What is the core fighter paradigm, and why do we see it as changing? [Archive]

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Danelin

02-22-2009, 09:51 PM

So what is the core paradigm of what a 'fighter' class is?Aeralik is of the opinion that all fighters are 'tanks' and that all tanks should be focused on two things: Survival and holding aggro. Aeralik is clearly focused on an EQ1 fighter school of fantasy gaming, and feels this is the 'one right way'With respect, this is a major shift from the core paradigm we have seen in Everquest 2 since pre-launch interviews surfaced.The heavily armored fighter focused on holding the attention of his enemies through 'battlefield psychology' for lack of a better description, is only one facet of the fighter paradigm.I will describe in the following fighter means to me. What I have derived from years of fantasy gaming, reading, and online gaming, as well as how I percieved the world of EQ2 to function prior to Aeralik's changes. I suspect that while details will vary, many other players will recognize what they have seen EQ2 to be here as well, and maybe Aeralik might understand just how badly he is screwing up by re-defining 1/6 of the classes in the game, and reconsider his methodology.A fighter is someone skilled in martial combat. A fighter is someone who prefers to face his foes head-on, and defeat them through superior martial prowess. This does not mean they won't take the occasional kidney shot, groin kick, or other 'cheap shot' maneuver in order to win, as some fighters will do so, but it means they are not focused on stealth in battle or the use of indirect tactics as are typically favored by a rogue. A fighter is someone who will protect allies who are less suited to direct combat on the field of battle. They may do it because protection is their goal, because it serves their purposes to do so, or even as an unwitting side effect of their combat style.<hr />A Guardian is heavily defensive, and they focus on protecting others while serving as the anvil for the hammers in their party to strike against. They take pride in their ability to not only survive horrendous damage, but in protecting their allies in combat. A staunch ally regardless of which of Norraths power centers they serve. (purely defensive focus) <hr />A berserker is a homicidal maniac. He wages war with the pure goal of fueling his own lust for blood and destruction. One could argue that he holds the attention of his enemies mostly by accident, as a slavering, howling, blood-drenched maniac carving his way through your allies with insanity in their eyes is bound to be distracting, even if there is a pasty-faced elf in a dress hurling fireballs at you. (strong offensive focus)<hr />A shadowknight is an evil, manipulative, twisted warrior serving either himself or the gods of darkness. His personal goals are probably related to world conquest, the defiling of virgins, or killing the neighbour's annoying dog. He accomplishes his goals through dabbling in dark sorcery, finding ways to allow it to augment his own battle prowess. Others that he allies with probably find themselves disposable in the long run, but in the short term it serves his purposes to keep them alive, so they can help him accomplish his overall goals. Unleashing his dark powers in combat gives great satisfaction. (strong offensive focus)<hr />A Paladin is a holy knight in the service of the gods of good. They are on a mission to accomplish the goals of their deity in norrath. They prefer to accomplish those deeds through reliance upon the might of good, but they acknowledge that sometimes a deal with the devil is required to further the goals of the greater good, or to defeat an even greater evil. They fight with great martial prowess, further augmented by the favor of the divine. They protect themselves and their allies with the power of righteousness and the healing magics they wield in battle. (mostly defensive focus)<hr />A monk is a warrior who has developed his personal discipline and control to supernatural levels of human ability. He has learned to channel the powers of his own body and spirit's interaction with his surroundings into his attacks and to feel where his opponent's next strike will be before it arrives. He may fight for the tenets of his order, or for his own personal development as a warrior. He sees lack of self-control as weakness, and protects those he fights alongside so that they too might some day become enlightened. He is a master of precision, striking his opponents' weaknesses with blindingly fast attacks, crippling them by turning their bodies' own energies against them, and channeling his own powers into elemental strikes. (strong offensive focus)<hr />A bruiser is everything that a monk holds in greatest contempt. Despite their great mastery of their own bodies, they turn their control into a method of inflicting pain, manipulating others, and achieving selfish goals. They are not quite as spiritually developed as the monk, but due to less time spent in meditation and more time spent beating the stuffing out of each other, they are able to sustain somewhat more damage without falling in combat. They protect their allies only in the interests of pursuing their own goals or injuring their foes that much more quickly. Bruisers enjoy inflicting pain, but their fighting styles aren't quite as effective as the monk, trading hugely powerful strikes for speed, an evasive opponent causes them far more problems.<hr />So if we organize the classes along four general scales of effectiveness from best to worst in four categories, we get something looking like this. Offense / Avoidance / Toughness / Mystical Ability<ol><li>Bruiser Monk Guardian Shadow Knight </li><li>Monk Bruiser Palad in Paladin </li><li>Berserker Guardian Berserker Monk </li><li>Shadow Knight Paladin Shadow Knight Bruiser </li><li>Paladin Shadow Knight Bruiser Berserker </li><li>Guardian Berserker Monk Guardian</li></ol>Offense - Measures the melee effectiveness of the class. This is how good they are at inflicting physical damage through both autocombat and Combat Arts. The higher the character's rank in this column, the more effective they will be at injuring foes that have higher magical resistances than physical ones.Avoidance - How often the class negates a hit through some form of avoidance.Toughness - How well the class soaks damage. This is a combination of mitigation and other damage mitigating abilities like stoneskin, adrenaline, temporary mit buffs, etc.Mystical Ability - This measures how much of the classes effectiveness is drawn from magical means, ignoring avoidance and toughness. The is especially a measure of how effectively the class can hurt creatures with lower magic resistance than physical resistance. Now, I will admit these definitions are not perfect, and the ranks do not quite fall in line with the reality of the game at any given snapshot in time during its existance, but I think as a general idea, these descriptions cover what every class has been, and often what members of those subclasses strive to achieve. Many berserkers long for the level of gear and group makeup to get rid of that pesky shield and tear it up dual-wield (or that two-handers were worth a [Removed for Content] again). Monks and Bruisers did the most damage and suffered the worst survivability in return. Of course the 'mystical ability' of a given subclass will tend to be focused on offense or defense more depending on that subclasses overall focus. (Paladin heals for example)I will definitely say that both RoK and TSO have moved steadily further and further away from these definitions, but I don't think most of us see this as a good thing.No fighter subclass is likely to suddenly 'give up on protecting their allies', regardless of what their motivation for it is, and that is exactly what offensive tanking on test requires us to do. With a long recast to enforce it. It is a blanket 'fix' to fighter DPS that nerfs those who never hit the questionable high end to begin with, that very few ever did. The primary imbalance only exists at the very high end, with lots of TSO AA and gear. Shadowknights are out of line on live due to the TSO AA lines and overzealous buffing with TSO launch, but even their overall gains are not HUGELY out of line. On palace trash our raid's SK MT is in an ideally buffed group and typically hits around 7k. When the equally geared and close in AA DPS toons go all out and don't slack (rare on trash) they are hitting 10k+, sometimes in very UNideal groups. The SK should probably be 1-1.5k lower, and the non-assassin dps classes that are lagging 2k behind the assassin at all times could definitely use a pick-up.Defensive fighters need more aggro. Every fighter needs to be able to hold aggro in both stances and be able to adapt, and brawlers need more dps.What is your fighter?Edit - I borrowed Eidos' table to clarify what my original intention was and swapped the positions of the brawlers on offense. Generally speaking their overall damage output should be very similar, with monks achieving better damage on more evasive mobs due to more frequent attacks. (Something that is quite probably out of balance when top end raiders get their haste and dps capped all the time) Added definitions for the four scales I was rating the fighters on.

Lethe5683

02-22-2009, 10:18 PM

I really like you're definitions of the classes and they seem to be pretty spot on. I think however brawlers would probably have 1 less point of offense and 1 more point of avoidance and also slightly different on other stats...Monk: 5 offense, 7 avoid, 1 toughness, 4 mysticBruiser: 5 offense, 7 avoid, 2 toughness, 3 mysticMonk having good offense due to quick attacks and knowledge of anatomy.Bruiser having good offense due to fierce and powerful attacks.Monk's avoidance more from skill and awareness.Bruiser's avoidance from higher agility.Bruisers being a bit tougher in exchange for monks greater focus.

Danelin

02-22-2009, 10:50 PM

Yeah, the numbers were intended as more of a rating from 1-6 going across the classes than a score relative to actual effectiveness, as in actual mechanics terms some of these scores are going to come out virtually identical.

Lethe5683

02-22-2009, 11:02 PM

<cite>Danelin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, the numbers were intended as more of a rating from 1-6 going across the classes than a score relative to actual effectiveness, as in actual mechanics terms some of these scores are going to come out virtually identical.</blockquote>Oh, I see... the actual ratings make much more sense then.

Mulethree

02-23-2009, 03:33 AM

Part of it is fighter balance - and you have them scored varying from 11 to 16or17. Doesn't seem very balanced on that measure.The berserker is scored the worst, 11. Keep in mind that they aren't always out of their minds but get into that frame of mind for periods during the heat of battle. At other times they would have better avoidance and less offense.They currently focus on the hate aspect. How does a guardian with 1 offense and 1 mystical convince the mob that he is the one it needs to kill first? Avoidance and toughness aren't going to do it. Granted, Its unrealistic that a dumb meatshield is going to outwit a dragon with insults and sneers, but his avoidance and toughness are useless unless he remains its primary target. His 1 offense means he will be left at home unless he can. I guess that would have to somehow be included in a mystical aspect though it defies any normal measure of intelligence or spirituality. One way might be if he prevented its attacks on other people from hitting - then he would clearly need to die first as nobody else can be killed till he is.Originally, any fighter was to be capable of serving as a tank. Avoidance+mitigation = a sustainable level of damage. But over the years they have screwed it up in general with avoidance ranging like 50-75% but mitigation ranging from 30-60% - and then numerous mobs who seem to ignore avoidance and various unresistable effects that ignore any kind of mitigation. I have a monk and a guardian both with 75% avoidance, but have on several mobs failed with the monk because she was only actually avoiding 20% of hits - bring in the guardian and he is somehow avoiding 40% plus mitigating twice as much. Deflection != blocking?Toughness= 1 shouldn't mean you die in one hit - or for a fighter, even in 2 or 3 hits.Offense= 1 shouldn't mean such dismal damage output that solo quest or small groups are intolerable.Avoidance should generally be inverse to toughness as far as mitigation/armor factor into toughness. The case of a zerker may be an exception if you are implying that he is so out of his mind as to not even try to avoid.In general shouldn't there be some tradeoff between offensive focus and defensive? Certainly the guardian has this with low offense but high avoidance and toughness. But your brawler ratings are both highly offensive but also medium in defensiveness with high avoidance but low toughness.

Sythre

02-23-2009, 05:13 AM

Thanks to Danelin, very interesting post. Also the way you categorized and explained your view of the fighter subtypes is a very good approximation to how I see them based on the same years of rpg/mmo play. So good on you man, it is nice to agree with someone for a change <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />. Would be good to have somewhere in the replies approximate the numbers as they should be for the rating to balance things out.The problems I see are in the implementation of the paradigm as you describe it. Basically, the paradigm initiates several questions in my mind.Via this paradigm then the tanks might be relegated to the following?a) guardians and paladins would be your best raid MTs/STs.b) Berserkers and Shadowknights would be your best group tanks.c) Monks and Bruisers would be hands down the best soloers.That seems like the practical side of how it would be implemented. So the big question becomes, how do you even out the abilities of the fighters so that the different groups a,b, and c above can find roles outside of their group? Or do you even try to do that?It seems like you could try to allow 2 of the 3 roles I am mentioning with stances or abilites. For example, a guardian could be a good group tank by upping his offense in some manner. Also, a monk could tank for a group by upping his ability to mitigate. Finally, a berserker would be able to MT a raid by having a way to increase his toughness. However, I don't think it would be possible for all tanks to fill all three roles. Seems like trying to do that would be almost impossible without a ton of imbalances.Then there is, of course, group and raid usefulness. It would be nice if it were possible for there to be more than 4 tanks in a raid and for it to be a valid configuration.

Eugam

02-23-2009, 06:46 AM

<cite>Danelin wrote:</cite><blockquote>So what is the core paradigm of what a 'fighter' class is?Aeralik is of the opinion that all fighters are 'tanks' and that all tanks should be focused on two things: Survival and holding aggro. Aeralik is clearly focused on an EQ1 fighter school of fantasy gaming, and feels this is the 'one right way'What is your fighter?</blockquote>If you look at the WHOLE history of the fighter classes of EQ2 you will recongnize that Arealik is not focusing on EQ1 fighter school. He, or the devs, do focus to bring the fighter back to its original EQ2 role. Fighters began to struggle at KoS raids and where, compared to their traditional EQ2 role, broken since EoF endgame. RoK endgame was just the nail into the traditional EQ2 roles coffin.I am not saying is is good or bad. But the original fighter in EQ2 hadled hate with taunts almost exclusively, where the brawlers where the classes who needed a bit dps in addition to tanks. Still they mainly used taunts in def stance when tanking. I am mentioning this, because the devs do not invent a new fighter future, they rather try to bring the game back to how it was designed.A lot of plates are [Removed for Content] at the moment. But in the grand picture the game cant evolve anymore with the current situation on live. Plate dps has only one real original purpose, and that is to give you some damage to do solo stuff. A 2005 guardian knows what i am talking about. He had as much dps as a 2005 templar.. basically none <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Just as most healers had basically no dps. This was raised for the more solo oriented overland content.Solo dps wise the game is now well developed. Every class is able to solo quests. But the group dynamics lack and require the fighter rework.

Danelin

02-23-2009, 08:12 AM

Launch Guardians held aggro through - not at all. (ok, they had taunts, but they didn't work for crap)Berserkers, Shadowknights, and Monks held it through damage and buffs. (I remember when the berserker group mitigation buff would pull aggro off other group members on the other half of the zone)Now launch is a poor example, since everything was broken at launch, but the simple fact is that the launch CONCEPT had Guardians and Paladins relying more on non-damaging abilities and the more aggressive classes holding through damage more than taunt. Naturally all fighters SHOULD use both.The original EQ2 GUARDIAN held aggro with taunts almost exclusively, and they did a very, VERY poor job of it until they got retuned a bit. The Guardian is not the only warrior class.Why can't the game evolve any further?Keep in mind, I am not in any way opposed to a fighter revamp, I am opposed to the methodology of it. I am doubly opposed to severely crippling the offensive abilities of all fighters across the board in a way that favors the defensive tanks' offense over the offensive tanks offense. (additional spell dmg reduction for SK over Paladin, guardians have weapon skill buff that offsets defensive penalty innately)Of course stances didn't exist at all at launch. Warriors were doing their job one way all the time. It was decided that was too simple and didn't allow for enough variation among the subclasses, leading to LU13 and 19 changes. Now Aeralik is reversing the whole process and dumbing us down to one way tanking again.I didn't even touch on mechanics in the base of my post, and the numbers I listed were simply a ranking of 1-6 on each category for each tank. You will notice that for a given 'ability category' Only one class scores each number. That is not a coincidence. I mentioned in one of my other replies that it might be simply a 'flavor' difference. (Both brawlers are equally evasive, Sk and Zerk should be equally offensive with one favoring magic over mayhem for how they hurt things)I think that as a general guideline, Guardians and Paladins should get 65-70% of their hate from taunt and direct aggro abilities, with the remainder from damage. Shadowknights and berserkers should be closer to a 50/50 split, and Brawlers should be 35/65.Right now on Test it is something like 85/15 for everyone with unequally allocated taunt amounts.Right now on Live it is probably closer to 10/50/40 with 10 being taunts, 50 being the fighter's dps and 40 being transfers or direct hate buffers. I do not disagree that it needs fixing, I just disagree with the degree and scope that Aeralik is using.Frankly, if the existing game 'can't evolve' then they need to hire more creative people, because EQlive was broken WAY worse than eq2 for balance from the word go, and they still manage to keep it going and even introduce new stuff. (Some classes in EQlive pretty much exist to cast buffs on a raid and are zero-role, but EQ2 has suffered from plenty of that, minus the raid utility part. See Pre-TSO SKs or live summoners/rangers for examples.)Plate DPS was not simply 'to let you solo stuff', because at launch the game was not intended to let you solo past the very beginning levels at all. They added all of the solo content later due to popular demand. The higher DPS outputs of the non 'pure tank' fighters has ALWAYS been there. If you think that it wasn't, you have only payed attention to one subclass the whole time.

Gisallo

02-23-2009, 08:34 AM

<cite>Eugam wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Danelin wrote:</cite><blockquote>So what is the core paradigm of what a 'fighter' class is?Aeralik is of the opinion that all fighters are 'tanks' and that all tanks should be focused on two things: Survival and holding aggro. Aeralik is clearly focused on an EQ1 fighter school of fantasy gaming, and feels this is the 'one right way'What is your fighter?</blockquote>If you look at the WHOLE history of the fighter classes of EQ2 you will recongnize that Arealik is not focusing on EQ1 fighter school. He, or the devs, do focus to bring the fighter back to its original EQ2 role. Fighters began to struggle at KoS raids and where, compared to their traditional EQ2 role, broken since EoF endgame. RoK endgame was just the nail into the traditional EQ2 roles coffin.I am not saying is is good or bad. But the original fighter in EQ2 hadled hate with taunts almost exclusively, where the brawlers where the classes who needed a bit dps in addition to tanks. Still they mainly used taunts in def stance when tanking. I am mentioning this, because the devs do not invent a new fighter future, they rather try to bring the game back to how it was designed.A lot of plates are [Removed for Content] at the moment. But in the grand picture the game cant evolve anymore with the current situation on live. Plate dps has only one real original purpose, and that is to give you some damage to do solo stuff. A 2005 guardian knows what i am talking about. He had as much dps as a 2005 templar.. basically none <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> Just as most healers had basically no dps. This was raised for the more solo oriented overland content.Solo dps wise the game is now well developed. Every class is able to solo quests. But the group dynamics lack and require the fighter rework.</blockquote>Umm actually its A LOT more complicated than that. yes guards got a dps boost for soloing BUT all fighters needed a boost to dps for 2 other very important reasons. First in order to keep pace with the exponential advance of dps on raids. Since taunts have linear advancement, tanks had to learn how to dps better in order to maintain aggro, especially those with only 1 snap aggro ability.Second mobs started to be given HUGE amounts of hit points. Amounts that made it so EVERY class had to be concerned about their dps. Bards can't just be buff and debuff bots in end game content. If they are not hitt the parse they are fail. No you can limp by with a bard whose parse is equal to their auto attack BUT you are limping.The current group dynamics do NOT require the rework as posted. If it did I would not have watched Strike get world wide first the other day on the Avatar of Justice the way I did. I was in complete awe as I saw their MT only drop out of the green a handful of times as he kept the Seventh Hammer on him. I think I watched him lose aggro for a split second maybe once, then WHAM it was back.What needed to be reworked was a VERY simple thing. Since it was decided that dps would not be as important to tanking there needed to be a slight tweek to Defensive stance to make it attractive, thats really it. How you would do that with the current dps mechanics is beyond me though because there is NO way without INSANE amounts of hate added to a tank and insane dumps added to the dps that a tank will be able to keep up with a properly buffed, trained and equipped dps force. Even if you do this it only works for this expansion. As soon as they raise the level cap what do you do...simply insanely raise them all again to keep up with the still spiraling dps curve?To top it off you have literally turned the tank into a taunt bot. I have no clue if it will work for raids (the main place the exponential dps climb starts) but I know for a fact a tank created a macro on test that allowed him to simply continuously click one button to hold aggro. Thats it, one button and he can do his job. Can anyone here honestly tell me they want to play a class one that dimensional? That you can hit one button and do what is required of your class? To lsoe the freedom and well...fun that every other class brings to the table? I didn't think so.Under the old system (and a properly tweeked new system) a GOOD tank would still be able to do his job. Some a little easier than others depending on the encounter, but they could still do it. Under the new system, in an instance at least, a complete SCRUB will be able to do the job, and I wonder if in a raid even a good tank would be able to do it, and even if the good tank could, would they want to if the class simply wasn't fun to play because a chimp could do the job with the right macro?This isn't even getting into the issue that all of these zones have been created with the old dps curve in mind, with the old 3 tank system the three tanks would be a fair chunk of the dps which will now be lost and you now somehow need to find that dps elsewhere.When the game first came out raids and instances were dang simple. As these evolved and became more complex so did all of the classes to A) better deal with these complexities and to B) still make them a challenge to play so players would not get bored. This change is not "returning the class to what it was". If you see this as the reason look at your own classes with fear people, because when this game first came out EVERYONE was a one trick pony. Wait until Aeralik comes to "balance" you with despair.But if one class is being made stupid simple and one dimensional now will such a change be able to fit into the complexitities current in this game and who will want to play such a simple class. An analogy would be taking a human living in New York City and devolve him to the intellectual level of a hunter gatherer society over night. How well would he fit in in New York?Also when you talk to people who play this game over WoW there are usually 2 refrains "No 13 year olds" and "because the classes are more challenging and complex to play." While the proposed changes may arguably fail simply on the actual effectiveness margin (I suspect part of the delay is the number crunchers realize their current plan for tank mechanics is unworkable end game raid time) it will certainly kill one of the primary things that keeps most people playing EQ2 the "challenging and complex to play" part.

Elanjar

02-23-2009, 02:17 PM

<cite>Danelin wrote:</cite><blockquote><hr />A Guardian is heavily defensive, and they focus on protecting others while serving as the anvil for the hammers in their party to strike against. They take pride in their ability to not only survive horrendous damage, but in protecting their allies in combat. A staunch ally regardless of which of Norraths power centers they serve. (purely defensive focus)Offense - 1 Avoidance - 4 Toughness - 6 Mystical ability - 1<hr />A berserker is a homicidal maniac. He wages war with the pure goal of fueling his own lust for blood and destruction. One could argue that he holds the attention of his enemies mostly by accident, as a slavering, howling, blood-drenched maniac carving his way through your allies with insanity in their eyes is bound to be distracting, even if there is a pasty-faced elf in a dress hurling fireballs at you. (strong offensive focus)Offense - 4 Avoidance - 1 Toughness - 4 Mystical ability - 2<hr /></blockquote>I'm going to just look at the warriors since I play one. Also that I would like to note, I very much enjoyed this post and find it to be relatively accurate. The only issue I have is that such a rating system should dole an equivalent total number of points to each class.Personal problems I have with this, I think the guardian needs to have much more mystical ability. like at least 3. Now the the guardians mystical ability is not an innate focus like a monk persay, but more of a field combat knowledge. A guardian could almost be considered a general per say and his knowledge of combat strategies allows him to stay at the forefront of an enemies aggression.The zerker on the other hand I feel would have a complete disregard for battle strategy. I feel that since they are crazed that they should actually have an equivalent toughness to a guard (shrugging off attacks like they are nothing) however zerkers should have a mystical score of 1 and a lower avoidance than guards (i think 1 is a bit extreme though). Also guards should have a higher offense. perhaps 2. So for me this would look more likeGuardOffense - 2 Avoidance - 4 Toughness - 6 Mystical ability - 3BerserkerOffense - 5 Avoidance - 2 toughness - 6 Mystical Ability - 2*note each of them has a score of 15based on my system for comparison SK's would also score offense of 5, paladins would score offense of 3 both brawlers would have an offense of 6

Queen Alexandria

02-23-2009, 03:28 PM

I would really like to see a dev post a response like the OP with their own vision of what the system is as a basis of comparison. Descriptions, roles, goals and what they are working on to reach to give us an idea of what is going on. Same format, their goals. Please?

eidos

02-23-2009, 06:29 PM

To help sort out this particular post, since it seems that some folks miss the organization purpose of the numbers presented in the original post, I'm displaying it the way that it was intended:Scale goes from Worst to Best: Offense / Avoidance / Toughness / Mystical Ability<ol><li>Guardian Berserker Monk Guardian</li><li>Paladin Shadow Knight Bruiser Berserker</li><li>Shadow Knight Paladin Shadow Knight Bruiser</li><li>Berserker Guardian Berserker Monk</li><li>Bruiser Bruiser Paladin Paladin</li><li>Monk Monk Guardian Shadow Knight</li></ol>(So points don't matter, except when presented this way, it does give a representation of how the classes stack up against each other since the better a class is, the more points it has. It was stated the classes may be equal, but on a ranking scale like this, it wouldn't work out including only 4 areas of comparison.) A more intuitive scale using the same rankings should go Best to Worst (#1 to #6) so folks are less likely to attribute the ranking to points and don't have to sort in their head that rank 6 was the #1 in that area and not point values, etc: Offense / Avoidance / Toughness / Mystical Ability<ol><li>Monk Monk Guardian Shadow Knight</li><li>Bruiser Bruiser Palad in Paladin</li><li>Berserker Guardian Berserker Monk</li><li>Shadow Knight Paladin Shadow Knight Bruiser</li><li>Paladin Shadow Knight Bruiser Berserker</li><li>Guardian Berserker Monk Guardian</li></ol>I hope this clears up this post whether or not you agree with the standings.

Danelin

02-23-2009, 08:39 PM

Thank you Eidos, your post does in fact reflect what I was trying to describe in a way that will hopefully be less confusing for people. If you wouldn't mind, I think I will borrow your formatting and edit my OP to use that instead of what I slapped together during my lunch break at work.As i mentioned in one of my other replies, some of these numbers will be so close as to be virtually the same (brawler avoidance and dps for example), but this was how I chose to categorize them. I believe the mechanics functioned the closest to this in reality right before RoK launch, although SKs were rather underpowered at the time.

Bruener

02-23-2009, 09:42 PM

<cite>Danelin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Thank you Eidos, your post does in fact reflect what I was trying to describe in a way that will hopefully be less confusing for people. If you wouldn't mind, I think I will borrow your formatting and edit my OP to use that instead of what I slapped together during my lunch break at work.As i mentioned in one of my other replies, some of these numbers will be so close as to be virtually the same (brawler avoidance and dps for example), but this was how I chose to categorize them. I believe the mechanics functioned the closest to this in reality right before RoK launch, although SKs were rather underpowered at the time.</blockquote>Funny, because on Live right now I think we are closer to tank balance than we have ever been. Brawlers need some slight adjustments; however, don't kid yourself bruisers are quite beastly tanks...and both brawlers can put out some real nice T2 dps.Instead of having 1 tank to rule them all like at the end of RoK now you are seeing multiple tanks fulfilling the OT role and even the MT role. SKs are not left on the side-lines like they were a lot of the time in RoK. SKs, Zerks, and Paladins all fulfill the OT role very well and some can slide into the MT role quite easily if need be.After the changes of course....everybody gets to tank like a Guardian. At that point with fighter DPS going down the tubes why again would you want an offensive fighter?

Lethe5683

02-23-2009, 09:47 PM

<cite>Bruener wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Danelin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Thank you Eidos, your post does in fact reflect what I was trying to describe in a way that will hopefully be less confusing for people. If you wouldn't mind, I think I will borrow your formatting and edit my OP to use that instead of what I slapped together during my lunch break at work.As i mentioned in one of my other replies, some of these numbers will be so close as to be virtually the same (brawler avoidance and dps for example), but this was how I chose to categorize them. I believe the mechanics functioned the closest to this in reality right before RoK launch, although SKs were rather underpowered at the time.</blockquote>Funny, because on Live right now I think we are closer to tank balance than we have ever been. Brawlers need some slight adjustments; however, don't kid yourself bruisers are quite beastly tanks...and both brawlers can put out some real nice T2 dps.Instead of having 1 tank to rule them all like at the end of RoK now you are seeing multiple tanks fulfilling the OT role and even the MT role. SKs are not left on the side-lines like they were a lot of the time in RoK. SKs, Zerks, and Paladins all fulfill the OT role very well and some can slide into the MT role quite easily if need be.After the changes of course....everybody gets to tank like a Guardian. At that point with fighter DPS going down the tubes why again would you want an offensive fighter?</blockquote>Bruisers might be good tanks with a mythical and lots of AAs but before those they are quite mediocre unlike plate tanks which are good throughout the game.

Tiberuis

02-23-2009, 09:57 PM

<cite>Bruener wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Danelin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Thank you Eidos, your post does in fact reflect what I was trying to describe in a way that will hopefully be less confusing for people. If you wouldn't mind, I think I will borrow your formatting and edit my OP to use that instead of what I slapped together during my lunch break at work.As i mentioned in one of my other replies, some of these numbers will be so close as to be virtually the same (brawler avoidance and dps for example), but this was how I chose to categorize them. I believe the mechanics functioned the closest to this in reality right before RoK launch, although SKs were rather underpowered at the time.</blockquote>Funny, because on Live right now I think we are closer to tank balance than we have ever been. Brawlers need some slight adjustments; however, don't kid yourself bruisers are quite beastly tanks...and both brawlers can put out some real nice T2 dps.Instead of having 1 tank to rule them all like at the end of RoK now you are seeing multiple tanks fulfilling the OT role and even the MT role. SKs are not left on the side-lines like they were a lot of the time in RoK. SKs, Zerks, and Paladins all fulfill the OT role very well and some can slide into the MT role quite easily if need be.After the changes of course....everybody gets to tank like a Guardian. At that point with fighter DPS going down the tubes why again would you want an offensive fighter?</blockquote>Excellent post. And you are asking a very good question.The whole idea of Shadowknights and Bruisers and Monks and Berzerkers - and all Tanks for that matter - holding aggro by taunting - a.k.a. yelling, screaming, shouting obsenities, hurling insults, bellowing war cries - is ridiculous.Fighters hold aggro by Fighting silly Devs. Thats why we rolled Fighters.And I do like your ranking list Eidos. It looks just about right to me - as long as by "Mystical" ability you mean primarily Fighting/Damage abilities <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Danelin

02-23-2009, 10:01 PM

A few observations1 - On live crusaders have a huge edge in aggro control over warriors and brawlers, warriors still have the survivability edge, but only crusaders can actually both survive and do aggro by themselves right now without crazy nice gear. That part of the equation could definitely use some repair2 - This isn't quite the point of the thread.

eidos

02-24-2009, 06:05 PM

Aull

02-24-2009, 06:39 PM

It has been some time ago but I read an eq2 book about classes and such. Bruisers were described as evil fighters that forsakes a good defense for a stronger offense. For what I remember from that description was the first bruisers were once from the ashen order monks that betrayed the practice in philosophy and meditation for a more brutal and aggressive fighting style. Bruisers continuously fight and improve their physical fighting skills turning their entire bodies into a vicious weapon and debuffing an opponents attacks.Bruiser strength is their powerful offensive attacks. Weakness would be their less practiced defense.I no longer have the book and wish I could remember the name of the book. It specifically listed what all the fighters strengths and weakness were.

Rayche

02-24-2009, 09:11 PM

Yes, Bruisers would actually outparse and out damage Monks except on longer fights where procs and haste help them.Not to mention the roleplay description isn't exactly how I envision the Bruiser class, I see them more as Conan the Barbarian meets Steven Segal... more of a Martial Artist (But an artist nonetheless) that finds more enjoyment using his abilities than meditating about them. (Think Sith versus Jedi, one ruled by emotion, one by Focus and Meditation, both deadly in almost the same way.)Avoidance-wise. That has always been horribly broken. Leather wearing tanks should avoid damage to the same capacity that plate tanks mitigate damage. Plate tanks should avoid damage to the same capacity that leather tanks mitigate damage. Scouts shouldn't even have numbers remotely close to either of them. (Well, half the avoidance of the brawler, with half the mitigation of the plate tank.. somewhere around there.)The method for grabbing/holding/regaining aggro for tanks is about half the problem that exists in the current tank game.Good overall writeup though, once you look past the numbers.

Lethe5683

02-25-2009, 11:05 AM

<cite>Rayche@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yes, Bruisers would actually outparse and out damage Monks except on longer fights where procs and haste help them.Not to mention the roleplay description isn't exactly how I envision the Bruiser class, I see them more as Conan the Barbarian meets Steven Segal... more of a Martial Artist (But an artist nonetheless) that finds more enjoyment using his abilities than meditating about them. (Think Sith versus Jedi, one ruled by emotion, one by Focus and Meditation, both deadly in almost the same way.)Avoidance-wise. That has always been horribly broken. Leather wearing tanks should avoid damage to the same capacity that plate tanks mitigate damage. Plate tanks should avoid damage to the same capacity that leather tanks mitigate damage. Scouts shouldn't even have numbers remotely close to either of them. (Well, half the avoidance of the brawler, with half the mitigation of the plate tank.. somewhere around there.)The method for grabbing/holding/regaining aggro for tanks is about half the problem that exists in the current tank game.Good overall writeup though, once you look past the numbers.</blockquote>I always thought of monks as the medatate-too-much-to-serious-boring-fight-for-goodness-blah-blah and bruisers more as a monk with less disipline and enjoys fighting.

Lethe5683

02-25-2009, 11:07 AM

They could fix shields by making them contested and adding uncontested % avoidance based on armor type to all classes. 5% plate, 10% chain, 15% leather, 20% cloth and remove the uncontested avoidance from the brawler stances. The main problem with this is all the mobs would have to be re adjusted to not have such overpowered offense.

Aull

02-25-2009, 12:38 PM

<cite>Lethe5683 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rayche@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yes, Bruisers would actually outparse and out damage Monks except on longer fights where procs and haste help them.Not to mention the roleplay description isn't exactly how I envision the Bruiser class, I see them more as Conan the Barbarian meets Steven Segal... more of a Martial Artist (But an artist nonetheless) that finds more enjoyment using his abilities than meditating about them. (Think Sith versus Jedi, one ruled by emotion, one by Focus and Meditation, both deadly in almost the same way.)Avoidance-wise. That has always been horribly broken. Leather wearing tanks should avoid damage to the same capacity that plate tanks mitigate damage. Plate tanks should avoid damage to the same capacity that leather tanks mitigate damage. Scouts shouldn't even have numbers remotely close to either of them. (Well, half the avoidance of the brawler, with half the mitigation of the plate tank.. somewhere around there.)The method for grabbing/holding/regaining aggro for tanks is about half the problem that exists in the current tank game.Good overall writeup though, once you look past the numbers.</blockquote>I always thought of monks as the medatate-too-much-to-serious-boring-fight-for-goodness-blah-blah and bruisers more as a monk with less disipline and enjoys fighting.</blockquote>If both brawlers are equiped the same there really isn't much difference. Dps is about the same, tanking is about the same, slight group appeal to monk but nothing huge, single target aggro is about the same, aoe aggro/dps for both stinks, and both solo good and are close to equal on that.I wish there were some differences that set the two brawlers apart. As I see it now these two are so close in all catagories (pros and cons) that there is absolutely no reason to have two brawlers. I know some of you will disagree with that statement but I feel it is very true. To much cloning going on.As is stands right now brawler toughness is behind the plates by a good margin and that is appropriate. That being said neither brawler's dps should be inferior to the other fighters since brawlers lack the toughness of the plates.