Avoidance transfers and how tanks work together [Archive]

circusgirl

06-05-2009, 03:30 AM

As the monk in our raidforce, I find that tranquil vision (monk avoidance lend) can be a huge buff when placed on our main tank. If I go fully defensive, giving up most of my dps in the process, I often find that I avoid between 20 and 30% of incoming blows for the main tank. Shield ally often acounts for an additional 4-10%. <img src="http://i732.photobucket.com/albums/ww329/Dharlette/Avoidance_report.jpg" width="690" height="312" />(Avoidance report is for a Zarrakon kill, Vestris is a Shadowknight, Avanlei a templer with SA on her, and Vinka a monk with tranquil vision on her).As you can see from the above ACT avoidance report, our main tank avoided only 21.34% of incoming attacks herself. She received an additional 10.98% avoidance from stoneskins, and a whopping 25.61% avoidance from the monk and 4.27% avoidance from the templar. As a brawler assisting her to MT, I can reduce incoming damage by 25%.In comparison, when a plate tank or cleric puts their avoidance buff on a brawler, we receive marginal benefits at best. Because our own avoidance is higher, it has a lower chance of giving us a second roll in the first place, and even if we get to roll using a plate tanks avoidance, because their innate avoidance is fairly low, they are unlikely to avoid a blow for us.All together, this means that Plate tanks have a way to bypass their weakness as a tank of low avoidance, while brawlers, on the other hand, have no equivalent means to deal with our weak spot of low mitigation. This is a trend present in many areas of the game (uncontested avoidance is available to plate tanks in the form of avoidance lends, food/drink, wrist adorns, slashing weapons adorns, etc., while brawlers have no equivalent way of raising our mitigation). So long as this is the case, when you have a brawler and a plate tank in a raid, it is often better to choose the plate tank as MT, even if they have slightly lower quality gear. Class, more than skill, determines who tanks.I would like to see some means by which plate tanks can do for brawlers what brawlers can do for plate tanks--a mitigation lend. Crusaders have something along these lines, but their spell has two main flaws: 1)it drains mitigation from the crusader, and 2) the mitigation amount is simply miniscule compared to what a brawler can give with our avoidance lend. I would like to suggest the following to remedy this:*Replace the warrior and crusader avoidance lends with a mitigation lend. Because you don't "fail" mitigation checks the way you do avoidance, the mechanics of this would have to be somewhat different than for avoidance lends, but I would suggest something along the lines of a 50% chance at master 1 to use the caster's mitigation rather than the target's. Ideally, this effect would stack with brawler's avoidance lends. With 3 tanks in raid, I would like to see a plate offtank with mitigation lend on a brawler offtank who also has his avoidance lend on the plate main tank. Introducing such a spell would accomplish the following<ul><li>makes brawler a viable, though not ideal, choice for MT (as is currently true of SKs, pallies, and zerks, with guards still the best choice)</li><li>Encourages variety in the tanks brought along on a raid--an ideal setup would have 2 plate tanks and 1 brawler, hopefully pointing towards a Crusader, Warrior, and Brawler on every raid</li><li>In group instances a mitigation lend will serve a plate tank far better than the current avoidance lend in keeping pesky aggro-rippers alive</li></ul>

Terron

06-05-2009, 10:17 AM

<cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote> I would like to suggest the following to remedy this:*Replace the warrior and crusader avoidance lends with a mitigation lend.</blockquote>Crusaders can do this already - Donation of ArmamentWarriors have temporary group mitigation boosts.

Bruener

06-05-2009, 12:05 PM

<cite>Terron@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote> I would like to suggest the following to remedy this:*Replace the warrior and crusader avoidance lends with a mitigation lend.</blockquote>Crusaders can do this already - Donation of ArmamentWarriors have temporary group mitigation boosts.</blockquote>Did you even read the post?The Crusader mit buff became useless when they added in diminishing returns. The gain from lending somebody that little mitigation is miniscule.I agree with the OP. Maybe change the Warrior avoidance check to be a +mit bonus, like 10%. Maybe change the Crusader avoidance buff to be a "hybrid" version of this where the target has +5% mit buff and 30% to use the Crusader avoidance check.

Rahatmattata

06-05-2009, 01:16 PM

<cite>Bruener wrote:</cite><blockquote>Maybe change the Warrior avoidance check to be a +mit bonus, like 10%.Why? How many times do you have a bralwer tanking when there is a plate around anyway? If anything I'd rather have the guardian raidwide buff have stoneskin procs that don't work for the guardian, or a stoneskin proc on Unyielding Vigallance (our avoid buff). But tbh, I don't feel a change is necissary to avoid buffs. Maybe via AA to change it to a mit buff for people that want to take that path, IDK.</blockquote>

circusgirl

06-05-2009, 01:41 PM

One of the problems with the crusader's mitigation lend is that it isn't a lend, its a siphon. The crusader loses mitigation when they put it on another tank, which is a very undesierable option if you're in a situation where you need both tanks able to, well, tank. Besides which, its a very small amount of mit, nothing even remotely comparable to the 25% incoming damage reduction a brawler can give a plate tank.As for Rahatmatta's question, there are many, many encounters in raids where you need multiple tanks. And let's face it--gearing up say, 4 plate tanks for Zarrakon is way, way harder than gearing up 2 plate tanks and 2 brawlers. Brawlers don't compete with plates for gear, and with the right spec and equipment choices can be decent dps if a tank isn't needed, while that 4th plate tank is deadweight when they're not tanking. Having a brawler around is good to have some use for all that brawler-only gear that drops.At the same time, if a brawler can't tank for you when necessary, they're every bit as much excess weight as an extra guardian. Look, I'm by no means trying to vie for MT--my raidforce has an incredible MT that I would never dream of trying to replace. But if our OT isn't around for a gynok kill, I'd like to be able to OT his adds in a pinch. When the Avatar of Tranquility has just charmed our MT and OT is quick succession, I want to be able to tank Wu the Enlightened. Brawlers are tanks, and we're actually quite good at it, but one of our biggest weaknesses is that we have no way of compensating for our low mitigation like plate tanks can compensate for their low avoidance.

Tehom

06-05-2009, 02:50 PM

Well, to be blunt, the +mitigation increases on set armor have compromised the ability of brawlers to tank by comparison, as well as additional phyiscal damage reduction abilities on armor. I really doubt the devs have any idea how large the gap is once the mit increases work their magic. Some way to help narrow that gap would be pretty wise, though I don't know if a mitigation lend is the best way - I'd tend to think a healer ability would be wiser, so brawlers wouldn't be out of luck if the fighter who buffs them who almost certainly is tanking before them croaks.

BChizzle

06-05-2009, 08:47 PM

I totally agree and support the idea crusaders should be buff bots for brawlers, SOE make it happen!

Megavolt

06-06-2009, 04:21 PM

Oh crap, you brought something good about brawlers into public forums.. I give it to the next update that they aren't working on someway to hit us with the nerf stick once again...Brawlers... not one ca improvement since EoF, 10 nerfs in a row.

circusgirl

06-06-2009, 09:41 PM

The last concerted effort to deal with fighter balance (i.e., the unfortunately canceled fighter revamp) basically had nothing but good things for brawlers. If that had gone through we would be having as many brawler OTs as we currently do zerks and paladins, which is something to strive for if you ask me (much as I would like to be a viable MT, I think we're a long ways off from that still). I honestly think that with the next expansion it'll be brawler's turn to shine, which means now is the time to make our suggestions about how to make it happen.

Landiin

06-07-2009, 12:52 AM

Not this again... /sigh

Lleren

06-07-2009, 01:08 AM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>Not this again... /sigh</blockquote>General Fighter Forum, this is the correct place for this discussion.

Landiin

06-07-2009, 01:17 AM

No this isn't the place for the fighter vs fighter disussion. Now go back under your rock plz, thanks.

circusgirl

06-07-2009, 02:31 AM

I believe Kiara specifically cited class balance discussions as something that would belong in the archetype forums when she set them up, so why the negativity? Its not like this is another "OMG Nerf SKs!" thread--heck, I'm suggesting *adding* something to the plate tanks, not taking anything away. Class balance is a complicated issue, and one that deserves a lot of careful thought--I'm just pointing out one easily missed but very significant aspect of class interactions that results in a very large disparity in tanking ability. I'm not asking to be a guardian...just that brawlers have similar options for upping our mitigation as plate tanks do for upping their avoidance.

Landiin

06-07-2009, 02:57 AM

No your suggesting (or hoping) that brawlers get volted into stardom like SKs did. That is not the path that needs to be taken.

Meatmonster

06-07-2009, 09:29 AM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>No your suggesting (or hoping) that brawlers get volted into stardom like SKs did. That is not the path that needs to be taken.</blockquote> You get that from reading the posts in this thread...how?

Landiin

06-07-2009, 01:52 PM

Lleren

06-07-2009, 02:54 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>The last concerted effort to deal with fighter balance (i.e., the unfortunately canceled fighter revamp) basically had nothing but good things for brawlers. If that had gone through we would be having as many brawler OTs as we currently do zerks and paladins, which is something to strive for if you ask me (much as I would like to be a viable MT, I think we're a long ways off from that still). I honestly think that with the next expansion it'll be brawler's turn to shine, which means now is the time to make our suggestions about how to make it happen.</blockquote>The part I bolded is how..</blockquote>The part bolded is prophesy or prediction in case you did not notice.

Kordran

06-07-2009, 03:12 PM

<cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>The last concerted effort to deal with fighter balance (i.e., the unfortunately canceled fighter revamp) basically had nothing but good things for brawlers. If that had gone through we would be having as many brawler OTs as we currently do zerks and paladins, which is something to strive for if you ask me (much as I would like to be a viable MT, I think we're a long ways off from that still). I honestly think that with the next expansion it'll be brawler's turn to shine, which means now is the time to make our suggestions about how to make it happen.</blockquote>Not to rain on your parade, but all evidence is to the contrary (absent the aborted mess of a fighter revamp that went down in flames); it seems that brawlers are being sent further in the direction of a dps fighter class, with increasingly diminished ability to tank non-trivial content. And to a large extent, I think SOE is giving you guys what you want -- I suspect the number of brawlers who actually want to tank is incredibly small. Over the past few years, the message has been loud and clear: if you want to play a tank, pick a class that's wearing plate. And the class demographics have aligned appropriately.And by the way, as someone playing a Paladin, I have to get a chuckle over the OT remark. Raiding guilds dont want Paladins or Berserkers by and large, not anymore; you're about 18 months behind the times. It's Shadowknights that are all the rage these days. Good luck competing with that class.

Kordran

06-07-2009, 03:14 PM

<cite>Noih@Kithicor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>The last concerted effort to deal with fighter balance (i.e., the unfortunately canceled fighter revamp) basically had nothing but good things for brawlers. If that had gone through we would be having as many brawler OTs as we currently do zerks and paladins, which is something to strive for if you ask me (much as I would like to be a viable MT, I think we're a long ways off from that still). I honestly think that with the next expansion it'll be brawler's turn to shine, which means now is the time to make our suggestions about how to make it happen.</blockquote>The part I bolded is how..</blockquote>The part bolded is prophesy or prediction in case you did not notice.</blockquote>More accurately, it's wishful thinking.

Couching

06-07-2009, 08:20 PM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote>Not to rain on your parade, but all evidence is to the contrary (absent the aborted mess of a fighter revamp that went down in flames); it seems that brawlers are being sent further in the direction of a dps fighter class, with increasingly diminished ability to tank non-trivial content. And to a large extent, I think SOE is giving you guys what you want -- I suspect the number of brawlers who actually want to tank is incredibly small. Over the past few years, the message has been loud and clear: if you want to play a tank, pick a class that's wearing plate. And the class demographics have aligned appropriately.And by the way, as someone playing a Paladin, I have to get a chuckle over the OT remark. Raiding guilds dont want Paladins or Berserkers by and large, not anymore; you're about 18 months behind the times. It's Shadowknights that are all the rage these days. Good luck competing with that class.</blockquote>Not sure what evidence is in your post but the dps fighter idea is totally failed and proven by reality; less and less raiding guilds have brawler in their raid force.EQ2 is an old game with 200aa. With new expansion, there will be another 50 aa maybe. People just want classes that are best in certain fields instead of average of everything. That's why the survivability gap between all plate tanks are shrank in TSO. Even guardian is still best in survivability but the gap is much less than in rok.For brawlers, it is impossible to make brawler attractive and competitive with 50% dps aa and 50% tank aa over real dpser with 100% dps aa or plate tanks with 100% tank aa. That's why brawlers got about 80% aa for tanking and only 20% aa for dps in TSO. Even though, we till don't have good enough in survivability to compete with plate tanks especially in casual raiding guilds; not enough tanking gear for casual brawlers.However, with this trend, I would say, in the next xpac, all fighters will be even closer in survivability.

circusgirl

06-08-2009, 12:11 AM

I don't know about bruisers, but I know that brawlers received very, very little in the way of DPS gains with TSO and most of what we've been given is survivability based. The vast majority of our AAs are dps based, as is our set equipment, our shard gear, etc. Unfortunately, as Chath mentioned, all the things we were given happen to pale in comparison to +mitigation increase. ...and the reason I mentioned pallies and zerks is because 1)I didn't want to infringe on guardian territory and 2)I didn't want to include SKs because, lets face it, trying to compete there is a losing battle all around.

Kordran

06-08-2009, 01:01 PM

<cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>...and the reason I mentioned pallies and zerks is because 1)I didn't want to infringe on guardian territory and 2)I didn't want to include SKs because, lets face it, trying to compete there is a losing battle all around.</blockquote>ROFL. Well, at least you're honest about it. So the stategy for bruisers is to avoid the steep climb and just go picking the low-hanging fruit? Awesome.

Megavolt

06-08-2009, 09:27 PM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>...and the reason I mentioned pallies and zerks is because 1)I didn't want to infringe on guardian territory and 2)I didn't want to include SKs because, lets face it, trying to compete there is a losing battle all around.</blockquote>ROFL. Well, at least you're honest about it. So the stategy for bruisers is to avoid the steep climb and just go picking the low-hanging fruit? Awesome.</blockquote>...all brawlers actually. Between summoners and brawlers there are 2 entire archetypes that are overly ignored, and if any attention is payed it's to nerf us in some way. It's more like SOE has told us to give up on the low hanging fruit and just pick the rotten stuff off the ground like the rest of the insects. I gotta say it's tons of fun to solo green heroic content, but yellow heroic even 2 healers have a problem keeping us alive with even the best gear.

Siatfallen

06-09-2009, 05:28 AM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>The last concerted effort to deal with fighter balance (i.e., the unfortunately canceled fighter revamp) basically had nothing but good things for brawlers. If that had gone through we would be having as many brawler OTs as we currently do zerks and paladins, which is something to strive for if you ask me (much as I would like to be a viable MT, I think we're a long ways off from that still). I honestly think that with the next expansion it'll be brawler's turn to shine, which means now is the time to make our suggestions about how to make it happen.</blockquote>Not to rain on your parade, but all evidence is to the contrary (absent the aborted mess of a fighter revamp that went down in flames); it seems that brawlers are being sent further in the direction of a dps fighter class, with increasingly diminished ability to tank non-trivial content. And to a large extent, I think SOE is giving you guys what you want -- I suspect the number of brawlers who actually want to tank is incredibly small. Over the past few years, the message has been loud and clear: if you want to play a tank, pick a class that's wearing plate. And the class demographics have aligned appropriately.And by the way, as someone playing a Paladin, I have to get a chuckle over the OT remark. Raiding guilds dont want Paladins or Berserkers by and large, not anymore; you're about 18 months behind the times. It's Shadowknights that are all the rage these days. Good luck competing with that class.</blockquote>I personally hope you're right about the DPS fighter assumption you make. However, if you look at the changes made with the launch of tSO, and the remarks by developers on the forums, we were being pushed in the direction of being viable raid tanks. They've had over half an expansion to adjust this setup by now, and they still haven't gotten it right. Viable does not mean competitive, and while we're viable, we're certainly the last option you'd ideally pick up for tanking for a min-/maxed raid force. I fully believe this is the case by design, not mistake.However, it seems the time for some kind of answer to this question is at the launch of the next expansion, at the earliest. As for summoners, I guess any attention to their problems (that does not result in a solid nerf) is even further away on the horizon.

Kordran

06-09-2009, 02:30 PM

<cite>Siatfallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I personally hope you're right about the DPS fighter assumption you make. However, if you look at the changes made with the launch of tSO, and the remarks by developers on the forums, we were being pushed in the direction of being viable raid tanks.</blockquote>I was looking more at the totality of things, and not just the new AAs (which are geared towards more general purpose tanking ability for brawlers). If you look at the TSO raid mobs, the non-trivial ones at least, there's no way that you can convince me that SOE's vision is to have a brawler tanking those. Not with the strike-throughs, AEs and so on that are clearly designed to be mit/critmit checks on the tanks. Most of the top-end raiding guilds I can think of are running with 3 or 4 plate tanks on the roster, and (maybe) one monk.In other words, what toys a class gets is only part of the equation. Maybe my thinking is skewed about this, but some of those endline TSO abilities you guys get seem to be designed to make you more functional instance tanks, not viable raid tanks. But like I said, that's just my impression of things.

circusgirl

06-09-2009, 02:53 PM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Siatfallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I personally hope you're right about the DPS fighter assumption you make. However, if you look at the changes made with the launch of tSO, and the remarks by developers on the forums, we were being pushed in the direction of being viable raid tanks.</blockquote>I was looking more at the totality of things, and not just the new AAs (which are geared towards more general purpose tanking ability for brawlers). If you look at the TSO raid mobs, the non-trivial ones at least, there's no way that you can convince me that SOE's vision is to have a brawler tanking those. Not with the strike-throughs, AEs and so on that are clearly designed to be mit/critmit checks on the tanks. Most of the top-end raiding guilds I can think of are running with 3 or 4 plate tanks on the roster, and (maybe) one monk.In other words, what toys a class gets is only part of the equation. Maybe my thinking is skewed about this, but some of those endline TSO abilities you guys get seem to be designed to make you more functional instance tanks, not viable raid tanks. But like I said, that's just my impression of things.</blockquote>On the contrary, several of our TSO AAs are ONLY useful in a raid situation, and do pretty much nothing at all to help us as instance tanks--most notably inner focus (we have to be hit for over 35% of our hp for this to do anything) and meditative healing (requires us to take a 40% spike to do anything at all.)

Kordran

06-09-2009, 06:13 PM

<cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>On the contrary, several of our TSO AAs are ONLY useful in a raid situation, and do pretty much nothing at all to help us as instance tanks--most notably inner focus (we have to be hit for over 35% of our hp for this to do anything) and meditative healing (requires us to take a 40% spike to do anything at all.)</blockquote>So you can use those to handle some huge AE spikes and whatnot, but are you seriously contending that those two abilities mean that you're expected and capable of tanking non-trivial TSO raid content? Like I said, maybe I'm wrong here and maybe my experience with raiding brawlers is skewed, but every single time I've seen them actually try to take control of a TSO raid mob, they've ended up face down in the dirt within 15 seconds. So those "raid" abilities sure don't seem to be doing much for them.And there are plenty of tougher TSO instance bosses out there that I've seen who could spike your typical brawler for 35%+ of their total health. Just saying.I guess everyone sees things differently from their own perspective, but to me, it seems like SOE sent a pretty clear message with TSO: if you want to be a raid tank, wear plate armor. Low mitigation = fail.

Tehom

06-09-2009, 11:41 PM

I think what's really clear is SOE has no idea how the mitigation increases on the new armor has radically affected class balance. It's not like we saw plate tanks hitting 13k mitigation or whatever last expansion.

Gilasil

06-09-2009, 11:47 PM

No. They gave brawlers a lot of AA skills which help survivability, but to say they have survivability comparable to a comparably played and equipped plate tank against epic mobs is a joke. Better then it used to be (IF you go all the way down the tree and get at least 172 AAs, at least for bruisers) but still a long long way to go. If I can ever manage to get my mythical I suppose my surivability will increase yet again although it's hard to believe that would give me tanking ability comparable to any plate tank. Definately not a plate tank who's put as much effort into his toon as I have into mine.I have seen a well equipped monk tank low tier raid content including a few bosses. But when the crap hit the fan and we wiped five times in a row on the same named we replaced the mythicalled monk with pretty good gear with a non-mythicalled guardian with so-so gear and got it first time.If you look at the Shadows AA line it DOES appear that SoE is trying to improve brawler survivability. I don't have the screen in front of me but I'd guess that at least half of the abilities past the first tier relate to survivability (or at least tanking i.e. hate position increasers) in some way. However, if their intent was to make brawler tanking comparable to a plate tanking they failed miserably. I have no trouble getting aggro -- if I'm running through my knockout routine I often have to be careful to avoid getting aggro -- but without survivability getting aggro doesn't help anyone.MAYBE SoE has great things planned for brawlers in the next expansion. But I doubt it. My personal theory is SoE didn't put much thought into brawlers (probably haven't for a long time) or thinking through the ramifications of low mitigation a fighter and what would be necessary to make them viable. When putting together the ToS AA tree they tossed in a bunch of tanking related abilities because, well, brawlers are fighters. But that's as far as their thinking went. It's not some big plot to keep brawlers down, it's just that they don't give a <a href="mailto:d@$">d@$</a>&

Gungo

06-10-2009, 06:45 PM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>On the contrary, several of our TSO AAs are ONLY useful in a raid situation, and do pretty much nothing at all to help us as instance tanks--most notably inner focus (we have to be hit for over 35% of our hp for this to do anything) and meditative healing (requires us to take a 40% spike to do anything at all.)</blockquote>So you can use those to handle some huge AE spikes and whatnot, but are you seriously contending that those two abilities mean that you're expected and capable of tanking non-trivial TSO raid content? Like I said, maybe I'm wrong here and maybe my experience with raiding brawlers is skewed, but every single time I've seen them actually try to take control of a TSO raid mob, they've ended up face down in the dirt within 15 seconds. So those "raid" abilities sure don't seem to be doing much for them.And there are plenty of tougher TSO instance bosses out there that I've seen who could spike your typical brawler for 35%+ of their total health. Just saying.I guess everyone sees things differently from their own perspective, but to me, it seems like SOE sent a pretty clear message with TSO: if you want to be a raid tank, wear plate armor. Low mitigation = fail.</blockquote>Just to note because you don't know what your talking about. If a tso heroic instance mob hits you for 36%+ PHYSICAL damage which is by itself pretty hard to accurately judge in a 10 sec duration 2min recast ability, it is more likely a double atk and crit combo. Which does not count toward a single PHYSICAL hit.

Kordran

06-10-2009, 09:57 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just to note because you don't know what your talking about. If a tso heroic instance mob hits you for 36%+ PHYSICAL damage which is by itself pretty hard to accurately judge in a 10 sec duration 2min recast ability, it is more likely a double atk and crit combo. Which does not count toward a single PHYSICAL hit.</blockquote>Okay, and that has exactly what to do with the fact that brawlers can't handle TSO raid bosses? What you're basically saying there is that no, there's no heroic mobs that can hit a brawler for that much in a single hit (which I'd dispute given some of the brawlers I've seen try to tank...) so those abilities are useless in groups ... and yet, brawlers are also getting plowed by TSO raid mobs. So, we've gone from "the brawler endline abilities prove that we're supposed to be defensive tanks" to "the brawler endline abilities are functionaly useless for tanking". Congratulations. SOE giving you guys some one-trick-pony abilities in the Shadow tree does not a tank make, IMO.But hey, like I said, I could be completely off-base here. Maybe SOE really does think you guys should be equivalent in function to plate tanks. In which case, you're just severely screwed and have been for... years? Read the tea leaves any which way that makes you happy, I suppose.

Couching

06-11-2009, 01:35 AM

<cite>Kordran wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just to note because you don't know what your talking about. If a tso heroic instance mob hits you for 36%+ PHYSICAL damage which is by itself pretty hard to accurately judge in a 10 sec duration 2min recast ability, it is more likely a double atk and crit combo. Which does not count toward a single PHYSICAL hit.</blockquote>Okay, and that has exactly what to do with the fact that brawlers can't handle TSO raid bosses? What you're basically saying there is that no, there's no heroic mobs that can hit a brawler for that much in a single hit (which I'd dispute given some of the brawlers I've seen try to tank...) so those abilities are useless in groups ... and yet, brawlers are also getting plowed by TSO raid mobs. So, we've gone from "the brawler endline abilities prove that we're supposed to be defensive tanks" to "the brawler endline abilities are functionaly useless for tanking". Congratulations. SOE giving you guys some one-trick-pony abilities in the Shadow tree does not a tank make, IMO.But hey, like I said, I could be completely off-base here. Maybe SOE really does think you guys should be equivalent in function to plate tanks. In which case, you're just severely screwed and have been for... years? Read the tea leaves any which way that makes you happy, I suppose.</blockquote>By your post, I guess avatars, anashti, gynok, manzok, penta, xebnok, tyrannus, field general, etc. are not TSO raid mobs because I have tanked them successfully.Though, one thing you are right in your post; you have no clue of brawler TSO aa. Inner foucs, meditative healing, and adrenaline rush are for raid tanking. Except meditative healing, inner focus and adrenaline rush are pretty useful in raid tanking. Stop trolling on something you don't know, thanks.

Kordran

06-11-2009, 07:08 AM

Edit: I'll just end the derail here, and concede the point.

Tommara

07-28-2009, 04:55 PM

Good opening post. Once I started playing a paladin, I wondered about the reasons for the "there can be only one" attitude wrt to tanks. I don't know enough to have an answer, just some observations. As a player of the original EQ, it seems like they were trying to capture some of the class roles in the original EQ. Unfortunately, they also eliminated some of their jobs. A monk is a perfect example. Monks (and SKs) were stellar due to their ability to feign death pull, thereby being able to split mobs when combined with snare. In EQ2, the game mechanics don't support being able to do that.I think your idea of useful buffs is probably the easiest to implement without messing up class balancing too much. After all, it's the group buffers that are disproportionately desired in a raid. Buffs that primarily benefit someone else and not yourself would also help maintain class balancing. My ranger would like it too, and I'll be the first to admit she doesn't need any improvements in soloing. But her group utility is non-existent. So it's good she can solo *sigh*.

Tommara

07-28-2009, 05:58 PM

LOL, reflecting on the past in EQ made me remember something. My ranger wasn't in high demand there either (hollering "Ranger Down!" was a big joke <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />), but I did find a niche protecting enchanters and clerics. Taunts didn't work as well in EQ, and clerics were frequently nailed for the same reasons in EQ2. With enchanters, they'd be at the top of the hate list of any mobs they had mesmerized, so tanks would have to hit their taunt button a few times to build up some hate before they broke mez, or risk losing the chanter. Mez also sometimes broke before the group was ready to fight them, and again, they'd nail the chanter.As an expendable ranger, I could pull the mobs off the healers until the situation was under control, and hopefully survive long enough for the tank to get aggro back. If not, oh well, I was expendable and another "Ranger Down!" <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />With chanters, I could taunt mezzed mobs which would transfer the hate to me without breaking mez, so when mez broke for whatever reason, they'd come after me instead of the chanter. That's a scary thought, rangers with taunt, huh? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> When I played EQ, rangers would mock other rangers wearing "Prom Queen" jewelry (i.e., stat jewelry) rather than wear AC or something else that increased defense. It's the opposite here, although my ranger has substantially more options to improve defensive abilities.So I wonder if fighters shot themselves in the foot by objecting to the taunt changes? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> If the MT and OT can't hold aggro as well, it might have required more fighters as back-up, doing jobs like my EQ ranger used to do. And my ranger might find it benefical to dump some of the Prom Queen jewelry and take other measures to improve defense. What's the point in having very high dps if I can't use it without risk getting aggro and dying? I could put my dps to use peeling mobs off of squishies, but would need to increase my defensive abilities (there are a lot of options for doing so already in the game.)It would certainly make the game harder, but perhaps more interesting by taking the focus off of min-maxing and trying different strategies. Edited note: Just remembered something else. I also played a cleric, and I was often more worried about keeping the chanter alive than the tank. In fact, many times I had to have the heal casting before the chanter got hit or they wouldn't make it. Cleric heals were slow and chanters died fast. If the tank died, there were others that could step in. We didn't have this "there can be only one" attitude towards tanks, although we did toward chanters. Very ironic. :/

Uglukson

08-19-2009, 03:46 AM

As an EQ1 monk and EQ2 bruiser, I'd give a lot for feign splitting to be introduced into EQ2. Including any further ability to take a hit like a plate tank on raid targets. In EQ1, the tools were different on both taunts and the ability to survive. Disciplines like whirlwind or voiddance for monks, or weaponshield for rangers, gave each class a genuine way to contribute without actually being considered a raid tank.

circusgirl

08-19-2009, 11:56 AM

Given the way encounters are designed, I think its pretty unlikely that they'll put in FD-splitting. It screws with scripts too much, and the system just isn't built for it.On the other hand, they've already stated that they intend to put in some changes to make the brawler avoidance buff significantly better than plate tank's avoidance buff. They could do this in several ways--they could decouple our avoidance from our defensive stance, so that we can benefit plate tanks when we're in offensive (which would be great). They could nerf plate tank's avoidance buffs to hell (which would be rather sucky of them). Or they could craft a system in which plate tanks and brawler's avoidance buffs aren't in conflict...for example, by switching plate tank's buffs out for a mitigation lend or something comparable for crusaders. I'm not terribly familiar with crusaders, so coming up with an equivalent idea (a buff that increases the survivability of another tank based on the survivability of the caster) is a bit of a toughie for me.