progression in gear so all in all this "update" is still a massive fail.

Landiin

02-12-2009, 04:40 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>I found aoe aggro trivial on test as a guard if that has any significance for you.</blockquote>I find aoe aggro on live trivial with a coec or dirge.. So I fail to see your point..

Elanjar

02-12-2009, 04:44 PM

<cite>Morrolan V wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>Guys, don't waste your time on Noaani. Let him speak out his opinions.For developers, this game is all about progressions, no matter in dps, survivability or agro.On test server, the change just ruined the progression of agro. It is why I am against of the change.A treasure geared tank shouldn't generate smiliar agro as legendary geared tank. A legendary geared tank shouldn't generate similar agro as fabled tank.On test server, the most agro comes from taunt. It is stupid since you are killing the game you created.There is no progression for fighter to improve our agro after our dps was seriouly nerfed in defensive.If a treasure geared tank can generate similar agro as fabled tank, is a treasure geared assassin going to generate similar dps as fabled assassin?</blockquote>QFE on all counts.A big part of the problem is that the game is itemized and balanced based on the current system. Specifically:<ul><li>There are no + to base taunt or + to taunt crit items, both of which will be needed</li><li>The items that exist with hate procs are scaled to the present system and produce threat amounts that won't even be rounding errors under the new system</li><li>There are many taunt immune mobs in the game - for them, the only way to hold aggro was tank dps and threat transfer. Has that been addressed?</li></ul>Couching's point about lack of progression in threat generation is VERY good. Aeralik, you are saying that threat per second, not damage per second is a tank's primary role. To create a satisfying game experience, you have to create a reasonable progression in that role.</blockquote>The problem is that a progression in "taunts" will not equal a progression in "damage" psychologically. I think the majority of the people who play this game enjoy it for numerous reasons, one of which is the rpg fantasy standpoint. taunting and fighting (ie doing damage) are not psychologically equivalent. The idea of my toon hitting an enemy for 500 points of damage brings me more pyschological joy than the idea of taunting a mob for 5000 points of taunt. I think the majority are like myself.Either way, point is they are dumbing down this game. Limiting tanking style will only shrink the playerbase. Don't make the game simple like WoW. You'll just lose your players to WoW seeing as they've got a 10x better pvp system and 10x larger player base.

RafaelSmith

02-12-2009, 04:48 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>I found aoe aggro trivial on test as a guard if that has any significance for you.</blockquote>Well it does have significance for me but I never wanted things to become trivial....just less frustrating and abit more under my control. As it stands with the gear I and my healers have we already have 4 must-have group slots reserved...me, 2 healers and some sorta high hate xfer class to do all but 1 or 2 of the TSO instances. Then we have to pretty much reserve the other 2 slots for single target DPS.

Elanjar

02-12-2009, 04:49 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>we'll have better def, and near guaranteed agrro control.</blockquote>AND YET PEOPLE COMPLAIN!</blockquote>AND YET YOU DONT UNDERSTAND WE DONT WANT TO PLAY A DULL BORING LIFELESS CLASS WHERE EVERY HEALER COULD KEEP US UP AND WE'D NEVER LOSE AGGRO. WHY DONT YOU UNDERSTAND WE WANT TO KEEP THE CHALLANGE TO BEING A TANK!!!!</blockquote>I understand that you want to parse well, what I don't understand is how you can consider that to be good for game balance.</blockquote>You dont understand anything sir. Tanking on live is about balancing our dps vs survivability based on group, zone, even mob. On live most tanks carry at least 2 sets of gear if not 3, they use this to create a multitude of optimized setups to best handle situations based on their experience.On test you need 1 set of gear... the most defensive one and then you just sit in def stance and spam taunt and voila!! tanked and spanked.SCREW THAT!!! you dont play a tank so dont tell me how to play mine. I saw your posts about how dps should be alloted per tier. If that is what you truely think then this change is completely unneccessary. With the exception of raid geared tanks in full dps gear with optimized group setups (optimized for said tanks dps), the dps of each class is currently pretty close to that (bards/chanters are too high).

epyon333

02-12-2009, 04:49 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>I found aoe aggro trivial on test as a guard if that has any significance for you.</blockquote>I find aoe aggro on live trivial with a coec or dirge.. So I fail to see your point..</blockquote>Ok but on live you can play with someone other then a coec or dirge. take an extra t1 dps. run in the offensive stance. They way things are on test those changes mean nothing.

RafaelSmith

02-12-2009, 04:51 PM

<cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think the majority of the people who play this game enjoy it for numerous reasons, one of which is the rpg fantasy standpoint. taunting and fighting (ie doing damage) are not psychologically equivalent. The idea of my toon hitting an enemy for 500 points of damage brings me more pyschological joy than the idea of taunting a mob for 5000 points of taunt. I think the majority are like myself.</blockquote>I guess I am in the minority then. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />If i cared at all about seeing myself on the DPS parse....this is the last class I would have rolled.

Elanjar

02-12-2009, 04:54 PM

<cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think the majority of the people who play this game enjoy it for numerous reasons, one of which is the rpg fantasy standpoint. taunting and fighting (ie doing damage) are not psychologically equivalent. The idea of my toon hitting an enemy for 500 points of damage brings me more pyschological joy than the idea of taunting a mob for 5000 points of taunt. I think the majority are like myself.</blockquote>I guess I am in the minority then. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I could always be completely by myself as well <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" />

epyon333

02-12-2009, 04:56 PM

<cite>Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Elanjar@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think the majority of the people who play this game enjoy it for numerous reasons, one of which is the rpg fantasy standpoint. taunting and fighting (ie doing damage) are not psychologically equivalent. The idea of my toon hitting an enemy for 500 points of damage brings me more pyschological joy than the idea of taunting a mob for 5000 points of taunt. I think the majority are like myself.</blockquote>I guess I am in the minority then. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Not trying to be mean. i have nothing against guardians, the play style, that they excel at single mob, have better defence then me. but this update is more suited for the defensive fighters then the offensive ones.

Yimway

02-12-2009, 05:35 PM

<cite>epyon333 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Not trying to be mean. i have nothing against guardians, the play style, that they excel at single mob, have better defence then me. but this update is more suited for the defensive fighters then the offensive ones. </blockquote>More suited for the lazy fighter imo.

Aeralik

02-12-2009, 05:59 PM

<cite>Morrolan V wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>Guys, don't waste your time on Noaani. Let him speak out his opinions.For developers, this game is all about progressions, no matter in dps, survivability or agro.On test server, the change just ruined the progression of agro. It is why I am against of the change.A treasure geared tank shouldn't generate smiliar agro as legendary geared tank. A legendary geared tank shouldn't generate similar agro as fabled tank.On test server, the most agro comes from taunt. It is stupid since you are killing the game you created.There is no progression for fighter to improve our agro after our dps was seriouly nerfed in defensive.If a treasure geared tank can generate similar agro as fabled tank, is a treasure geared assassin going to generate similar dps as fabled assassin?</blockquote>QFE on all counts.A big part of the problem is that the game is itemized and balanced based on the current system. Specifically:<ul><li>There are no + to base taunt or + to taunt crit items, both of which will be needed</li><li>The items that exist with hate procs are scaled to the present system and produce threat amounts that won't even be rounding errors under the new system</li><li>There are many taunt immune mobs in the game - for them, the only way to hold aggro was tank dps and threat transfer. Has that been addressed?</li></ul>Couching's point about lack of progression in threat generation is VERY good. Aeralik, you are saying that threat per second, not damage per second is a tank's primary role. To create a satisfying game experience, you have to create a reasonable progression in that role.</blockquote>There are none curently because the mechanics were out of whack which is why we are doing this update. If taunts are ineffective improving them via gear would see items that likely would have rotted as tanks go for the dps oriented gear that they go for now. This update takes that into consideration because we know tanks are more melee damage oriented because thats how the old fighter loot was designed. These items will still need to work for now but overtime these items will slowly phase out for new items which then help threat generation as well as the defense oriented effects you have now.

Trynnus1

02-12-2009, 06:01 PM

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hi, your second teir at best!</blockquote>uh uh, and point to one top tank in this thread that favors the changes.Point to one MT or OT in any of these threads that favors it?</blockquote>Most of them are keeping quiet, did you not get the memo?And yes, I would consider you mid second teir. Trak not dead, SoH not cleared, nothing of note in TSO dead. You and your guild obviously did a lot of VP farming, but the hard mobs seem to have you stumped.</blockquote>And what does that matter?As our guilds MT, and yes we are a casual raiding guild, I tank everything in Offensive stance because I know how to play my class and have the best gear I can get (this includes all the TSO instances). I run this way to increase DPS so the mob dies faster, to hold aggro, and to challenge the rest of the raid force.With these changes, tanking will be trivial in Def. I am so far into dimishing returns that running in Def is pointless as spike damage can be managed through short term buffs. So why would I sit in Def and not take any damage at all and take away 2-3k DPS from each fight? That is boring.What I find so very comforting is that you will get your day on the devs' "rebalancing" table.If it is now the groups responsibility as a whole to manage aggro, and I am suppose to be the tank, then its time to bring back the "one-shot" of toons DPSing - meaning any class that is doing enough damage to pull aggro from the tank. Add another suggestion: no switching gear when in a raid instance, no switching groups unless you zoneout and back in. This is reference to the 5sec timer on stance switching - its plain dumb.These changes are rediculous as a whole package. Not enough testing has occured, not enough raw data collected.A year ago we had 6-10 tanks log on regularly in the guild to play, now we are down to 4. I cringe when I look at teh raid force and see all the "tank" icons because I know DPS will be significantly lower even when the others are running in "offensive" stance. Yes I can not take them, yes I could look for a DPS class to replace that raid spot and take it away from someone that has supported to guild for a long time. But then who is going to tank TSO instances for the rest of the guild?This is already happening on the serve - LFG - need tank and heals. I see this every night.SOE needs to realize that tanking and healing need to be dynamic enough to be fun for those that choose to play these classes.I see 2 senarios developing:1. We see more of the "Top Tanks" leave because they are bored.2. You will see more casual tanks because now the classes are easier to learn/play. (what most dont realize it that tanking is the most gear dependant group in the game and to get to the "sweet spot" where going Def makes the most rewarding difference will take less effort will be easier).So basically, there will be more tanks but not as efficient. Great, makes me want to roll up a DPS class. Oh wait, thought I picked a hybrid tank class 3 years ago, nope, I was mistaken, my bad.

Santi Dominiti

02-12-2009, 06:06 PM

The game mechanics are fine as it is. Tanks are actully enjoying tanking, can stand the boredom of doing instances because we can fight in off stance and actully do dps. So why change it? I can almost guarente that after this stupid update goes thru you will see very very few tanks doing instances by choice. And why change it when it has even been stated that there are NEXT TO NONE of items in game that will help with hate..... If something isnt broken dont break it.....

Trynnus1

02-12-2009, 06:07 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Morrolan V wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>Guys, don't waste your time on Noaani. Let him speak out his opinions.For developers, this game is all about progressions, no matter in dps, survivability or agro.On test server, the change just ruined the progression of agro. It is why I am against of the change.A treasure geared tank shouldn't generate smiliar agro as legendary geared tank. A legendary geared tank shouldn't generate similar agro as fabled tank.On test server, the most agro comes from taunt. It is stupid since you are killing the game you created.There is no progression for fighter to improve our agro after our dps was seriouly nerfed in defensive.If a treasure geared tank can generate similar agro as fabled tank, is a treasure geared assassin going to generate similar dps as fabled assassin?</blockquote>QFE on all counts.A big part of the problem is that the game is itemized and balanced based on the current system. Specifically:<ul><li>There are no + to base taunt or + to taunt crit items, both of which will be needed</li><li>The items that exist with hate procs are scaled to the present system and produce threat amounts that won't even be rounding errors under the new system</li><li>There are many taunt immune mobs in the game - for them, the only way to hold aggro was tank dps and threat transfer. Has that been addressed?</li></ul>Couching's point about lack of progression in threat generation is VERY good. Aeralik, you are saying that threat per second, not damage per second is a tank's primary role. To create a satisfying game experience, you have to create a reasonable progression in that role.</blockquote>There are none curently because the mechanics were out of whack which is why we are doing this update. If taunts are ineffective improving them via gear would see items that likely would have rotted as tanks go for the dps oriented gear that they go for now. This update takes that into consideration because we know tanks are more melee damage oriented because thats how the old fighter loot was designed. These items will still need to work for now but overtime these items will slowly phase out for new items which then help threat generation as well as the defense oriented effects you have now.</blockquote>So basically, we get the changes to fighters but will have to wait for "overtime these items (to be) slowly phased out"?Ugh, come on guys, you know you were making these changes and are insisting they are going through. You are telling me you did not plan ahead and make any items to add to all the new content coming out?We have been aware that 2.0 was coming, dont you think that people would have stocked up on items with +taunt, and +taunt crit, etc if we saw them starting with TSO. Oh thats right, would not want to show us a sneak peak of what was to come.These changes have been poorly planned, poorly thoughy out, poorly tested, and poorly itemized.

RafaelSmith

02-12-2009, 06:10 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Morrolan V wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>Guys, don't waste your time on Noaani. Let him speak out his opinions.For developers, this game is all about progressions, no matter in dps, survivability or agro.On test server, the change just ruined the progression of agro. It is why I am against of the change.A treasure geared tank shouldn't generate smiliar agro as legendary geared tank. A legendary geared tank shouldn't generate similar agro as fabled tank.On test server, the most agro comes from taunt. It is stupid since you are killing the game you created.There is no progression for fighter to improve our agro after our dps was seriouly nerfed in defensive.If a treasure geared tank can generate similar agro as fabled tank, is a treasure geared assassin going to generate similar dps as fabled assassin?</blockquote>QFE on all counts.A big part of the problem is that the game is itemized and balanced based on the current system. Specifically:<ul><li>There are no + to base taunt or + to taunt crit items, both of which will be needed</li><li>The items that exist with hate procs are scaled to the present system and produce threat amounts that won't even be rounding errors under the new system</li><li>There are many taunt immune mobs in the game - for them, the only way to hold aggro was tank dps and threat transfer. Has that been addressed?</li></ul>Couching's point about lack of progression in threat generation is VERY good. Aeralik, you are saying that threat per second, not damage per second is a tank's primary role. To create a satisfying game experience, you have to create a reasonable progression in that role.</blockquote>There are none curently because the mechanics were out of whack which is why we are doing this update. If taunts are ineffective improving them via gear would see items that likely would have rotted as tanks go for the dps oriented gear that they go for now. This update takes that into consideration because we know tanks are more melee damage oriented because thats how the old fighter loot was designed. These items will still need to work for now but overtime these items will slowly phase out for new items which then help threat generation as well as the defense oriented effects you have now.</blockquote>Seems to me that some of it could but done at the same time the changes are put live. I mean what is the point of the T2 Champions Mirror armor (which is Def tank armor) having haste or DPS boosts under the new system? Just change the bonuses out to some threat boosts.And what about current gear that actually has +threat procs?. Last time I checked on test...the values of those procs have not changed along the same scale as the value of our taunts and +threat abilities. +1000 threat proc is significant on live....but on test its tiny tiny tiny.

Kordran

02-12-2009, 06:20 PM

The very first thing I think they need to do with itemization with these changes, at a minimum, is to update the T1 and T2 void shard gear with a lot of +Aggression skill. With the changes that Aeralik has made (actually making the skill useful), there's just not enough gear out there that has that bonus, and the void shard sets would be a good place to start.But I agree with the other posters here who call foul on this notion that the fighter revamp will be pushed through, and re-itemization will take a back seat for "sometime later". This should be done at the same time.

Morrolan V

02-12-2009, 06:32 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>There are none curently because the mechanics were out of whack which is why we are doing this update. If taunts are ineffective improving them via gear would see items that likely would have rotted as tanks go for the dps oriented gear that they go for now. This update takes that into consideration because we know tanks are more melee damage oriented because thats how the old fighter loot was designed. These items will still need to work for now but overtime these items will slowly phase out for new items which then help threat generation as well as the defense oriented effects you have now.</blockquote>That makes sense. It worries me that during the transition, you are going to either have base level threat generation that is (1) so high it makes aggro trivial, or (2) so low it will seriously handicap overall dps output in raids and groups. Time will tell, I suppose.I hope that the general trend toward threat generation items will not take away our ability to build a DPS kit. I am concerned in general that this focus on tanking will further diminish dps-oriented tanks dps potential. This was already seen in the Monk TOS AA tree, where the DPS options are marginal at best and both endline abilities are tank oriented.

Shotneedle

02-12-2009, 06:36 PM

I honestly don't see why this is such a big problem...I mean...now tanks can hit auto attack, hit 2 taunts, then tab to their 2nd (dps) account window, do dps for 15-20 seconds, flip back to tank and hit taunts, etc etc...temps when up...so on so forth...you can still have your dps while tanking, and instead of doing low-med dps you can do high dps. <3

victer

02-12-2009, 06:47 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>There are none curently because the mechanics were out of whack which is why we are doing this update. If taunts are ineffective improving them via gear would see items that likely would have rotted as tanks go for the dps oriented gear that they go for now. This update takes that into consideration because we know tanks are more melee damage oriented because thats how the old fighter loot was designed. These items will still need to work for now but overtime these items will slowly phase out for new items which then help threat generation as well as the defense oriented effects you have now.</blockquote>wow so now you plan on phaseing out the tanks ability to do dps by getting DPS gear?exaclty how does getting more +threat items help the raid when i can already hold agro just fine?i guess ill need to start looking for a guild that needs me as MT since thats all ill be good for.anyone know when diablo 3 comes out?

Glerin

02-12-2009, 06:49 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>You arent going to group or raid with a tank in master crafter gear. The tradeskill gear might be ok on some of the easier instances but most groups would not take a poorly geared tank into some of the harder zones because they are going to be taking larger damage than someone who has much better gear.</blockquote>you do realize that by stating this your basically telling every aspiring tank to just go reroll since they can maybe only tank 1-2 instances in the game to up their gear?i fully expect that all mediocre / bad tanks come this update will cheer enmasse, and all tanks that know [Removed for Content] they are doing, will probably stop playing a tank, the incommings of "LF TANK for X" is gonna be hilarious.

Dasein

02-12-2009, 06:49 PM

<cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>There are none curently because the mechanics were out of whack which is why we are doing this update. If taunts are ineffective improving them via gear would see items that likely would have rotted as tanks go for the dps oriented gear that they go for now. This update takes that into consideration because we know tanks are more melee damage oriented because thats how the old fighter loot was designed. These items will still need to work for now but overtime these items will slowly phase out for new items which then help threat generation as well as the defense oriented effects you have now.</blockquote>So you're saying you'll be phasing out tank items with offensive bonuses (I'm assuming this is stuff like double attack, melee crit, +damage and damage procs) in favor of more defensive stuff? What will this do for fighters not currently tanking, like an off-tank, or 3rd tank? It sounds like tanks are going to be taking an even bigger DPS hit when the new itemization kicks in.

Matia

02-12-2009, 06:59 PM

No.. by phasing out they mean that new gear will show up with threat/taunt/aggro bonuses and ignore any actual combat bonuses other than that (my guess). After all.. it's not like fighters need to be geared to fight according to him..that isn't their role.So in a few expansions, if you are bringing a new character up the ranks, you'll spend the first 80 levels geared for damage and gear for levels 80+ will suddenly be all about your AC and taunt.So not only will the damage go down, but if you think maintaining aggro is easy now on test........

Elanjar

02-12-2009, 06:59 PM

Sounds to me like they are royally F*CKING this game. This is gonna be as bad as the SWG NGE

Bruener

02-12-2009, 07:14 PM

<cite>Dasein wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite><blockquote>There are none curently because the mechanics were out of whack which is why we are doing this update. If taunts are ineffective improving them via gear would see items that likely would have rotted as tanks go for the dps oriented gear that they go for now. This update takes that into consideration because we know tanks are more melee damage oriented because thats how the old fighter loot was designed. These items will still need to work for now but overtime these items will slowly phase out for new items which then help threat generation as well as the defense oriented effects you have now.</blockquote>So you're saying you'll be phasing out tank items with offensive bonuses (I'm assuming this is stuff like double attack, melee crit, +damage and damage procs) in favor of more defensive stuff? What will this do for fighters not currently tanking, like an off-tank, or 3rd tank? It sounds like tanks are going to be taking an even bigger DPS hit when the new itemization kicks in.</blockquote>This is exactly what is going to happen. With future updates and itemization suddenly fighter items will be all about +taunt crits, +taunt effectiveness, +defense stats. There won't be any more items designed for "fighters" that will actually increase dps...and those items that do increase DPS will be going to scouts simply because starting with this update and moving forward SOE is making it dumb to spec and type of DPS into a tank what so ever.The only ones this change helps are the defensive oriented tanks, which are used to tanking in defensive constantly...like Guards and Paladins. The ones this hurts royally is going to be the offensive tanks, Zerks, SKs, Brawlers. Because tanking is going to be all about Guard-type tanking and item hence will be designed specifically for this. This whole change makes me sick. As a SK I waited a long long time for SOE to get their act together and make the adjustments that needed to be made to my class. Now suddenly they come out with this stupid change that they want everybody to play like a Guard. That is boring as hell, and since Guards have the best of the best defensive wise once again it is going to be always choose the Guard. OT'ing is not going to be much different. How many fights do you actually know about that require an OT to handle more than 1-2 mobs? With hate being easy-mode, tab taunting in defensive is going to be easy for any tank. You FINALLY get things looking good for fighters, and have more people enjoying the way the fighter classes play and suddenly you think you need to pull the plug on it and make this a game of WoW tanking. If I wanted to play WoW I would just go play it.All that needs to be done is make defensive stance much more tempting to use and bam...suddenly more tanks will be using defensive when they choose to. The more I think about this change the more I hate the way you guys are running things up there.