Changes to be made in Brawler Mit and Deflection

[Morrolan V]

<DIV>Lockeye wrote:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <DIV>In an upcoming hotfix, the following changes are made:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>-The armor mitigation percentage of monk and bruiser defensive stances will increase from 15% to 20%. With the recent combat changes, brawlers had an inferior defensive stance because of the change from raw mitigation increase to the new armor mitigation percentage increase. Plate fighters received much more benefit out of their defensive stance because 15% of their already higher plate mitigation meant much more benefit than a brawler could obtain through increasing their leather by 15%. Although a 20% increase doesn't completely close the gap, it is meant to bring their tanking abilities through their defensive stances much closer. Rogue defensive stances went from 15% to 18% to account for their differences in mitigation amounts for chain.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>-Monk and Bruiser defensive stances also have a minimum deflection chance of 7.5% at Apprentice III. This uncontested portion of deflection will not add to their deflection chance if it is already higher than the minimum. It is meant to give brawlers an uncontested avoidance type similar to what shields can offer. At Master I quality, it can reach 12%, which is the equivalent of a handcrafted tower shield or fabled roundshield.</DIV><A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=117944#M117944" target=_blank></A></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=117944#M117944" target=_blank>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=117944#M117944</A></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>-----------------------------------------------</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>These are great changes!  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Still, they pretty clearly still want us to be behind plate tanks in our ability to stand up to raid mobs.  (Less mit, less <EM>effective</EM> avoidance.)  I would be OK with that if it meant that we had corresponding advantages over the plate tanks in DPS.  Pre-patch this was not the case.  Zerkers would consistently beat brawler DPS and even guardians would, if placed in a DPS group and geared for DPS, match brawler DPS.  I haven't had the opportunity to do much comparative parsing since the patch -- anyone see whether those imbalances have been rebalanced?</DIV>

[psubull]

<div><blockquote><hr>Morrolan V wrote:<div>Lockeye wrote:</div> <div> </div> <div> <div>In an upcoming hotfix, the following changes are made:</div> <div> </div> <div>-The armor mitigation percentage of monk and bruiser defensive stances will increase from 15% to 20%. With the recent combat changes, brawlers had an inferior defensive stance because of the change from raw mitigation increase to the new armor mitigation percentage increase. Plate fighters received much more benefit out of their defensive stance because 15% of their already higher plate mitigation meant much more benefit than a brawler could obtain through increasing their leather by 15%. Although a 20% increase doesn't completely close the gap, it is meant to bring their tanking abilities through their defensive stances much closer. Rogue defensive stances went from 15% to 18% to account for their differences in mitigation amounts for chain.</div> <div> </div> <div>-Monk and Bruiser defensive stances also have a minimum deflection chance of 7.5% at Apprentice III. <b>This uncontested portion of deflection will not add to their deflection chance if it is already higher than the minimum</b>. It is meant to give brawlers an uncontested avoidance type similar to what shields can offer. At Master I quality, it can reach 12%, which is the equivalent of a handcrafted tower shield or fabled roundshield.</div><a href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=117944#M117944" target="_blank"></a></div> <div> </div> <div><a href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=117944#M117944" target="_blank">http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=117944#M117944</a></div> <div> </div> <div>-----------------------------------------------</div> <div> </div> <div>These are great changes!  </div> <div> </div> <div>Still, they pretty clearly still want us to be behind plate tanks in our ability to stand up to raid mobs.  (Less mit, less <em>effective</em> avoidance.)  I would be OK with that if it meant that we had corresponding advantages over the plate tanks in DPS.  Pre-patch this was not the case.  Zerkers would consistently beat brawler DPS and even guardians would, if placed in a DPS group and geared for DPS, match brawler DPS.  I haven't had the opportunity to do much comparative parsing since the patch -- anyone see whether those imbalances have been rebalanced?</div><hr></blockquote>What does what I have highlighted mean?  I'd like clarification on that part.Also, I'd like them to alter the way in which we do DPS as weel, Morrolan.  At the moment, If we aren't in a group with at least 80 DPS mod, we're going to be beat out by SKs, Berserkers (2h, DW or buckler) or Guardians (2h or buckler).  We're also beaten by bruisers, but that's just fair as bruisers have always been intended to be more DPS than us.  All in all, even with these changes we're still tied for the worst tank and the second-to-last in the DPS hierarchy in the fighter tree.</div>

[Morrolan V]

<DIV>I interpret the highlighted portion to mean this:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If you go into defensive stance at App III, you get 7.5% uncontested deflection, minimum.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So, if your deflection normally is less than 7.5%, it will go to 7.5% in defensive stance.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If, however, your deflection normally was 20%, you will not see an increase in absolute deflection from entering defensive stance.  Instead, you will now have 7.5% uncontested deflection and 12.5% that is adjusted with respect to the MoB's offensive skill.</DIV>

[psubull]

Ah, thanks for the clarification.  I'd rather see us get an uncontested portion equal to that of a fabled towershield at M1, not roundshield as that just makes us equal to shield-wearing brigands/swashes with less mitigation.  Oh well, can't win em all.<div></div>

[JudyJudy]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> psubullet wrote:<BR>Ah, thanks for the clarification. <FONT color=#ffff00> <STRONG>I'd rather see us get an uncontested portion equal to that of a fabled towershield at M1</STRONG></FONT>, not roundshield as that just makes us equal to shield-wearing brigands/swashes with less mitigation.  Oh well, can't win em all.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><EM>/agree</EM></P> <P><EM>These changes do sound good.  I'm going to reserve my judgement until I see the mechanics in action.  This however, is a great step in that they, at the very least, knew that it was broken.</EM><BR></P><p>Message Edited by JudyJudy on <span class=date_text>11-20-2006</span> <span class=time_text>12:24 PM</span>

[Sslarrga]

<P>It's still greatly inferior to shield avoidance.</P> <P>With a shield you still have uncontested block avoidance in offensive or no stance.</P> <P>With deflection, you only get uncontested deflection avoidance in defensive stance.</P> <P>Since we have no reactive aggro to fall back on, we'll lose aggro while in defensive stance in a high dps group or raid.</P> <P>However, if we don't get uncontested deflection while in balanced stance, that isn't really a great option either.</P> <P>Also, Fabled Tower Shields will still have more uncontested avoidance than Fabled Master 1 deflection.</P> <P>It helps close the gap, but still falls short.</P> <P>Also there is no mention if the mitigation from balanced stance will receive a similar boost.</P> <P>Regards,</P> <P>Croaker</P>

[Cyngii]

I agree that it's a step in the right direction, but seeing the only way we can control uncontested avoidance is through our defensive stance and with that at master 1 being equivilent to a handcrafted tower shield is a joke.  Seeing as we rely on avoidance to tank, why is it that plate tanks get more uncontested avoidance than avoidance tanks???  It's almost as if they forget how many players have been level 70 for 8-9 months.  The average plate tank that is worth anything has at least a legendary tower sheild.... shouldn't we at least get that much uncontested avoidance? 

[Tilane]

<P>quite a useless change , i never ever use defensive unless i am solo and almost dead </P> <P>if i use it in a group , i wont be able to keep agro </P> <P>what we need is just uncontested deflection in any stance and give us an equipment slot where we can upgrade that invissible round shield , with fabled counterparts </P>

[Illustrious]

<P>Its a (very small) step in the right direction, but as has been said, considering plate tanks get 20-30% uncontested block with a decent shield and some AA in any stance then what we got is a very very small bone to try keep us quiet.</P> <P> </P> <P>On a top Epic for example any plate tank will probably still be having more effective avoidance than us, but of course we make up for the lack of avoidance in our huge miti dont we!!!</P> <P> </P> <P>Just get rid of the "to hit" bonuses as promised pre EoF and balance the difficulty of encounters by giving mobs higher attack speeds or something to keep their dps us even when missing a decent proportion of attacks. We will still not be anywhere near uber raid tanks due to poor grp aggro tools and the fact that avoidance is inherantly worse than mitigation due to damage spikes after a run of bad rolls. That would at least seem fair though as i dont wanna be the best, just wanna have a chance.</P>

[Bladewind]

<P>While this is good news, I still don't understand why avoidance tanks are being forced into a position where they will have both the <STRONG>worst avoidance and mitigation</STRONG> vs raid mobs...</P> <P>My deflection with adept 3 defensive stance is approximately 35%.  From what is posted, It would appear that approx 10% of that is gauranteed - less than a third.  Yet a plate tank holding a fabled/legendary tower shield gets 20%+ gauranteed in any stance (along with 50% more mitigation)... Also, a rogue with a fabled round shield gets the same avoidance gauranteed along with ~20% higher mitigation.</P> <P>Why are avoidance tanks getting the short end of the stick both ways?  Why are we still in a postion where a dps class (rogue) has equal avoidance and more mitigation vs raid mobs?  Why are plate tanks getting a significant avoidance advantage over avoidance tanks vs raid mobs?  We also have by far the worst multitarget aggro generation.</P> <P>Please make *most or all* of deflection ignore mob offense skills.  Mitigation tanks have a good 40-50% more mit than we do in a raid situation, we should have a corresponding advantage in avoidance.  The perception that brawlers can do wildly more dps is flawed.  Berzerkes can match us easily, and guardians can as well with AA tweaks.</P> <P>Some sort of passive hate gen would be good as well.  Something that has a % chance to proc off of deflection only would help.</P> <P>I'm tired of being a tank whose tanking abilities are hamstrung <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P>

[Morrolan V]

<DIV> <DIV>Lockeye's latest:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>-------------------</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The hotfix also included the combination stance receiving half benefit, <STRONG><EM><FONT color=#ff0000>and melee skill decreases on epic populations across many raid zones</FONT></EM></STRONG>. The combined changes should have a noticeable impact on avoidance tanking that addresses most of the concerns brought up here already.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>--------------------</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Seems to me the skill decreases are as or more importantant than the deflection change.  We DO have higher contested avoidance than other tanks.  If that actually counts for something in raids, it will make a major difference.</DIV></DIV>

[Bladewind]

I agree.   The real proof is in the quantity, though.  Unfortunately, we know neither how great the bonuses are or the % reduction the saw.

[Untalent]

Well for one... Master Defensive Stance on my server is going to be rediculously hard to get, I don't even know many with it.2) 12% is pretty [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] low when we are PURE avoidance tanks. And there is no way to increase this higher, how weak.3) Why not just give us another 5% to this deflection check rather than the mit?4) Is this change not effecting our spider stance at all?All in all it seems like a step in the right direct. Yet, I don't see the 12% making us such great tanks (most of us will only have adept III anyways). Would it really be so game breaking to give us the 25% base deflection as the uncontested ammount? I really hope they don't just do this then totally move on to whatever else without continuing to look at the brawler avoidance problems.<div></div>

[psubull]

I don't know if it's because only brawlers complain about mitigation vs. avoidance, but it doesn't seem like anybody really wants us to play the tank role.  Unfortunately, I think that's our call as monks and bruisers.  Rather than sit here and say "Devs, fix it," I'm going to list a suggestion or three along with why. Warriors and crusaders tank the same way.  Mitigation.  We all know this.  When they're tanking against any MOB, they know how they stand just by reading their mitigation score.  That's how it should be.  Steady, soft damage is what they receive and it is rather easy to heal.  Occasionally, a big spike, either from an AE, DD or a few healless seconds causes a struggle to heal them up.  This is true for all tanking situations -- group or epic. Brawlers have to depend on a weakly built avoidance system that scales against the attack of the opponent.  Ideally, a monk or bruiser should tank fine for a while, avoiding most hits but taking much greater damage than plate tanks.  Sadly, only half of this is true as content progresses.  Higher level content makes tanking as a brawler more frustrating and debt-building.  I am in no way saying brawlers can't tank, I'm saying that whatever brawlers tank, other fighters can tank better. The system is busted because of avoidance.  Ever since EQ2 has been out, there has been a huge problem with how to work it into the equation.  29 live updates later, it is working, but for the wrong classes.  The biggest offender would have to be the original T5 raid content, back when a guardian could reach nearly 80% mit and avoidance solo, making epics trivial.  To counteract this, epics were given a +attack hit bonus, meaning that they would bypass avoidance.  As the game has progressed, it has changed dozens of times to the system currently in place today.  MOBs still have the +attack bonus, plate wearers have the largest avoidance numbers that work against epics, and brawlers are now paper towels to soak up the blood left by dead comrades. How can the system be changed to work?  Well, simple.  Redo it.  Redo shields.  Redo +attack.  Redo avoidance.  The gap in tanking abilities among fighters is wider than the grand canyon.- Tone down avoidance on ALL SHIELDS.  Make them increase both mitigation moreso and avoidance slightly.- Decrease the overall avoidance of plate tanks.- Remove the +attack modifier on epics / high end heroics.- Change brawler avoidance.  Give us a block component.  Brawler block should become deflection, deflection should be changed to a hit that is mitigated 75% instead of a 100% avoided attack.  After all, in order to deflect, one must be hit.Why does anything I've suggested make sense?  Well, first off, blocking with a shield can be done as a way either to absorb a blow or to push aside a blow.  Doing this will help a platewearer's primary tanking component, mitigation.  But a reduced avoidance level?  Sounds like a nerf, right?  Wrong.  Look at the second step, removing +attack modifiers.  This will mean that the actual avoidance numbers listed in the persona window would, /gasp, be the ACTUAL AVOIDANCE NUMBERS!!!  Meaning while their avoidance may have been lowered, it actually is functioning at a higher level than previously listed.  The brawlers would see an actual avoidance increase (when I say that I mean that avoidance will work for once.  Even against epics.).  The overall avoidance would stay about the same and the numbers would be altered a bit to show the existence of a block component.Things should be adjusted so that for any given encounter, a brawler should take the same average damage as a plate wearer, just in spike damage as opposed to steady damage.  Still a dice roll on say, epics, but it SHOULD be possible.<div></div>

[Untalent]

<div><blockquote><hr>psubullet wrote:I don't know if it's because only brawlers complain about mitigation vs. avoidance, but it doesn't seem like anybody really wants us to play the tank role.  Unfortunately, I think that's our call as monks and bruisers.  Rather than sit here and say "Devs, fix it," I'm going to list a suggestion or three along with why. Warriors and crusaders tank the same way.  Mitigation.  We all know this.  When they're tanking against any MOB, they know how they stand just by reading their mitigation score.  That's how it should be.  Steady, soft damage is what they receive and it is rather easy to heal.  Occasionally, a big spike, either from an AE, DD or a few healless seconds causes a struggle to heal them up.  This is true for all tanking situations -- group or epic. Brawlers have to depend on a weakly built avoidance system that scales against the attack of the opponent.  Ideally, a monk or bruiser should tank fine for a while, avoiding most hits but taking much greater damage than plate tanks.  Sadly, only half of this is true as content progresses.  Higher level content makes tanking as a brawler more frustrating and debt-building.  I am in no way saying brawlers can't tank, I'm saying that whatever brawlers tank, other fighters can tank better. The system is busted because of avoidance.  Ever since EQ2 has been out, there has been a huge problem with how to work it into the equation.  29 live updates later, it is working, but for the wrong classes.  The biggest offender would have to be the original T5 raid content, back when a guardian could reach nearly 80% mit and avoidance solo, making epics trivial.  To counteract this, epics were given a +attack hit bonus, meaning that they would bypass avoidance.  As the game has progressed, it has changed dozens of times to the system currently in place today.  MOBs still have the +attack bonus, plate wearers have the largest avoidance numbers that work against epics, and brawlers are now paper towels to soak up the blood left by dead comrades. How can the system be changed to work?  Well, simple.  Redo it.  Redo shields.  Redo +attack.  Redo avoidance.  The gap in tanking abilities among fighters is wider than the grand canyon.<b>- Tone down avoidance on ALL SHIELDS.  Make them increase both mitigation moreso and avoidance slightly.- Decrease the overall avoidance of plate tanks.- Remove the +attack modifier on epics / high end heroics.</b>- Change brawler avoidance.  Give us a block component.  Brawler block should become deflection, deflection should be changed to a hit that is mitigated 75% instead of a 100% avoided attack.  After all, in order to deflect, one must be hit.Why does anything I've suggested make sense?  Well, first off, blocking with a shield can be done as a way either to absorb a blow or to push aside a blow.  Doing this will help a platewearer's primary tanking component, mitigation.  But a reduced avoidance level?  Sounds like a nerf, right?  Wrong.  Look at the second step, removing +attack modifiers.  This will mean that the actual avoidance numbers listed in the persona window would, /gasp, be the ACTUAL AVOIDANCE NUMBERS!!!  Meaning while their avoidance may have been lowered, it actually is functioning at a higher level than previously listed.  The brawlers would see an actual avoidance increase (when I say that I mean that avoidance will work for once.  Even against epics.).  The overall avoidance would stay about the same and the numbers would be altered a bit to show the existence of a block component.Things should be adjusted so that for any given encounter, a brawler should take the same average damage as a plate wearer, just in spike damage as opposed to steady damage.  Still a dice roll on say, epics, but it SHOULD be possible.<div></div><hr></blockquote>Love what you said which I bolded. The other tanks should not avoid like us... it is absolutely absurd for them to be doing this. Our avoidance is our mitigation when comparing to the plate tanks... make it so devs.</div>

[Quind]

Not a bad start.  Not bad at all.I had a silly thought earlier, about blocking and monks.  A monk who is well-trained with staves and sticks should, hopefully, be able to counter attacks with them.  Giving monks a chance to block with staves/fighting batons, either innate or through AA, might be a nice addition to avoidance, especially if the numbers were on par with even just roundshields and bucklers of that tier (and uncontested).  It would be a (hopefully) less invasive change than completely redoing evade and combat rules again.<div></div>

[Sslarrga]

<P>Deflection doesn't mean getting hit.</P> <P>Base Defense in EQ basically means you get the hell out of the way of the incoming blow.</P> <P>Deflection means you watch the incoming blow and at the right moment you push/guide the blow away from you.  IE - you take no damage because the blow never hit you.</P> <P>Parry is when you use a weapon to actively counter/block/divert an incoming blow.  Unarmed this would have the potential to do damage to a monk.  I imagine the cost in additional compute cycles to have that additional bit of realism just isn't worth it.</P> <P>Block is when you use a shield to intercept or divert a hit that is about to hit you.</P> <P>IMO - there shouldn't be a mitigation component to any of these.  As the purpose of all of them is to completely avoid the hit.  If there was a component to this.  </P> <P>Block would actually have the most potential to damage you, as you are actually absorbing the force of a blow in your shield arm.</P> <P>Parry would have the next most potential to damage you as you may have to absorb the force of a blow in your weapon arm if you block instead of divert the blow.</P> <P>For gameplay, it's easier to just say they all allow you to avoid damage from an incoming hit.</P> <P>Regards,</P> <P>Croaker, Deaths Door, Everfrost, blah blah blah...</P> <P> </P>

[Gungo]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> psubullet wrote:<BR><FONT color=#ffff00>I don't know if it's because only brawlers complain about mitigation vs. avoidance, but it doesn't seem like anybody really wants us to play the tank role.  Unfortunately, I think that's our call as monks and bruisers.  Rather than sit here and say "Devs, fix it," I'm going to list a suggestion or three along with why.</FONT><BR><BR><BR>Warriors and crusaders tank the same way.  Mitigation.  We all know this.  When they're tanking against any MOB, they know how they stand just by reading their mitigation score.  That's how it should be.  Steady, soft damage is what they receive and it is rather easy to heal.  Occasionally, a big spike, either from an AE, DD or a few healless seconds causes a struggle to heal them up.  This is true for all tanking situations -- group or epic.<BR><BR>Brawlers have to depend on a weakly built avoidance system that scales against the attack of the opponent.  Ideally, a monk or bruiser should tank fine for a while, avoiding most hits but taking much greater damage than plate tanks.  Sadly, only half of this is true as content progresses.  Higher level content makes tanking as a brawler more frustrating and debt-building.  I am in no way saying brawlers can't tank, I'm saying that whatever brawlers tank, other fighters can tank better.<BR><BR><BR>The system is busted because of avoidance.  Ever since EQ2 has been out, there has been a huge problem with how to work it into the equation.  29 live updates later, it is working, but for the wrong classes.  The biggest offender would have to be the original T5 raid content, back when a guardian could reach nearly 80% mit and avoidance solo, making epics trivial.  To counteract this, epics were given a +attack hit bonus, meaning that they would bypass avoidance.  As the game has progressed, it has changed dozens of times to the system currently in place today.  MOBs still have the +attack bonus, plate wearers have the largest avoidance numbers that work against epics, and brawlers are now paper towels to soak up the blood left by dead comrades.<BR><BR><BR>How can the system be changed to work?  Well, simple.  Redo it.  Redo shields.  Redo +attack.  Redo avoidance.  The gap in tanking abilities among fighters is wider than the grand canyon.<BR><BR>- Tone down avoidance on ALL SHIELDS.  Make them increase both mitigation moreso and avoidance slightly.<BR><BR>- Decrease the overall avoidance of plate tanks.<BR><BR>- Remove the +attack modifier on epics / high end heroics.<BR><BR>- Change brawler avoidance.  Give us a block component.  Brawler block should become deflection, deflection should be changed to a hit that is mitigated 75% instead of a 100% avoided attack.  After all, in order to deflect, one must be hit.<BR><BR><BR>Why does anything I've suggested make sense?  Well, first off, blocking with a shield can be done as a way either to absorb a blow or to push aside a blow.  Doing this will help a platewearer's primary tanking component, mitigation.  But a reduced avoidance level?  Sounds like a nerf, right?  Wrong.  Look at the second step, removing +attack modifiers.  This will mean that the actual avoidance numbers listed in the persona window would, /gasp, be the ACTUAL AVOIDANCE NUMBERS!!!  Meaning while their avoidance may have been lowered, it actually is functioning at a higher level than previously listed.  The brawlers would see an actual avoidance increase (when I say that I mean that avoidance will work for once.  Even against epics.).  The overall avoidance would stay about the same and the numbers would be altered a bit to show the existence of a block component.<BR><BR><BR>Things should be adjusted so that for any given encounter, a brawler should take the same average damage as a plate wearer, just in spike damage as opposed to steady damage.  Still a dice roll on say, epics, but it SHOULD be possible.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>The premise of your post is wrong. In the early days pre LU13 of brawlers we sucked as tanks and had great dps. They told us we were always ment to be fighters and should not be out dpsing. Scouts/mages. Rogues/sorcerers/even summoners who once sucked all complaind that brawlers were one of the best dps classes. The developers want us as posted in the dps tree awhile back to be right below rogue dps and effective while not neccesarily preferred  MT's tanks. All this was posted prior by developers. But there is always someone to come by and say how they want the game to be. The problem is not everyone agrees with what THEY want.<BR></P> <P>I agree with yoru recomendations btw. I still see no reason why we can not have our base 25% deflection uncontested. If it is not overpowering for a plate to have 24% block w higher mitigation. There is absolutly no reason how 25% deflection would be overpowered.</P><p>Message Edited by Gungo on <span class=date_text>11-21-2006</span> <span class=time_text>11:50 AM</span>