Fighter Changes Coming to Test

[Ashlanne]

Greetings everyone, Xelgad here! I'd like to explain some of the changes to our fighter archetype that you will be seeing on the Test Server soon.

The biggest addition is that all fighters will be gaining a new combat stance called "Recklessness" that is a high risk, extremely offensive stance that greatly increases outgoing and incoming damage. For brawlers, Recklessness will replace Black Widow Stance and Bruising. Recklessness will increase the versatility of fighter classes by allowing them to contribute meaningful damage output when not tanking.

 

We're also changing how the Strikethrough mechanic interacts with tank classes. First, Crouching Tiger and Bodyguard will no longer grant full time immunity to Strikethrough. As the Brawler classes have gained active and passive tools to reduce spike damage, full time Strikethrough Immunity is no longer necessary. Furthermore, our content designers will be able to use Strikethrough to challenge groups regardless of which tank class they're using. For the second half of this change, Strikethrough Immunity has been added to all buffs that temporarily increase uncontested avoidance by 20% or more. This will make those temporary buffs more reliable and intuitive.

Lastly, we're tweaking fighter heals. All fighter heals will be percentage based and can no longer be modified by potency, except by direct means, such as an Alternate Advancements and Focus Effects. In most situations, this results in an increase in effectiveness. This also ensures fighter heals scale properly, regardless of level, gear quality and other variables.

We've also made some class-specific changes, and we look forward to hearing your feedback once these adjustments reach the Test Server!

Michael "Xelgad" Ganz

[NrthnStar5]

Does this mean I can be a DPS Paladin? 

[Talathion]

When is this live?

...going to test

[Eshaac]

When you say "Test Server" do you actually mean "TestCopy Server"?

Eshaac

[Novusod]

Ashlanne wrote:

Greetings everyone, Xelgad here! I'd like to explain some of the changes to our fighter archetype that you will be seeing on the Test Server soon.

The biggest addition is that all fighters will be gaining a new combat stance called "Recklessness" that is a high risk, extremely offensive stance that greatly increases outgoing and incoming damage. For brawlers, Recklessness will replace Black Widow Stance and Bruising. Recklessness will increase the versatility of fighter classes by allowing them to contribute meaningful damage output when not tanking.

We're also changing how the Strikethrough mechanic interacts with tank classes. First, Crouching Tiger and Bodyguard will no longer grant full time immunity to Strikethrough. As the Brawler classes have gained active and passive tools to reduce spike damage, full time Strikethrough Immunity is no longer necessary. Furthermore, our content designers will be able to use Strikethrough to challenge groups regardless of which tank class they're using. For the second half of this change, Strikethrough Immunity has been added to all buffs that temporarily increase uncontested avoidance by 20% or more. This will make those temporary buffs more reliable and intuitive.

Lastly, we're tweaking fighter heals. All fighter heals will be percentage based and can no longer be modified by potency, except by direct means, such as an Alternate Advancements and Focus Effects. In most situations, this results in an increase in effectiveness. This also ensures fighter heals scale properly, regardless of level, gear quality and other variables.

We've also made some class-specific changes, and we look forward to hearing your feedback once these adjustments reach the Test Server!

Michael "Xelgad" Ganz

These fighter changes are seriously the worst thing to ever happen to this game. This certainly WILL be the straw that breaks the cammels back here. Forcing tanks who actually want to tank into a dps role is not going to fly. It is just going to make a lot of people ragequit including myself.

[Tekadeo]

Novusod wrote:

These fighter changes are seriously the worst thing to ever happen to this game. This certainly WILL be the straw that breaks the cammels back here. Forcing tanks who actually want to tank into a dps role is not going to fly. It is just going to make a lot of people ragequit including myself.

What, exactly, is forcing a "tank who actually want to tank" into a dps role?  Stop childishly throwing blind allegations around until you know something.  Right now, we know nothing, really. 

And if you rage quit over a change that may or may not even affect you, no one will care anyway...But something tells me you are just a sadpanda that your brawler won't be king of the hill tank any more.  This makes me smile.  Fairness is a good thing, kid.

[Talathion]

Tekadeo wrote:

Novusod wrote:

These fighter changes are seriously the worst thing to ever happen to this game. This certainly WILL be the straw that breaks the cammels back here. Forcing tanks who actually want to tank into a dps role is not going to fly. It is just going to make a lot of people ragequit including myself.

What, exactly, is forcing a "tank who actually want to tank" into a dps role?  Stop childishly throwing blind allegations around until you know something.  Right now, we know nothing, really. 

And if you rage quit over a change that may or may not even affect you, no one will care anyway...But something tells me you are just a sadpanda that your brawler won't be king of the hill tank any more.  This makes me smile.  Fairness is a good thing, kid.

Agreed, no more unstoppable brawlers.

[Novusod]

Tekadeo wrote:

Novusod wrote:

These fighter changes are seriously the worst thing to ever happen to this game. This certainly WILL be the straw that breaks the cammels back here. Forcing tanks who actually want to tank into a dps role is not going to fly. It is just going to make a lot of people ragequit including myself.

What, exactly, is forcing a "tank who actually want to tank" into a dps role?  Stop childishly throwing blind allegations around until you know something.  Right now, we know nothing, really. 

And if you rage quit over a change that may or may not even affect you, no one will care anyway...But something tells me you are just a sadpanda that your brawler won't be king of the hill tank any more.  This makes me smile.  Fairness is a good thing, kid.

I have been a brawler for a LONG time. Do you know that we didn't even have strikethrough immunity at one time back in the day. Removing strikethrough immunity will return brawlers back to those days and I know exactly how that worked. Those were very bad times to be a brawler tank.

[Bruener]

Novusod wrote:

Tekadeo wrote:

Novusod wrote:

These fighter changes are seriously the worst thing to ever happen to this game. This certainly WILL be the straw that breaks the cammels back here. Forcing tanks who actually want to tank into a dps role is not going to fly. It is just going to make a lot of people ragequit including myself.

What, exactly, is forcing a "tank who actually want to tank" into a dps role?  Stop childishly throwing blind allegations around until you know something.  Right now, we know nothing, really. 

And if you rage quit over a change that may or may not even affect you, no one will care anyway...But something tells me you are just a sadpanda that your brawler won't be king of the hill tank any more.  This makes me smile.  Fairness is a good thing, kid.

I have been a brawler for a LONG time. Do you know that we didn't even have strikethrough immunity at one time back in the day. Removing strikethrough immunity will return brawlers back to those days and I know exactly how that worked. Those were very bad times to be a brawler tank.

This has been a long time coming.  As was stated Brawlers have far out grown the need for strike through immunity.  Now it can actually be used as a tool to lower Fighter avoidance.

[DavidSpayed]

Novusod wrote:

Ashlanne wrote:

e gaining a new combat stance called "Recklessness" that is a high risk, extremely offensive stance that greatly increases outgoing and incoming damage. For brawlers, Recklessness will replace Black Widow Stance and Bruising. Recklessness will increase the versatility of fighter classes by allowing them to contribute meaningful damage output when not tanking.

These fighter changes are seriously the worst thing to ever happen to this game. This certainly WILL be the straw that breaks the cammels back here. Forcing tanks who actually want to tank into a dps role is not going to fly. It is just going to make a lot of people ragequit including myself.

So they add a new stance so tanks can be DPS if they want and you read that as forcing a tank to be DPS? Seriously it's hard to care about whiners when they only read part of a post. Nowhere does it say they're replacing tank stances with Recklessness, they are adding it, it's a new thing tanks can do when not tanking. I think it's a great addition, it'll help a tank geta  role ina  group and play DPS for a change.

[Tekadeo]

Novusod wrote:

Tekadeo wrote:

Novusod wrote:

These fighter changes are seriously the worst thing to ever happen to this game. This certainly WILL be the straw that breaks the cammels back here. Forcing tanks who actually want to tank into a dps role is not going to fly. It is just going to make a lot of people ragequit including myself.

What, exactly, is forcing a "tank who actually want to tank" into a dps role?  Stop childishly throwing blind allegations around until you know something.  Right now, we know nothing, really. 

And if you rage quit over a change that may or may not even affect you, no one will care anyway...But something tells me you are just a sadpanda that your brawler won't be king of the hill tank any more.  This makes me smile.  Fairness is a good thing, kid.

I have been a brawler for a LONG time. Do you know that we didn't even have strikethrough immunity at one time back in the day. Removing strikethrough immunity will return brawlers back to those days and I know exactly how that worked. Those were very bad times to be a brawler tank.

I was a Monk dating back to DoF, so I know all about this.  Truth be told we had carved out a nice niche as the 3rd fighter and the Emergency tank.  SoE gave us snaps and death saves and tsunami abilities for this purpose.  We were given tons of skills with the idea that they weren't overpowered because they weren't MEANT to be MT-capable.  I only switched to my Zerker in TSO because we needed an MT after our guild collapsed (due to the avatar gear nerfs). 

Now the tables are turned, except the DoV-era brawler was by far and away more powerful by comparison than any tank has been since Guardians in RoK, probably even more so.  All the tricks we were given as emergency tanks became necessary and supreme tanking tools.  Brawler's Tenacity is god-mode and WAY better than any other death save of other fighters. 

Be thankful you got to be gods for pretty much two years.  You will still be amazing, all your damage-immunity skills will still be great, brawler's tenacity will continue to be overpowered too.  Know how many damage immunity skills Zerkers have?  One, for three seconds.  Unless you waste 22 AA's to get Dragoon's Reflexes.

TL;DR version:  Quit whining about being brought back to the tank pack.  Be happy you get flexibility to DPS if needed.

[Flynnzero]

Tekadeo wrote:

Novusod wrote:

Tekadeo wrote:

Novusod wrote:

These fighter changes are seriously the worst thing to ever happen to this game. This certainly WILL be the straw that breaks the cammels back here. Forcing tanks who actually want to tank into a dps role is not going to fly. It is just going to make a lot of people ragequit including myself.

What, exactly, is forcing a "tank who actually want to tank" into a dps role?  Stop childishly throwing blind allegations around until you know something.  Right now, we know nothing, really. 

And if you rage quit over a change that may or may not even affect you, no one will care anyway...But something tells me you are just a sadpanda that your brawler won't be king of the hill tank any more.  This makes me smile.  Fairness is a good thing, kid.

I have been a brawler for a LONG time. Do you know that we didn't even have strikethrough immunity at one time back in the day. Removing strikethrough immunity will return brawlers back to those days and I know exactly how that worked. Those were very bad times to be a brawler tank.

I was a Monk dating back to DoF, so I know all about this.  Truth be told we had carved out a nice niche as the 3rd fighter and the Emergency tank.  SoE gave us snaps and death saves and tsunami abilities for this purpose.  We were given tons of skills with the idea that they weren't overpowered because they weren't MEANT to be MT-capable.  I only switched to my Zerker in TSO because we needed an MT after our guild collapsed (due to the avatar gear nerfs). 

Now the tables are turned, except the DoV-era brawler was by far and away more powerful by comparison than any tank has been since Guardians in RoK, probably even more so.  All the tricks we were given as emergency tanks became necessary and supreme tanking tools.  Brawler's Tenacity is god-mode and WAY better than any other death save of other fighters. 

Be thankful you got to be gods for pretty much two years.  You will still be amazing, all your damage-immunity skills will still be great, brawler's tenacity will continue to be overpowered too.  Know how many damage immunity skills Zerkers have?  One, for three seconds.  Unless you waste 22 AA's to get Dragoon's Reflexes.

TL;DR version:  Quit whining about being brought back to the tank pack.  Be happy you get flexibility to DPS if needed.

Agreed! Except the fact that you consider Dragoon's Reflexes a waste, if you had any idea how many time's that has saved my butt. You would probably spend the 22 AA to get it yourself.

I personally am looking forward to the change.

[Talathion]

Brawler's Defensive Stance (w/ Strikethrough Immunity) + Reckless Stance would probably be a bit too Overpowered.

[Rhita]

Ashlanne wrote:

We're also changing how the Strikethrough mechanic interacts with tank classes. First, Crouching Tiger and Bodyguard will no longer grant full time immunity to Strikethrough. As the Brawler classes have gained active and passive tools to reduce spike damage, full time Strikethrough Immunity is no longer necessary. Furthermore, our content designers will be able to use Strikethrough to challenge groups regardless of which tank class they're using. For the second half of this change, Strikethrough Immunity has been added to all buffs that temporarily increase uncontested avoidance by 20% or more. This will make those temporary buffs more reliable and intuitive.

With the strikethrough immunity, will this also protect you against thunderclap? Nothing like using ToS to block a death touch and dragoon to avoid getting hit and watching thunderclap take out my stoneskins before the death touch hits.

[Betchemin]

I'm not going to get into the debate about Strike through immunity. However I would not like to see the point where any one tank class is not considered good enough for MT duty. I will resever judgement till I see this in action.

I would like to understand why the monks are losing a stance. Currently Brawlers have 3 ways to fight. Defensive, Widow and Offensive, while the Plate tanks have 4. Defensive with shield, Defensive withouth shield, Offensive with shield and Offensive without shield. Now with this change it looks like we are moving from 3 - Brawler against 4 Plate which was resonable to 3 Brawler and 6 Plate. 

Overall I am worried bout this change. I do not want to be a DPS. If the raid has spare slots and not tank space I will switch toon.Most people have more than one character. Turning fighters into Scout wanabees is not the answer to any issue I know about.

[Boli32]

I hope this means the Paladin group heal AND Arch Heal will be worth casting now; both of those heals need to be re-evaluated;  for example arch heal being a large reactive heal (with min health trigger) and group heal a HoT would be ideal.

[TheSpin]

For those of you who don't like the reckless stance...

Realize that the game is designed around groups having 1 tank, and raids gernerally having 2-3 tanks.  They either have to change content drastically or give fighters something to do besides tanking.

Also, I agree that some balance between tanking is necessary.  Each fighter class should be able to feel capable of tanking if they are properly geared and specced for the task.

[Wanic]

This buff is a warm welcome, as something different but.

Will Recklessness reduce our hate gain? To eliminate any chance of taking aggro of the tank in the group?

[Alaska]

If you are tanking anything before certain HM Drunder or PoW fights in defensive stance for Strikethrough Immunity as a Brawler either you or your healers need fo fail less. This change really only applies to true top tier Monks in top tier guilds.

For me personally I like the change because when I am a 3rd option on some encounters I am already wedged snuggly between Tier 1 and 2 DPS. You give me a Reckless Stance and I start out parsing top tier Scout / Mages they are gonna be so jelly.

[attikus]

Is this change going to test today as it was said on the webcast?

I dont see anything on test update notes.

[Iren]

Seshat@Runnyeye wrote:

Overall I am worried bout this change. I do not want to be a DPS. If the raid has spare slots and not tank space I will switch toon.Most people have more than one character. Turning fighters into Scout wanabees is not the answer to any issue I know about.

im worried for the actual dps classes if it gets to the point where a tank class specced for dps is taking their spot , that counts for grp stuff too,

[Talathion]

Iren@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Seshat@Runnyeye wrote:

Overall I am worried bout this change. I do not want to be a DPS. If the raid has spare slots and not tank space I will switch toon.Most people have more than one character. Turning fighters into Scout wanabees is not the answer to any issue I know about.

im worried for the actual dps classes if it gets to the point where a tank class specced for dps is taking their spot , that counts for grp stuff too,

This is a game that evolves around gear and skill, I've seen new assassins do 250k DPS and Raid geared ones do 90k DPS, its all about player skill.

((Unless you play a beastlord, then it doesn't matter what you do, you still score 150k+ DPS.))

[Landiin]

Talathion@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Iren@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Seshat@Runnyeye wrote:

Overall I am worried bout this change. I do not want to be a DPS. If the raid has spare slots and not tank space I will switch toon.Most people have more than one character. Turning fighters into Scout wanabees is not the answer to any issue I know about.

im worried for the actual dps classes if it gets to the point where a tank class specced for dps is taking their spot , that counts for grp stuff too,

This is a game that evolves around gear and skill, I've seen new assassins do 250k DPS and Raid geared ones do 90k DPS, its all about player skill.

((Unless you play a beastlord, then it doesn't matter what you do, you still score 150k+ DPS.))

What? There is zero skill needed in this game anymore. All you need is the gear and the ability to press 4+ buttons over and over. People who think this game still needs skill must be verry poor players.

I do think it is unfair that tanks will now be able to fill two roles DPS and Tanking. When will the real DPS classes get to fill the tank roll also? IMO this is poor judgement from the EQ2 team.

[Jeepned2]

Finally tanks will get to DPS. Since we all know that they couldn't before this change! So instead of being in the 8-13 on the parse they can move up to the 3-6 range on the parse? Ok that's cool, we can stop recruiting more squishy types like the Ranger, Necromancer and maybe a couple more and just go with mostly tank groups. Let's see new "tank" group would be ummmm, SK, SK, Illusionist, Dirge, Inq, Defiler or maybe Brawler, Brawler, Dirge, Inq, Defiler, Pally? I have a better idea, why not crap the whole thing, get rid of all classes and have just one. Then let us change them up threw a new AA system. 

Hey since the tanks are now going to be DPS, can the Mages start wearing Plate? Or maybe get a spell that boosts thier HP by say 100,000. You know it's not fair that mages die so much. It used to be the trade off, lots of DPS for the risk of taking a lot of damage. With tanks now, there are no risks. Because no matter how "High risk" you make it, for most tanks, they still get to wear plate. I KNOW! Make it that if you want to go into reckless stance you have to wear cloth instead of plate or you can't dps at all.

Another stupid idea from Sony, but heck, that's about all we expected when we first heard about changes to the fighters.

[Umeil]

It actually pretty amusing reading all the hate posts.

What forced Sony to make these changes is the simple fact that they gave dumb classes the ability to tank and dps in the same spec. Your main line tank could never do this all they could do was tank but as a dps they were nothing but below average.

Either remove leather tanks and leave the job to plate wearing classes or basically suck it up deal with it. At last plate tanks get something back after being almost reduced to rubble

[Koleg]

Wanic@Runnyeye wrote:

This buff is a warm welcome, as something different but.

 Will Recklessness reduce our hate gain? To eliminate any chance of taking aggro of the tank in the group?

This change, as stated, will be the death of the SK class with AE positionals with "extremely" higher inbound damage.

The Monks (not Brawlers, not bruisers) are currently parsing higher than T2 DPS now, giving Monks or Zerkers (specifically) anything that increases their DPS will start kicking out T1 Mages and Scouts from raiding.  Why would any raid force run Mages over Monks or Zerkers then the fighters can do equal or more DPS AND have the ability to take massively more hits and inbound damage. 

There is ZERO need to make Palidins any sort of secondary healing source in either groups of raids... This is nothing more than a WOW'ification of EQ2.  Why bother using Druids at all if they can be replaced by a plate wearing DPS'ing & Healing 4th or 5th OT?  Are we going to be getting DeathKinghts in the up coming expansion as well???  Did the PSS1 deal sell domestic accounts to Blizzard???

... After this update goes live there will only be Guardian and Brawler MT's left, Pally's will move to DPS and Healing, Monks and Zerkers will push out the T1 DPS slots and SK's will be left out in the cold... The idea is to fly-by-the-seat-of-SOE's-Pants, with too little forethought.

[Piestro]

Obviously this is a change that we knew people would be passionate about. Of course until people see the actual changes any evaluation of their impact is premature. The best way to move forward is to write down your concerns, and then formulate a test plan based on those concerns. That will give you the best possible start to actually testing the changes, and seeing what their actual impacts are.

Looking forward to seeing a lot of you on the Test servers!

[NrthnStar5]

Personally, I'd like to see some flexibility with the tank classes in their roles. If done right, I see no reason why at least some of the tank classes cannot play a DPS role. What is wrong with choice? Many other MMO's do this. Personally, I like the playstyle of many of the tank classes but I do not like to tank. I'd like to be able to play a Fighter Class without having to be relegated to a tank role. Fighter should not automatically equal tank imo. 

[kalaria]

With these changes: Fighter DPS in reckless stance should come no where close to the DPS levels of Scout/Mage DPSers.

NO WHERE close. Assuming gear/skill is equal.

[Rhita]

Piestro wrote:

Obviously this is a change that we knew people would be passionate about. Of course until people see the actual changes any evaluation of their impact is premature. The best way to move forward is to write down your concerns, and then formulate a test plan based on those concerns. That will give you the best possible start to actually testing the changes, and seeing what their actual impacts are.

Looking forward to seeing a lot of you on the Test servers!

Do you know when the test server will be open? I still keep running into "could not connect to server" even after i've patched.