Tank Surplus

[MrDiz]

Before lu13 there were 4 tank classes, 6 healer classes and 14 dps classes (6 scout, 6, mages and 2 brawlers).This meant that for every tank there was 1.5 healersand 3.5 dps. This in fact matched the 'best group' template of 1 tank, 1 or 2 healers, 3 to 4 dps.However post dof what we have are 6 tanks, 6 healers and 12 dps. For each tank we have 1 healer and 2 dps. Suddenly the 4 man group seems the most likely spread. However since they removed any advantage to small group the 'best group' has absolutely been the good old 6 man group with 1 tank as all encounters are tuned for this mix. 1 tank, 1 healer and 2 dps will kill half the speed of 1 tank, 1 healer and 4 dps. The 6 man group will get 100% more exp and share it over only 50% more people. ie approx 25% more exp over time.So how do we avoid the 5th wheel syndrome many tanks seem to be feeling right now? Are sony hoping they quit the game until balance is restored?<p>Message Edited by MrDizzi on <span class=date_text>11-29-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:50 AM</span>

[FrostDragon]

<P>I believe so.    IN EQ1 no one looked at the warrior class until SOE noticed that everyone was avoiding PURE melee classes.   THEN Mnk got some improvements, Rogues got some DPS increases, and Warriors got a random regen/str buff when they dropped below a certain percent life.     The class trait of warriors was Duel wield plate class with Massive HP.</P> <P>In eq2 we will find the same.    Next year at this time SOE wil get Warriors back some HP make taunts less resisted and make tower shield worth using again.   but the number of Guardians was too high a percentage of the server populations before CU13.    Until enough of us quit  or delete our guardians they will not look at us.   MG and SOE are watching these numbers you can Figure and have the fix on a disc somewhere waiting.    They most likely have all the Bones they are going to throw to the customers already bagged and waiting.     When all of us that protest are gone then they will start posting again and act like none of this happened.</P> <P>MG is no Absor.    I have seen SOE dance this dance before.    like most companies they are scared of Honesty.     Yes my guardian has gone pure artisan now and only lvls on collection quest hand me downs.      </P> <p>Message Edited by FrostDragon on <span class=date_text>11-29-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:59 PM</span>

[kenji]

<P>4 tanks becomes 6 tanks is a big hit?</P> <P>before LU13, there is 2 Main Healer, Templar / Warden, after LU13, there is now 6 <STRIKE>Main</STRIKE> Healer.</P>

[MrDiz]

<blockquote><hr>kenjiso wrote:<P>4 tanks becomes 6 tanks is a big hit?</P> <P>before LU13, there is 2 Main Healer, Templar / Warden, after LU13, there is now 6 <STRIKE>Main</STRIKE> Healer.</P> <hr></blockquote>But 6 healers out of 24 characters is actually the perfect mix for groups (ie. 1.5 healers per group of 6). 3 healers is way too much usually, and none is way to little normally. The best groups have either 1 or 2 as a general rule. So the current balance for healers is fine.But for tanks basically in a group of 6 you need just one. If fighters are ALL nothing but tanks, then if you took an even spead of 24 people (4 groups) you have 6 tanks. Thats 1.5 tanks per group. At raid level its even worse with usually 2 out of 24 max needing to tank. So fighters really need another role in raids : Which pre lu13 they did with bralwers, zerks and sks being dps and pallys being dps plus resser.For 6 man group and with making all 6 fighters tanks and nothing but tanks you have essentially make 2 out of 6 people redundant. For 4 groups we need 4 tanks. Not 6. Those 4 groups can each take one or 2 healers, and 3 each of the dps (6 mages, 6 scouts). For raids involving 1 of each 24 classes you have 1 fighter tanking, 6 healer, 12 dps and you have 5 fighters left over. They used to be dps. And thats just it now: What we lack now are DPS. Our guild are noticing this and have started encouraging dps alts (notice im working my swashbuckler again).We now have 2 guardians, 1 paladin and one SK as tanks at lvl 60. And its too many. All our bezerkers have left the guild or quit the game. Our bruisers seem despondant about leveling and our monk quit. One guardian never plays when anyone else is on and the other is my alt so isnt too worried about being sidelined.There are simply too many tanks and not enough DPS now.

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> MrDizzi wrote:<BR><BR>So fighters really need another role in raids : Which pre lu13 they did with bralwers, zerks and sks being dps and pallys being dps plus resser.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Which not only not intended, wasn't fair.  Scouts were suffering because fighters could perform their role and tank.  A lot of the changes made were also made to reinforce the scout's role in groups/raids.</P> <P>Just as quickly as Tuna called for nerfs when scouts could tank better than him, scouts wanted fighter DPS nerfed.<BR></P>

[SeattleSeven]

I routinely parse a fighter class (bruiser) way above most scouts in DPS.<div></div>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> SeattleSeven wrote:<BR>I routinely parse a fighter class (bruiser) way above most scouts in DPS.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>I'm sorry you don't play with rangers, brigands, swashbuckers or assassins.<BR>

[SeattleSeven]

The bruiser owns the assassin and troubador I routinely play with.  All very skilled players in comparable gear.<div></div>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> SeattleSeven wrote:<BR>The bruiser owns the assassin and troubador I routinely play with.  All very skilled players in comparable gear.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Assassin's need help, but I'd still have to see it over consistent and varying fights.</P> <P>Troubadors are about even keel with bruisers via direct damage, although it is possible for brawlers to outdamage bards.  If you consider indirect and group damage, then the bard wins hands down everytime.  Especially if its a troub in a group of casters. </P> <P>I imagine that you didn't/don't take that into consideration though, since most people who parse don't.</P> <P>Precision of the Maestro ftw!~<BR></P>

[SeattleSeven]

So this is functioning as intended then?  A fighter with equal tanking abilities, the dps of a scout, and utility unmatched by any other fighter?  This is balanced?<div></div>

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> SeattleSeven wrote:<BR>So this is functioning as intended then?  A fighter with equal tanking abilities, the dps of a scout, and utility unmatched by any other fighter?  This is balanced?<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>/sigh</P> <P>For one, brawlers do not have "utility unmatched by any fighter".</P> <P>For two, the dps alignment has always listed bards/brawlers about median level.  As I said this is because bards enhance group damage by so much.  As for out dps'ing scouts, we don't.  We don't outdps rangers, swashs, brigands at all, and perhaps assassins sometimes because they are a bit weak.</P> <P>For three, although tanking abilities are roughly equal, they still aren't totally equal.  They are good enough tthough.</P> <P>I'm pretty sure, aside from some small tweaks to other fighter classes' dps and utility, that yes its functioning as intended.<BR></P> <p>Message Edited by Gaige on <span class=date_text>11-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:11 AM</span>

[SeattleSeven]

/sighYou're so biased <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>

[blueduckie]

Assassins are not weak. One in my guild parses as high as rangers now sometimes higher. He is putting out 600-950 dps on raids. Rangers are normally 600-800 for us. Not to mention he adds apply poison to someone boosting dps. However Gaige is right that bruisers arnt out parsing good scouts.  If a troubdor puts up skills to solely max his dps he will own a bruiser in dps in most situations. Troubador needs about 350str 350int to own. If can get both to 440 a troubador can do 600-700 dps if upgraded skills. Only time Bruiser should out parse dirge or troub is when they are sacrifcing dps songs for group needed songs or focusing mainly on keeping debuffs up because they are large power sinks to keep up while using other skills. I play a troubador and when going full self dps mode I have parsed those numbers between 600-700. My guardian parses are normally only 25-50 less than bruiser depending on fight. However it is a little cheating as i normally have 30% dps buff( auto attack dmg boost only) from inq and they dont because our bruisers can peel mobs where none of our guardians have ever been able to peel by dps.

[EvilIguana9]

We can assume that the ability to take hits still has some utility even when a character isn't the main tank, because it provides insurance in the case of disaster.  What needs to happen is for that and other utility when not tanking to add up enough that a second fighter is usually a good choice and not just because there wasn't anyone better.  We need to look at utility in a particular role rather than overall.  It wouldn't be unbalanced for a fighter to tank twice as well as a scout and do 75% as much damage (when offensive).  The reason is that these things tend not to stack.  Even if the scout only does a small amount more damage they will be desirable since there is a very hard limit to how much meat shield you really need.  I think all plate fighters need to move up a bit in dps, paladins perhaps less so than guards, for example, since we already get some nice utility from our spells.  <div></div>

[MrDiz]

<blockquote><hr>Gaige wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> MrDizzi wrote:So fighters really need another role in raids : Which pre lu13 they did with bralwers, zerks and sks being dps and pallys being dps plus resser. <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Which not only not intended, wasn't fair.  Scouts were suffering because fighters could perform their role and tank.  A lot of the changes made were also made to reinforce the scout's role in groups/raids.</P> <P>Just as quickly as Tuna called for nerfs when scouts could tank better than him, scouts wanted fighter DPS nerfed.</P> <hr></blockquote>True, and immaterial. The facts on the ground are that we now have too many tanks even for day to day grouping. We certainly have too many for raiding. The simple archetype system that you and sony seem to favour has 6 tanks, 6 healers and 12 dps. Thats 6 groups of 4 people. Unfortuantely thats no where near as effective as a group of 6, so in fact 4 groups is more likely. But 2 of those groups will have 2 tanks ...... or an empty slot and 2 tanks will be lfg.In a game where groups are designed to be 6, there should be 1 in 6 tanks, or 4 in 24. There should be slightly more healers. And a lot more dps. The pre lu13 spread was 4/6/14. And whilst it was unfair that fighters could dps like an assassin and tank better, and therefore unbalanced classwise, it was very balanced from a "group of 6" perspective. Now we have 6/6/12.We have too many tanks and not enough healers and no where enough DPS.One further thing is raids need only 1 tank, and so the other 5 fighters need another role in those cicumstances too. otherwise a 4 group raid has 6 tanks .... which is 5 they dont need. Pre lu13 all fighters except guard had a role outside of main tank, usually dps, giving a spread of 1/6/17 ... which worked. Even if indivudually certain fighters were unhappy at not tanking, the raids had a role for them and so they could be on every raid. Now the spread for a raid is 6/6/12. basically 6 tanks are 5 too many so you may aswell have 1/6/12 and ditch 5 tanks. Each fighter may now be the MT but he is now only welcome on 1 in 6 raids.Realisitically now a guild needs maybe 2 fighters and the rest should be healers/dps. Fighters need to hang on to their guild even if unhappy with them as frankly getting into another guild as a fighter will now be very hard. there are just way too many of them, and they cant do anything for the guild.<p>Message Edited by MrDizzi on <span class=date_text>12-01-2005</span> <span class=time_text>02:03 AM</span>

[Terron]

<div></div><span><blockquote><hr>MrDizzi wrote:<blockquote><hr></blockquote>One further thing is raids need only 1 tank,<hr></blockquote><div align="left">This is something that should be addressed.It would be good if SOE were to make some opponents behave differently, so the same tactics did not work all the time.Perhaps some boss types could claim the apparently most dangerous PC (the tank) for themselves to fight alone, requiring someone else to tank the rest.Even if only one such appeared in a raid area it would make the inclusion of a backup tank desirable.</div><blockquote><div align="left"></div></blockquote></span><div></div><p>Message Edited by pjackson on <span class="date_text">12-01-2005</span><span class="time_text">03:01 AM</span></p><p>Message Edited by pjackson on <span class=date_text>12-01-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:02 AM</span>

[MrDiz]

<blockquote><hr>pjackson wrote:<div></div><span><blockquote><hr>MrDizzi wrote:<blockquote><hr></blockquote>One further thing is raids need only 1 tank,<hr></blockquote><div align="left">This is something that should be addressed.It would be good if SOE were to make some opponents behave differently, so the same tactics did not work all the time.Perhaps some boss types could claim the apparently most dangerous PC (the tank) for themselves to fight alone, requiring someone else to tank the rest.Even if only one such appeared in a raid area it would make the inclusion of a backup tank desirable.</div><blockquote><div align="left"></div></blockquote></span><div></div><p>Message Edited by pjackson on <span class="date_text">12-01-2005</span><span class="time_text">03:01 AM</span></p><p>Message Edited by pjackson on <span class=date_text>12-01-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:02 AM</span><hr></blockquote>Great idea, but unfortunately not really likely until EQ3. To keep fighters as nothing else as tanks sonyn eed to alter the entire encounter system so as to require 1.5 tanks per group. Basically this would mean half the groups would have 1 tank, the other half 2 tanks (similar to the usual healer distribution) AND for there to be some effective advantage to having a second tank in the group.For raids they would need to make the encounter require 6 tanks.Whether you agreed with fighters having a role as DPS/ressers etc or not, or believe all fighters should be tanks and nothing else, one thing you have to acknowledge is if you took 1 of each 24 classes and put them in a raid they would all have some role to play. Even if it wasnt the role they imagined for themselves, they had one. This is no longer true. It doesnt matter which tank you pick, so just [Removed for Content] one tank for raids. Tell the rest to spend the next 6 months rerolling as dps.

[Gaige]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> pjackson wrote:<BR> <SPAN><BR> <DIV align=left>This is something that should be addressed.</SPAN></DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>I agree, but its better now than it was preLU13.  We always use at least 2 guardians now, if not 3.  We do a lot of offtanking and peeling.<BR>

[fre'do]

<DIV>A Tank Surplus? u can not have enough tanks in agroup. if the main tanks starts going down u have a good backup...or a second tank can make sure the mage or cleric not get adds or attacked with there taunts.  the other day i was in a group with 3 crusaders, a warrior, shaman and a cleric...now that was fun..me pulling then the warrior took over the agro and we went to work...not once the nasties hit either healer...yes we did not have dps but most of us went into dps mode and did our jobs.  no one died or even went down...i dont see that much at lower lvls.  the best thing was watchin the three crusaders do nothing the same...for me i can see no problem having 2 people with alots of hitpoints in a group for extra protect to the weak hitpoint mages.</DIV> <DIV> for a point i play a brigand and i can out produce most figthers in dps without trying much...u actually have to work to keep agro and i have to work to keep agro off of me..a good thief u will never notice in a group...they will keep monster stuned and lowered defense...make sure everyone else does more damage without them noticing it. </DIV>

[MrDiz]

<blockquote><hr>fre'do wrote: <DIV>A Tank Surplus? u can not have enough tanks in agroup. if the main tanks starts going down u have a good backup...or a second tank can make sure the mage or cleric not get adds or attacked with there taunts.  the other day i was in a group with 3 crusaders, a warrior, shaman and a cleric...now that was fun..me pulling then the warrior took over the agro and we went to work...not once the nasties hit either healer...yes we did not have dps but most of us went into dps mode and did our jobs.  no one died or even went down...i dont see that much at lower lvls.  the best thing was watchin the three crusaders do nothing the same...for me i can see no problem having 2 people with alots of hitpoints in a group for extra protect to the weak hitpoint mages.</DIV> <DIV> for a point i play a brigand and i can out produce most figthers in dps without trying much...u actually have to work to keep agro and i have to work to keep agro off of me..a good thief u will never notice in a group...they will keep monster stuned and lowered defense...make sure everyone else does more damage without them noticing it. </DIV><hr></blockquote>Wish it were so on my server, but noone likes to waste a slot on a fighter if they dont have to. And as for multi tanking raids, we have tried that and the best we have done is 2 tanking. Anything more than 2 tanking is too many for the healers.Thats still 2 / 24 are tanking, but 6 / 24 are tanks. Thats 4 useless people.

[Niarius]

<DIV>Well, it seems to me that the only way to balance it out again is to make having a second tank in a group viable.  I think they tried this with the abilities like assuage, vigilance, etc...  However, ~8% extra avoidance for plate tanks (~4% for brawlers) still doesn't justify giving up a spot for a DPS.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In my opinion, what needs to be done is to introduce an ability for all fighters which allows them to funnel taunts through another character.  Similar to the Assassin's Friendly Shadows line of skills, except it would not reduce hate, and only work for taunt-style abilities.  It would be just a bit unbalanced if it transfered threat from both damage and taunts.  I'm not sure exactly how feasable this is for real-game though, seems good in my own mind.:smileyvery-happy:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This way, groups would seek out having second tanks, instead of ignoring them unless they had a throwaway spot.  It would also allow DPS to let loose a little bit more, since the MT is gaining near double the hate from the ST.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The only concern I have is that it might alienate healers in some instances.  Suppose you have a pally MT, two other STs, and three Wizards.  The three fighters would gain enough hate to allow the wizzies to be able to nuke their hardest, finishing the fight before the pally runs out of power for its own heals.  A solution to this is make the ability similar to Vigilance, etc by allowing a player to have only one character target them with this ability.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Overall, this wouldn't fix the problem with our soloing, or with our dps, but it would give Guards (and all fighter classes) a place in a group which already has a MT.</DIV>

[JeffBship]

<P>If you look at most of the discusion in this thread on ratios, it assumes that there is an exactly even mix of every class.  If everyone was assigned a class at random during character creation that might happen, but that's not the way it is.  We all know that there are far fewer of some classes (assasin, necro, illusionist) and far more of other classes (wizard)</P> <P>Personally, I think there are far more Guardians and Pallies out there than most other fighter classes.  But not that many people really care anymore.  Watch /ooc and you will see people asking for a tank to help them finish a quest, you never see them ask for a Guardian specifically.  And personally, that's completely fine for me.</P> <P>I play a Guardian.  But I don't want to be picked for anything based just on my class.  I would much rather be remembered for my skill at my role and invited to a group for that reason.  And even in the 50-60 range, there are a lot of people who aren't great players...plenty of room for you to gain a reputation as a skilled player and start getting lots of invites.  </P> <P> </P> <P>Bottom line:  if you expect to be invited to something based solely on your class/level, then you probably will end up dissapointed and lfg for a long time.  If you build a reputation as a skilled player, reliable friend, honest and trustworthy, and fun to be around....then you'll get invites all the time regardless of your class.  Sort of like real life <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <p>Message Edited by JeffBship on <span class=date_text>12-07-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:11 AM</span>

[MrDiz]

<blockquote><hr>JeffBship wrote: Watch /ooc and you will see people asking for a tank to help them finish a quest, you never see them ask for a Guardian specifically.</blockquote>I have never ever in all my eq2 playing ever ever seen anyone in OOC say "Exp/Quest group looking for a guardian!" <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> But then ive never seen an ogre swashbuckler either and for all I know there may be one out there.