Defense nerf comming in Live Update #7 (eta aprox. 2 weeks)

[Twoof]

As posted by Moorguard in <a href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=spellart&message.id=39033#M39033" target=_blank>another thread</a>: * Changes to the effectiveness of skill buffs like Defense So I would advise everyone to be carefull which spells to upgrade to Adept 3. Looks like I just wasted a T4 rare on our Lvl38 defense buff <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Not that I get the whole thing... I clearly remember Moorguard posting that it's working as intended. Aka he can solo greens easy, blues harder, and no whites and up (++ mobs).  I guess the whining of the classes without the racial +5 defense choice suddenly changed all this, and now defense needs to be nerfed. <div></div>

[English Da Gua]

<P>   Defense buffs are being regulated because ANYONE, not just a guardian, with the right group can make his / her defense skyrocket and basically trivialize an encounter.</P> <P>  This is a needed fix.  Also, no one out there upgrades guardian buffs for the stats. In case you haven't looked, the + you get by going from adept 1 to 3 or even master 1 is SAD AND SMALL. This may be fixed, but as of now you upgrade the 40 second buffs for the aggro they produce.  </P> <P>    Truly you would be better off using your tier 4 rares to upgrade retaliate / cleave / and FC or giving them to a class with a great DD or heal in that tier. I used no rares on tier 4 buffs as I found all the adepts for these spells. I would probably never upgrade my tier 4 buffs past adept 1 unless a master drops or all my fellow guildies have all their more important tier 4 spells adept 3+.</P> <P>   Just my 2 cents =P</P>

[Twoof]

Doh... I based it upon the <a href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=3&message.id=3799" target=_blank>What to get adept 3</a> post here... <div></div>

[English Da Gua]

 Hehe no worries. Our abilities don't scale well app4+. Just better uses for those rares is all. Nothing ventured nothing gained =)

[Twoof]

Maybe Lord Everling needs to be payed another vissit, seeing he was so kind to me the last time <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <div></div>

[Mentin]

<DIV>I want to make one comment on attitude:</DIV> <DIV>***</DIV> <DIV>We want the game to be well balanced to provide the proper challenge and be entertaining for all. If that means that certain classes need a nerf then so be it, be it my own class or some other. This game is not a competition between the different classes who is 'best', game is most fun when the challenge level is right and all classes function well in their roles. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Comments like 'if I get nerfed I quit' and 'the whining of those missing +5 defense' just shows a lack of maturity and understanding of the greater good.</DIV> <DIV>***</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>With the huge effect we see +defense has and all the +defense buffs existing it is obvious that the situation is a little bit out of control. It needs fixing for the good of us all.</DIV><p>Message Edited by Mentin on <span class=date_text>03-29-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:51 PM</span>

[Zerofault]

<P>where in the hell does it say that defense is going to be less effective?  are you smoking crack or just assuming you know?  I read the exact same post by Moorguard and all it says is "Changes to the effectiveness of skill buffs like Defense".  Stop assuming and wait for the patch!</P> <P> </P> <P>Lodoz</P> <P>!</P>

[ugl]

I will take that bet....   <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Zerofault]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> uglak wrote:<BR>I will take that bet....   <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I am smart enough to not base any bets on soe.  lol

[Napolle]

i smell nerf<span>:smileymad:</span> <div></div>

[Stra]

Thats right. Whiners like Gage-Mikel are quite possibly going to get their way. <div></div>

[mochl]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Strast wrote:<BR>Thats right. Whiners like Gage-Mikel are quite possibly going to get their way.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Monks (and every other fighter) have the Defense skill as well. It's not just a Guardian ability so I doubt Gage is getting a bonus out of this.

[Snikey]

No but Gage might be picked to MT a raid.... WHAAAAAA.... [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot]ing Gage.

[SageMarrow]

<P>most raiding guilds already have a level 50 guardian waiting and ready with 2-3 back ups in some cases. no matter what anyone says or does, a monk will only come before one class in a raid...</P> <P>shadowknights... and thats just until they get some sort of bone thrown their way...</P> <P>so this is a bogus argument anyway - gage is the highest level in his lower level (30 persay) guild. </P> <P>basically - hes grooming a guild around him tanking raid mobs - whether he can do it or not doesnt matter long term - what will be funny is when the guardians in his guild leave (if there are any) because they out shine him at his **spot** that he made for himself, and he wont let them tank while he sits back and dps'</P>

[sidgb]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Zerofault wrote:<BR> <P>where in the hell does it say that defense is going to be less effective?  are you smoking crack or just assuming you know?  I read the exact same post by Moorguard and all it says is "Changes to the effectiveness of skill buffs like Defense".  Stop assuming and wait for the patch!</P> <P> </P> <P>Lodoz</P> <P>!</P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>Note the other 3 items are specifically described as "improvements".  Yes it means nerf.<BR>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>Zerofault wrote:<p>where in the hell does it say that defense is going to be less effective?  are you smoking crack or just assuming you know?  I read the exact same post by Moorguard and all it says is "Changes to the effectiveness of skill buffs like Defense".  Stop assuming and wait for the patch!</p> <p>Lodoz</p> <p>!</p> <div></div><hr></blockquote> Given the numerous hot threads about Defense and tanks its pretty safe to assume this will be a nerf.  Devs have already indicated  as such. And in SOE terms when has "Changes to effectiveness" not meant Nerf?</span><div></div>

[Banditman]

<P>Just to play devils advocate for a second . . .</P> <P> </P> <P>An "adjustment" to the Defense skill could come in the form of how it is applied.</P> <P>For instance, Defense skill for the Brawlers could be "adjusted" so that it impacts their avoidance more strongly.  Conversely, Defense skill for Warriors could be "adjusted" so that it impacts their mitigation more strongly.</P> <P>That would be an "adjustment" in line with what each class is supposed to be, and not turn out to be a "nerf".</P> <P>I certainly won't be placing any bets on it, but there are some scenarios which could turn out to be a wash or even an improvement for Guards.</P>

[Arsen]

Yup, definitely a nerf.  On my server, guardians recently became the single most popular class to play - I feel sorry for all the FTM people <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[-Aonein-]

<P>Im having a hard time figuring out what needs to be balanced. According to this screen shot :</P> <P><A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=6&message.id=13918" target=_blank>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=6&message.id=13918</A></P> <P>A monk can get 80% avoidance and 40% mitigation, ive no idea if this is self buffed or unbuffed, but reguardless of if it is self or unbuffed, a monk can get 100% avoidance in just about any group he joins, so does this mean that Guardians will get 100% mitigation and around 40% avoidance?</P> <P>Like ive said before, i really have no idea what SoE are trying to do and after reading well over 1000 posts over the last week, im pretty sure there not even sure themselves.</P> <P>Taemek Frozenberg 45th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server</P>

[RandomPlay]

<P>Will wait and see, but I'm strongly betting nerf.</P> <P>Not whining.  If no other class can do what we do, perhaps it's not fair to them.   Maybe it goes beyond class differentiation to the point of overpowering.  Maybe when they lower the effectiveness of Defense (avoidance), they will up the Mitigation to compensate.  Or perhaps if they lower our defensive abilities to be more in line with other classes, they raise our offense to be in line with them at the same time.  </P> <P>I doubt we will be irrelevant or unwanted, at least after the patch to the patch to fine tune the balancing.  But I do think the ability to solo or duo with a non-healer against group mobs will go away.</P> <P>Time will tell.<BR>- RP</P>

[Nemi]

<blockquote><hr>-Aonein- wrote:<P>Im having a hard time figuring out what needs to be balanced. According to this screen shot :</P> <P><A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=6&message.id=13918" target=_blank>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=6&message.id=13918</A></P> <P>A monk can get 80% avoidance and 40% mitigation, ive no idea if this is self buffed or unbuffed, but reguardless of if it is self or unbuffed, a monk can get 100% avoidance in just about any group he joins, so does this mean that Guardians will get 100% mitigation and around 40% avoidance?</P> <P>Like ive said before, i really have no idea what SoE are trying to do and after reading well over 1000 posts over the last week, im pretty sure there not even sure themselves.</P> <P>Taemek Frozenberg 45th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server</P> <hr></blockquote>Um, Guardians can also get near 100% avoidance and have, what 70% mitigation? And you don't see an issue?

[Grond]

<DIV><FONT color=#66ffff></FONT> SOE is basically saying that every group needs a healer.  If you can't find a healer then you are not allowed to group.  I can live with this, but why are they killing the solo/small groups ability to group when they claim to want to bolster it?  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>That said I do not mind a nerf to how powerful the defense skill is when killing mobs.  I should NOT be able to attack a green ^^ mob and almost never get hit no matter how well equiped I am.  However, I would like my mitigation to be increased 2-3 fold.  If I'm wearing that 500 Ib of armor then I agree I should not be able to evade 80 % of the hits.  Heck, let him hit me 80-90 % of the time.  The problem is encounters the could be done with one healer will now take 2.  Take Nektropos Castle (the level 50 one).  No way anyone will take it without 2 healers now, maybe 3 if the effect is as I expect.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Think about it.  We won't even talk about the normal hits.  Let's talk about the special hits like a mobs crushing blows.  Not only do these have a higher chance to hit compared to a normal hit already, but they deal insane damage.  Imagine what will happen after the Def nerf.  I could see every crushing blow and similar attacks hitting without fail instead of maybe one in three times.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As a Guardian I do not care about DPS.  As a Guardian I do not care about evading attacks.  As a Guardian I DO care about being able to take a white group mobs most powerful hit right in the face without having to cry to two healers.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Mitigation needs to be increased across the board in how well it works.  I know casters are made of paper, but even they shouldn't be 1 hit KO'ed by a mob. <FONT color=#66ffff></FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Here is the point.  Defense and Evasion are too powerful right now.  Mitigation is not powerful enough.  If you nerf one, then please fix the other.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Grondax Ix'Thania</DIV> <DIV>T5 Woodworker, and Guardian</DIV> <DIV>Member of Genesis on the Highkeep Server</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[-Aonein-]

<P>Nemi, Nemi, Nemi, once again, do you see we are all talking from a non buffed point of view, do you see many Guardians running around with 80% avoidance UNBUFFED, do u see many Guardians in a group with out the assistance from a Troubador that can even get near 80% BUFFED, the simple answer is no Nemi. The 100% avoidance any class can get with the right class's in a group, its called BUFF STACKING, thats where the problem lies.</P> <P>The more i think about this new patch coming up, the more i have a funny feeling that monks are going to be seriously peeved at what changes acually really do get made, i dont think its going to fall entirely thier way like there presuming it will, but ive no doubt Gage and friends are sitting back scheming what there next cry for help will be if they dont get what they want, but i gotta admit, there starting to grasp the very end of straws for crys for help, cause after this next patch, i think we are all well aware that the only thing a Brawler can never beat a plate class in is HP and Mitigation. As time goes on, the gap will only increase and on the big raids on the big hitters, its all down to Mitigation and who has the most of it and who has the most HP. I can see it now " We should get the same amount of HP that plate class can get cause blah blah blah " Gage foaming at the mouth as usual.</P> <P>Taemek Frozenberg 45th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server</P>

[Sunth]

<P>Yeah Defense is overpowered.</P> <P>Yeah this will be a nerf.</P> <P>I hope the game is still fun for me afterwards, otherwise I might be playing other classes for awhile.</P>

[RafaelSmith]

Any nerf to Defense and/or avoidance without significantly upping our mitigation will be ugly.  Contrary to popular beliefe our mitigation really isnt all that much considering the way mobs do dmg.  It just wont cut it.  Upping heals and/or adjusting mob dmg will aslo have to be looked at.  With heals and mob dmg as they are currently the ONLY reason ANYONE can tank at all is due to avoidance/defense, etc...mitigation plays a somewhat small role by comparison. This is for sure not an easy overnight fix.  Which means considering how SOE likes to take their time carefully testing things and all ...umm we should be afraid...be very afraid =P <div></div>

[Grond]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> RafaelSmith wrote:<BR><BR>This is for sure not an easy overnight fix.  Which means considering how SOE likes to take their time carefully testing things and all ...umm we should be afraid...be very afraid =P<BR><BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I concur with this.  They show us different information for AC / Def/Mitigation every 2 weeks anyway.  I wish they would take the next month to evaluate everything, and tweak things as they need to.  I don't think anyone could complain if they actually fixed it instead of just sending half finished ideas to a live server.</P>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> SageMarrow wrote:<BR> <P>so this is a bogus argument anyway - gage is the highest level in his lower level (30 persay) guild.</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Nope, I'm actually waiting for server transfer, I got a rather intriguing invite from a new guild <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </P> <P>So at the moment I'm guildless, going on raids with some friends I grinded to 50 with <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Oh and thank you guys for bringing me up so much, its flattering to think you guys envision me with so much power :smileysurprised:<BR></P>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>Sunthas wrote:<p>Yeah Defense is overpowered.</p> <p>Yeah this will be a nerf.</p> <p>I hope the game is still fun for me afterwards, otherwise I might be playing other classes for awhile.</p> <div></div><hr></blockquote> Yep im in the same boat.  Balance aside...whats important is the fun factor.  Honestly while I agree that Defense and avoidance for plate tanks is abit high I would hardly call it overpowering.  Ide like to see statistic showing me what % of mobs in the game only Guardians can tank that noone else can.  I bet its 0%.     One class being able to tank some things "easier" than another does not automatically imply "imbalance" or "broken class". I think this whole "tank balance" issue has gotten way out of had and is generating many false ideas about the current state.  Ide bet  after reading all the numerous posts by Gage and company that now more people think Monks suck and Gaurdians are the only tank than did before =P I have yet to see in any zone ive been in...."Group looking for Guardian"....instead all I see is "Group looking for TANK". </span><div></div>

[sidgb]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <BR> <P>Oh and thank you guys for bringing me up so much, its flattering to think you guys envision me with so much power :smileysurprised:<BR></P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>I personally invision you at Times Square naked in the middle of the day.<BR>

[FamilyManFir]

Where <i>are</i> you folks coming up with this two weeks number? We just finished LU#5. LU#6 is due on Test this Thursday, 3/31, I believe. If SOE has any sense they'll push LU#6 to Live no sooner than 4/11. If they take another week-and-a-half to polish up LU#7 it won't be going to <i>Test</i> until 4/21, with a push-to-live on, hopefully, 5/2. Thats five weeks away, not two. Or am I missing something here?

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>FamilyManFirst wrote: I believe. If SOE has any sense .....<hr></blockquote> Thats a <font size="7">VERY BIG IF  <font size="3">=P </font></font></span><div></div>

[FamilyManFir]

LOL, okay, I'll give you that one, RafaelSmith. Lord knows they didn't exercise much sense when they pushed out LU#5 after all of <b>four days</b> on the Test server! OTOH that may have been due to deadlines as SOE had already published the release date of Bloodline Chronicles.I'm still hoping that they'll start exercising sense with these LUs like they did with LU#4 but I won't take any bets! <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[AsheM]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote: <P>Nope, I'm actually waiting for server transfer, I got a rather intriguing invite from a new guild <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </P> <P>So at the moment I'm guildless, going on raids with some friends I grinded to 50 with <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Oh and thank you guys for bringing me up so much, its flattering to think you guys envision me with so much power :smileysurprised:<BR></P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>I envision you as a 16 year-old pimply faced kid who chose the wrong class and instead of creating another, whined and cried his way until all others were nerfed.  Please tell me you're not moving to Crushbone... shudders at the thought.</DIV>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> AsheMan wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote: <P>Nope, I'm actually waiting for server transfer, I got a rather intriguing invite from a new guild <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </P> <P>So at the moment I'm guildless, going on raids with some friends I grinded to 50 with <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Oh and thank you guys for bringing me up so much, its flattering to think you guys envision me with so much power :smileysurprised:<BR></P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>I envision you as a 16 year-old pimply faced kid who chose the wrong class and instead of creating another, whined and cried his way until all others were nerfed.  Please tell me you're not moving to Crushbone... shudders at the thought.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Hmm, I'm 28, probably have a pimple or two ([expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] fast food!) and I love monk, created 3 other classes, and I've never gotten anything nerfed.</P> <P>Nope, not Crushbone, its a secret.  Shhhhh!</P> <P>Oh and I'm hot irl, thanks <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><BR></P>

[CherobylJ]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> SageMarrow wrote:<BR> <P>so this is a bogus argument anyway - gage is the highest level in his lower level (30 persay) guild.</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Nope, I'm actually waiting for server transfer, I got a rather intriguing invite from a new guild <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </P> <P>So at the moment I'm guildless, going on raids with some friends I grinded to 50 with <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Oh and thank you guys for bringing me up so much, its flattering to think you guys envision me with so much power :smileysurprised:<BR></P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>OMGZ you are leaving Guk...say it aint so!<BR>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> CherobylJoe wrote: <P>OMGZ you are leaving Guk...say it aint so!</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>Ha Ha.  Well if they hurry and open server transfers I am, yeah.<BR>

[sidgb]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <BR> <P>Nope, I'm actually waiting for server transfer, I got a rather intriguing invite from a new guild <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </P> <P><BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>A new server is not the solution Gage, re-roll a guardian and paste a Kung-fu poster on your wall. It's the only way you will ever be happy.</DIV>

[Colin MacLaren]

Defence needs a nerf. It has to be balanced with the other means to avoid damage, deflection, block rate, parry, agility come to mind. In my opinion, Tanks should still be able to avoid damage against white or higher con mobs after the upcoming patch, but all factors contributing to your avoidance at an equal level, so maybe they need to be beefed up to balance tanking. At the moment it's all about defence. If you buff it up high enough, mobs won't hit you at all. If you chose a race that offers +5 defence and have a defence buff at your disposal some classes are able to solo named mobs by simply hitting autoattack and watching their toon meleeing them down. This is my definiton of overpowering. Having a high defence skill is supposed to result in being hit less, but not in being not hit at all. If you group with a fellow Troubadour or some other class offering nice buffs for the whole avoidance line and your are able to kill that green named without a healer - fine, no problem with it. Doing this on your own, only because you were lucky enough to pick the right class, or even worse, a race offering a +5 defence bonus, is somewhat out of hand.Buffing my Agility beyond 200+, being covered in full feysteel armor, wielding a rare weapon, using a rare shield and casting Adept3 buffs, my 37 Dirge will die in a matter of seconds when facing the lowest green con double arrow mobs. Facing them naked without any of the previous buffs, but this time casting my +5 defence buff, I won't be hit at all. Do you get the point <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><p>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <span class=date_text>03-29-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:12 PM</span>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Colin MacLaren wrote:<BR>Defence needs a nerf. It has to be balanced with the other means to avoid damage, deflection, block rate, parry, agility come to mind. In my opinion, Tanks should still be able to avoid damage against white or higher con mobs after the upcoming patch, but all factors contributing to your avoidance at an equal level, so maybe they need to be beefed up to balance tanking. At the moment it's all about defence. If you buff it up high enough, mobs won't hit you at all. If you chose a race that offers +5 defence and have a defence buff at your disposal some classes are able to solo named mobs by simply hitting autoattack and watching their toon meleeing them down. This is my definiton of overpowering. Having a high defence skill is supposed to result in being hit less, but not in being not hit at all.<BR><BR>If you group with a fellow Troubadour or some other class offering nice buffs for the whole avoidance line and your are able to kill that green named without a healer - fine, no problem with it. Doing this on your own, only because you were lucky enough to pick the right class, or even worse, a race offering a +5 defence bonus, is somewhat out of hand.<BR><BR><FONT color=#ffff00>Buffing my Agility beyond 200+, being covered in full feysteel armor, wielding a rare weapon, using a rare shield and casting Adept3 buffs, my 37 Dirge will die in a matter of seconds when facing the lowest green con double arrow mobs. Facing them naked without any of the previous buffs, but this time casting my +5 defence buff, I won't be hit at all. Do you get the point <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></FONT> <P>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <SPAN class=date_text>03-29-2005</SPAN><SPAN class=time_text>03:12 PM</SPAN><BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>    What a joke. I can understand a little embelishment, but Jesus H Christ that is a flat out LIE. That is so proposterous that it makes me want to make a scout, level him and show you what really happens.</DIV> <DIV>  </DIV> <DIV>  Your example is also invalid. The concern, as everyone has stated, seems to be in the end game. Do you raid a lot of lowest level green con mobs where you tank?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   As a guardian, that +5 def makes a bit of difference, IT IS NOT GAME BREAKING. What is game breaking... hi, how about the fact one could buff his defense almost 60 with the right combo group. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  I am a very outspoken guardian saying change def, grant avoidance tanks more avoidance and remove some of ours, while giving us more mitigation.  But saying something so blatently false makes me want to edit all my posts and beg SoE to give me an additional line of stackable Def buffs.<BR></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  Oh, and I did not pick the ogre race out of... what did you call it..."luck." You all choose initially to test the waters (not knowing what races offered what), but over time you could have made the same choice. I've rerolled a new guardian after reaching almost 25 (I know that ain't much) but I wanted the best race so I made an ogre guardian cuz I'm [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] like that =P  </DIV><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>03-29-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:31 PM</span>

[Damonious Ba]

its pretty simple: the defense skill itself, nm which class, is overpowered. some classes got some pretty nice defense-increasing-buffs, so you can get to the point where mobs dont hit you at all pretty easily. guardians might be at the top of the row when it comes to soloing atm, but the nerf isnt about guardians <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> so if you reduce half the avoidance bonus defense gives and add some mitigation to it, there wont be a difference in group/raidplay, but tweaking for solo or small group play will be come by. personally spoken, defense is overpowered and it seems that SoE wants to counter the nerf with an increase of healer power. we'll see soon enough. better ask why xx other things dont work as intended

[-Aonein-]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> sidgb wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <BR> <P>Oh and thank you guys for bringing me up so much, its flattering to think you guys envision me with so much power :smileysurprised:<BR></P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>I personally invision you at Times Square naked in the middle of the day.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>sidgb, way to much information man, i seriously did not need that vision. :smileyvery-happy:</P> <P>Taemek Frozenberg 45th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server</P>

[Styk]

The one thing i would like to see for plate tanks in defense is to fix the buff stacking and move Shields /Block to mitigation instead of avoidance.... since brawlers no longer use shields it makes perfect sense.... The Defense # you see on shields atm is very very inaccurate , move it to mitigation and it will make us alot more effective MITIGATING insead of avoiding attacks ( if i wanted to be an avoidance tank then i would have became a brawler ) Fix the buff stacking and move shield/block to mitigation instead of avoidance that will do us alot more then "revaluating defense " like sony plans on doing Strykr Destructicus 49 Berserker <div></div>

[Twoof]

I really hope it will be a change indeed. My biggest fear with these things, is that it's always overpowered in a certain situation (certain combo of classes and their buffs), but that the change affects everyone. Since I normally play in a group of 3 (40 Guard, 40 Inq, 38 Assasin), we can play fine now... with some easy and some tough fights. The game currently feels very balanced for our 3 people group. Let's hope it will still be fun after the "change". It might get better or worse... we'll know in a few weeks. <div></div>

[Kryog]

<P>I just hope that the change is specifically to address how defense impacts your mitigation/avoidance values, rather than nerfing defense and removing the ability to buff your overall defensive potential.   For example, by raising a Guardian's defensive skill 20 points you add an additional 8% mitigation, or something like that.   And with Brawlers their ability to avoid starts going up.</P> <P>Possible examples:</P> <P>Your defense reads:  250/250</P> <P>Your mitigation reads:  Mitigates 50% damage from a 50th level NPC.   </P> <P>*casts self buffs giving additional defensive improvement*</P> <P>Your defense now reads:  270/270</P> <P>Your mitigation reads:  Mitigates 50% damage from a 54th level NPC.</P> <P>or...</P> <P>Your mitigation reads:  Mitigates 70% damage from a 50th level NPC.</P> <P> </P> <P>Something like that, mostly asthetic.   I sincerely hope its not a "+Defense buffs will be lessened" or a "Your defensive skill will now be capped at +10 over your currrent maximum."   *shudder*</P> <P> </P> <P> </P>

[Chanliang]

Just moving shield AC to mitigation value instead of block certainly wont be enough but we'll see how it goes in few weeks. In my opinion current avoidance % aren't so bad least on selfbuffed state, with stacked buffs situation is different. Of course brawlers are sort of shafted compared to other tanks avoidance but how to improve it I don't really have idea without  making tanking for them too easy. <div></div>

[Colin MacLaren]

<DIV>The problem is, with a high enough defens skill, you won't be hit at all by colored mob. This is where the imbalance lies. It works fine higher con mobs, buffing up your defense results in yourself being hit <U>less.</U> There is no need to reduce the avoidance with even or higher con mobs. However, if lower con, but still colored mobs <U>do not hit you at all</U>, there is something terribly wrong.</DIV>

[Platinum]

<span><blockquote><hr>Colin MacLaren wrote:<div>The problem is, with a high enough defens skill, you won't be hit at all by colored mob. This is where the imbalance lies. It works fine higher con mobs, buffing up your defense results in yourself being hit <u>less.</u> There is no need to reduce the avoidance with even or higher con mobs. However, if lower con, but still colored mobs <u>do not hit you at all</u>, there is something terribly wrong.</div><hr></blockquote></span><font color="#6666ff">Ok please make me understand where the imbalance is?  Are you talking about soloing or in a group or in a raid or all?  Please be more specific!  Are you suggesting that lets say a Guardian can't be hit by a green group mob being self buffed?  Or are you saying that all tanks in general can't be hit by some color con mobs in solo/group/raid buffed?</font> <div></div>

[Colin MacLaren]

The imbalance is two-fold:- Stacking several defense buffs in a group/raid and trivialising some encounters.- Not being hit by green con heroic mobs, allowing you (and some other classes) to solo nameds.

[Raahl]

<DIV>I've got a bad feeling about this.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Platinum]

<span><blockquote><hr>Colin MacLaren wrote:The imbalance is two-fold:- Stacking several defense buffs in a group/raid and trivialising some encounters.- Not being hit by green con heroic mobs, allowing you (and some other classes) to solo nameds.<hr></blockquote>-I just think there is a lot to consider when saying trivialising an encounter.  If I'm 40 and a named mob is 35 in group form then the encounter should be easy in a group. You suggest a Guardian can solo lets say Varsoon?  Varsoon con'd green to me at lvl 40 so can I solo him?  Nope sure can't!  Cannot be done atleast by a Guardian!   </span><div></div>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>Colin MacLaren wrote:The imbalance is two-fold:- Stacking several defense buffs in a group/raid and trivialising some encounters.- Not being hit by green con heroic mobs, allowing you (and some other classes) to solo nameds.<hr></blockquote> While I agree that the stacking of buffs needs to be limited...i think saying that Gaurdians are running around soloing named is  misleading and only causes people to jump on the Nerf guardian bandwagon w/o thinking about things.  Maybe its just me but I cant solo any named that is still green.  There are some ^^ green non-named that I can solo but its like a 10min fight...Hardly game-breaking or overpowering like many are trying to suggest.   Some casters can solo ^^ named that are white+ which has nothing to do with +Defense or even Fighter imbalance at all. There are issues with Defense and the stacking of Defense buffs but alot of people are spreading false rumors as to what it actually means in terms of "class/game balance". </span><div></div>

[Colin MacLaren]

<P>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>PlatinumX2 wrote:</P> <P>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------</P> <P><BR>-I just think there is a lot to consider when saying trivialising an encounter.  If I'm 40 and a named mob is 35 in group form then the encounter should be easy in a group. You suggest a Guardian can solo lets say Varsoon?  Varsoon con'd green to me at lvl 40 so can I solo him?  Nope sure can't!  Cannot be done atleast by a Guardian!<BR>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------</P> <P>I don't know what mob you are talking about, but a lowest green con <U>non-caster</U> mob is alwith buff stacing ways doable by a tank. I'm not talking about soloing a named in Varsoon either, I'm talking about trivialising Level 50 Epic encounters with buff stacking.</P> <P> </P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> RafaelSmith wrote:<BR><SPAN><BR>While I agree that the stacking of buffs needs to be limited...i think saying that Gaurdians are running around soloing named is  misleading and only causes people to jump on the Nerf guardian bandwagon w/o thinking about things.  Maybe its just me but I cant solo any named that is still green.  There are some ^^ green non-named that I can solo but its like a 10min fight...Hardly game-breaking or overpowering like many are trying to suggest.  <BR><BR>Some casters can solo ^^ named that are white+ which has nothing to do with +Defense or even Fighter imbalance at all.<BR><BR><BR>There are issues with Defense and the stacking of Defense buffs but alot of people are spreading false rumors as to what it actually means in terms of "class/game balance".<BR><BR></SPAN> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>At level 50, there are several named mobs that are easyly soloable by a tank, all of them have a chance of dropping Tier5 rares, and this is definitively wrong. I'm not talking about nerfing tanks ability to avoid damge, but for reconsidering the current system how defense work so that low con colored mobs cannot hit you at all.<BR><BR> <DIV>I know some casters are able to solo white dobule arrows, this is something that needs to be balanced, too, but this thread is about defense, there are other threads covering this issue.</DIV><p>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <span class=date_text>03-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:44 AM</span>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Colin MacLaren wrote:<BR> <P>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>PlatinumX2 wrote:</P> <P>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------</P> <P><BR>-I just think there is a lot to consider when saying trivialising an encounter.  If I'm 40 and a named mob is 35 in group form then the encounter should be easy in a group. You suggest a Guardian can solo lets say Varsoon?  Varsoon con'd green to me at lvl 40 so can I solo him?  Nope sure can't!  Cannot be done atleast by a Guardian!<BR>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------</P> <P>I don't know what mob you are talking about, but a lowest green con <U>non-caster</U> mob is alwith buff stacing ways doable by a tank. I'm not talking about soloing a named in Varsoon either, I'm talking about trivialising Level 50 Epic encounters with buff stacking.</P> <P> </P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> RafaelSmith wrote:<BR><SPAN><BR>While I agree that the stacking of buffs needs to be limited...i think saying that Gaurdians are running around soloing named is  misleading and only causes people to jump on the Nerf guardian bandwagon w/o thinking about things.  Maybe its just me but I cant solo any named that is still green.  There are some ^^ green non-named that I can solo but its like a 10min fight...Hardly game-breaking or overpowering like many are trying to suggest.  <BR><BR>Some casters can solo ^^ named that are white+ which has nothing to do with +Defense or even Fighter imbalance at all.<BR><BR><BR>There are issues with Defense and the stacking of Defense buffs but alot of people are spreading false rumors as to what it actually means in terms of "class/game balance".<BR><BR></SPAN> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><FONT color=#ffff00>At level 50, there are several named mobs that are easyly soloable by a tank, all of them have a chance of dropping Tier5 rares, and this is definitively wrong</FONT>. I'm not talking about nerfing tanks ability to avoid damge, but for reconsidering the current system how defense work so that low con colored mobs cannot hit you at all.<BR><BR> <DIV>I know some casters are able to solo white dobule arrows, this is something that needs to be balanced, too, but this thread is about defense, there are other threads covering this issue.</DIV> <P>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <SPAN class=date_text>03-30-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>11:44 AM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>   Umm are you serious?? Many classes can solo named, having nothing to do with defense. That includes kiting and other forms of killing. There is always going to be a point when you have enough lvl / gear difference that soloing a named is possible. This is not broken. It would be broken if a 50 could solo a 50 named, but a 50 soloing a 45 or 44 named (if 44 cons green still) is not broken what so ever.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>    Guess what... non named can drop master chests too... should fetid blightrats in RV, those of which can drop one of the best BPs in the game, be made stronger or have people nerfed who can solo them?</DIV>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>Colin MacLaren wrote:<div></div> <div></div><blockquote> At level 50, there are several named mobs that are easyly soloable by <b>a tank</b>, all of them have a chance of dropping Tier5 rares, <b>and this is definitively wrong.</b> </blockquote><hr></blockquote>Only tanks can do this? And why is being able to solo a named many levels beneath you wrong? </span><div></div>

[CherobylJ]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Colin MacLaren wrote:<BR> <P>At level 50, there are several named mobs that are easyly soloable by a tank, all of them have a chance of dropping Tier5 rares, and this is definitively wrong. </P> <P>I'm not talking about nerfing tanks ability to avoid damge, but for reconsidering the current system how defense work so that low con colored mobs cannot hit you at all.<BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Hrmm tune encounter or tune players or tuna fish?</P> <P>Me thinks tune the encounter!</P> <P>Lesson from that other game...never ever tune a class based on an encounter (see the GoD release of that other game)</P>

[Colin MacLaren]

Being able to solo nameds soem levels below you is wrong, because:- They are challening group encounters definitively dropping loot, so they should only be doable by a GROUP.- Some classes are able to solo them with ease (tanks, sorcerers), some classes with lots of effort and luck (summoners, rangers, bards), some not at all (priests, chanters). Being a priest, always relying at least on a tank do do anything, while others linking their ebon coins and clouded rubies, because they "finally found another named they were able to solo.", seriously is annoying. If standing in front of a mob and hitting autoattack for five minutes is the definition of a challenging group encounter that rewards you with an ebon or ruby, something is terribly wrong in the game mechanics.Tank: Log in, solo some nameds, get all the loot for yourself, look for support character, duo or trio the nameds left, share the loot, log off.Healer: Log in, go lfg for hours, beg some tanks joining you, finally find one, duo or trio the nameds left, share the loot, log off.<p>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <span class=date_text>03-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:00 PM</span>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Colin MacLaren wrote:<BR>Being able to solo nameds soem levels below you is wrong, because:<BR><BR>- They are challening group encounters definitively dropping loot, so they should only be doable by a GROUP.<BR>- Some classes are able to solo them with ease (tanks, sorcerers), some classes with lots of effort and luck (summoners, rangers, bards), <FONT color=#ffff00>some not at all (priests, chanters). Being a priest, always relying at least on a tank do do anything, while others linking their ebon coins and clouded rubies, because they "finally found another named they were able to solo.", seriously is annoying. <BR></FONT><BR>If standing in front of a mob and hitting autoattack for five minutes is the definition of a challenging group encounter that rewards you with an ebon or ruby, something is terribly wrong in the game mechanics.<BR><BR><FONT color=#ffff00>Tank: Log in, solo some nameds, get all the loot for yourself, look for support character, duo or trio the nameds left, share the loot, log off.<BR><BR>Healer: Log in, go lfg for hours, beg some tanks joining you, finally find one, duo or trio the nameds left, share the loot, log off.</FONT> <P>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <SPAN class=date_text>03-30-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>03:00 PM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>   So what you are saying is you are unhappy that YOU cannot solo a named??</P> <P>   It seems to me things are always broken to someone who cannot do something. And, I have duo, trio and soloed lots of named in tier 5, wanna know how many ebon coins and rubies I have seen drop.... 00000000000000000000000000000.00000000</P> <P>   It is so annoying to see people say game mechanics are broken cuz xxx can solo a mob 5 lvls below him. I can solo the scions now in SH and they are ^^^....this must be fixed, heaven forbid with my +20 levels on the mobs I should be able to solo a ^^^ and finish my quest. That is obviously a quest that requires a group and no amount of gear or levels should change that /sarcasm off.</P> <P>   Oh and you also said cuz they 100% drop loot that only a group should be able to kill them?? So when a non named pops that will drop loot does that mean I should need a group for that mob that particular time...but should be fine to solo all his brethen if they will not be dropping a chest? Come on now man, that's one heck of a stretch.</P> <P><SPAN class=time_text>  As I said before, fetid blightrats in RV can drop a master chest with one of the best BPs in the game. Does that mean that when that fetid rat finally pops who will be dropping that master chest I should need a raid to kill it?</SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>03-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:09 PM</span>

[Colin MacLaren]

Scions don't drop good cash or Tier5 rares. They are grey, so no challenge, no reward, no problem when you kill it on your own. Blightrats maybe are the only double arrow mob out there everyone can solo. And it is not like killing a single blightrat will result in a definitive chest with at least some cash and good equipment or a rare if you are lucky.If I were able to solo nameds at 50 I would do it, and do it often. However, I still would complain about it. Today morning I loged in my Dirge, kited a blue groupx2 Heroic encounter, 10 minutes later, rough opal + cash + spell. While this was ten times more challenging than a tank soloing a green named, it still did not feel right. I didn't have to gather the twelve people the eoncounter was designed for. Hell, I did not even have to assemble a single group, work out a really good story and kill it in a challenging fight, the least thing I would expect when facing a coloured epic encounter with a single group. I had no feeling of accomplishment. Hell, I got a freaking opal for 10 minutes of running around in circles! Getting a Tier5 rare for hitting autoattack is not my defintion of how a game rewards skillfull players.<p>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <span class=date_text>03-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:43 PM</span><p>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <span class=date_text>03-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:44 PM</span>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Colin MacLaren wrote:<BR><FONT color=#ffff00>Scions don't drop good cash</FONT> or Tier5 rares. They Blightrats maybe are the only double arrow mob out there everyone can solo. And it is not like killing a single blightrat will result in a definitive chest with at least some cash and good equipment or a rare if you are lucky.<BR><BR>If I were able to solo nameds at 50 I would do it, and do it often. However, I still would complain about it. <FONT color=#ffff00>Today morning I loged in my Dirge, kited a blue groupx2 Heroic encounter</FONT>, 10 minutes later, rough opal + cash + spell. While this was ten times more challenging than a tank soloing a green named, it still did not feel right. I didn't have to gather the twelve people the eoncounter was designed for. Hell, I did not even have to assemble a single group, work out a really good story and kill it in a challenging fight, the least thing I would expect when facing a coloured epic encounter with a single group. I had no feeling of accomplishment. Hell, I got a freaking opal for 10 minutes of running around in circles! <FONT color=#ffff00>Getting a Tier5 rare for hitting autoattack is not my defintion of how a game rewards skillfull players.</FONT> <P>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <SPAN class=date_text>03-30-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>03:43 PM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>   Do any mobs... maybe I am missing something but no named ever dropped cash for me or my group. </P> <P>   If that epic mob happened to be in zek, that SO doesn't count. The X2 mobs in that zone are a joke in terms of difficulty. Overcon doesn't even begin to describe how easy they are. </P> <P>    The game rewarded that skillful player for getting to 50 and thereby having the ability to kill that mob.</P>

[Colin MacLaren]

I was so "skillfull" to each level 50, too, have good gear, many adept3 spells, but still are from even thinking about soloing a named. Nice balance.Getting to fifty is no challenge at all, it doesn't require any skill, it is a timesink, not more, not less. Improving your equipment in order to be able to raid the nasty stuff, duoing even conned nameds, some of the heritage and access quests, this is challenging. There is a level 50 player on my server, everyone avoids him and wonders how this guy was ever able to reach 50. He annoys everyone with childish habits and tells, always looses aggro, gets adds nontstop, is absolutely clueless about even the basics of some game mechanics. Still, he reached level 50. He is the living proove that there is no challenge in reaching 50. All you need is time.<p>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <span class=date_text>03-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>04:03 PM</span>

[-Aonein-]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Colin MacLaren wrote:<BR>Scions don't drop good cash or Tier5 rares. They are grey, so no challenge, no reward, no problem when you kill it on your own. Blightrats maybe are the only double arrow mob out there everyone can solo. And it is not like killing a single blightrat will result in a definitive chest with at least some cash and good equipment or a rare if you are lucky.<BR><BR>If I were able to solo nameds at 50 I would do it, and do it often. However, I still would complain about it. Today morning I loged in my Dirge, kited a blue groupx2 Heroic encounter, 10 minutes later, rough opal + cash + spell. While this was ten times more challenging than a tank soloing a green named, it still did not feel right. I didn't have to gather the twelve people the eoncounter was designed for. Hell, I did not even have to assemble a single group, work out a really good story and kill it in a challenging fight, the least thing I would expect when facing a coloured epic encounter with a single group. I had no feeling of accomplishment. Hell, I got a freaking opal for 10 minutes of running around in circles! Getting a Tier5 rare for hitting autoattack is not my defintion of how a game rewards skillfull players. <P>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <SPAN class=date_text>03-30-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>03:43 PM</SPAN> <P>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <SPAN class=date_text>03-30-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>03:44 PM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>First of all Tier 5 substitutes are ultra rare on mobs now go solo tier 5 nameds till you see one drop, not too mention the named mobs themselves are rare now, sounds like to me you ran across a named mob after server reset. Second, a master chest can drop of any mob, wether they be solo, herioc or epic not just the double up arrow blightrats in RV, what people forget is the time it takes to solo mobs with <STRONG>^^</STRONG> 25+ thousand HP, its not like you walk out there kill a mob in 30 seconds, BANG, Tier 5 rare. Third, saying that you can solo named mobs at 50 that drop Tier 5 rares is well how to put this..... BS. Sorry to say this, but its BS, plain and simple, all named mobs that drop T5 rares require at least a <STRONG><U>duo</U></STRONG>, a duo at the <STRONG><U>very</U></STRONG> least even at 50. Forth, i dont know of any other class then Dirge to be able to solo groupx2 encounters while they are still a colour other then grey, so sounds like they need to be nerfed. Fifth, Rough Opal is Tier 4 rare, not tier 5, and rough opals dont drop of mobs, they are harvested via mining nodes in tier 4 zones. Please do tell us the name of this groupx2 mob you solo'ed that dropped a rough opal.</P> <P>Scions do give you a reward, if your doing the quest, that was his point Colin, no reason to be there otherwise especially if you are 20+ levels higer and its grey posing no challenge and no reward.</P> <P>This is how games get ruined, people have no clue or idea what there talking about, whine about it, then another whines, and another and another and another, till SoE get jacked of it and do something about it.</P> <P>Taemek Frozenberg 45th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server</P> <p>Message Edited by -Aonein- on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:30 AM</span>

[Gno]

I care less than a rodent's posterior how overpowering my guardian could possibly be if I were fully buffed in an ideal group.  I care far less about what my potential role in some raid at any level might be.  I am neither likely nor planning to be in either situation more than a few times in the next couple years of playing any of my characters, and especially not my guardian. For however long I play EQ2 the vast amount of my playtime will be spend duoing with my wife, soloing, as and artisan, or harvesting for our artisans.  What really torques me about most of these class balance discussions/whine fests is that they are driven so hard by full groupers, raiders and end-game players.  I would be glad for all those folks to have their issues addressed and the game improved to be more fun for them.  In no way, shape or form should those improvements be implemented in a way that degrades my ability to enjoy EQ2 the way I want to play it. There is no justification or excuse that I will agree with for nerfing soloing, duoing and small/mismatched grouping of any class to "fix" some problem encountered in other play styles.  I sincerely hope that the good folks at SOE have come to understand and value players like me.   <div></div>

[-Aonein-]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> <P>Gnofr wrote:</P> <P><BR>What really torques me about most of these class balance discussions/whine fests is that they are driven so hard by full groupers, raiders and end-game players.  I would be glad for all those folks to have their issues addressed and the game improved to be more fun for them.  In no way, shape or form should those improvements be implemented in a way that degrades my ability to enjoy EQ2 the way I want to play it.<BR><BR>There is no justification or excuse that I will agree with for nerfing soloing, duoing and small/mismatched grouping of any class to "fix" some problem encountered in other play styles.  I sincerely hope that the good folks at SOE have come to understand and value players like me.<BR> <BR></P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Exactally, the game doesnt revolve around raiding, it revolves around solo to small group style play. Raid content is there because it has to be there, but that doesnt mean SoE have to focus on that section of gameplay. They put it in to give the lvl 50 people something to do.</P> <P>But you said one thing that made my memory jolt Gnofr, the great Monk nerf in EQ1 was because of Warriors whining that high end Monks and i mean the elite of the Monk community were tanking almost and if not better in some cases then a warrior, now while this was unbalanced in EQ1, they nerfed the class as a whole when it was only something like 2% of the monk community who where at the high end part of the game at that time. I now see the same thing happening here with the +Defense and Avoidance patch that is due to come, while small grouping and soloing is somewhat balanced, i fear that what they change in reguards to the high end hard core gamers / raiders, is going to kill that solo / small group scenraio balance they already have now. Which is a pity, cause me and my wife are like you and your wife, we love to trio ( i Dual box 2 chars while she plays her own char ), its far more relaxing and enjoyable, can go your own pace, do what you want to do with out the stress of dealing with loot [Removed for Content] or having people tell you how to play your class.</P> <P>Taemek Frozenberg 45th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server<BR></P> <p>Message Edited by -Aonein- on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:30 AM</span>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> English Da Guard wrote:<BR> <P>The game rewarded that skillful player for getting to 50 and thereby having the ability to kill that mob.<BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I suppose the game is also punishing the skillful player for getting to 50 with the wrong class and thereby not having the ability to kill the mob.</P> <P>Remember guys, its not about balance, its about picking the flavor of the month classes!</P> <P><BR> </P>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> -Aonein- wrote: <P>Third, saying that you can solo named mobs at 50 that drop Tier 5 rares is well how to put this..... BS. Sorry to say this, but its BS, plain and simple, all named mobs that drop T5 rares require at least a <STRONG><U>duo</U></STRONG>, a duo at the <STRONG><U>very</U></STRONG> least even at 50. Forth, i dont know of any other class then Dirge to be able to solo groupx2 encounters while they are still a colour other then grey, so sounds like they need to be nerfed. Fifth, Rough Opal is Tier 4 rare, not tier 5, and rough opals dont drop of mobs, they are harvested via mining nodes in tier 4 zones. Please do tell us the name of this groupx2 mob you solo'ed that dropped a rough opal.  <FONT color=#ffff00>HAHAHAHA.  For one I've seen plenty of classes solo undertow at 50.  He is a named mob.  So there you go.  Second every rare has a mob drop replacement, even rough opal.</FONT></P> <P>This is how games get ruined, people have no clue or idea what there talking about, whine about it, then another whines, and another and another and another, till SoE get jacked of it and do something about it.  <FONT color=#ffff00>Hypocritical much?  You hardly know what you are talking about, such as this case.</FONT></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> English Da Guard wrote:<BR> <P>The game rewarded that skillful player for getting to 50 and thereby having the ability to kill that mob.<BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I suppose the game is also punishing the skillful player for getting to 50 with the wrong class and thereby not having the ability to kill the mob.</P> <P>Remember guys, its not about balance, its about picking the flavor of the month classes!</P> <P><BR> </P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>   These posts seem to infer that every class should be able to do the same things only differently. How about we just have a class that can heal, tank, and cast huge DDs and summon pets and horsies.</P> <P>   It is so ridiculous to see someone say, "well class xxx can't do this or that, but class yyy can. This game and class structure is broke."  Did it ever occur to you guys that perhaps they fill a vastly greater role in a group setting? Sure, some priest classes can't solo as well as other classes. I do not see a lot of groups running around without a priest type. (Ya someone will come say I run 2 paladin groups, don't start with that junk as it applies to you and a vast minority of the EQ2 population) </P> <p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>03-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>07:07 PM</span>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> English Da Guard wrote: <P>These posts seem to infer that every class should be able to do the same things only differently. How about we just have a class that can heal, tank, and cast huge DDs and summon pets and horsies.</P> <P>  It is so ridiculous to see someone say, well class xxx can't do this or that, but class yyy can.<FONT color=#ffff00> This game and class structure is broke. </FONT>Did it ever occur to you guys that perhaps they fill a vastly greater role in a group setting? Sure, some priest classes can't solo as well as other classes. I do not see a lot of groups running around without a priest type. (Ya someone will come say I run 2 paladin groups, don't start with that junk as it applies to you and a vast minority of the EQ2 population) </P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Well, SoE has stated that no one should be able to solo group mobs at all, unless gray.  Their statement not mine.</P> <P>Every class in an archetype should do the same things, only differently.  That's why its archetype balanced and not subclass balanced.</P> <P>Actually I think the game is fine, including the class structure, its just based/balance different than most MMOs, especially EQ1, and people have a hard time understanding that 6 classes are basically the same minus flavor and style.  /shrug That is just opinion though, and everyone is entitled to having theirs.</P>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> English Da Guard wrote: <P>These posts seem to infer that every class should be able to do the same things only differently. How about we just have a class that can heal, tank, and cast huge DDs and summon pets and horsies.</P> <P>  It is so ridiculous to see someone say, well class xxx can't do this or that, but class yyy can.<FONT color=#ffff00> This game and class structure is broke. </FONT>Did it ever occur to you guys that perhaps they fill a vastly greater role in a group setting? Sure, some priest classes can't solo as well as other classes. I do not see a lot of groups running around without a priest type. (Ya someone will come say I run 2 paladin groups, don't start with that junk as it applies to you and a vast minority of the EQ2 population) </P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Well, SoE has stated that no one should be able to solo group mobs at all, unless gray.  Their statement not mine.</P> <P>Every class in an archetype should do the same things, only differently.  That's why its archetype balanced and not subclass balanced.</P> <P>Actually I think the game is fine, including the class structure, its just based/balance different than most MMOs, especially EQ1, and people have a hard time understanding that 6 classes are basically the same minus flavor and style.  /shrug That is just opinion though, and everyone is entitled to having theirs.</P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV> Well, I wasn't even referring to you with that statement, but the thing is, this game would be pretty lousy for the soloers if they removed the ability to solo group mobs. Reason being is that the solo mobs they added are ridiculously easy. Personally, I like a challange. I know some will say well you can buff up and go afk with auto attack on...if you say so. Only time I am ever afk while on EQ2 is when I am TSing...I am a provisioner, I mean what provy sits at their cpu when cooking, not like our buffs work and we can't die anyway.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  And this game, even though it is touted as archtype based, isn't really, it is more situational. I mean, warlock and coercer lfg and your coercer just left the group. Based on your reasoning either should work (and they do). But in the scheme of things, even though they both "fit," most groups want that coercer for what he brings to the table and the warlock does not.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  You have to have some independent abilities for there to remain any fun. And some abilities will always be wanted more in certain situations.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  That being said, the warlock would have "fit" into that group, but someone is desired more so in THAT situation, that is how the game should work. In another group that warlock may be wanted over the coercer. Same for monks, same for guardians etc etc.</DIV><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>03-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>07:22 PM</span>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> English Da Guard wrote:<BR> <DIV> Well, I wasn't even referring to you with that statement, but the thing is, this game would be pretty lousy for the soloers if they removed the ability to solo group mobs. Reason being is that the solo mobs they added are ridiculously easy. Personally, I like a challange. I know some will say well you can buff up and go afk with auto attack on...if you say so. Only time I am ever afk while on EQ2 is when I am TSing...I am a provisioner, I mean what provy sits at their cpu when cooking, not like our buffs work and we can't die anyway.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  And this game, even though it is touted as archtype based, isn't really, it is more situational. I mean, warlock and coercer lfg and your coercer just left the group. Based on your reasoning either should work (and they do). But in the scheme of things, even though they both "fit," most groups want that coercer for what he brings to the table and the warlock does not.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  You have to have some independent abilities for there to remain any fun. And some abilities will always be wanted more in certain situations.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  <FONT color=#ffff00>That being said, the warlock would have "fit" into that group,</FONT> but someone is desired more so in THAT situation, that is how the game should work. In another group that warlock may be wanted over the coercer. Same for monks, same for guardians etc etc.</DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>And that is all that matters.  I don't care if every single time guardians get picked over every other fighter due to a persons choice, that's fine.  But I do have a problem when its because they are the best.</P> <P>Ideally, when the balance is finished, fighter subclasses should be interchangeable, as should every other subclass in every other archetype.</P> <P>If a coercer leaves and a wizard is LFG, your group should be as successful as it was with the coercer, albeit with different strategies, since you'd gain some DPS and lose some CC.<BR></P>

[-Aonein-]

<DIV><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> -Aonein- wrote: <P>Third, saying that you can solo named mobs at 50 that drop Tier 5 rares is well how to put this..... BS. Sorry to say this, but its BS, plain and simple, all named mobs that drop T5 rares require at least a <STRONG><U>duo</U></STRONG>, a duo at the <STRONG><U>very</U></STRONG> least even at 50. Forth, i dont know of any other class then Dirge to be able to solo groupx2 encounters while they are still a colour other then grey, so sounds like they need to be nerfed. Fifth, Rough Opal is Tier 4 rare, not tier 5, and rough opals dont drop of mobs, they are harvested via mining nodes in tier 4 zones. Please do tell us the name of this groupx2 mob you solo'ed that dropped a rough opal.  <FONT color=#ffff00>HAHAHAHA.  For one I've seen plenty of classes solo undertow at 50.  He is a named mob.  So there you go.  Second every rare has a mob drop replacement, even rough opal.</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#ffff00><FONT color=#66ccff>He said he looted a Rough Opal of a mob Gage, not a Dyhydrated Opal or Opal Geode. Subsitute rares have been nerfed they dont drop anywhere near what they used too plus named pop rate has been decreased, its not like people are killing Undertow every 12 - 15 mins or Devolt 3 out of 4 spawn rotations. Your turely a peice of work Gage, if there is a way to throw something out of context, you got it worked out down pat.</FONT> </FONT></P> <P>This is how games get ruined, people have no clue or idea what there talking about, whine about it, then another whines, and another and another and another, till SoE get jacked of it and do something about it.  <FONT color=#ffff00>Hypocritical much?  You hardly know what you are talking about, such as this case.</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#66ccff>There he goes again, Gage using his iffinite wisdom to try and undermind people by turning there own intelligence against them.</FONT></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR></BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>Taemek Frozenberg 45th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV><p>Message Edited by -Aonein- on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:22 PM</span>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> -Aonein- wrote: <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00><FONT color=#66ccff>He said he looted a Rough Opal of a mob Gage, not a Dyhydrated Opal or Opal Geode. Subsitute rares have been nerfed they dont drop anywhere near what they used too plus named pop rate has been decreased, its not like people are killing Undertow every 12 - 15 mins or Devolt 3 out of 4 spawn rotations. Your turely a peice of work Gage, if there is a way to throw something out of context, you got it worked out down pat.</FONT> </FONT> <HR> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, assuming he looted a rough opal substitute.</P> <P>Just this week we've gotten an augmented belt off snowflake, a fissured ruby off the brood mother and an ebon coin off undertow.  (50 ranger I duo with).</P> <P>We had to get a lower lvl to green snowflake though.</P> <P>So if they killed the drop rate, I'm not seeing, but maybe they did.  As you can tell they do still drop rares though.</P> <P>Whoever said it was every 15 mins?  Although if you log into EF at the right times you can kill 5 or 6 named no problem.<BR></P>

[-Aonein-]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P> </P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Although if you log into EF at the right times you can kill 5 or 6 named no problem.<BR></P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Im going to agree there, but that is the same on any MMO, there is always the little team in the back ground no one knows about that farm these mobs because thats the problem with having static, timed mobs, people can set a clock, go do stuff and make it back in time to farm another cycle, rinse, repeat, cutting out anyone who may potentially fall across its path in a normal day adventuring.</P> <P>Taemek Frozenberg 45th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server<BR></P>

[Colin MacLaren]

<BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>First of all Tier 5 substitutes are ultra rare on mobs now go solo tier 5 nameds till you see one drop, not too mention the named mobs themselves are rare now, sounds like to me you ran across a named mob after server reset. Second, a master chest can drop of any mob, wether they be solo, herioc or epic not just the double up arrow blightrats in RV, what people forget is the time it takes to solo mobs with <STRONG>^^</STRONG> 25+ thousand HP, its not like you walk out there kill a mob in 30 seconds, BANG, Tier 5 rare. Third, saying that you can solo named mobs at 50 that drop Tier 5 rares is well how to put this..... BS. Sorry to say this, but its BS, plain and simple, all named mobs that drop T5 rares require at least a <STRONG><U>duo</U></STRONG>, a duo at the <STRONG><U>very</U></STRONG> least even at 50. Forth, i dont know of any other class then Dirge to be able to solo groupx2 encounters while they are still a colour other then grey, so sounds like they need to be nerfed. Fifth, Rough Opal is Tier 4 rare, not tier 5, and rough opals dont drop of mobs, they are harvested via mining nodes in tier 4 zones. Please do tell us the name of this groupx2 mob you solo'ed that dropped a rough opal.</P> <P>Scions do give you a reward, if your doing the quest, that was his point Colin, no reason to be there otherwise especially if you are 20+ levels higer and its grey posing no challenge and no reward.</P> <P>This is how games get ruined, people have no clue or idea what there talking about, whine about it, then another whines, and another and another and another, till SoE get jacked of it and do something about it.</P> <P>Taemek Frozenberg 45th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server</P> <P>Message Edited by -Aonein- on <SPAN class=date_text>03-31-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>10:30 AM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>First of all, sometimes nameds drop rares identical to the harvested ones. I have seen three superb quality pelts and one rare replacement (augemnted leather thingy) dropping off raidmobs in the last two days. Got a rough opal while soloing with my Level 37 Dirge. I'm well aware this is a Tier4 rare, but as soon as I reach the mid 40s I'm pretty sure I will be able to solo some nameds with the same tactics I'm using now. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Second, I agree the ability to kite nameds is something that needs to be nerfed. The problem is, how SOE does these things. Instead of removing the otherwise useless runspeed slow component from our slow songs, they nerfed our only half-decent nuke people were using for kiting, furthter decreasing our already pitifull dps. Now kiting works as good as it did before, it only takes longer. Even worse, they impelented dolls with runspeed slow, so now everyone can do it as their class is able to use either a bow or has some dots/dd that can be casted while running.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Third, every named drops rares, even Foulgill does, although very rarely. It is true that a master chest can drop off any mob, but seeing a master chest from a common mob is like winning the lottery. Having both a level 50 healer and level 37 Dirge I have only seen a single master chest dropping of a common mob, but eight dropping of nameds (Raid mobs aside).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Maybe you are the one having no idea what he is talking about. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For the one stating that removing the ability to solo heroic encounters would ruin the game for soloers because he likes challenge: Standing in front of a mob, meleeing hin down because it can't hit you, is no challenge. Second I played a healer, I never was able to solo any coloured heroic encounter past 25, but I still solod alot, I still had a lot of fun doing so. This is how it is mean't to be. But this isn't the problem either, I could care less if someone is soloing the lowest green con double arrows, but being able to solo mobs one level higher than the lowest green con bugs me, this is where the XP starts to get better than killing solo mobs, it is a real imbalance if someone is able to solo blues or even nameds. I killing solo content isn't rewarding or there are lots of quests that require a group but you are never able to find someone also interested in doing this kind of quests (books come to mind), than it's the solo content or the quests that need to be reconsidered, not keeping the ability to kill coloured group mobs or even nameds.</DIV> <P><SPAN class=time_text>Conclusion: The way defense works now needs to be fixed. If your defense skill is equal to the mobs level, it has a chance to hit of 50%. Fine. Ifyou raise your defense skill beyond your level cap, or fighting lower con mobs, they should hit you less often, but not to a point where they don't hit you at all. The problem people having with a call for fixes like this is not because the current situation is fine, it is because SOE tends to nerf the wrong stuff.  Instead of removing the ability to abuse the current defense system, but not touching fighter's ability to avoid damge in normal day-to-day situations (fighting white to orange heroic encounters in a group, killing white to oragne solo mobs when on your own), it is more likely after the upcoming patch tanks will get a much harder beating in your everyday xp-group, but will still find a way to solo heroic and nameds as they did before. </SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <span class=date_text>03-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:22 PM</span>

[suntzu1]

<DIV>It's hard to believe that everyone here is talking about BALANCE.  Some more than others.  Does anyone have any idea as to what that means.  If you did, you would know that BALANCE in EQ2 is an impossibility.  As it is in any other massive multi-player online game.  Funny how some say that Sony will eventually have the classes balanced and heaven on earth will be with us.  These are people that have never played an online game for any long period of time.  Let me again repeat, any game that is changed on a daily basis will never be balanced.  Dont just look at this from a mathematical view, but from a historical view.  Check out any other massive multi-player online game.   </DIV>

[SageMarrow]

<DIV> <DIV>It's hard to believe that everyone here is talking about BALANCE.  Some more than others.  Does anyone have any idea as to what that means.  If you did, you would know that BALANCE in EQ2 is an impossibility.  As it is in any other massive multi-player online game.  Funny how some say that Sony will eventually have the classes balanced and heaven on earth will be with us.  These are people that have never played an online game for any long period of time.  Let me again repeat, any game that is changed on a daily basis will never be balanced.  Dont just look at this from a mathematical view, but from a historical view.  Check out any other massive multi-player online game.   </DIV> <DIV>__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ____</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I purposely stayed out of this, but just a quickie...By social stigma, classes may not be balanced, by SOE, classes WILL be balanced across the board to do the 1 job they are assigned to do, no hyrbids, no red headed stepchild classes. Completely squared balance. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>What does this mean to you?:</DIV> <DIV> <P><FONT color=#ffff33>Moorgard Wrote:</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#ffff33>After further discussions today, we've decided to hold back the priest revamp until Live Update #7. The reason is that LU7 will contain significant balance changes which could necessitate further healing tweaks. Rather than introduce a new system and possibly change it again two weeks later, we'd rather roll it out all at once.</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#ffff33>While this is still subject to change, plans for LU7 include:</FONT></P> <UL> <LI><FONT color=#ffff33>Priest healing/DPS improvements </FONT> <LI><FONT color=#ffff33>Conjurer/Necromancer pet/DPS improvements </FONT> <LI><FONT color=#ffff33>Illusionist/Coercer DPS improvements </FONT> <LI><FONT color=#ffff33>Changes to the effectiveness of skill buffs like Defense</FONT></LI></UL> <P><FONT color=#ffff33>And as I mentioned, this will allow us to work on healing aggro and taunt as well.</FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#ffff33>Sorry for getting your hopes up for priest changes making Live Update #6, but I think it's worth the wait to ensure a more stable game all around.</FONT></P></DIV> <DIV>__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>To me it says, all mages will be DPS heavy. Regardless of what class and emphasis.</DIV> <DIV>All preist will be equal healers in different ways.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>tanks are going to be done BEFORE, these changes go into effect... So all tanks will be Meat Shields. Not DPS cannons, not anything near it, Meat shields and only meat shields by any means neccessary.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This is not even considering the scout boost to dps or the fighter nerf to dps, whatever route that goes...</DIV></DIV>

[Colin MacLaren]

<DIV>I don't think fighters need a dps nerf. Every class has a secondary role/funtion. If you have more than one tank in your group, the only thing they are able to do is contributing damage (raids aside where thy can contriubte more things). Nerfing Fighter dps, they will loose this role, but there are too many fighters out there to allow only one per group. We need a boost of Scout damage.</DIV><p>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:16 AM</span>

[-Aonein-]

<DIV> <P>Colin, i cant believe my eyes. Im reading about a person who hasnt been able to solo a group encounter since lvl 25, has a lvl 50 Healer and requires small groups to help him obtain loot, to a lvl 37 Dirge who can solo group x2 encounters and can solo mobs for loot and your whining about it? I cant believe the people that play games these days, people will literally whine about anything, even if its a good thing, it is turely unbelievable.</P> <P>The only thing you have pointed out in your entire thread is that Dirges are way overpowered and can solo group x2 encounters, I cant solo group x2 Encounters, nethier can a Monk, Bruiser, Guardian, not sure about Pallies and SK's but something tells me they would be out of power before the group x2 encounter died thats for sure.</P> <P>The problem you have clearly pointed out for everyone here is that Bards buffs stack and are too powerful, causing people to become invunerable, thats about the only thing you have pointed out, which people already know, the whole problem is with buff stacking. So that tactic you are using now, dont plan on it working by the time you reach mid 40's to farm tier 5 rares, cause it wont work because there in the process of fixing it.</P> <P>See the good thing about rares dropping of mobs is, people who dont want to join a group or a raid still have the chance at what a group or raid can obtain in reguards to rares, which everyone needs for spell and armor advancement, why cant me and my wife have the same chance to obtain a rare that a group can get? We dont like to group much because there is too many immature people that play atm, plus they also made rares drop off mobs because not everyone likes to harvest nodes for 4 - 8 hours a day, im one of those people, id much rather kill mobs all day then hit a rock all day, thats called a choice, and you get that choice when you leave the Island of Refugge when the banker asks what profession are you, Adventurer or Artisan?</P> <DIV>Im not sure about other Servers, but we here on Everfrost have just had Two of the what we think it was with out any confirmation from SoE on the matter, Two of the biggest offline bot farming syndicates on the server banned, and now there is a <STRONG><U>massive</U></STRONG> shortage of rares, master I's, you name it, what you could basically buy any day and time a month ago, i have spent literally weeks trying to get, and when people do have them, there asking like 6 - 8 plat for them, thats just a example of how rare stuff really is. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If you arent in a guild or small group of friends who will be more then likely a guild anyway, who farms named mobs periodically day in day out, you are some what out of the loop and have a small chance in getting rares from solo or small group encounters, but want to know something, im happy with that, im happy killing away, Trioing with the wife ( cause as i said before i dual box 2 chars where she plays one ) and having that small chance at getting a rare cause im having fun ( besides all the broken Combat Arts, Abilities and Spells but im not going to start on that ) earning what i lotto.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I just cannot believe that you are whining about being able to solo kill a mob that has a chance to drop a rare, where you can solo harvest a rare from a node. Maybe they should make it so it takes a full group to harvest a node because i mean, after all, it is a rare, rares shouldnt be awarded to solo players, right?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Taemek Frozenberg 45th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server</DIV></DIV><p>Message Edited by -Aonein- on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>07:30 PM</span>

[nuz]

<DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4><FONT size=7><FONT size=5>Gayge</FONT> </FONT></FONT><FONT size=3>or what ever your name is please, for the love of good tell me how your not on par with guardians? Diffrent tanks for diffrent groups yes, no templar/inq wants to group with a monk/bruiser why? Because they are REACTIVE HEALERS MEANING YOU HAVE TO GET HIT for there abitlys to really work. Since you brought up groups wanting guardians over you, have you ever bothered to look at the Main healer in the group? It amazes me HOW many monks don't grasp the concept of having to get hit with those types of healers. Now, by the same token put a guardian with a mystic and the guardians as good as dead wards are not my friends to the point i don't consider a mystic a healer. When i use them with my monk they make me unstoppable. Awesome on a class that takes no blows.  Never mind that though, you want to have every fighter spec be identical. As for the racial defense buff,  you seem to adore quoteing AOE on other things so i'll do a semi quote, yes the defense buff is an advatage, then again it does say in racial descriptions what classes excell at certain professions. The only fighter class with a right to WHINE about anything!!! is SK, pal's can whine too but thats because they are really good at it for crying about not being able to tank in eq 1. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>  That being said, if the point your really trying to make is that we should have a defense skill that factors into Mitgation instead of avoidence i fully support you, one hundred million percent times 4. State that, don't bring up other issues. Defense is not broken it just badly needs to be reworked.        </FONT></DIV></DIV> <P>Message Edited by nuzuk on <SPAN class=date_text>03-31-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>02:24 AM</SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by nuzuk on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>02:30 AM</span>

[Colin MacLaren]

<DIV>I have neither a problem with nameds dropping rares, nor with you and your wife duo/triong nameds. I do have a problem with some classes being able to solo the nameds, even inthe worst case scenario, it drops some trash equipment you can sell, hell, this is 3-5g in 10 minutes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If soloing nameds is OK to you, than at least, there should be a chance for every class to do so.</DIV>

[-Aonein-]

<DIV>I have no problem with people soloing named mobs Colin, everyone has to make coin, if there willing to put in the effort to solo a named mob, then good for them.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The only real problem i have with this game which has nothing to do with who can tank what or who can solo and who cant, is Combat Arts, Abilities and Spells being broken still, and some class's more so then others, these are the soul to a character, its why we ethier enjoy playing a class or we dont enjoy it becayse Combat Arts, Abilities and Spells is what creates the style of game play people look for with in a character and we havent heard a single solitary thing on if there looking into fixing them, if there working as intended, nothing and for some class's some of these problems have been around since launch, not good, and seriously not fun, and when they do patchs only to break more in a effort to do god knows what like <STRONG><U>LU#5</U></STRONG> for instance, it just gets even more frustrating.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Taemek Frozenberg 45th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[stainremov]

too tired to read through the whole thread... just two things to point out: 1) liveupdate #5 just came out. liveupdate #7 will be slightly under a month from now. the liveupdates always come out on test for a week first, then go live the next week. i suspect liveupdate #6 will be coming up on test either today or tomorrow. 2) i think defense needs to be fixed. i avoid way more than monks. infact, it's quite stuipd. and i dont really mind if they get better tanking skills as long as... dmg i take decreases by a LOT (ergo mitigation actually meaning something), and their dps drops to [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] (bruisers --> pokers). either way, there's a month or so before the update comes. so i'll just power lvl as much as i can by soloing blue/green con grp++ mobs before the update comes. <div></div>

[Stra]

<span><blockquote><hr>stainremover wrote:too tired to read through the whole thread... just two things to point out: 1) liveupdate #5 just came out. liveupdate #7 will be slightly under a month from now. the liveupdates always come out on test for a week first, then go live the next week. i suspect liveupdate #6 will be coming up on test either today or tomorrow. 2) i think defense needs to be fixed. i avoid way more than monks. infact, it's quite stuipd. and i dont really mind if they get better tanking skills as long as... dmg i take decreases by a LOT (ergo mitigation actually meaning something), and their dps drops to [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] (bruisers --> pokers). either way, there's a month or so before the update comes. so i'll just power lvl as much as i can by soloing blue/green con grp++ mobs before the update comes. <div></div><hr></blockquote>They dotn want to give up their DPS or utility skills. They want Guardian level tanking with all the other skills intact. Gage and his buddies are makign a great deal of guardians intensely hostile to Brawlers. </span><div></div>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>Colin MacLaren wrote:<div></div> <div> Every class has a secondary role/funtion. </div><p>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <span class="date_text">03-31-2005</span> <span class="time_text">12:16 AM</span></p><hr></blockquote> Ok tell me what my secondary role is?  Dont give me BS about DPS or Buffs....Tell me the last time you saw a group asking for a Guardian for anything else besides MT?  How often to people who need to fill a DPS role think..oh get that Guardian that is LFG? Weather its true or not we only have one role in the game.  It may not be by design but its whats reality in the virtual world that is EQ2.  Sorry but nothing SOE could do will ever make people change their preception of classes.  Nonoe is ever gonna think Guardian and DPS in the same sentence.  And cry all you want..but someone being able to spend 15min soloing some mob 5 levels beneath them for a 1/100000000 chance at getting something worth some cash is hardly the game breaking unbalancing thing everyone is making it out to be. Oh and Ive seen priests soloing the same mobs that I can solo...as ive seen scouts...as ive seen other fighters...as ive seen mages.  Maybe its the fact that some PLAYERS are better than others...not that some CLASSES are? Sorry for sounding so snippy but what should be a discussion about actual balance issues is turning into the typical ...I cant do what Bob can do....waaaa...Bob must be overpowered. </span><div></div>

[Banditman]

One thing that is DEFINITELY missing from EQ 2 that did exist in EQLive was LFP . . . Looking for Players.  A group leader could set this flag to let everyone know his group wanted / needed more players.

[Colin MacLaren]

<DIV>Maybe defilers or Furies can solo some nameds, because they have the necessary dps, I don't know, and I suppose it won't work in tier5 areas. I only know I run out of power long before the mob is dead, even with all nukes adept3. Three to five gold in 15 minutes, with a good chance for a rare, is nothing a good group can achieve, so you get better rewards for soloing than playing in a group, and you do not have to stand around doing nothing until finally some tank decides to pick you up.</DIV>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> nuzuk wrote:<BR> <DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4><FONT size=7><FONT size=5>Gayge</FONT> </FONT></FONT><FONT size=3>or what ever your name is please, for the love of good tell me how your not on par with guardians? Diffrent tanks for diffrent groups yes, no templar/inq wants to group with a monk/bruiser why? Because they are REACTIVE HEALERS MEANING YOU HAVE TO GET HIT for there abitlys to really work. Since you brought up groups wanting guardians over you, have you ever bothered to look at the Main healer in the group? It amazes me HOW many monks don't grasp the concept of having to get hit with those types of healers. Now, by the same token put a guardian with a mystic and the guardians as good as dead wards are not my friends to the point i don't consider a mystic a healer. When i use them with my monk they make me unstoppable. Awesome on a class that takes no blows.  Never mind that though, you want to have every fighter spec be identical. As for the racial defense buff,  you seem to adore quoteing AOE on other things so i'll do a semi quote, yes the defense buff is an advatage, then again it does say in racial descriptions what classes excell at certain professions. The only fighter class with a right to WHINE about anything!!! is SK, pal's can whine too but thats because they are really good at it for crying about not being able to tank in eq 1. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>  That being said, if the point your really trying to make is that we should have a defense skill that factors into Mitgation instead of avoidence i fully support you, one hundred million percent times 4. State that, don't bring up other issues. Defense is not broken it just badly needs to be reworked.        </FONT></DIV></DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I was one of the first to note the differences between healers for the different fighter types on the monk forums.  I grouped with a mystic/warden combo until 40 and then warden single healer until 50.</P> <P>As for the rest, it hurt my eyes too much to read it.<BR></P>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Strast wrote:<BR><SPAN>They dotn want to give up their DPS or utility skills. They want Guardian level tanking with all the other skills intact. <BR><BR>Gage and his buddies are makign a great deal of guardians intensely hostile to Brawlers. </SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Are you going to give up your taunts?  How about your utility?</P> <P>You are super tanks at the moment, most defense buffs, highest HP, highest mitigation, evasion on par with monk/bruisers.  I can't blame you for not wanting to be changed.</P> <P>But it will change, for all of us, because defense is doing what agility used to to <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Oh and I don't care about hostility, I care about what is good for the game.<BR></P>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> RafaelSmith wrote:<BR><SPAN>Ok tell me what my secondary role is?  Dont give me BS about DPS or Buffs....Tell me the last time you saw a group asking for a Guardian for anything else besides MT?  How often to people who need to fill a DPS role think..oh get that Guardian that is LFG?  <FONT color=#ffff00>Offtank, the same as any other fighter.  If you feel your class doesn't have the tools necessary to perform this function, then /feedback it.  The archetype balance also covers offtanking, and all classes should be able to fill that spot too, when they aren't MT.  But it is NOT balanced to have one class the superior, all the time MT.  Then there is no reason for the five other classes, because we do NOT dps better than scouts/mages and our utility is barely group oriented.  (one buff/one target buff) mostly.</FONT><BR><BR>Weather its true or not we only have one role in the game.  It may not be by design but its whats reality in the virtual world that is EQ2.  Sorry but nothing SOE could do will ever make people change their preception of classes.  Nonoe is ever gonna think Guardian and DPS in the same sentence.  <FONT color=#ffff00>That's a social stigma that you have to fight.  Besides they shouldn't think DPS they should think offtank.  DPS = scouts/mages.  My class has to fight with no one ever thinking monk and tank in the same sentence.</FONT><BR></SPAN> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>

[Rodney]

<P>I dont know about enyone else but I play EQ2 to have FUN, pure and simple.   Last night in a group of 4, 38 Zerker, 40 Wiz, 44 Mystic and a 43 Guard (me) we were killing the Nightblood groups in RV.  It was a very fun night we got 3 dings and some good loot, but the point is with this group we could do the 42-44 groups and I drop about 50% hp, sometimes more and sometimes less.  I feel that we are just about perfect (guardians) for groups as we are.  If SOE must do smoething dont screw with group play.  If I lost much avoid or mitagtion then we could not of played like we did last night, we would need more healing forcing us to go with two Mystics or 1 Cleric.  This to me seems like the perfect balence when a group avg lvl 41.75 has a good time fighting group mobs 42-44.</P> <P>  I feel there is much more to lose with adjusting def and how it works in the game then they will ever get back, they should do this with a huge amount of caution and test the hell out of it.  A knee-jerk reaction to this would be a huge mistake.  With WOW (1,500,000 - 300,000) at 5 times the peeps as EQ2 they cant screw up.  It seems like SOE is reactiing to the few and not looking at the effect on the whole.</P> <P>EQ2 devs are reactive and not proactive, sorta sad.</P> <P>Just my two coppers</P>

[Gaige]

<P>For one your post reinforces the lack of a need for scouts.  Which is sad.  I hope that is addressed soon.</P> <P>Also, after the priest balance, the disparity between healers shouldn't be so wide.</P> <P>But the avoidance thing you will lose probably, although you'll probably gain some mitigation.</P>

[English Da Gua]

<FONT color=#ffff00></FONT><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> <P>Colin MacLaren wrote:</P> <DIV>First of all, sometimes nameds drop rares identical to the harvested ones. I have seen three superb quality pelts and one rare replacement (augemnted leather thingy) dropping off raidmobs in the last two days. Got a rough opal while soloing with my Level 37 Dirge. I'm well aware this is a Tier4 rare, but as soon as I reach the mid 40s I'm pretty sure I will be able to solo some nameds with the same tactics I'm using now. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Second, I agree the ability to kite nameds is something that needs to be nerfed. The problem is, how SOE does these things. Instead of removing the otherwise useless runspeed slow component from our slow songs, they nerfed our only half-decent nuke people were using for kiting, furthter decreasing our already pitifull dps. Now kiting works as good as it did before, it only takes longer. Even worse, they impelented dolls with runspeed slow, so now everyone can do it as their class is able to use either a bow or has some dots/dd that can be casted while running.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Third, every named drops rares, even Foulgill does, although very rarely. It is true that a master chest can drop off any mob, but seeing a master chest from a common mob is like winning the lottery. Having both a level 50 healer and level 37 Dirge I have only seen a single master chest dropping of a common mob, but eight dropping of nameds (Raid mobs aside).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Maybe you are the one having no idea what he is talking about.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>For the one stating that removing the ability to solo heroic encounters would ruin the game for soloers because he likes challenge: Standing in front of a mob, meleeing hin down because it can't hit you, is no challenge</FONT>. Second I played a healer,<FONT color=#ffff00> I never was able to solo any coloured heroic encounter past 25</FONT>, but I still solod alot, I still had a lot of fun doing so. <FONT color=#ffff00>This is how it is mean't to be</FONT>. But this isn't the problem either, I could care less if someone is soloing the lowest green con double arrows, but <FONT color=#ffff00>being able to solo mobs one level higher than the lowest green con bugs me, this is where the XP starts to get better than killing solo mobs</FONT>, it is a real <FONT color=#ffff00>imbalance if someone is able to solo blues or even nameds</FONT>. I killing <FONT color=#ffff00>solo content isn't rewarding or there are lots of quests that require a group but you are never able to find someone also interested in doing this kind of quests (books come to mind), than it's the solo content or the quests that need to be reconsidered</FONT>, not keeping the ability to kill coloured group mobs or even nameds.</DIV> <P><SPAN class=time_text>Conclusion: <FONT color=#ffff00>The way defense works now needs to be fixed</FONT>. If your defense skill is equal to the mobs level, it has a chance to hit of 50%. Fine. Ifyou raise your defense skill beyond your level cap, or fighting lower con mobs, they should hit you less often, but not to a point where they don't hit you at all. The problem people having with a call for fixes like this is not because the current situation is fine, it is because SOE tends to nerf the wrong stuff.  Instead of removing the ability to abuse the current defense system, but not touching fighter's ability to avoid damge in normal day-to-day situations (fighting white to orange heroic encounters in a group, killing white to oragne solo mobs when on your own), <FONT color=#ffff00>it is more likely after the upcoming patch tanks will get a much harder beating in your everyday xp-group, but will still find a way to solo heroic and nameds as they did before.</FONT> </SPAN></P> <P>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <SPAN class=date_text>03-30-2005</SPAN><SPAN class=time_text>11:22 PM</SPAN><BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV> How many people do you know that do this? I can tell you one thing...there is no difference what so ever in someone going afk killing a named or you kiting it...why...CAUSE YOU BOTH WON THE ENCOUNTER!!!!!!!!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  Again, it comes down to you you you you you you you. You can't do it so nerf those who can or remove it all together. You remind me of that pesky kid in preschool who wouldn't share his toys. Then, even if the teacher made you, you would throw a fit.  So, to alleviate all the headache from having to hear you [Removed for Content] and moan about it, the teachers would just give the stuff back to you and have the more mature 3 year olds play with other stuff.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  Oh, so your opinion on how it should be is the direction SoE should take EQ2? Wow, that's a bold statement.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  Hey guess what, if I can solo faster then you I still get more experience then you solo. So based on what you said, all mobs taken by a lvl 37 player should take the EXACT amount of time, health, power to kill. You say some things that absolutely amaze me, and that's not a good thing.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  Many classes can do this. How is it an imbalance when the majority of the game can do this? Imbalance = minority CAN not minority CAN'T !!!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  This game is an ONLINE game you play with others. It is not a solo game. NEVER will a solo player be able to do what a group of same levels can do. There are lots of quests for solo players, go to antonica, I am sure your 50 healer can take out some gnolls. You say solo content also is not rewarding...I guess kiting that named mob and getting an opal isn't your idea of rewarding..what did you want...700% exp?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> We bloody know defense is and needs to be fixed. We, as in guardians, know we avoid to much. No one here disputes this. We just take offense to people who can't do xxx saying nerf this class or this aspect cause I cannot do it. It is childish and frankly makes me sick. And no, not because I can do it. I can't heal myself but you do not see me on a [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot]ing crusade telling SoE I need a mend line of abilities. I play the game and don't abuse the mechanics. You will never be able to remove the ability to solo a named unless you introduce summoning effects like EQ1 had on some mobs. All this will do is remove a large aspect of the game and allow hydra groups to own the market on high end stuff even more then they do. You see, your ideas have a ripple effect, and seeing that the intial idea you had is poor, the ripples it generates will be even worse for the game.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  And what will you do then? Since even after LU6 and 7 people (maybe not tanks) will be able to solo named...you gonna go on another crusade to get that class nerfed? What you and others who call for nerf seem to not understand is that you might not believe in karma in real life, but in EQ2 it exists. You will get yours one day, and then you will be in the same boat, not being able to do something another class can. Then you will come back here pissin and moaning that xxx can do these things. This is how the game takes a dive in the long run, because people are selfish and try to change the game to benefit themselves, not the game as a whole. Perhaps I will stop saying monks need an increase in avoidance and start a crusade to have my avoidance increased, seeing that you people would rather be selfish instead of trying to keep things on par.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  Let me sum up.... EVERY CLASS CAN DO DIFFERENT THINGS, THIS WILL ALWAYS BE THE CASE. YOU CAN SOLO NAMED TOO, JUST CHOOSE AND LEVEL A CLASS THAT CAN. YOU HAVE OPTIONS SO STOP CRYING FOR NERFS THEY RUIN GAMES AND SELFISH PEOPLE GIVE ME HEADACHES TRYING TO GET AN ADVANTAGE FOR THEMSELVES.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  Sorry for the rant to you all that provide constuctive posts (which is 80% or more of you), but it has gotten to the point that certain people do not want balance, they want an advantage, but they use smoke screen tactics to get a leg up for themselves in the process.</DIV><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:33 AM</span>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>Gage-Mikel wrote: <blockquote> <hr> RafaelSmith wrote:<span>Ok tell me what my secondary role is?  Dont give me BS about DPS or Buffs....Tell me the last time you saw a group asking for a Guardian for anything else besides MT?  How often to people who need to fill a DPS role think..oh get that Guardian that is LFG?  <font color="#ffff00">Offtank, the same as any other fighter.  If you feel your class doesn't have the tools necessary to perform this function, then /feedback it.  The archetype balance also covers offtanking, and all classes should be able to fill that spot too, when they aren't MT.  But it is NOT balanced to have one class the superior, all the time MT.  Then there is no reason for the five other classes, because we do NOT dps better than scouts/mages and our utility is barely group oriented.  (one buff/one target buff) mostly.</font>Weather its true or not we only have one role in the game.  It may not be by design but its whats reality in the virtual world that is EQ2.  Sorry but nothing SOE could do will ever make people change their preception of classes.  Nonoe is ever gonna think Guardian and DPS in the same sentence.  <font color="#ffff00">That's a social stigma that you have to fight.  Besides they shouldn't think DPS they should think offtank.  DPS = scouts/mages.  My class has to fight with no one ever thinking monk and tank in the same sentence.</font></span> <hr> </blockquote> <div></div><hr></blockquote> Offtank?  Thats a raid thing.    And ide hardly call that a secondary role...its just a varient of our primary role and we all can do it.  Am actually still wanting proof (i.e numbers, % of mobs that ONLY a Guard can tank) that ALL fighters cannot perform their primary role.   Because a raid doesnt want to use monks as MT doesnt mean they can't it just means they are stuck in a false mindset.  Im talking about the other 99% of the game.  Groups dont need offtanks.  Groups needs tanks, healers and dps...The current archetype system works in that regard. Dont get me wrong I think some changes need to be made in regards to Defense/Avoidance, etc but its something that applies to the all classes, the ENTIRE game at all levels not just raids.  Everything is working as it should in the vast majority of the game so changes need to be done carefully.   I dont want this to become EQ1 where the entire game is designed around raids that only 10% of the population even gives a crap about.</span><div></div>

[Gaige]

<DIV><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> English Da Guard wrote:<BR> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Let me sum up.... EVERY CLASS CAN DO DIFFERENT THINGS, THIS WILL ALWAYS BE THE CASE. <FONT color=#ffff00>YOU CAN SOLO NAMED TOO, JUST CHOOSE AND LEVEL A CLASS THAT CAN. </FONT>YOU HAVE OPTIONS SO STOP CRYING FOR NERFS THEY RUIN GAMES AND SELFISH PEOPLE GIVE ME HEADACHES TRYING TO GET AN ADVANTAGE FOR THEMSELVES.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   Sorry for the rant to you all that provide constuctive posts (which is 80% or more of you), <FONT color=#ffff00>but it has gotten to the point that certain people do not want balance, they want an advantage,</FONT> but they use smoke screen tactics to get a leg up for themselves in the process.</DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>Wait.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>First you steer this game away from archetype balance and towards flavor of the month classes with your first statement.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Then you complain people don't want balance, they want an advantage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Which you are telling them to roll a class with the advantage...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Hmm.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So you *really* want to see a bunch of the same 8 classes running around everywhere, because they are the best or have an advantage?  That's your idea of fun and balanced gameplay?  I'm just curious.<BR></DIV>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> RafaelSmith wrote:<BR><SPAN><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> RafaelSmith wrote:<BR><SPAN>Ok tell me what my secondary role is?  Dont give me BS about DPS or Buffs....Tell me the last time you saw a group asking for a Guardian for anything else besides MT?  How often to people who need to fill a DPS role think..oh get that Guardian that is LFG?  <FONT color=#ffff00>Offtank, the same as any other fighter.  If you feel your class doesn't have the tools necessary to perform this function, then /feedback it.  The archetype balance also covers offtanking, and all classes should be able to fill that spot too, when they aren't MT.  But it is NOT balanced to have one class the superior, all the time MT.  Then there is no reason for the five other classes, because we do NOT dps better than scouts/mages and our utility is barely group oriented.  (one buff/one target buff) mostly.</FONT><BR><BR>Weather its true or not we only have one role in the game.  It may not be by design but its whats reality in the virtual world that is EQ2.  Sorry but nothing SOE could do will ever make people change their preception of classes.  Nonoe is ever gonna think Guardian and DPS in the same sentence.  <FONT color=#ffff00>That's a social stigma that you have to fight.  Besides they shouldn't think DPS they should think offtank.  DPS = scouts/mages.  My class has to fight with no one ever thinking monk and tank in the same sentence.</FONT><BR></SPAN> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Offtank?  Thats a raid thing.    And ide hardly call that a secondary role...its just a varient of our primary role and we all can do it.  Am actually still wanting proof (i.e numbers, % of mobs that ONLY a Guard can tank) that ALL fighters cannot perform their primary role.   Because a raid doesnt want to use monks as MT doesnt mean they can't it just means they are stuck in a false mindset.  <BR><BR>Im talking about the other 99% of the game.  Groups dont need offtanks.  Groups needs tanks, healers and dps...The current archetype system works in that regard.<BR><BR>Dont get me wrong I think some changes need to be made in regards to Defense/Avoidance, etc but its something that applies to the all classes, the ENTIRE game at all levels not just raids.  Everything is working as it should in the vast majority of the game so changes need to be done carefully.   I dont want this to become EQ1 where the entire game is designed around raids that only 10% of the population even gives a crap about.<BR></SPAN> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Shrug, offtank probably is a raid thing, but that's what its going to be in the whole game soon.</P> <P>You know what isn't fair to scouts?</P> <P>That you can do this:</P> <P>guardian/monk/bruiser/templar/wizard/enchanter</P> <P>And beat any non raid encounter in the game.</P> <P>You know what you can't do?</P> <P>swashbuckler/dirge/troub/assassin/templar/wizard</P> <P>Because when scouts could tank, they got nerfed.  But no one has a problem with us taking their spots.  How is the 1 to 50 game balanced if an entire archetype isn't needed?</P> <P>They aren't *needed*.  You can argue it all you want, but the truth is any encounter in this game, non-raid, can be beaten without them.  If it gets hair subtract a wizard for healer.</P> <P>In fact, you could do this:</P> <P>guardian/zerker/monk/bruiser/templar/warden</P> <P>And beat anything in the game.</P> <P>Two whole entire archetypes that are useless because of the damage fighters can do.</P> <P>That has to do with the defense thing and our damage done.  I realize this discussion isn't about tanking so much.  But it relates.  Everyone says that monks/bruisers should be happy with our "utility" and our "damage".  They see it as a whole different job, not as a means of our tanking (which it is).</P> <P>What I'm showing you is why that view is wrong.  It eliminates one if not two archetypes from the game.  There is no need for them.  All you need is fighters/healers and you can grind to 50, killing named the whole way.</P> <P>That we can do so much damage is insulting to them.  So raise theirs, lower ours, whatever it takes. </P> <P>But if that is done, we surely will have lots of [Removed for Content] off bruisers/monks.  Because of YOU guys out there convincing them they are DPS, because of the miniscule damage difference done between scouts/fighters, and their own preconceived ideas about how this game worked.</P> <P>But it needs to be done.  </P> <P>And when it is, when we can't substitute for a scout/mage in a group, when we aren't looked to for our DPS (because we shouldn't be) then what?  If guardians are still the go to guy tank, we are all going to be screwed and they will be sitting back laughing, affixed in their "given rightful" spot.</P> <P><BR> </P> <p>Message Edited by Gage-Mikel on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>09:53 AM</span>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>Gage-Mikel wrote:<blockquote> <hr> </blockquote> <p>Shrug, offtank probably is a raid thing, but that's what its going to be in the whole game soon.</p> <p>You know what isn't far to scouts?</p> <p>That you can do this:</p> <p>guardian/monk/bruiser/templar/wizard/enchanter</p> <p>And beat any non raid encounter in the game.</p> <p>You know what you can't do?</p> <p>swashbuckler/dirge/troub/assassin/templar/wizard</p> <p>Because when scouts could tank, they got nerfed.  But no one has a problem with us taking their spots.  How is the 1 to 50 game balanced if an entire archetype isn't needed?</p> <p>They aren't *needed*.  You can argue it all you want, but the truth is any encounter in this game, non-raid, can be beaten without them.  If it gets hair subtract a wizard for healer.</p> <p>In fact, you could do this:</p> <p>guardian/zerker/monk/bruiser/templar/warden</p> <p>And beat anything in the game.</p> <p>Two whole entire archetypes that are useless because of the damage fighters can do.</p> <div></div><hr></blockquote> Sorry but thats a very stupid way to look at the game.   The majority of the player base doesnt think this way.  I see groups of all varieties running around...No class is "left out" becuase of the games design...they are left out because of  people like you that try to min/max everything down to a science.  I can come up with groups that dont have any healers that can take on alot of encounters...does that mean healers are useless?    Who actually turns down a Scout for a group spot if one is open?  Geez get your head out of your [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] and play the game everyone else is.  The game doesnt revolve around you and your narrow view of how things should be, what the perfect group should be or how the perfect raid should be formed.  Its people like you that make certain classes feel obsolete. And the day this games becomes all about raiding is they day you all will have your wish and be back in EQ1 land.</span><div></div>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <DIV><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> English Da Guard wrote:<BR> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Let me sum up.... EVERY CLASS CAN DO DIFFERENT THINGS, THIS WILL ALWAYS BE THE CASE. <FONT color=#ffff00>YOU CAN SOLO NAMED TOO, JUST CHOOSE AND LEVEL A CLASS THAT CAN. </FONT>YOU HAVE OPTIONS SO STOP CRYING FOR NERFS THEY RUIN GAMES AND SELFISH PEOPLE GIVE ME HEADACHES TRYING TO GET AN ADVANTAGE FOR THEMSELVES.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   Sorry for the rant to you all that provide constuctive posts (which is 80% or more of you), <FONT color=#ffff00>but it has gotten to the point that certain people do not want balance, they want an advantage,</FONT> but they use smoke screen tactics to get a leg up for themselves in the process.</DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>Wait.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>First you steer this game away from archetype balance and towards flavor of the month classes with your first statement.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Then you complain people don't want balance, they want an advantage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Which you are telling them to roll a class with the advantage...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Hmm.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So you *really* want to see a bunch of the same 8 classes running around everywhere, because they are the best or have an advantage?  That's your idea of fun and balanced gameplay?  I'm just curious.<BR></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>  No that is not what I said at all, I was making a point. I have always said balance needs to be strived for. Every post that guy makes is that HE cannot do something but that others can. It is plain wrong. You can go and ask for a nerf all you want if something is game breaking, not when the majority of the game can do something but the minority cannot. </P> <P>   He wants his level 50 healer to be able to do what another class can. Problem is he has an advantage in other areas. He can heal a group, only that archtype can fill that role (outside of paladins, somewhat).</P> <P>   Simple fact is that if the game goes in that direction we will have exactly what you said, 8 classes running around.</P> <P>   The whole fun of EQ2 is diversity.</P> <P>   And you do not get it. I have a guardian, obviously, now who waits for a group more, me or a healer. Guess what, a healer gets a group on my server far quicker then a tank, just do / all lfg 44 50 and notice there are always at least 3 tank types available. Oh, and on grobb we don't use offtanks in a group, and I do not get called for DPS either because there are plenty of other classes that are lfg that do much more dps then me.. Hell, if I cannot solo while I wait, they my as well add offline LFG. Maybe I can post my phone number on a wall in WFP and someone can call me when they need me.</P> <P>   Simple fact is everyone has a niche. Not everyone can solo, not everyone can tank, not everyone can heal...you can't have it all. And the fact remains that MANY classes can solo named. Just because he cannot means two things. His class can't or he (as a player) can't. Either way, he has options and his views are 100% motivated by selfishness. Just read between the lines.</P> <P><SPAN class=time_text>   Edit - And another thing. My first statement in no way has anything to do with a flavor of the month class as you call it. Some classes can solo better then others. Some classes are more group oriented. If you want to be a soloer you shouldn't have chose a healer... probably the most group dependent class out there. It is called diversity, you all should do your homework, find out your playstyle and pick a class and race that fulfill that role. Not choose a class and level him 50 levels only to find out another class can do something you can't. Guess what, EVERY class can do something another class cannot. As I have said before, if that's what you all want, let's just have one class who can summon pets, CHheal, fly, use guns, wear radioactive plate armor so nothing affects them.../sigh</SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:14 AM</span>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>English Da Guard wrote:<div></div> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> <p><span class="time_text">let's just have one class who can summon pets, CHheal, fly, use guns, wear radioactive plate armor so nothing affects them.../sigh</span></p><p><span class="date_text"></span><span class="time_text"></span></p><hr></blockquote> Hehe that made me chuckle...of course you could have just said EQ1 Bard and saved some typing =P </span><div></div>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote: <P>Shrug, offtank probably is a raid thing, but that's what its going to be in the whole game soon.</P> <P>You know what isn't fair to scouts?</P> <P>That you can do this:</P> <P><FONT color=#ffff00>guardian/monk/bruiser/templar/wizard/enchanter</FONT></P> <P>And beat any non raid encounter in the game.</P> <P>You know what you can't do?</P> <P>swashbuckler/dirge/troub/assassin/templar/wizard</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>   Guess what you can do also.</P> <P>   Tank (any type), scout, scout, scout, priest, enchanter and do the same thing.</P> <P>  Seems to me this game is unbalanced, you need a priest in most (not all) every group..../sarcasm off</P> <P>   You can kill pretty much every non raid encounter with a variety of groups. Saying a 4 scout group with a wiz and healer can't do something is irrelevant. Guess what, a 6 person same class group won't fair much better. Try to keep things in the spirit of the game man.</P> <P>    No class is not needed EVER. Yes, in certain situations a class may not be desired. I don't get it I guess. You can only have 6 people in a group yet there are more then 6 subclasses..so you will always have some subclasses not wanted at CERTAIN times. </P><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:35 AM</span>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> <P>English Da Guard wrote:</P> <P>  Guess what you can do also.</P> <P>  <FONT color=#ffff00>Tank (any type), scout, scout, scout, priest, enchanter and do the same thing.</FONT></P> <P> Seems to me this game is unbalanced, you need a priest in most every group /sigh</P> <P>  You can kill pretty much every non raid encounter with a variety of groups. Saying a 4 scout group with a wiz and healer can't do something is irrelevant. Guess what, a 6 person same class group won't fair much better. Try to keep things in the spirit of the game man.</P> <P>   No class is not needed EVER. Yes, in certain situations a class may not be desired. I don't get it I guess. You can only have 6 people in a group yet there are more then 6 subclasses..so you will always have some subclasses not wanted at CERTAIN times.</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>You know what you can't do?  Have a static group grind 1 to 50 without a fighter.<p>Message Edited by Gage-Mikel on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:25 AM</span>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> <P>Gage-Mikel wrote:</P> <P>You know what you can't do?  Have a static group grind 1 to 50 without a fighter.</P> <P>Message Edited by Gage-Mikel on <SPAN class=date_text>03-31-2005</SPAN><SPAN class=time_text>10:25 AM</SPAN><BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR> Lucky you edited that before I could respond I had a nice post by colin saying his 37 dirge soloed a x2 epic encounter that was higher then a grey con.</P> <P>  But on that same token, you can't have that without a healer either (for the most part). So what is the difference? I know you will say 2 paladin groups....anyways.</P> <P>  Simple fact STILL is that certain classes are required. You cannot make every class required because then you run into the same thing we all keep saying. 4 classes. Scouts bring something to the table, just because they are not required in a grind group does not make one obsolete. You can't have everyone fill every role man, you just can't.</P><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:35 AM</span>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> English Da Guard wrote:<BR> <P> Lucky you edited that before I could respond I had a nice post by colin saying his 37 dirge soloed a x2 epic encounter that was higher then a grey con.</P> <P>  But on that same token, you can't have that without a healer either. So what is the difference? I know you will say 2 paladin groups....anyway.</P> <P>  Simple fact STILL is that certain classes are required. <FONT color=#ffff00>You cannot make every class required because then you run into the same thing we all keep saying. 4 classes.</FONT> Scouts bring something to the table, just ebcause they are not required in a grind group does not make one obsolete. You can't have everyone fill every role man, you just can't.</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>*sigh*</P> <P>Do you guys really believe that?</P> <P>So its okay for a grind group from 1 to 50 to require a fighter/healer but not scout/mage?  How is that balanced?</P> <P>We don't need to fill every role, here is what we need:</P> <P>Fighter - required to tank</P> <P>Healer - required to heal</P> <P>Scout - required for melee dps/utility</P> <P>Mage - required for caster dps/utility</P> <P>open slot</P> <P>open slot</P> <P>A class from each of the four archetypes SHOULD be required for a successful group.  Since they aren't, the entire system is broken.  Its also why scout damage, mage dps, and everything else is being looked at.<BR></P>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>English Da Guard wrote:<div></div> <div></div> <div></div><p>  Simple fact STILL is that certain classes are required. You cannot make every class required because then you run into the same thing we all keep saying. 4 classes. Scouts bring something to the table, just because they are not required in a grind group does not make one obsolete. You can't have everyone fill every role man, you just can't.</p><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class="date_text">03-31-2005</span> <span class="time_text">10:32 AM</span></p><hr></blockquote> I would simplify that and say certain "functions/roles" are required...The archetype system allows for a variety of classes to fill those roles.  So a group requires someone to take dmg (choos from 6)...someone too heal the dmg (choose from 6) and others to do the dmg (choose from oh...24) =P </span><div></div>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>Gage-Mikel wrote:<div></div> <blockquote> <hr> English Da Guard wrote: <div></div> <p> Lucky you edited that before I could respond I had a nice post by colin saying his 37 dirge soloed a x2 epic encounter that was higher then a grey con.</p> <p>  But on that same token, you can't have that without a healer either. So what is the difference? I know you will say 2 paladin groups....anyway.</p> <p>  Simple fact STILL is that certain classes are required. <font color="#ffff00">You cannot make every class required because then you run into the same thing we all keep saying. 4 classes.</font> Scouts bring something to the table, just ebcause they are not required in a grind group does not make one obsolete. You can't have everyone fill every role man, you just can't.</p> <hr> </blockquote> <p>*sigh*</p> <p>Do you guys really believe that?</p> <p>So its okay for a grind group from 1 to 50 to require a fighter/healer but not scout/mage?  How is that balanced?</p> <p>We don't need to fill every role, here is what we need:</p> <p>Fighter - required to tank</p> <p>Healer - required to heal</p> <p>Scout - required for melee dps/utility</p> <p>Mage - required for caster dps/utility</p> <p>open slot</p> <p>open slot</p> <p>A class from each of the four archetypes SHOULD be required for a successful group.  Since they aren't, the entire system is broken.  Its also why scout damage, mage dps, and everything else is being looked at.</p> <div></div><hr></blockquote></span> LOL do you realize that what you descibe actually brings less variety and diversity that what is currently possible in the game? <div></div>

[English Da Gua]

<P>  Man, there is no way you can have a system where every archtype will be required. Only way you could do this is make fighter DPS so bad that you have to have a dps role. </P> <P>   Now, you still can't have it equal because now, you could just have all scouts fill that DPS role...caster DPS gets shafted.</P> <P>   Or, have a group with all caster DPS, scouts get shafted. </P> <P>   You see?? You cannot make every single person in EQ2 required. There will always be alternatives. That is what makes EQ2 fun, having the CHOICES. If the same group was required you would have a lot of people left out. Or an exact ratio of every class to another.</P> <DIV>  And thanks Rafael...that is exactly what I meant, not classes, but roles. You hit it spot on :smileyhappy:</DIV><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:44 AM</span>

[Gno]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Gage-Mikel wrote: <strong>...Oh and I don't care about hostility, I care about what is good for the game.</strong> <hr></blockquote> And therein is the reason why your approach and that of others in these debates is so damaging to this game. Few changes in mechanics interfere as much with players' ability to enjoy Norrath as even a little bit of hostility and nastiness does. I encourage people to focus on building relationships regardless of how the mechanics of the game work. If players are working with each other, under whatever circumstances, toward common goals they are more likely to be having fun than if they are intent on competition and oneupmanship, the goal of which is selfishness at other players' expense. <div></div>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> RafaelSmith wrote: <P>LOL do you realize that what you descibe actually brings less variety and diversity that what is currently possible in the game?</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>How so?</P> <P>You know what would add more diversity?  Letting scouts/mages tank, letting healers do crowd control...</P> <P>So don't go there.</P> <P>Ensuring every archetype has a role is anything but "less variety and diversity".</P> <P>Guardians get their panties in a bunch when bruisers/monks want to "take their MT spot", imagine how they'd feel if scouts could do it.  Oh wait, when they could Tuna started the guardian crusade that got agility nerfed and made sure that scouts would not be tanking, as its the fighter (or in Tuna's mind, his) role.</P> <P>If scout's can't tank, fighters shouldn't do enough damage to take their spots.</P> <P>There is no discussion.<BR></P>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> English Da Guard wrote:<BR> <P>  Man, there is no way you can have a system where every archtype will be required. <FONT color=#ffff00>Only way you could do this is make fighter DPS so bad that you have to have a dps role. </FONT></P> <P>   Now, you still can't have it equal because now, you could just have all scouts fill that DPS role...caster DPS gets shafted.</P> <P>   Or, have a group with all caster DPS, scouts get shafted. </P> <P>   You see?? You cannot make every single person in EQ2 required. There will always be alternatives. That is what makes EQ2 fun, having the CHOICES. If the same group was required you would have a lot of people left out. Or an exact ratio of every class to another.</P> <DIV>  And thanks Rafael...that is exactly what I meant, not classes, but roles. You hit it spot on :smileyhappy:</DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>So you would have no problems with scouts being able to tank, so that fighters aren't required in a group?</P> <P>Its funny you say that from an archetype that has to be in a group for any kind of success.</P> <P>I *do* think the DPS difference between fighters and scouts should be so significant that scouts are REQUIRED for group success, yes.</P> <P>100%.</P> <P>I do not think being able to tank and contribute enough damage so as to make scouts worthless is fair, fun, or intended, period.<BR> </P> <p>Message Edited by Gage-Mikel on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:47 AM</span>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote: <P>So you would have no problems with scouts being able to tank, so that fighters aren't required in a group?</P> <P>Its funny you say that from an archetype that has to be in a group for any kind of success.</P> <P></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>  Sure, so long as my DPS is on par with a scout after they get their boost in DPS. Then we can all be interchangeable, yay. (not)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  And, 6 classes can fill the role of MT in a group. Same all the way around. You seem to be trying to imply scouts cannot get groups, when in fact a group with 3 scouts has more DPS, and that gap will only increase after the next 2 LU patches.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  A group with priest, tank, enchanter and then 3 guardians = lousy group.</DIV> <DIV>  </DIV> <DIV>  A group with priest, tank, enchanter and then 3 scouts or 3 mages = sweet, fast killing group.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  And, a group really only needs 1 out of 6 fighter classes to be successful. That leaves 5 of us tanks still lfg, while a group would gladly take multiple scouts or mages. I am rarely in a group with more then one tank, but I often find myself in groups with multiple scouts or mages.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  I guess I do not see where you get your numbers and ideas from that scouts and mages are irrelevant. After the increase in DPS for those two groups they will be even more desired. Groups will still only really need one tank.</DIV><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>03-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:02 AM</span>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>Gage-Mikel wrote:<div></div> <blockquote> <p></p> <hr> RafaelSmith wrote: <p>LOL do you realize that what you descibe actually brings less variety and diversity that what is currently possible in the game?</p> <hr> </blockquote> <p>How so?</p> <p>You know what would add more diversity?  Letting scouts/mages tank, letting healers do crowd control...</p> <p>So don't go there.</p> <p>Ensuring every archetype has a role is anything but "less variety and diversity".</p> <p>Guardians get their panties in a bunch when bruisers/monks want to "take their MT spot", imagine how they'd feel if scouts could do it.  Oh wait, when they could Tuna started the guardian crusade that got agility nerfed and made sure that scouts would not be tanking, as its the fighter (or in Tuna's mind, his) role.</p> <p>If scout's can't tank, fighters shouldn't do enough damage to take their spots.</p> <p>There is no discussion.</p> <div></div><hr></blockquote>How so?  Well for starters you want a group to require a minimum of 4 players.   You want it so a group that does not have a scout or mage to not be able to kill anything.   That alone is already less variety...as it is now 1 or  2 or  3 or 4 man groups of many combinations can effectively make progress in the game.  Sure there are combos that dont work very well but thats gonna be the case when you have classes like EQ2 does.  Doesnt make anyone obsolete. Its obvious you want groups to be designed like raids are.  Thats not what EQ2 is about.  You want a formula that must be enforced in all situations. And noone "takes my spot"...thats an idiotic way to look at things.  Groups have 6 slots labled 1,2,3,4,5,6  not labled Guardian, Templar, etc.  If group says let the monk tank then im cool...Ill put away the shield and get out the big axe...but wait you wanna take that away from me?  You want me to be either MT or off-tank (like anyone uses that anyways)...talk about less diversity.</span><div></div>

[Cod]

<DIV>gage says,"Guardians get their panties in a bunch when bruisers/monks want to "take their MT spot".</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Whenever you get multiple tanks in a group, someone has to be MT and the rest get to dps.  I've done both dps and MT in groups and raids, and while there are probably a few people who will only MT ive never met them.  So your statement is just a ploy to get what as a final result for the monk class, I'm not really sure.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You want to tank raid mobs?  Monks and bruisers post they do that.  You want to tank groups?  Monks and bruisers do that and I've been dps in groups with them doing that and they do a fine job too.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My opinion is that your the best forum troll i've seen.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Grats and keep churning the posts.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[AsheM]

<P><BR> </P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Codil wrote:<BR> <DIV>gage says,"Guardians get their panties in a bunch when bruisers/monks want to "take their MT spot".</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Whenever you get multiple tanks in a group, someone has to be MT and the rest get to dps.  I've done both dps and MT in groups and raids, and while there are probably a few people who will only MT ive never met them.  So your statement is just a ploy to get what as a final result for the monk class, I'm not really sure.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You want to tank raid mobs?  Monks and bruisers post they do that.  You want to tank groups?  Monks and bruisers do that and I've been dps in groups with them doing that and they do a fine job too.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My opinion is that your the best forum troll i've seen.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Grats and keep churning the posts.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR> </P> <P>Preach on brother Cadil!  Down with the troll!</P>

[Aethane]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> RafaelSmith wrote: <P>LOL do you realize that what you descibe actually brings less variety and diversity that what is currently possible in the game?</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>How so?</P> <P>You know what would add more diversity?  Letting scouts/mages tank, letting healers do crowd control...</P> <P>So don't go there.</P> <P>Ensuring every archetype has a role is anything but "less variety and diversity".</P> <P>Guardians get their panties in a bunch when bruisers/monks want to "take their MT spot", imagine how they'd feel if scouts could do it.  Oh wait, when they could Tuna started the guardian crusade that got agility nerfed and made sure that scouts would not be tanking, as its the fighter (or in Tuna's mind, his) role.</P> <P><FONT color=#ffff33>If scout's can't tank, fighters shouldn't do enough damage to take their spots.</FONT></P> <P>There is no discussion.<BR></P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>We had that in EQ1 Gage. DPS of tanks,( which were Paladins, Shadowknights and Warriors), sucked. We had to have a rogue or wizard to get the dps done. There were NO groups with 2 tanks in them. The system we have now is the result of what we had in eq1, what we had there SUCKED. If you got the changes you ask for that is right back where we would all be. Honestly I think you would be happier in eq1 albeit monks in eq1 are dps and not tanks. if you played a warrior, sk or paladin in eq1 you'd love it. It is exactly the sort of game you seem to prefer and are trying to turn eq2 into.</P> <P>The fighters of EQ2 will never be equal, it isn't possible. There is no way to make classes different but equal unless you just make them the same and make them look different. The day they make fighter dps so low that we would HAVE to have a scout or a mage i think i would just quit cause i'd be back to the 3-6 hours of lfg like we had back in eq1.<BR></P>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Aethane wrote:<BR> <P>The fighters of EQ2 will never be equal, it isn't possible. There is no way to make classes different but equal unless you just make them the same and make them look different. The day they make fighter dps so low that we would HAVE to have a scout or a mage i think i would just quit cause i'd be back to the 3-6 hours of lfg like we had back in eq1.<BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>If that's true, the archetype system will never work, ever.<BR>

[Aethane]

<P>Wrong it works now as is. Not equal but we can all get the job done. All i am hearing out of you is "I am mad i am not exactly equal to a Guardian."</P> <P>1. Brawlers can tank anything Guardians can 1-50</P> <P>2. Brawlers can and have tanked lvl 54 group x4 Raid mobs</P> <P>3. Gage is mad cause Guardians can do it a little better. Gage has penus envy.</P> <P>4. Gage missed the eq1 boat and really wants to play eq1.</P> <P>5. Warriors = tanks best able to take brutal beatings, Brawlers = tanks best able to dish out brutal beatings.</P> <P>6. Two main ways to tank take a beating and do low dps or dish a great beating and get hit an equal amount harder. First way the mob takes longer to kill, tank can take it though, second way mob dies much faster but tank gets pounded on harder. Either way it's the same outcome.</P> <P>7. Buffs allow all tanks including monks to grey out white con mobs at the high end. MObs do not stop leveling at 50 as players do. Players are not seeing the big picture.</P> <P>That about sums up this thread and Gage.</P>

[Belce]

I think if they make changes to defense, it will be similiar to other stat changes or in other words, the benefit of defense will provide diminshing returns as it increases. Insane stacked defense buffs will provide a more reasonable defense result, just like str and agi now do.

[Chog]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Codil wrote:<BR> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Whenever you get multiple tanks in a group, someone has to be MT and the rest get to dps.  I've done both dps and MT in groups and raids, and while there are probably a few people who will only MT ive never met them.  </DIV> <DIV> <HR> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I have seen 2 people that had to be MT's in a group.  First one was a Guardian who joined the group, the healer said the Berserker (Me) was the main tank, the Guardian left saying he did not want to be in a group unless he was the MT.  Second time another Guardian was LFG, invited him in and I did not have my shield with me (left it in the bank) so asked if he wanted to tank, he accepted.  Less then an hour later the healers asked if I could be the main tank (I was the MT before the Guardian was invited into the group).  I have an agressive pulling style and the Guardian was more passive in pulling.  After 15 minutes the Guardian made an excuse and left.  Checked LFG 5 minutes later and there he was looking for a group.</P> <P>When another fighter joins the group I always ask if they would like to be the main tank.  I have no problems playing off tank.  The only archtype that has left a group because they where not the main tank has been a Guardian.  This is not saying all guardians have to be the main tank; however, the only times a fighter has left a group I was in because they where not the main tank have all been Guardians.<BR></P>

[Dalthenn]

<div></div><span>:smileymad:</span><span></span> <div></div><p>Message Edited by Dalthenn on <span class=date_text>04-01-2005</span> <span class=time_text>09:04 AM</span>

[Colin MacLaren]

<DIV>Today I went to Runneye with my 37 Dirge. A Level 33 minotaurus was beating the crap out of me. Then I joined a group and grinded 40% into the level, so my defence skill raised by two points. Before logging, I tried the same mob again. <U>It did not hit me even once.</U>  So now tell me the current system of how defense work is fine and a racial trait offering +5 points isn't overpowering <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV><p>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <span class=date_text>04-01-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:05 PM</span>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Colin MacLaren wrote:<BR> <DIV>Today I went to Runneye with my 37 Dirge. A Level 33 minotaurus was beating the crap out of me. Then I joined a group and grinded 40% into the level, so my defence skill raised by two points. Before logging, I tried the same mob again. <U>It did not hit me even once.</U>  So now tell me the current system of how defense work is fine and <FONT color=#ffff00>a racial trait offering +5 points isn't overpowering</FONT> <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <P>Message Edited by Colin MacLaren on <SPAN class=date_text>04-01-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>03:05 PM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>  I forgot only guardians can be a race that has the +5 defense trait.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  THERE ARE NO RACE / CLASS COMBOS THAT CANNOT BE CHOSEN!!!!!</DIV> <DIV>  </DIV> <DIV>  Thanks for playing, here are your parting gifts.</DIV>

[Colin MacLaren]

<DIV>This thread is about defense, not about Guardians only. I was told, if I want to discuss about defense, I have to go to the guardians forum, because I will find the experts there. So I went to your forum, found this thread and participated in the discussion.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I absolutely agree with most of you, that Guardians should the best tanks because they lack the dps or utility of other classes. However, I do not agree that the current mechanics how defense works is right.</DIV>

[SageMarrow]

<P>lets walk this path one more time,</P> <P>They arent going to just NERF defense to high hell because its going to take testing out the [Removed for Content] to make sure that the number values they give high amounts of defense is PERFECT.</P> <P>Without the buff stacking, raids wouldnt even be attemptable on some levels. At least the really hard ones wouldnt be. buff stacking is necessary to make raids even attemptable. Naturally if monks didnt feel shafted in this process, then more than likely they would just boost raid mobs ability and skills and call it a day. As i suggested a while back, raise mobs level by +2 so instead of a 54^^^x4 it would be a level 56^^^x4.</P> <P>Guardian overpowering issue fixed, buff stacking issue fixed. DONE.</P> <P>But this would just widen the gap between Monk and guardian tanking ability for these situations because avoidance DEFINATELY wouldnt be reliable at all in these factors.</P> <P>Because if you look at the issue at hand right now, all you raiding guardians can probably back me up on this one:</P> <P><EM>Even in some cases with all the buff stacking, fights still get crazy, and guardians STILL get hit, and HARD. Without maximizing the defense stat to achieve a few more misses and blocks there is no determining what makes the fight a slaughter and **just right** or **intended** as we like to say around here.</EM></P> <P>So no they are not going to just nerf defense to high hell or put a cap on it because that would require scaling everything backwards, damage ouput on classes, damage output on mobs, everything. </P> <P>And no matter what= if they DO decide to nerf defensive buff stacking to that extent of its *effectiveness* then other tanks outside of paladins really will have NO SHOT at filling that crucial Raid MT roll. Simply because we will lose so much more without the defense stat carrying the extra weight in misses/blocks and such and have to rely overtly on our mitigation potential and our avoidance potential = Everyone that isnt a guardian that is...</P> <P>*(edit) That made me think about one more thing as well, Either way, all paths lead to rome.</P> <P>Mobs hit for less only more often - reactive heals become god - mitigation becomes predictable - guardians still best tank.</P> <P>Defensive stacking becomes mitigation stacking  = guardians get most mitigation = guardian still best tank</P> <DIV>+ defensive values on other classes buffs get toned down and guardians personal buff turn into + mitigation buffs = Guardians get the best POTENTIAL on both ends = guardians still best tank.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV><p>Message Edited by SageMarrow on <span class=date_text>04-02-2005</span> <span class=time_text>06:53 AM</span>

[Sunrayn]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE>Oh and I don't care about hostility, I care about what is good for the game.<BR></BLOCKQUOTE> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>No.  You care about what is good for *you*</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You have proven that time and time again by your avoiding the question of 'Are other tank classes besides guardians tanking raid mobs'</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Every time someone asks you for proof that guardians are the only ones tanking end game stuff, you avoid it and go off on a tangent.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You want all classes to be equal, except yours, you want that one to be the best.</DIV>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Sunrayn wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE>Oh and I don't care about hostility, I care about what is good for the game.<BR></BLOCKQUOTE> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>No.  You care about what is good for *you*</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You have proven that time and time again by your avoiding the question of 'Are other tank classes besides guardians tanking raid mobs'</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Every time someone asks you for proof that guardians are the only ones tanking end game stuff, you avoid it and go off on a tangent.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You want all classes to be equal, except yours, you want that one to be the best.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>No, your wrong.  I don't want monks to be the best, I want *MY* monk to be the best, I only care about myself, sorry.<BR>

[Sunrayn]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Sunrayn wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>No.  You care about what is good for *you*</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You have proven that time and time again by your avoiding the question of 'Are other tank classes besides guardians tanking raid mobs'</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Every time someone asks you for proof that guardians are the only ones tanking end game stuff, you avoid it and go off on a tangent.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You want all classes to be equal, except yours, you want that one to be the best.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>No, your wrong.  I don't want monks to be the best, I want *MY* monk to be the best, I only care about myself, sorry.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>And once again you avoid the question and because of that,  your statement rings true.</DIV>

[Gaige]

<DIV>Well I assume the answer is well known by now.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Jezekiel, a bruiser, has tanked 3 x4.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A SK, I'm unsure who, tanked a x4 (probably many more).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A Paladin has tanked Darathar, hardest mob in the game.  (probably many more Pally's tanking x4).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Guardians - of course.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Berzerkers - have and continue to tank x4s.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Monk - no one has done it yet, as most 50 monks either: don't post, don't raid, or have quit.</DIV>

[Sunrayn]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <DIV>Well I assume the answer is well known by now.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Jezekiel, a bruiser, has tanked 3 x4.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A SK, I'm unsure who, tanked a x4 (probably many more).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A Paladin has tanked Darathar, hardest mob in the game.  (probably many more Pally's tanking x4).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Guardians - of course.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Berzerkers - have and continue to tank x4s.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Monk - no one has done it yet, as most 50 monks either: don't post, don't raid, or have quit.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Thank you for finally answering.  Umm...I remember you saying that you have tanked raid mobs and failed.  Do you think for a moment that it might just be your strategy instead of your defensive capabilities?</P> <P>Obviously the other tank classes have come up with a way to beat these mobs, do you just not want to work at it and rather have it handed to you by having your tanking ability increased?</P> <P>I really dont see what you are trying to accomplish anymore.  Just the fact that all tanks can already tank raid mobs means something must be pretty much in balance the way things stand, other than guardian avoidance due to the buff stacking, which will be fixed but, for all classes, not just us.</P>

[Gaige]

<P>The avoidance issue is about all I care about anymore, I quit posting about that other stuff, except in response, after that guardian envy thread got locked.  I don't bring up threads normally, I just post in them when I see stuff I don't agree with.</P> <P>All I said when they changed the AC into mit/avoid was that plates were avoiding too much, all this other stuff is just rehash over and over that will never end as long as there is more than one class.</P> <P>Most of my sentiment refers to the guardians who honestly believe they are the only real MT, because I obviously don't agree with that statement.</P> <P>As for raids, I've tried a couple, but nothing in a really fine tuned raid setup, because I'm not guilded, and when I was it was a casual friends guild, not anyone hard core.</P> <P>Noah and I have discussed the issue in game a lot, and he is fairly sure that I could MT the same stuff he does in FoH's raid setup.  /shrug</P> <P>I'm not really concerned with anything at the moment, as the avoidance issue is going to be addressed, as well as the defensive skill and buff stacking.  That is a lot of stuff to get ironed out, and I presume we'll all see where we stand then.</P> <P>But yeah, I normally post when something like "monks are offtanks" "monks are DPS" "guardians are the real main tank" "guardians should be the only raid tank" or the like comes up.</P> <P>I don't want to be a scout, my class isn't DPS, and as you say the game does looked pretty balanced except for the avoidance/defense issues; although from the statements made recently SoE doesn't think so.</P>

[lun]

<DIV>As a class, the Guardian should be all about Def,  that's why some of of choose this class.It is to be the meatshield of groups. Reduction of any kind in mitigation will be a bad idea. It would seem some of the other warrior classes complained enough about their inability to tank as good as a Guardian.It was there decision to opt for the high dmg warrrior sub-class, knowingly giving up the def. I vote leave it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[SageMarrow]

everyone votes leave it except for 15 people and counting...

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> SageMarrow wrote:<BR>everyone votes leave it except for 15 people and counting... <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>Don't exaggerate Sage, and besides it doesn't matter if SoE thinks it isn't balanced <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><BR>

[Sunrayn]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR> <P>Noah and I have discussed the issue in game a lot, and he is fairly sure that I could MT the same stuff he does in FoH's raid setup.  /shrug</P> <P> </P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>Noah and FoH, why does that ring a bell?   Furor, the leader of Fires of Heaven in EQ1?</DIV>

[Gaige]

Noah is a guardian and officer of Fires of Heaven, on Perma Frost.  I'm not sure, but I believe Furor plays WoW for FoH.

[Stra]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Gage-Mikel wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Strast wrote:<BR><SPAN>They dotn want to give up their DPS or utility skills. They want Guardian level tanking with all the other skills intact. <BR><BR>Gage and his buddies are makign a great deal of guardians intensely hostile to Brawlers. </SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Are you going to give up your taunts?  How about your utility?</P> <P>You are super tanks at the moment, most defense buffs, highest HP, highest mitigation, evasion on par with monk/bruisers.  I can't blame you for not wanting to be changed.</P> <P>But it will change, for all of us, because defense is doing what agility used to to <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Oh and I don't care about hostility, I care about what is good for the game.<BR></P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Oh its quite clear you dont care about hostility, but Ive had pms from other monks that are embarrased by your rampant trolling and provacation on this forum. Ive come to the conclusion that you are just a jerk. </P> <P>As for us giving up our "utility" spells, sure. Of course since we dont have any, thats not a big deal. As for the taunts, why should we ? In fact why should we give up anything? Guardians have very limitied utility. Before you get off on your high horse, we dont complain about having only one role. That is the role we all chose. </P> <P>Second of all, most, if not all, of your comments make it clear you dont know jack about guardians. Telling us to allay or sentinel ... *rofl* right. Those spells are emergency ONLY and not that good at handling the emergency. They are all based around the idea of a guardian losing aggro which just shouldnt happen in well run groups. And even if they were designed around that, they are horribly ineffective. </P> <P>However, you could learn something from them. I can allay and sentinel some poor scout when a clay guardian is hitting him and that gives me just a CHANCE of saving him. Why? Because no matter how many hits he avoids, those 2 or 3 that get through are devastating wihtout guardian mitigation and HP.</P> <P>The whole problem with you Gage can be summed up easily</P> <P>1) You dont have a clue in the world about guardians and their spells, skills, uses, difficulties, and challenges.<BR>2) You THINK you are an excpert on all fighters including guardians. <BR>3) Your requests simply wont work and the result of them not working will be catastrophic. When you get your precious avoidance and they up mitigation to compensate to keep a guardian alive, you will find that the mobs will slam you so hard you will go from full health to dead in under a second just because the raid mob, by random chance, lands 4 in a row on you. Then you will be back here demanding mitigation and more HP to compensate. </P> <P>This weekend I raided the troll in cauldron hollow with 24 of my guild mates, some of which were as low as 28th level. We didnt "raid" a grey mob, no no. We didnt wait til all the content was easy. We went in with a 36 main tank (me) fully tricked out in yellow armor, wielding PGT and Chaosforge Tower shield. I have ALL adept 1 skills. Yet still it took 5 healers to keep me alive with the damage raining in on me. You simply arent going to tank that with your patetic mitigation, even if you get all your wishes. You will be doing fine avoiding then all three +++ mobs will land double hits on you at once and you will be instantly dead, all your healers will get aggro and get wiped and your raid will die in 10 seconds. Your suggestions are just total hogwash with little substance. </P> <P>Oh and please stop with the "im level 50, na na!" crap. None of us care. We feel the game is a journey, not a Nascar race to get to the top and we arent even the slightest bit impressed with your power leveling "skilz" or your "Ph4t l3wt". I may get to 50 some day but Im in no hurry and im going to smell the roses along the way. Furthermore, I and others definitely know more about the game at 36 than you do at 50. </P>

[English Da Gua]

 The biggest issues with a guardian's utility on a raid are that never surrender and allay are both group only. It seems the ideal MT group is Monk, Bruiser, Guardian, Mystic, Trouba, Warden. This basically means a guardian is relegated to a MT role being that if he does not MT in that group, the monk and bruiser give up far more DPS to tank then the guardian does. A smart raid would make the guardian MT because they lose less offense with him as MT vs DPS and actually GAIN some defensive perks with said Guardian as MT. <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   Now I know some will say the DPS difference is not much, but does that matter? When people try and min / max that's what they do, MIN and MAX...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  Some people do not go the min / max route and that is cool. You don't have to. Many show everyday they can defeat a raid encounter without doing so. The problem is the 'perception' of others that guardians are the best tank or that avoidance tanks cannot tank. Gage said himself in another post either the monks tanking raid mobs don't post, or the level 50 monks do not raid or have the guild to defeat said encounters.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   All in all this whole debate has stemmed from lack of information and lack of trying. It is to bad that people want to trivialize this game even more. What has made past MMO games fun is the challenge they provide. If they dumb down EQ2 anymore to apeal to the masses of uninformed and those that do not like to lose to win (if you do not understand what I mean feel free to go to the local hardware store and hit yourself in the head with a tac hammer) the long term player base won't stick around. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  I like the nerfs upcoming. I hope SoE can get this sorta right by decreasing my avoidance and increasing my mitigation while increasing avoidance of monks. At the same time if they nerf monks mitigation, all of you campaining to be the MTs over plate wearers will not be any better off as the 'perception' of the EQ2 base won't have changed. Perhaps all the ranting you are doing is actually to try and change that 'perception.' If that is the case I am all for you, but the 'perception' you all have to combat does not reside with guardians.</DIV><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>04-04-2005</span> <span class=time_text>02:24 AM</span>

[SageMarrow]

<P>5 stars english, that hit the nail on the head, as well as the poster above you.</P> <P>I just spent 2 hours tanking the ancient watcher at level 39 with a monk (3<img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> a paladin (39) and the rest lowbies.</P> <P>We didnt have a healer at all, the only caster we had was an enchanter... lol... Paladin healed while i tanked and monk spot checked the others when AE's hit. We wiped about 3 times, my armor broke, had to zone out with the ranger and run all the way to the mender and get back before server reset so we could get back at it. The watcher couldnt hit me for the most part, but when he did it was usually for about 1200Hp. which hurt but was manageable.</P> <P>This was the most fun that i have had in about a month, the trial and error and rush was awesome. We finished about 3 minutes before server reset.</P> <P>(just in case anyone was wondering what the concept of " to lose to win" meant)</P> <P>Otherwise back on topic:</P> <P>Yeah, the real crusade IMO would be to change the perception. But guardians being the *easiest* tank to build around wont change. And guardians being the most *consistent and reliable* wont change either. Monks wont ever tank like guardians regardless, not because SOE doesnt want them too, but more so because avoidance will never trump mitigation. Thats where the problem resides in actuality. </P> <P>So that COMBINED with perception... makes this a losing battle. one standing alone is surmountable, but the two working in conjunction is intangible for the most part. The fact that we arent better/equal, and no one thought that we were in the first place.</P> <P>So while some stand on the Fighter=tank thing like its holy, fact still remains that even if SOE sees it this way and only this way, they will destine the brawler archetype to failure by spending all thier time trying to make them tank like guardians or an equivalent thereof. After you get them balanced, we still have another hurdle to jump without SOE's assistance, that of perception.</P>

[Nemi]

Avoidance won't trump mitigation? BollocksAvoidance is comparable to mitigation. Not being hit = being hit for less. Yes when I get hit it hurts more but THATS WHAT WARDS ARE FOR.Wards smooth out spikes in damage.The fact that wards and avoidance/mitigation is b0rked atm is not an issue in this discussion. Both are undergoing revamps due to the imbalance. SoE states Brawlers are tanks. SoE states priest healing is imbalanced. SoE states taunts require looking at. SoE states they are looking at how they make MoBs harder (by not just making them hit for more)All this points to the archetype system allowing Avoidance to be equally effective as Mitigation.You cannot look at the issue in isolation. You have to consider healing sources, buffs available and intended target.

[labi]

<DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> English Da Guard wrote:<BR>  The biggest issues with a guardian's utility on a raid are that never surrender and allay are both group only. It seems the ideal MT group is Monk, Bruiser, Guardian, Mystic, Trouba, Warden. This basically means a guardian is relegated to a MT role being that if he does not MT in that group, the monk and bruiser give up far more DPS to tank then the guardian does. A smart raid would make the guardian MT because they lose less offense with him as MT vs DPS and actually GAIN some defensive perks with said Guardian as MT. <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   Now I know some will say the DPS difference is not much, but does that matter? When people try and min / max that's what they do, MIN and MAX...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  Some people do not go the min / max route and that is cool. You don't have to. Many show everyday they can defeat a raid encounter without doing so. The problem is the 'perception' of others that guardians are the best tank or that avoidance tanks cannot tank. Gage said himself in another post either the monks tanking raid mobs don't post, or the level 50 monks do not raid or have the guild to defeat said encounters.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   All in all this whole debate has stemmed from lack of information and lack of trying. It is to bad that people want to trivialize this game even more. What has made past MMO games fun is the challenge they provide. If they dumb down EQ2 anymore to apeal to the masses of uninformed and those that do not like to lose to win (if you do not understand what I mean feel free to go to the local hardware store and hit yourself in the head with a tac hammer) the long term player base won't stick around. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  I like the nerfs upcoming. I hope SoE can get this sorta right by decreasing my avoidance and increasing my mitigation while increasing avoidance of monks. At the same time if they nerf monks mitigation, all of you campaining to be the MTs over plate wearers will not be any better off as the 'perception' of the EQ2 base won't have changed. Perhaps all the ranting you are doing is actually to try and change that 'perception.' If that is the case I am all for you, but the 'perception' you all have to combat does not reside with guardians.</DIV> <P>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <SPAN class=date_text>04-04-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>02:24 AM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>This guy is completly right with soe trying to *balance* everything by the *avrage* player have completly turned me off to the game. Ive played soe games now for 6 years and it sadens me to say its time for me to packup and leave. To much *nerf* and complaining going around. Group debt creating hostilitie among players. And the crafter vs adventurer crap. Oh and the most stable economy ever. Anyways gl to you all and eh Gage no hard fealings about my harsh post before we all understand ur *if i complain enough it will change* method gratz on making it work</DIV>

[zyf]

<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>I have played all current fighter type classes and have enjoyed them all. I do believe that the Tanking issues should be fixed and I hope SOE doesn’t screw any classes but the reality is…some will not like the changes.</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><STRONG><FONT color=#cccccc></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT> </P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>What needs to happen is all classes should have their Tanking, damage migration and avoidance all based on the damage they do. Yep that’s right if you do a crap load of damage you shouldn’t be the best tank. The reality is there shouldn’t be a best over all class or a class that can do it all. It’s not fair and promotes an unbalance.</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><STRONG><FONT color=#cccccc></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT> </P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>What needs to be done.</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>The guardian should be the best at damage migration. They should have an added bonus of migrating damage with their shield before the damage is migrated by their armor. They should not be able to use dual weapons. The idea of this char for all when selecting this char was to be the main tank and protect all his fellow group members. </STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><STRONG><FONT color=#cccccc></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT> </P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>The Zerker is an offensive version of the guardian he should be able to migrate damage 2nd only to the Guardian. He however do to his damage output should not be able to use a shield and get a shielding bonus. The idea of the zerker was to protect his group only by destroying his enemies.</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><STRONG><FONT color=#cccccc></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT> </P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>Pally and SK</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>Should be 3rd when compared to the Guardian with damage migration. They have skills that allow them to either heal or leach hp. They should also be able to use a shield and get the shielding bonus.</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><STRONG><FONT color=#cccccc></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT> </P><SPAN><STRONG><FONT color=#cccccc>And last but not lest the monk like class. They should have the lowest damage migration, do to the type of armor they wear it should be vary low, however they should have a vary high avoidance. By their avoidance they are able not to take damage. They should have a parry ability that helps to migrate damage before it’s taken. They have decent damage output.</FONT></STRONG></SPAN> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>P.S you can flame this post all you want, but my Main is an assassin so in truth this issue doesn't realy matter to me just giving my 2 cents worth.</DIV>

[uzhiel feathered serpe]

<P>From what i read, they are not decreasing your mitigation..they are decreasing your +def buffs. Our guild MT and I talked about once and we compared stats, I have better stats than him in every respect. more stre, sta, agi, wis, and sta, our AC is off my a couple of hundred points, because of his flame tested mail and gloves of gloom, but other than that I beat him in every category. Apparently Guards dont have the spell that increases crusader stats by +25, so I take back my rants about Paladins not being able to equip ranged items. </P> <P>The SINGLE reason why he can take more punishment is because of the +def buffs. Apparently you can stack them until u effectively can tank like if you were a lvl 57. We all know that lvl plays a HUGE part in taking damage, so while I can self buff myself to about a lvl 54 paladin, guards can self buff themselves to a lvl 57 guard.</P> <P>I read alot of posts about guards worried about mitigation. My personal opinion is that they will decrease your agi and your +def buffs that stack. </P> <P>I did see our guild MT when we took out Borxx and he had 100% evasion and +3900 AC, and we wiped a couple of times..stacking +def buffs on top of that. I can see how evasion tanks wouldnt stand a chance against the same MOB</P> <P>a bruiser/monk buffed= 100% evasion and *maybe* +2300 ac</P> <P>a guard/paladin buffed= 100% evasion and +3800 ac with +def buffs, which makes the Paladin lvl 54 and the Guard lvl 57.</P> <P>Just my 2 coppers.</P> <P>Uzhiel, lvl 50 Paladin, Eternal Chaos, Faydark.</P> <p>Message Edited by uzhiel feathered serpent on <span class=date_text>04-04-2005</span> <span class=time_text>08:16 AM</span>

[Nemi]

And therein lies the imbalance.NO class should be able to get 100% avoidance (well not for any sustained period). And Brawlers avoidance should be higher than Warriors/Crusaders ALWAYS. Otherwise Brawlers are redundant and while quite a few people in this thread wouldn't mind that, SoE would, so its not going to happen.

[uzhiel feathered serpe]

<P>I agree that there should be a bit of tweaking.  I do see the inbalance. Alot of tanks are saying that, "well, monks/brawlers do more damage than I do, therefore I should tank better"</P> <P>All things being equal, Plate tanks have more hitpoints, better ability to soak damage, and more +def buffs. In the the case of DPS...well, berserkers..hmn..i've seen parsed raids where a Bers outdamaged the Wiz/warlocks 100% of the time, specially if you count rampage.</P> <P>All im saying is I dont think the devs intended evasion tanks to have less hit points, less mitigation and the same evasion as plate tanks. It just does not sound right.</P> <P>Using the above equation clearly shows evasion tanks are SEVERELY gimped against raid mobs. Just because there are SOME monks/bruisers that have raided x4 grp mobs doesnt mean the whole class can, whereas most plate tanks can tank a x4 raid mob by just sitting there.</P> <P>Uzhiel, lvl 50 Paladin, Eternal Chaos, Faydark.</P>

[SageMarrow]

<P>just to shed light on the way defense works after a little research...</P> <P>Mobs in game are balanced quite the same way that we are but the stat differences are what makes the difference.</P> <P>a level 50 mob has an attack skill of 250. that part is consistent.</P> <P>the difference is in the stats, a mob may have 300 base strength (persay) and 500 Stamina (persay) which gives the mob the ability to have 8,000+ HP and an average attack of 800 damage.</P> <P>( i know the numbers are a bit off in trying to achieve the desired result, but im making a point moreso)</P> <P>While the skill remains the same above the stats. You ever notice that no matter how much str and agi that you have at a given level, even if it would be considered *uber* for that particular level, if a mob is red, you still more than likely wont be able to hit it?</P> <P>Thats the same equation between mobs and players. So along those lines it would be easy to assume that a raid mob capable of hitting for 3k damage has a base strength of 1000 and a stamina rating of 2000 or so. </P> <P>But the skill remains consistent at level 54.</P> <P>So when a Players defense reaches above level 54, they instantly become missable and with each level increased it increases the *possibilty* to avoid an attack. which equates to the ability to effectively *grey out* a mob. </P> <P>Test it out against mobs of equal level solo, they wont hit you for anything more than 50's and maybe a special will hit for 100 pts max. Test the same theory on a green or blue ^^ mob. If a guardian buffs his defence skill, he increases his chance to not be hit but the fact still remains when he is hit, it will be for a statistically advanced attack usually around 200+.</P> <DIV>Summary: Mobs attack damage and ability are statistically based but the skill levels are the defining factors in the end that determine mob level and ability to perform within their given statistical values.</DIV><p>Message Edited by SageMarrow on <span class=date_text>04-04-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:21 AM</span>

[Noah]

<P>Noah Notfuror</P> <P>-was petitioned and the name was removed... now I am just Noah :smileyindifferent:</P> <P> </P> <P> </P>

[English Da Gua]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> zyfer wrote:<BR> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>I have played all current fighter type classes and have enjoyed them all. I do believe that the Tanking issues should be fixed and I hope SOE doesn’t screw any classes but the reality is…some will not like the changes.</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><STRONG><FONT color=#cccccc></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT> </P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>What needs to happen is all classes should have their Tanking, damage migration and avoidance all based on the damage they do. Yep that’s right if you do a crap load of damage you shouldn’t be the best tank. The reality is there shouldn’t be a best over all class or a class that can do it all. It’s not fair and promotes an unbalance.</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><STRONG><FONT color=#cccccc></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT> </P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>What needs to be done.</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#ffff00 size=3><STRONG>The guardian should be the best at damage migration. They should have an added bonus of migrating damage with their shield before the damage is migrated by their armor. They should not be able to use dual weapons. The idea of this char for all when selecting this char was to be the main tank and protect all his fellow group members. </STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#ffff00><STRONG></STRONG></FONT></FONT> </P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00>The Zerker is an offensive version of the guardian he should be able to migrate damage 2nd only to the Guardian. He however do to his damage output should not be able to use a shield and get a shielding bonus. The idea of the zerker was to protect his group only by destroying his enemies</FONT>.</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><STRONG><FONT color=#cccccc></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT> </P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>Pally and SK</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#cccccc size=3><STRONG>Should be 3rd when compared to the Guardian with damage migration. They have skills that allow them to either heal or leach hp. They should also be able to use a shield and get the shielding bonus.</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><STRONG><FONT color=#cccccc></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT> </P><SPAN><STRONG><FONT color=#cccccc>And last but not lest the monk like class. They should have the lowest damage migration, do to the type of armor they wear it should be vary low, however they should have a vary high avoidance. By their avoidance they are able not to take damage. They should have a parry ability that helps to migrate damage before it’s taken. They have decent damage output.</FONT></STRONG></SPAN> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>P.S you can flame this post all you want, but my Main is an assassin so in truth this issue doesn't realy matter to me just giving my 2 cents worth.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>  DW is a warrior ability, not guardian. And like there are not enough issues. If you remove a zerker from having the ability to use a shield his raid MTing (which is the focus) will go down drastically vs other plate tanks. Grouping and 1-50 is already balanced, so focus is meant to be on end game encounters.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   Nemi /sigh where to start.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   This is a very uninformed thing to say... "avoidance won't trump mitigation. Bolloks" because you miss the fundamental part of the game. MOBS WILL ALWAYS HIT YOU. AEs WILL ALWAYS HIT YOU. SPECIALS WILL STILL HIT YOU OFTEN ENOUGH. No way in the world avoidance will ever be better then mitigation + HP and the reasons for this have been stated about 35 times in random posts here, please read them as I do not want to have to post the same things. <P>  As is, monks avoidance will be increased. You will still have bad rolls and die on raids more often then a plate tank due to that possibility. Even if you achieve 100% avoidance at level 50, which is the max, raid mobs are higher then level 50. That means your 100% avoidance translates into x% less per level of mob higher then 50. If mobs on raids are lvl 54-57 you are still getting hit quite often. If they fix the power issues with raid mobs you are totally screwed. Specials hit more often by design. That coupled with AE damage / spells still makes your lack of HP a major issue to min / max raids. Now, a normal everyday raid will gladly take you as an MT, but be ready to have a more difficult time, as it should be. Once you have your strategy though you will be just fine. "Perception' is your foe as I have said before.</P> <P>   That being said, every tank can clearly tank, some with more ease then others. This is that 'perception' again. Avoidance tanks can and will tank just fine, but as you said you need a different line of attack. IE wards etc that varies from the plate MT strategy.</P></DIV><p>Message Edited by English Da Guard on <span class=date_text>04-05-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:17 AM</span>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Strast wrote:<BR>More entries into the Gage-Mikel fan club. <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Congrats on getting PMs from monks who want to be scouts.  I'm glad that people love me enough to feel the need to talk about me not only on the boards, but in PM to each other as well.  Do you guys want signed t-shirts?</P> <P>Also, I get plenty of PMs from guys thanking me for my posts and fighting for archetype balance.  Opinions vary.</P> <P>Oh yeah, and thank you Strast, I love your posts <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><BR></P>

[Stra]

<div></div><span><blockquote><hr>Nemi wrote:Avoidance won't trump mitigation? BollocksAvoidance is comparable to mitigation. Not being hit = being hit for less.<hr></blockquote>They arent comparable at all. Not being hit is not necessarily being hit for less. If you plot a graph of a fight and show the 90% mitigator against the 100% tank, you get remarkably different results for damage taken. The 90% mitigator will get hit all the time but his damage taken will be a relatively smooth line. On the other hand, the 90% avoider will not take any damage for a very long time then they will take a hit and get a spike. The problem is statistically with hundreds of attacks on the tank in a multi-mob +++ raid fight, the avoidance player might take 5 or 10 full force hits in a very short period of time, making it impossible for the healers to keep up.Avoidance is erratic and unpredictable and thus dangerous. Therefore, it gains you nothing unless paired with mitigation. Against raid mobs that hit for 1-3k per hit, you dont want to be taking all that without some serious mitigation to back up the avoidance. And even with all of that, you will need a large HP pool to deal with the damage that gets through both.<blockquote><hr>Yes when I get hit it hurts more but THATS WHAT WARDS ARE FOR.Wards smooth out spikes in damage.<hr></blockquote>Wards are not as useful as straight healing in any raid fight. They will drop in 2 hits because the mob will drop into you for huge amounts of damage and are erratic whereas healing is constant. Now lets be clear, <b>wards ARE mitigation</b>. Furthermore, when the ward drops, the tank has effectively lost a large amount of mitigation. So here is the question, do you want your ward on a monk who will either have just your ward or precious little mitigation or do you boost the guardian's already substantial mitigation? This is a no-brainer. You lower the plot line for damage taken by the guardian and you see that the healers have an easier time keeping up. When the ward takes 2 or 3 really hard hits in a row and drops, the mitigation doesnt nosedive but rather drops only slightly.<blockquote><hr>The fact that wards and avoidance/mitigation is b0rked atm is not an issue in this discussion. Both are undergoing revamps due to the imbalance. SoE states Brawlers are tanks. SoE states priest healing is imbalanced. SoE states taunts require looking at. SoE states they are looking at how they make MoBs harder (by not just making them hit for more)<hr></blockquote>And SOE is often wrong. Hence the "Discussion" in the discussion forums. They are not gods, infailable and omniscient. They are merely other people. The fact is that brawlers are clearly tanks already. However, they have given up X amount of tanking to be able to have more utility abilities and more DPS. Guardians chose to give up those utilities and DPS to get that X amount of tanking. Its a case of tradeoffs. Now some brawlers are comming back asking for the X amount of tanking back while keeping all the things that guardians dont get. Thats greedy and unreasonable and if they get it, you will see a RASH of guardians quit the game. We are trying to discuss the issue so that the mistake is not made.<blockquote><hr>All this points to the archetype system allowing Avoidance to be equally effective as Mitigation.<hr></blockquote>It will never be for reasons I gave above. Any attempt to think it will be is to completely ignore the mathematical concepts of statistics, probability and graph analysis. A healer has a constant amount of healing output that he can expend per second and that amount is bounded by his abilities in the vertical and his mana pool in the horizontal. A healer can put out X amout of healing total but can only expend Y amount of healing per second second. The total time a healer can heal, T,  at Y is T = X / Y.  If the damage taken ever exceeds X then the tank dies. Similarly, if the amount of damage any one second exceeds Y + Tank HP then the tank dies.The graph of the mitigation tank falls under this line plot and has no erratic swings. Damage taken is always under Y and therefore its a simple question of if the DPS classes can kill the mob before the healer is out of power. On the other hand with the brawler, damage is very spiky and will fly off the scale and could potentially exceed Y by a great deal. This means the brawler goes from ok to seriously dead in such a short period of time because T * Y is less than damage incomming.Summary is that your mitigation tank is always going to be less of a gamble than your avoidance one.<blockquote><hr>You cannot look at the issue in isolation. You have to consider healing sources, buffs available and intended target.<hr></blockquote>We are. You arent.</span><div></div>

[Chanliang]

<span><blockquote><hr>monks/bruisers that have raided x4 grp mobs doesnt mean the whole class can<span></span><div></div><hr></blockquote> Now here you have it wrong, if someone can do it regurlarly then rest of people can too if they equip and learn their profession. If not then it's not problem of the class but problem of the players.  No one promised tanking raid mobs would be easy and it really shouldn't, if you don't play your class to fullest then don't expect to be raid MT. </span><div></div>

[Nemi]

The only problem is with the way SoE make raid MoBs 'hard'. They increase the damage output of specials exponentially, creating the skew to mitigation tanks.SoE have stated they are aware of this issue and that with +defense and avoidance balancing, will be looking at how MoBs do damage. What then, if instead of making a raid hard because a MoB churns out thousands of damage per special ON THE TANK, and instead AoEs more, uses more stuns/stifles/knockbacks?Their melee output on the tank will be such that ALL fighters can withstand it, and the AoEs etc become raid tactics, not dictated by what tank you have.Yes, currently mitigation tanks reign supreme in Raids. That alone I think will necessitate a change.

[Nemi]

<blockquote><hr>Chanliang wrote:<span><blockquote><hr>monks/bruisers that have raided x4 grp mobs doesnt mean the whole class can<span></span><div></div><hr></blockquote> Now here you have it wrong, if someone can do it regurlarly then rest of people can too if they equip and learn their profession. If not then it's not problem of the class but problem of the players.  No one promised tanking raid mobs would be easy and it really shouldn't, if you don't play your class to fullest then don't expect to be raid MT. </span><div></div><hr></blockquote>The only reason Warriors/Crusaders can tank the real HARD (read: not gimpy) x4 epics is by relying on the bugged avoidance stacking issues. They rely on what should be the domain of Brawlers to accomplish the win. Can Brawlers do the real hard MoBs? Maybe, but since Warriors have equal avoidance but more mitigation, it will never be comparable.After the +defense/avoidance/buff stacking balances, we'll see where we are.

[SageMarrow]

<P>well nemi i must say that there you have a good idea, </P> <P>take out the massive damage to one tank type and turn it into a massive fight. Thats not a bad idea, but keep in mind that scouts wouldnt be able to endure the damage very well from constant AE's and such.</P> <P>Therefore in essence you would transform a raid into a massive fight, as it should be IMO.</P> <P>there would be no big deal for a REAL MT on raids. boost scouts archery damage and let them stand next to the casters and fire off, while the tank types involved play the melee dps role. That might actually work and clear up some of the issues.</P> <P>Because without the buff stacking, i agree, Darather and a few others wouldnt even be attemptable and would become slaughters.</P> <P>Its apparent that SOE has no clue as to how to fix this and keep it CLEAN, so they are not twinking it into mid JULY. and difficult raids do able without making them stupid hard... we all know what stupid hard is.</P> <P>Ninja Gaiden boss in the chapel...(that chick with the great knockers' sister that turned into a demon) NOW THAT = was stupid hard.</P> <DIV>lol = either way - raids should be skill based not struggles for the sake of challenge, theres a thin line there i know, but it exist none the less.</DIV>

[Nemi]

Well Sage I'm glad we can agree on something. I hope you realise I'm not out for Monks to be King_of_All_and_Sundry but to have a balance Fighter archtype.The thing is, WE HAVE A BALANCED fighter archetype from 1 to 50, its only when you get to raids and SoE reverted to EQ1 mentality (duh..lets make them hit for 10x as much!) that you have a problem.I agree wholeheartedly that raids mobs should not be the slugfest/power efficiency test it is at the moment, but more like Ring / scripted events that require cooperation and teamwork.Simply scaling MoB damage output on the tank by factor X does not make a challenging raid.

[SageMarrow]

<P>ok just shot in the dark here, how about raids that were actually interactive and thoughtful...</P> <P>Okay when fighting Darather or some uber raid mob, instead of the attack = AE - attack =AE approach. how about this.</P> <P>The fight starts off with the dialogue and all that and the fight kicks off with a more group fight feeling with scouts sneaking in long enough to get a shot in and running back to thier post and tank types enduring the brunt of the damage and everyone working together to keep themselves alive, then at certain points during the fight, the mob would say fly into the air and rain fire balls down on the raid party in all directions that only do damage if they hit. Which would give that panick and run feeling so that terrain around the fight and things of that nature could be used to avoid such attacks. And the fight could take place in this manner back and forth with a casualty here and there. At certain points in the fight the action could stop and be filled with dialogue and comments and such while the mob gathers another strategy and comes out with flying attacks that effect the fighters where as only the archers and mages could attack it, and once they reach a certain amount of HP he falls to the ground at 1/3 HP for the final phase of the battle. Sort of like a group based scripted battle that had to be learned and adapted to.</P> <P>That IMO would be fun and keep me intersted for years to come. If a raid mob like the angler would pick up random characters and throw them into walls and leave them stunned for a minute or so on an infrequent basis. as well take the fight under the water and launch sunken boats at the raid party as they try to swim and catch up with him. and would have to be avoided.</P> <P>just a few thoughts</P> <P> </P>

[Nemi]

Totally.Thing is, EQ1 had very similar things with the PoP and later expansions. Every 'Epic' encounter was a scripted event. Certain triggers (usually at MoB health % or timer) things would happen, new mobs would be summoned etc.Having the dragon fly and being impervious from melee attack (as its flying) and relying on the ranged nukers / bow users to bring it down, while the dragon is using flame attacks and AoEs would be awesome, instead we get a big mob that hits the tank for 10x normal damage and we grind it down.

[Nemi]

Just another though, for x4 Epic MoB encounters.You have 24 people there all set up to keep the MT alive.Why not have 4 groups instead taking on 4 or 5 Groups of mobs? You can link mobs why not link encounters.The Boss is not particularly overpowering by himself, but instead of one mob, you have 18-24 mobs to fight. You then need the other groups to handle the adds while the Main group take the named encounter?Why do we limit Epic mobs to being just 1 gargantuan HP shield with massive DPS?

[Gaige]

<DIV><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Strast wrote:<BR> <SPAN><BR>So here is the question, do you want your ward on a monk who will either have just your ward or precious little mitigation or do you boost the guardian's already substantial mitigation? <FONT color=#ffff00>This is a no-brainer. You lower the plot line for damage taken by the guardian and you see that the healers have an easier time keeping up.</FONT> When the ward takes 2 or 3 really hard hits in a row and drops, the mitigation doesnt nosedive but rather drops only slightly.<BR></SPAN> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>Heh, that's about the most mana inefficient way to use a ward, period.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Since wards are damage shields that block a predetermined amount of damage and they do not take mitigation into account, they are tailor made for the evasion classes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Using them on a plate tank is absolutely stupid.  They hardly do anything and are gone in one or two hits.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Mitigation tanks benefit from reactives, because reactives heal for a little each time you get hit.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Strast comments like this just prove your mentality of OMG GUARDIANS ARE THE BEST, ALWAYS.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Wards have no business on mitigation tanks.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As Nemi said, they are to help alleviate the spikes (as the increase in our mitigation was) and make the damage done over time manageable for healers when using an evasion tank.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The priests are getting rebalanced, defense is getting changed and hopefully so will buff stacking, so we'll see.<BR></DIV>

[Banditman]

Wards have no business in the game period.  They are completely worthless.  Once a target, ANY TARGET, mitigates at 50% or more direct heals are MORE EFFICIENT than Wards.

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Banditman wrote:<BR>Wards have no business in the game period.  They are completely worthless.  Once a target, ANY TARGET, mitigates at 50% or more direct heals are MORE EFFICIENT than Wards. <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>Which is why that's all changing in live update #7, but the point remains that wards are better suited for evasion tanks.<BR>

[SageMarrow]

<P>lol, wards either way still rely on us having good rolls in the RNG,</P> <P>its bollocks as my new good friend nemi would say. Its just a safety net for a drunken acrobat. Hes gonna fall, its just a question of when and how badly....</P> <P>onces he falls and the safety net is gone, whats left?</P> <P>i will leave you to answer that one..:smileywink:</P>

[SageMarrow]

<P>oh and by the way, they are increasing and adjusting thier ability with direct heals and such to be more potent, they arent making wards stronger. only the actual healing spells to be more balanced yet potent to keep up with the new damage that all fighters will be taking.</P> <P>which is also why in the preist balancing thread he said that they were going to adjust the way healing builds aggro all together.</P> <P>Apparently this means after patch 7, healing will be an actual job to be had now...</P> <P>still that doesnt mean wards will scale.</P> <DIV>(EDIT: something tells me the aim they are going for would be to make us hold aggro alot better overall against all other classes, in exchange for taking more damage, and requiring more healing.)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>so basically they make tanks take more damage, healers heal for more, and boost taunts so we dont have to struggle to keep aggro away from he in betweens being dps classes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Tanks> -dps- >Healer</DIV><p>Message Edited by SageMarrow on <span class=date_text>04-05-2005</span> <span class=time_text>09:14 AM</span>

[Banditman]

<P>Wards scale somewhat appropriately, the problem is that mitigation scales MUCH faster.</P> <P>Wards have a raw value that is significantly smaller than the other specialty heals, and those Wards are then applied before mitigation, further devaluing them.</P> <P>I can tell you this . . . if Wards don't take the AC of their target after this balancing patch, my Mystic will be permanently retired.</P> <P>Fortunately, I have padded my hand by rolling both a Guardian (L31) and a Templar (L20) in the event "balancing" doesn't go well.</P>

[Nemi]

<blockquote><hr>Banditman wrote:Wards have no business in the game period. They are completely worthless. Once a target, ANY TARGET, mitigates at 50% or more direct heals are MORE EFFICIENT than Wards. <hr></blockquote>Care to show me the math behind that one, cause I don't get it.

[SageMarrow]

<P>basically what hes saying nemi is that wards are indeed crap for a plate tank and just prolonging the inevitable in thier case if we are talking an all out healer replacement.  Mystic vs. Templar</P> <P>because basically if a mob hits for 600dmg, hes going to hit for 600 dmg only to the ward. A plate tank with 50% mitigation effectively makes that 600dmg - 300 dmg.  Which reactives can handle like clockwork. </P> <P>and wards dont scale to handle raid damage. they are down in 3 maybe 2 hits at times. Those same hits that would be 3k damage with 50% mitigation effectively become 1500ish hits. </P> <P>while they still would be great for a near wipe situation to buy extra time...</P> <P>im sure hes considering shelving his mystic because:</P> <P>If mystics are only at maximum effectiveness with 2/6 of the tanks and the other healers are effective with 6/6, yeah they are pretty useless **IN COMPARISON**. Believe it or not i do very well with reactives,lol. It doesnt really matter much. Wards are great and they make me an even better tank, but i can do without easily. As all tanks can at present.</P> <P> </P>

[Banditman]

<P>Love to.  Here is a comparison of the lowest level "specialty" heals of each class.  These numbers do in fact carry forward as each different Priest grows in levels.</P> <DIV><FONT size=3>Consider just the most basic measure of a heal - the raw HP healed.  Using App3 versions of Spectral Ward, Regrowth and Bestowal of Vitae yields the following raw HP respectively:  403, 480, 510.  Of note, BoV can in fact "tick" one extra time, potentially putting the raw HP at 612, but for simplicity, we'll use the "low" end of Vitae.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>All other considerations aside, the Spectral Ward is already between 16 and 21 percent less powerful as a heal than the Heals possessed by the other Priest classes.  Certainly, part of the balance equation at this level could be Power consumption of each heal, but in this case we don't have that.  Each of these three heals uses exactly the same amount of power.  Given that there is no difference in Power, we must look elsewhere for balance.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>The next part of the numeric analysis is overall effect.  While it may be apparent already that Wards are underpowered, additional information regarding the application of Wards further defines the problem.  Wards take effect before AC mitigation is considered.  This can be a very significant difference.  Parses suggest that a good tank can mitigate up to 50 percent of incoming damage with his armor.  <FONT color=#ff0000>This is actually old data here, and from lower levels.  We now know that this number can be MUCH higher than 50 percent on high level, well equipped tanks.</FONT></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>The already underpowered Ward is not given the benefit of this "free" healing.  Any damage "healed" by a Ward is healed before the armor mitigation of the tank is considered.  A 403 point hit against a Ward will completely eliminate the Ward.  A 403 point hit against a Tank will result in only 202 points of damage against the health of a tank.  Clerics and Druids are then healing the actual damage, and in effect healing only half the damage Shaman are being asked to heal.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>It would seem that in balancing the three heals, mitigation was somehow "forgotten" or ignored in the equation.  That is a huge oversight.  If you look at the efficiency of the three special heals at a zero AC mitigation level, things don't look so bad.  BoV at 9.27 HP / Power has the highest efficiency simply because it has the highest raw value as shown above.  Regrowth at 8.72 HP / Power is marginally below that yet Spectral Ward falls all the way to 7.33 HP / Power.  That's really unbalanced enough to be unsettling already, but observe what happens as AC mitigation rears its head.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>At a level of 25 percent mitigation, which is probably the low end of the spectrum for a good tank <FONT color=#ff3300>(again, old data here)</FONT>, both BoV and Regrowth maintain their exact HP to Power ratios.  Simply, these two heals are already allowing mitigation to kick in before they heal damage.  Their efficiency is fixed.  However, because of the way Wards are applied, their efficiency drops . . . significantly.  At 25 percent mitigation, Spectral Ward's efficiency drops to 5.49 HP / Power - only 59 percent as efficient as BoV.  That is more than significant, thats ridiculous.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>At a level of 50 percent mitigation, which seems to be the high end currently being parsed, Spectral Ward drops off to a paltry 3.65 HP / Power, putting it in the neighborhood of Minor Arch Healing from an efficiency standpoint.  That is downright pathetic at 39 percent as efficient as BoV.</FONT></DIV> <P> </P> <P>Does that explain it ?</P>

[SageMarrow]

<P>so by that explanation banditman wouldnt that mean that a ward that took into account mitigation first would effectively make a plate tank invincible for a said amount of time because of the mitigation?</P> <P>And still leave the ward less effective for an avoidance tank?</P>

[Gaige]

<P>Wards absolutely can NOT take mitigation into account first, as it defeats their purpose of being a damage shield (IE it soaks damage before it ever gets to you).</P> <P>That would skew the balance WAAAAAAY towards mitigation tanks.</P> <P>That would be like letting reactives heal us when we don't get hit.</P> <P>Wards are the first form of defense, it'd be utterly [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] if they took AC into account.</P>

[SageMarrow]

<DIV>That would be like letting reactives heal us when we don't get hit.: </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>^^^ that would be called a regen, lol.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>But seriously gage, with that being said do you see the problem? Its not gonna balance that way no matter what, you live in califronia, Go to SOE headquaters and john Q the place until they figure out a solution bro because all signs point to null on our end.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>:smileysad:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>we have explored every single theory proposed and the end conclusion is always, *well hmm, that wont work either*.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#cc0000>making avoidance not random or gauranteed, might as well call it mitigation.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#cc0000>making wards scale to the damage, wardens will be master soloist and provide plate tanks a brief moment of invulnerability and brawlers a life line.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#cc0000>making wards take mitigation into account first, makes a plate tank invulnerable for a Longer amount of time.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#cc0000>nerfing mitigation into oblivion and taking out defensive buff stacking, raids like darather and such wont even be attemptable and having 10 healers would be a MUST HAVE.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Gage we have tried everything *conceptually* that could potentially give brawlers a chance at being equal tanks... i am fresh out of ideas bro. seriously.</DIV>

[Banditman]

Gage, frankly, you are just flat out WRONG. By giving a Ward the AC of the target you don't change the balance for tanks AT ALL.  Yes, you change it for healers, you make Shaman a viable solo healer. But a Mitigation tank now gets the full effect of the Ward.  This is good.  Yes, it makes them "invulnerable"  until the value of the Ward is taken away.  Whether that is 1 hit down the line or 4, and against a mob of any challenge, it WONT last more than 4 hits.  This is absolutely NO DIFFERENT than a Reactive heal placed upon a Guardian before he takes any damage.  They are basically "invulnerable" until that Reactive expires (ie no health drop at all). Even an Avoidance tank would benefit.  With the AGI nerf, "Avoidance" tanks now mitigate nearly as well as Medium armor . . . meaning they are at that magic 50% level where WARDS ARE LESS EFFECTIVE THAN DIRECT HEALING.  Read that again!  You are already at the point where Wards are LESS EFFECTIVE! And frankly, mitigation is still king.  It is consistent and predictable.  It's an uncertain world out there, and every little bit of certainty helps. Gage, you can tank EXP mobs from 1 - 50 already with whatever healer you want.  You.  A Monk.  Yes.  You can do it.  Accept it. Mystics however cannot solo heal from 1 - 50 as other Priests can.  Their Wards are simply too inefficient.  For them, Archtype balance is not even close to a promise, it's a myth. If there is any problem with Brawler vs Warrior, it's on the Epic raids, and frankly, Avoidance will never trump Mitigation IN THAT SITUATION.  In fact, it simply CANNOT trump Mitigation there without unbalancing the rest of the content. Raids base their success and failure on a consistent approach, a plan and not upon the whim of the RNG. <div></div>

[Nemi]

<blockquote><hr>SageMarrow wrote:<P>basically what hes saying nemi is that wards are indeed crap for a plate tank and just prolonging the inevitable in thier case if we are talking an all out healer replacement. Mystic vs. Templar</P> <P>because basically if a mob hits for 600dmg, hes going to hit for 600 dmg only to the ward. A plate tank with 50% mitigation effectively makes that 600dmg - 300 dmg. Which reactives can handle like clockwork. </P> <P>and wards dont scale to handle raid damage. they are down in 3 maybe 2 hits at times. Those same hits that would be 3k damage with 50% mitigation effectively become 1500ish hits. </P> <P>while they still would be great for a near wipe situation to buy extra time...</P> <P>im sure hes considering shelving his mystic because:</P> <P>If mystics are only at maximum effectiveness with 2/6 of the tanks and the other healers are effective with 6/6, yeah they are pretty useless **IN COMPARISON**. Believe it or not i do very well with reactives,lol. It doesnt really matter much. Wards are great and they make me an even better tank, but i can do without easily. As all tanks can at present.</P> <P> </P> <hr></blockquote>Ah because wards are not best suited to Guardians, they are crap. I see.Hey Guardians, want ketchup with that HUGE chip on your shoulder? Jeez. Get over yourselves. Priest rebalancing is incomming and I bet Shamans will see the biggest overall boost.Hey, I tried to bring reason to this closeminded group of players. Continue believing you are the N#1 tanks and I'll wait for the rants and whines and laugh when SoE is finished balancing.

[SageMarrow]

<P>well bandit man the thing that happens if a ward takes mitigation into account is that when a plate tanks mitigation registers </P> <P>BEFORE, the ward procs its effect, it could last for an invariable amount of time because wards have a set amount that they can effectively "WARD". meaning basically its just extra HP... say 1500 extra HP of unmitigated damage that does take avoidance into account as opposed to mitigation.</P> <P>but once it takes into account mitigation as well, a guardian or whoever with 65% mitigation could make a ward that was effectively 1500 extra HP last forever since the highest attacks they would take from average mobs would only be around 150 damage, speaking for normal grouping situations at level 35-40.</P> <P>So that ward would last 10 attacks, not taking into account player character blocks,parries, and riposte. With the right rolls a ward could last the entire duration of a fight for a plate tank, but still drop in 5 hits for an avoidance tank.</P> <P>So in essence with a mitigation increase and an avoidance decrease on behalf of the gaurdians, most definately all signs would point to guardians as MT heaven...</P> <P>But hey look on the bright side, it would make wardens a desired healer!!!</P>

[SageMarrow]

<DIV>Ah because wards are not best suited to Guardians, they are crap. I see.<BR><BR>Hey Guardians, want ketchup with that HUGE chip on your shoulder? Jeez. Get over yourselves. Priest rebalancing is incomming and I bet Shamans will see the biggest overall boost.<BR><BR>Hey, I tried to bring reason to this closeminded group of players. Continue believing you are the N#1 tanks and I'll wait for the rants and whines and laugh when SoE is finished balancing</DIV> <DIV>__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33>Well nemi , </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33>i understand the frustration, but you have to look at it from all perspectives. Read my post about possible solutions that have all been shot to hell with effective reasoning.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33>nemi there is nothing that SOE can do to fix this issue because it was poorly thought out and implemented and cannot be adjusted without breaking something else or overpowering it. (we know the consequences of being overpowered!!)</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33>This issue isnt simple like the mage situation, give enchanters a good dps boost and viola. Give conjurer pets an additional effective level upon casting...viola - balanced - mage = dps</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33>same goes for bards, give a bard a bit more dps = viola. done</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33>on the other hand in this situation avoidance wont ever best mitigation in a<EM><U><STRONG> raid</STRONG> </U></EM>situation. No amount of balancing will change that. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33>Guardians will always have a one up on defense because that is the classes **offset**. We can go round and round about the dps they do and thier utility, but at the end of the day, the dps is not valuable enough to replace anything not already available, and the utility is not there either and is only situational in comparison to what monks and bruiser lines get.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33>So with that being said, after all the balancing is said and done the brawler type might just be one of those that you stray away from if you are trying to experience this game at the highend for all that its worth, but hey who knows, SOE might have a surprise in store for us...</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33>But for now, we should give it a rest...:smileyindifferent:</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff33></FONT> </DIV>

[Banditman]

<span><blockquote><hr>SageMarrow wrote:<p>well bandit man the thing that happens if a ward takes mitigation into account is that when a plate tanks mitigation registers </p> <p>BEFORE, the ward procs its effect, it could last for an invariable amount of time because wards have a set amount that they can effectively "WARD". meaning basically its just extra HP... say 1500 extra HP of unmitigated damage that does take avoidance into account as opposed to mitigation.</p> <p>but once it takes into account mitigation as well, a guardian or whoever with 65% mitigation could make a ward that was effectively 1500 extra HP last forever since the highest attacks they would take from average mobs would only be around 150 damage, speaking for normal grouping situations at level 35-40.</p> <p>So that ward would last 10 attacks, not taking into account player character blocks,parries, and riposte. With the right rolls a ward could last the entire duration of a fight for a plate tank, but still drop in 5 hits for an avoidance tank.</p> <p>So in essence with a mitigation increase and an avoidance decrease on behalf of the gaurdians, most definately all signs would point to guardians as MT heaven...</p> <p>But hey look on the bright side, it would make wardens a desired healer!!!</p> <div></div><hr></blockquote>The fact that you don't even know what healer casts a Ward says a LOT about your knowledge of the subject.  (ps - it ain't Wardens) Right now, against a normal EXP mob, a Ward will take, at BEST, 2 hits.  Count with me now . . . 1 . . . 2.  Gone.  Even the slowest hitting mob is going to knock that down in under 2 seconds.  Let's not even consider a raid mob, because that's a completely different and even sillier amount of damage incoming. There are no 1500 HP Wards . . . there are some Master level Wards that hit around 1200, and of course the group versions which could get that high . . . but how many people can wait 8 seconds for a heal to cast? Tell me this, how is a Ward any different than a Reactive? If you cast the Reactive before the mob starts hitting, you've basically "Warded" the tank!  His HP are not going to drop.  Is this efficient?  Perhaps not.  But you <i>can</i> do it.  And since Reactives are set at a larger amount, and come post mitigation, they are in effect a Ward worth 3 or more times the value of a Shaman Ward. With a Ward however, you <i>cannot heal</i>!  Read that again.  You simply <i>can't heal</i>.  You can cast Wards til you are OOP but it won't do a thing to increase the HP for a tank in the red.  Mystics are the <i>only</i> healers who have a specialty heal that doesn't actually heal.  For that reason alone, a Ward needs to be a lot more powerful.  A Shaman's <i>only</i> means to do actual "healing" is to use a direct and highly inefficient heal. This also doesn't consider the Ward blow thru effect.  If you Ward a target, say 1000 points worth.  A hit comes in at 999 HP.  The Ward absorbs ALL of that 999, leaving a Ward on the tank for 1 HP.  The next 1000 hit comes.  1 HP is absorbed by the Ward and the remaining 999 HP is passed on to the tanks health DIRECTLY.  It bypasses Mitigation!  OUCH. Man seriously, don't even try to understand the problems with Wards until you've been on the casting end of them.  There is absolutely nothing more frustrating than being on that end.  Gage included. </span><div></div>

[SageMarrow]

lol yeah it is defilers and such lol  - that was *$%#&!... sorry - habit - just sounds right <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>oh okay now i get it - it wont let me say R=e=t=ar=ded, i didnt nkow that - lol thats what the edit was for</DIV> <P>Message Edited by SageMarrow on <SPAN class=date_text>04-05-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>01:40 PM</SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by SageMarrow on <span class=date_text>04-05-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:41 PM</span>

[SageMarrow]

<P>okay bandit, you are absolutely right, didnt know that it was that bad bro. I will gladly concede to that one. </P> <P>WARDS SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</P>

[Mig]

<DIV>(EDIT: something tells me the aim they are going for would be to make us hold aggro alot better overall against all other classes, in exchange for taking more damage, and requiring more healing.)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <They have this already, it's called a berserker.

[Gaige]

<P>No, they shouldn't balance a damage shield as a regen or a reactive, because they are different.</P> <P>To take characters mitigation into account is STUPID because a ward absorbs the damage BEFORE it gets to the toon.</P> <P>You can balance them some other way, which I hope they do in LU#7, but letting mitigation factor into it, is NOT the way.</P>

[Chanliang]

<div></div><span><blockquote><hr>Gage-Mikel wrote:<p>No, they shouldn't balance a damage shield as a regen or a reactive, because they are different.</p> <p>To take characters mitigation into account is STUPID because a ward absorbs the damage BEFORE it gets to the toon.</p> <p>You can balance them some other way, which I hope they do in LU#7, but letting mitigation factor into it, is NOT the way.</p> <div></div><hr></blockquote>Here I strongly disagree, why wards would be any different from other heals. Yes it absorbs damage before it hits but where it is stated that's barrier 20cm from your toon? It can be inside your armor, next to your skin, inside skin whatever. <u><b>It's magic </b></u>not metal barrier. Only way to balance wards vs. other healing methods is either mitigation or double wards effectiveness which would overpower them against magic attacks and on very light armor users not to mention on early levels of game.  Anyways there is shaman forums for this debate. </span><div></div><p>Message Edited by Chanliang on <span class=date_text>04-06-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:33 AM</span>

[Nemi]

<blockquote><hr>Banditman wrote:With a Ward however, you <i>cannot heal</i>!  Read that again.  You simply <i>can't heal</i>.  You can cast Wards til you are OOP but it won't do a thing to increase the HP for a tank in the red.  Mystics are the <i>only</i> healers who have a specialty heal that doesn't actually heal.  For that reason alone, a Ward needs to be a lot more powerful.  A Shaman's <i>only</i> means to do actual "healing" is to use a direct and highly inefficient heal.<hr></blockquote>Um, its not supposed to heal. A Ward on a tank means his hitpoints dont go down. It PREVENTS damage in the first place.Reactives - You still take HP damageRegen - You still take HP damageWards - No HP damageReactives don't do jack for a tank in the red, in fact he'll probably die.Regens don't do jack for a tank in the red, will you wait hoping to avoid damage so the regen will heal you?Ward/Regen/Reactives are secondary heals for when the tank is high on health. Once health drops ALL HEALERS rely on direct healing. This is where mystics fall down, because their direct heals suck power.

[SageMarrow]

<P>well nemi if you read a bit more into the post, he makes another point that its unmitigated damage and the problem is that you potentially create your own damage spike.</P> <P>If a ward has a damage shield for 1000 pts, by most mobs past 45, thats an average attack of unmitigated damage.</P> <P>So if he hits you for 1 attack for 999 dmg, then that leaves 1pt left on that ward.</P> <P>If another attack comes in at full UMITIGATED damage for 1000 points, that means 1 point will be warded, and the remainder of the wards damage will be passed through to the player totally, that other 999 dmg.</P> <P>when the ward couldve been left alone in the first place and a plate tank with 55% mitigation couldve made that same blow 500 dmg 2x over that course which as i said, can easily be handled by a reactive..</P> <P>make sense? Its in the sense of an all out healer replacement of one over the other.</P>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>SageMarrow wrote:<p>well nemi if you read a bit more into the post, he makes another point that its unmitigated damage and the problem is that you potentially create your own damage spike.</p> <p>If a ward has a damage shield for 1000 pts, by most mobs past 45, thats an average attack of unmitigated damage.</p> <p>So if he hits you for 1 attack for 999 dmg, then that leaves 1pt left on that ward.</p> <p>If another attack comes in at full UMITIGATED damage for 1000 points, that means 1 point will be warded, and the remainder of the wards damage will be passed through to the player totally, that other 999 dmg.</p> <p>when the ward couldve been left alone in the first place and a plate tank with 55% mitigation couldve made that same blow 500 dmg 2x over that course which as i said, can easily be handled by a reactive..</p> <p>make sense? Its in the sense of an all out healer replacement of one over the other.</p> <div></div><hr></blockquote>Just wanted to say that yes this is how wards appear to work.. First they ignore mitigation then any "spill over" dmg is unmitaged.  Ive tested this out alot with a Defiler friend of mine.  It can get really nasty depending on the situation...i.e a named ^^ with some minions...the minions eat thru 90% of a Ward and the named then gets a lucky hit in before the Defiler has had a chance to re-ward.  I wish people would take a break from making mountains out of mole hills in regards to tank balance and realize that other archetypes are actually far more "broke"/"unbalanced".</span><div></div>

[Banditman]

I agree, there are bigger issues than Epic content balance for the Fighter Archtype.  And let's face it, that's really what the whole Guard / Crusader / Brawler debate is all about.  Any tank that says they can't tank 1 - 50 is smokin' some good stuff.  Would I personally use a Brawler as MT for an EXP group?  No, but that's my choice.  Mine.  I have my own reasons for them. The whole reason I started perusing these boards was because I felt that I wanted to have a character with as few issues as possible.  My Guardian certainly has far fewer "problems" than my Mystic.  Does he have issues?  Sure he does, but they don't impact his ability to get a group.  People know that Sudedox can hold aggro and take a shot.  He gets groups. I enjoy playing him, and I intend for him to be every bit as important as my Mystic.  Moreso if the "Priest Balancing" doesn't go well. Perspective is a good thing sometimes.  A very good thing.  Thanks for pointing that out. <div></div>

[SageMarrow]

<P>yeah, my big deal is that they are trying to close gaps that i have no clue how they can close in all honesty.</P> <P>Thats always been my big issue, i never mind shooting the S***t with other players and getting different viewpoints and splicing them with my own. But certain things are just destined to be ineffective unless they are totally reworked from scratch as far as the archetype balancing goes.</P> <P>Mages and Scouts are easy fixes. Boost thier combat arts for enchanters, give scouts a boost to thier damaging spells = viola.</P> <P>give conjurers pets 1 extra effective level on casting and stronger debuffs = viola.</P> <P>Those are easy fixes, but personally i dont know where </P> <P>wards vs healing</P> <P>avoidance vs mitigation</P> <P>are going to fall into that without being totally reworked from the inside out and just scrapping the entire class and working from scratch...</P> <P>(in reality, the two will probably just be those **classes** that everyone learns to stay away from...)_</P>

[Nemi]

<blockquote><hr>SageMarrow wrote:<P>well nemi if you read a bit more into the post, he makes another point that its unmitigated damage and the problem is that you potentially create your own damage spike.</P> <P>If a ward has a damage shield for 1000 pts, by most mobs past 45, thats an average attack of unmitigated damage.</P> <P>So if he hits you for 1 attack for 999 dmg, then that leaves 1pt left on that ward.</P> <P>If another attack comes in at full UMITIGATED damage for 1000 points, that means 1 point will be warded, and the remainder of the wards damage will be passed through to the player totally, that other 999 dmg.</P> <P>when the ward couldve been left alone in the first place and a plate tank with 55% mitigation couldve made that same blow 500 dmg 2x over that course which as i said, can easily be handled by a reactive..</P> <P>make sense? Its in the sense of an all out healer replacement of one over the other.</P> <hr></blockquote>Yes, the way breakthrough damage is handled is b0rked it needs fixed. However allowing mitigation to work before the ward dissipates I don't agree with. How can you balance it?Mage has 20% mitigationWarrior has 60% mitigationBrawler has 40% mitigationSo the same spell would in effect have differing HPs saved. No good.

[SageMarrow]

<P>well really nemi the bottom line is that 1-50 you do your job fine and take a few tradeoffs in exchange for the things you desire in your class. </P> <P>The utility, the extra damage, and so forth. </P> <P>Some of us are so quick to shout "that is broken. Fix it now!!!"</P> <P>But dont ever stop to think about the opposite side of that same given argument. If they fix it and make 1pt of ward damage not have any spell damage and absorb the entire blow as if it could sustain.</P> <P>For starters how do you fix that??? and make the **game** understand what you are trying to do in terms of coding. Thats the first hurdle. Then, at which point, the spill over damage isnt the real problem with the spell any [Removed for Content] way. Its the way they are destroyed in 7 good rolls. 3 on a raid.</P> <P>So what do you suggest? of course it wont be anything to make a guardians or mitigation tanks mitigation shine any more...</P> <P>So whats next? Increase the amount that it can take to last 7-8 attacks against raid mob damage? 12k ward? You just made a class that can solo jezus fresh out of heaven....</P> <P>So whats next after that? Give the ward a limited number of times to proc? It would make a ward REALLY useless for lower level grouping, and overpowered against raid mob grouping. Remember, no life is lost when a ward is up, you said it before i did.</P> <P>So bottom line is that you guys need to think about these things before you just scream broken, fix it!! TO ME, the real answer is - get rid of it = start over...but thats not happening. To end this off, you gotta realize, thats the same thing that gage does, </P> <P>"im not a dev. i just pay to play it, its thier job to figure that out, i just know its broken!!"</P> <P>The devs are humans just like we are, they have the same logic and reasoning that 15 people have all stated here, they dont have some super human inside track, we see more than they do!!! They code it - push it out - hope that it works on the fundamental principal that it <STRONG><EM><U>supposed </U></EM></STRONG>to what it says it will do. For that matter bugged and totally broken wouldnt even be issues if they had all the answers and the problem at the very least wouldve been forseen. </P><p>Message Edited by SageMarrow on <span class=date_text>04-06-2005</span> <span class=time_text>08:36 AM</span>

[Nemi]

Sorry m8, I try my best to understand your posts but heck, you ramble.What exactly, apart from breakthrough damage is wrong with wards?That raid mobs eat through them in 3 'good' blows? 3 'good' blows will have more impact on reactives. If the MOB lands 3 BIG hits the reactive isnt going to cope, your tank is heading into the red. Same with Regens. Not with a ward tho.Wards are situational. If you have a Guardian tanking a Raid mob, then the relying on a ward is DUMB. However, used with other healers, that ward will effectively cancel out 2 or 3 swings of a mob, with NO risk to the tank. When the ward dissipates, you have other healers there to pick up the slack.If avoidance was working, then Wards would be there when Brawlers didnt avoid..taking much of the damage and anything that got through would be covered by a reactive or a regen till the Shaman can re-ward.Net effect, both tank types are successful.The way I see it is that certain healers go with certain tanks = balance. Unfortunately, other people see it that all healers should be balanced by their healing power on a Guardian.

[SageMarrow]

<P>no, all healers should be able to heal all classes... that would be right, and that stands for the other 4,</P> <P>its just the step children called shamen and brawlers. they go together but its too restrictive.</P> <P>i dont wanna argue about this much anymore, but understand that reactives heal me just fine, regens as well, in normal group play. </P> <P>Wards are great, but they are not always about preserving life as a class being shaman, at some point during a fight, that will HAVE to be done. </P> <P>Actual life preservation and i would like that to be guaranteed me as a tank. Not the risk of the RNG that the healing relies on too!!</P> <P>the team effort mindset on a raid is useless when they arent optimal at 90% otherwise in the game. this game isnt balanced from the top down i hope.</P> <P>I personally like templars and wardens as my healers cause i feel safe!! lol - when things get hairy i know when a direct heal should fly... and i trust that direct heals potency and also the fact that if that temp uses one- she has enough power left for another.</P> <P>sorry if i tend to ramble, i got a hamster in my head that runs at 800mph. </P> <P>But as it stands, .</P> <P>clerics can heal 6/6 tanks effectively.</P> <P>Druids can heal 6/6 tanks effectively.</P> <P>Shaman can heal 2/6 tanks effectively.</P> <P>(something isnt right there... but like i said - i dont want to debate about it anymore. just stating fact)</P> <p>Message Edited by SageMarrow on <span class=date_text>04-06-2005</span> <span class=time_text>09:12 AM</span>

[MastikFantastik]

<P>You are right in effectively healing to some degree.  How ever the other day myself (39 guardian) and a mystic friend (36 mystic) took out Varsoon ourselves (duo).  Varsoon being a caster we weren't concerned with mega wards and the Mystic threw up auto attack and then just healed for most of the fight with the RARE ward.  I myself dual wielded during that 1 fight just to up the dps and using ghost mastery really did help on him however I contend the statement that Shaman can heal 2/6 tanks effectively.  Because I have tried Varsoon a previous time and died with a 36 Templar and a 39 pally with me (trio) and promptly got our butts handed to us.  </P> <P>I know this is just 1 example but I tend to lean to the side that the healer itself must know what to do with the class (refering to tank) they are paired up with and then the rest will fall into place.</P> <P> </P>

[SageMarrow]

<P>i dont mean that in blanket - i mean in comparison strictly based on healing compared to other healers more so... Shamans if min not mistaken have some really nice debuffs that make work a bit easier.</P> <P>And that is great in those situations when a powerful mob needs to be numbed down a bit. But that doesnt make them an effective healer in the same right. </P> <P>I understand how it works, but you have to put it in terms so that the people who think that equal but different can be achieved without being the same can understand it...</P> <P>They tend to not believe in tradeoffs and think that there should be no such thing as "better" at a certain thing.</P> <P> </P> <p>Message Edited by SageMarrow on <span class=date_text>04-06-2005</span> <span class=time_text>09:59 AM</span>

[Banditman]

<span><blockquote><hr>Nemi wrote:Sorry m8, I try my best to understand your posts but heck, you ramble.What exactly, apart from breakthrough damage is wrong with wards?That raid mobs eat through them in 3 'good' blows? 3 'good' blows will have more impact on reactives. If the MOB lands 3 BIG hits the reactive isnt going to cope, your tank is heading into the red. Same with Regens. Not with a ward tho.Wards are situational. If you have a Guardian tanking a Raid mob, then the relying on a ward is DUMB. However, used with other healers, that ward will effectively cancel out 2 or 3 swings of a mob, with NO risk to the tank. When the ward dissipates, you have other healers there to pick up the slack.If avoidance was working, then Wards would be there when Brawlers didnt avoid..taking much of the damage and anything that got through would be covered by a reactive or a regen till the Shaman can re-ward.Net effect, both tank types are successful.The way I see it is that certain healers go with certain tanks = balance. Unfortunately, other people see it that all healers should be balanced by their healing power on a Guardian.<hr></blockquote>Since you asked, I'll tell you what's wrong with them. The first thing is your assumption that a Ward can take 3 blows from ANY mob - let alone SEVEN.  This is WRONG and you have to get that in your head.  A Ward CANNOT take 3 hits from ANY mob - let alone a Raid mob!  A Ward that takes 2 hits from a mob has already exceeded the expectations of the Shaman who cast it. Here's a little something from an old raid, just so you know.  I didn't even have to look hard to find this simple example: (1107150820)[Sun Jan 30 23:53:40 2005] Your skin begins to glow. (1107150820)[Sun Jan 30 23:53:40 2005] Decendent of the Torig tries to crush YOU, but misses. (1107150821)[Sun Jan 30 23:53:41 2005] a Deathguard  tries to crush YOU, but misses. (1107150821)[Sun Jan 30 23:53:41 2005] a Dreadguard  tries to crush YOU, but misses. (1107150821)[Sun Jan 30 23:53:41 2005] a Deathguard  tries to crush YOU with Wild Swing, but YOU parry. (1107150823)[Sun Jan 30 23:53:43 2005] Your ward absorbed 679 points of damage! (1107150823)[Sun Jan 30 23:53:43 2005] a Deathguard  hits YOU for 364 points of crushing damage. (1107150823)[Sun Jan 30 23:53:43 2005] Your spectral skin falls away. Didn't even absorb one whole blow.  Ouch.  Lasted a whopping 3 seconds, and that with multiple misses and a parry.  This is the reality of Wards. In the world we play in, its nothing for my Guard friend, sitting on 60% mitigation, to take a 500 point hit.  This is how hard mobs hit him, WITH his mitigation.  When you consider the strength of that blow BEFORE mitigation, I don't have a single target Ward capable of absorbing that entire blow . . . it was 1250 points BEFORE his mitigation kicked in.  And that's just ONE blow. How do we play?  Simple, he turns on all his defense buffs.  He rarely takes a hit.  It's not a single thing to do with my Mystic.  He does this.  He can sacrifice his DPS for defense, and simply not get hit.  If he has a Templar healing him, he can keep his DPS higher since the Templar can handle the increased damage more easily.</span><span></span><span> </span><div></div>