Terron
11-23-2005, 11:31 PM
<DIV>I started playing EQ2 shortly after LU13.</DIV> <DIV>It is the first MMORPG I have played, though I have played RPGs for decades.</DIV> <DIV>I looked at the description of the classes and decided that I would start with a fighter as that should be simpler than the other classes. I decided to go warrior and then guardian to emphasize defense, as I thought that as a new player I was likely to make many mistakes and that by choosing the class that looked to have the best defense would allow me to avoid dying too many times to those mistakes.</DIV> <DIV>I did not mind taking longer to kill things as the price of the better defense.</DIV> <DIV>I did not want to be a "main tank" as I did not know what a main tank was. When I found out I nearly quit the game. The idea of just standing there yelling at the opponents to attract their attention and get beat upon is very unappealing. It does not feel heoric and lacks verisimilitude. (A obnoxious player complaining that I did not know my job didn't help. He was right, but did not have to be rude about it.)</DIV> <DIV>I decided to keep playing as I found that it did not affect most play.</DIV> <DIV>When reading these forums I found that because all fighter classes are supposed to tank equally well, they have all been given approximately equal defense I was annoyed. Defense of self and others was what I though guardians were supposed to be about, since that appeared to be the focus of the class. So I expected that to be where guardians stood out. Now there seems to be nothing that guardians are best at.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I started a rogue alt and she was a lot more effective at soloing that my guardian had been. Currently she is level 20 and my guardian is level 34.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The new offensive stances (LU16) helped significantly, but it still feels like my guardian can not do anything that other classes do equally well or better. Every class should have something it is better at than other classes. I certainly do not want to be a better tank than other classes, but there should be something, ideally better defense.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So I thought about how could guardians have better defense without being better tanks, and the answer seems obvious. Give them an ability that boosts defense, but cripples the other principle aspect of being a tank - maintaining aggro. For example something that boosts defense, parry, block and mitigation, but halves hate gain. Group and emergency taunts such as rescue should cancel it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Guardians take longer to kill than other fighters and that is a serious disadvantage in that allows more times for adds. A fair number of times I have been in long fights where just as I am about to kill one another arrives. Since guardians fight more long fights they should have abilities that make them better in such fights, giving them a slow but sure approach. One thing that would be very useful would be a way to recharge power, perhaps an ability that takes several seconds to cast and several minutes to recast but gives a significant power increase (called Second Wind maybe). Also one with a fairly high casting cost that increased in-combat power regeneration, such that in a short fight it would be a waste, but in one lasting several minutes you would come out well ahead.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Another thing to give guardian's an advantage in long fights might be an ability that added a proc to your attacks that did a small but cumulative and fairly long lasting debuff to say STR, so you could wear opponents down.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A different ability that would be nice is to be able to select a friend who you will protect by trying to draw attacks away from them to you, that is when they are attacked some hate is generated for you.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>