Permanent Tanking Inequality? Aye, says Moorgard

[Opa]

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uzhiel feathered serpent wrote:

Please read my other posts Opaki. I've gone out of my way to stand up for eva tanks. You have your opinion and I have mine. Many tanks are upset with the current system..because its BROKEN...doesnt need tweaking, needs fixing.

I didn't speak ill of you. You somehow elected to accuse me of being some sort of self-serving fink and accused me of twisting words. I didn't say anything about your truthfulness or even, about you. I'm uninterested in the opinions of namecallers, and quite frankly, I don't care what your other posts say. If your ignorance in this post is any indication, I've learned all I need to about you.

A guard can tank at 100% evasion, more hit points, more defensive buffs, more mitigation,  and MUCH better Aggro control (5 taunts). Thats in EVERY situation, not just in raids.

I've never seen a guardian with 100% evasion. And I bet you couldn't show me a screenshot of one. And evasion is something I think needs adjusting. Also, aggro control doesn't depend on the number of taunts, it depends on their effectiveness.

Did you just say guardians have 100% avoidence in every situation? What game are you playing?

And you dont see anything wrong wtih this?

I never said "the system is perfect," I said it isn't totally and completely broken. And I stand by that.

This just needs tweaking?

Yes, that is what I said.

Your posts lead me to believe that you enjoy the status quo, albeit a bit of "tweaking"....more power to you. Im glad you enjoy your toon.

Thanks. I'm sorry you don't. This civility makes me wonder why your earlier posts were so full of vitrol.

You did not even address the dev posts. Im not quite sure what exactly you mean...but its pretty plain to me.

I didn't need to do a textual analysis of the dev post for you, did I? I conceded the point. Let me use a smaller word. I said the poster was right. What did you want me to address? If you need me to pick apart every word, I can. But usually you call people who disagree with you word-twisters.

The quotes say it all, man. Its in black and white..or should we say red. The tank archetype was supposed to..and should be ACROSS the board in ALL instances.

No, that's not what it said. Does it need to be quoted again? Nowhere does it say anything about all instances. Keep trying.

Where are grps vs raids even brought up in any of those quotes? NOWHERE...but you brought it up from somewhere, right?

Um, let's begin the lesson shall we?

Quote #1:

Moorgard: "In our game, any member of an archetype can fulfill their main role in a group as well as any other."

There it is. Plain as day. In english. That is, in GROUP, not in RAIDS. You see that now? Or do I need to put it in yet another color? They're defining archetype role in that quote as within a group, not a raid. The person kind enough to quote that for me was sensitive to that. You, clearly, were not.

Where do DEVS say Guards were supposed to be the UBER raid tanks? Because I invite you to quote a DEV on that one.

I was never making an argument on the basis of what dev's said. I said that I'm a tank and not a raid tank, and that there's nothing wrong with that. And I still think it.

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EDIT: Holler right back at you Nib.

Message Edited by Opaki on 04-27-2005 05:11 PM

[Margen]

I and no SK I know of uses Lifetaps for agro, it just isn't that effecitve on aggro gained versus power used, and Guardians are asking to be the one and only tank.   And they always use the "well I should be top tank due to I can't ward and I can't life tap".  So Guardians out taunt me and out mitigate me and my supposed equaling abilities don't match it, unless I burn all my power.  So what do I get for losing tanking ability, not much it seems ... and thats what the majority of the guardian community wants for all the rest of the TANKS that right TANKS.

 

[TopHatJon]

Berzerker damage was nerfed a while back to balance damage and tanking ability in relation to other figthters....if that is no longer the goal, how about UNnerfing zerks.

[DUNN]

Nibblar,

Lets see how many  hp a warrior can buff himself before a fight.  Now compare that to the 600 hp during that same fight that a SK will heal himself for; assuming it lasts a minute.  Not considering Sk  get hit more often and for more damage using only self buffs than a Guardian will using his self buffs.  Also note that he will not be out of power at the end of the fight the SK  will. 

If I need to FD at lvl 50 during a fight rest assure I am a dead man nothing will stop that mob.

I have never said give me this to make me better because that doesn't work.  All i did was give a SK prespective on what was listed . 

 

I don't think these changes will fix anhy of our problems since we realy didn't care about DPS.  Lifetaps , Taunts, and  Power consumption are our main problems and complaints.  Go look at our board.

I will say it again we can do our job, just everyone else is better at it.

Message Edited by DUNN on 04-28-2005 09:27 AM

[Ishnar]

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Nibblar wrote:

Ishnar,

Your post doesn’t address all the abilities and skills, only aggro, mitigation, and avoidance.

These have to factor in as well.

- Healing
- Liftaps
- FD
- Wards
- DPS
- Miscellaneous Buffs (mit, def, offense, etc…)
- Base HP and Power

Cant just look at avoidance, mit, aggro without looking at the whole package. The extra abilities and skills are what really defines the subclass anyway. Adjustments for any imbalances should be made in the subclass unique abilities and skills IMHO.

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I was just trying to cover the 3 basics of tanking.  All the other abilities do is modify them and therefore would be included in the package, when I say avoidance that would cover the appropriate buffs.  Healing and wards are just mitigation with a different name, dps isn't the tanks job but can be thought of as mitigation as the faster something dies the less damage you take, lifetaps is healing and therefore another form of damage mitigation, HP is more mitigation because the more HP you have mitigates the percentage of damage you take from each attack, FD = Aggro, etc., I wasn't ignoring these things, they are included.   

There should be a platform or goal for each class.  If we were to chose one of those options I offered, then modify all spells and skills keeping in mind the reletive intended strengths of each class, the results would be far more balanced than trying to approproach every aspect separately then getting confused about where the classes should stand relative to each other.

Plus, the other skills aren't what define the classes they just add flavor.  The role of the classes is still tanking ultimately breaks down to mitigation, avoidance, and aggro. 

Ishnar

Message Edited by Ishnar on 04-27-2005 06:55 PM

[Ishnar]

Double post, bah.

 

Ishnar

Message Edited by Ishnar on 04-27-2005 06:50 PM

[Margen]

Ok lets approach the issue of lifetaps and ward in two ways, aggro then mitigation.  

First on aggro yes wards and Lifetaps produce aggro, but in a say yellow multi-mob encounter, I have to taunt, spam buff, aoe, DD etc. and at the end I am likely at around 25 or 30pct power, while a guardian in same encounter maybe at 60-75pct power.  Plus if he does lose aggro he gets it back much faster then I do as a shadow Knight.

On mitigation, lifetaps and wards do not in any way make up the difference in mitigation.  A ward will last 1 to 2 hits and a lifetap is laughable in what it does, maybe half a hit.  And both these abilites take a lot of power.  And even with my ubber lifetap/ward combination I still need more healing from my healer.   My RL brother is a inquistor in our guild and he has told me that it takes him more power to keep me standing then a equivilent guardian.

 

So in conclusion, when Shadow Knights tank we use more power the guardians, take more damage, and our healer has to use more power, plus we have more chance of losing aggro.  This is not abalanced situation in tanking by any form.  Yes SK dps is higher then Guardians, but we are forth in dps among tanks, plus people do not pick tanks for dps they pick scouts or mages.

 

Blackoath 31st Troll Shadow Knight

[Blackdog183]

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Opaki wrote:

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Blackdog183 wrote:

C) MG always likes to remind that his posts are true at the time of his saying it, so their applicability later is always suspect.

Can you quote somewhere that he has refuted(changed) those statements?  Didnt think so.

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Moorgard wrote:

Scout classes aren't being ignored. The fact that we haven't made a lot of specific changes to them yet, other than lots of bug fixes, does not mean we never intend to do anything about them. But we can't address every single class at the same time, so there has to be some that are looked at first and some that are examined later. Generally speaking, there were other classes more direly in need of attention than scouts have been, but scouts will have their time under the magnifying glass soon.

Some people want to take my quotes and fashion them into absolutes, when in fact most of my statements are intentionally free of such pitfalls. It's not because I want to string players along or avoid issues, but because of the fact that this is a game that will change. If I were to say that ClassX will always do more damage than ClassY, then for the rest of time people would be clinging to that post as a legal binding contract. MMOs don't work that way. All I can tell you is what we intend for the near future, and everything--EVERYTHING--is subject to change.

Scouts are in something of a unique position compared to other archetypes, as they are arguably the least linear of all of them. They do lots of damage, but DPS isn't all they do. They can tank a lot of encounters fairly well, but they aren't the best tanks. They have lots of very nice utility abilities, but utility alone doesn't define who you are. And this makes the archetype the trickiest to balance in a way that people won't complain about, because there are players who want different aspects of the class to be emphasized over other facets, and not everyone will agree on which is most important.

Keep in mind that DPS doesn't exist in a vacuum. If a class has an ability that increases the DPS of others, that's a factor. If another class has the ability to reduce the DPS of the target, that's a factor in both group DPS and healing. It isn't your own DPS numbers alone that show your benefits in a group or solo situation.

Think of what balance literally means: it's weighing various factors against each other. While there is some balance at the archetype level, it is refined further at each class and subclass. Sorcerers give up most of their defense for high offense, whereas enchanters are giving up defense for a combination of damage and crowd control. Bards don't have as much personal DPS as other scouts, but they have the greatest potential to increase the damage output of others. Every class should have some little nuances like this that differentiate them. The trouble is, even players of that class won't agree on what they want that uniqueness to be.

Look at some of the posts in this thread. "Scouts SHOULD be this. Mages SHOULD be this." As much as you might have opinions on your class based on preferences from other games, we're the ones who define what each class is in our game. And I'm not going to give you absolute statements that paint myself or the team into a corner, because every player is going to weigh all the various nuances of their class differently. Just because you don't agree with the decisions we make about class abilities does not make them wrong, nor do the decisions we make invalidate your opinions.

The whole notion of class balance is 90% emotion and 10% fact. That's just how it is, because it means something different to everyone. No MMO with a significant number of subscribers is ever going to achieve balance that makes everyone happy unless they make class distinctions absolutely meaningless in one way or another. We prefer not to go that route, which means there will forever be thread after thread on these boards complaining that ClassA is completely out of balance compared to ClassB.

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Read and learn. Don't answer your own questions, especially when you answer them wrong. And don't be a jerk, because it might just be the other person's one step ahead of you.

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Good Job taking what I said completly and using it completly out of context.  Next time your going to quote me, Kindly dont twist my words to suit your needs.

Blackdog183
Hero
Posts: 579
Registered: 12-12-2004

Reply 37 of 67

Viewed 173 times

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Opaki wrote:

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Eldarn wrote: [abridged]

Moorgard's Quotes in Red.

Quote #1:Moorgard: "In our game, any member of an archetype can fulfill their main role in a group as well as any other."

 

Quote #2: Moorgard: "In fact, it's our goal for people at *all* levels to say that very thing, because it would mean that the archetype system works and every class can perform its core role as well as any other."

 

 

.....and before you say "look, he said a group, not a raid"....

 

 

Quote #3: Moorgard: "All Fighters can do the job of tank equally well. Our entire system is designed around the idea that anyone from a given archetype can fill their main role as well as any other."

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First of all, thanks. It's very helpful when people cite their reasons for thinking or feeling a certain way. To a degree, I concede my earlier point about what the devs said on this issue. You have made that clear. My responses:

A) As you noted, the first two are about being a group's tank. As a bruiser who tanked from 30-50, I can say that bruiser are at present more than able to tank for a group, just as well as a guardian.

Problem there is, after you get to lvl 50, theres 2 things that happen, harvesting and raiding.  Thats when this imbalance starts to show its true form.

B) Groups are the main unit of division in this game, not raids.

From level 1-49 yes, that is true.

C) MG always likes to remind that his posts are true at the time of his saying it, so their applicability later is always suspect.

Can you quote somewhere that he has refuted(changed) those statements?  Didnt think so.

D) According to the reasoning you're using, evoking these dev archetype comments, one could argue that the Mage archetype is supposed to play a DPS role. And yet, would it be "balanced" if chanters could nuke like a warlock, and mezz, and breeze? No. Classes can serve their archetype role equally effectively even if the way they do so varies.

E) In the end, it comes down to something as simple as this. What do you want? Damage taken per second to be equal across the board? Mitigation/Avoidence being exactly the same? What counts for defensive equality in characters who have different defensive techniques? And suppose that wish was granted. All tanks have equal defense, then too, all tanks must have equal offense, right? And equal access to crush/slash/pierce weapons, right? What would this be like? We all have the same spell to do x damage, yet one person shield bashes, I do a kung fu kick, and someone else casts a spell? Classes mean nothing but animations? And this would be better?

Heres what I want, balance. Plain simple balance.  I want guardians to not be the absolute top choice in all cases over all classes.  I want guadians to be one of the tank classes, not the ONE tank class.  As it stands right now on live, they have the highest HPs, mit, best shields, best self buffing, and can achieve 100% avoidance, best taunts, best weapon selection.  HOW IS THIS BALANCED! Someone explain how the f*ck they think this is balanced.

Now when looked at in actual context, you will plainly see, I was referring to TANK BALANCE, not anything to do with scouts.  I no where at any point said anything about him refuting something to do with scouts.  I said show me somewhere that he took back/changes his statements about tanks.  For those of you that are context impared(Opaki for one) read the underlined area above and show where MG or anyone else at sony said that was changed from the time of the original statement(the underlines above).

 

Next time Opaki, be very careful about what you use from my posts, and to what context you use them.  Read and learn,  and next time do try to not be so whitty, especially on someting you KNOW im gonna call you on,

[Trei]

I noticed more than a few reminder posts about it in this thread, but still I see the majority here either just plain missed out or conveniently forgot about this portion of MG's new post - ["...  Keep in mind these differences are not wide chasms. A Guardian who upgrades all his damage arts could probably outdamage a Bruiser that puts little effort into upgrading his abilities. Likewise, a Monk who pays attention to gear and arts can be a better pure tank than an unskilled Paladin. The onus for maximizing the potential of a given character is on the player, because that's the one element of class balance that we have absolutely no control over. ..."] Nothing has changed for any of the subclasses as far as intentions and directions are concerned.

Message Edited by Trei49 on 04-27-2005 11:39 PM

[Sebastien]

The OP presents a well-thought argument.  But we need to use a little common sense as well.  If a Bruiser did twice as much damage as a Guardian, AND tanked equally well, why would anybody ever play a Guardian.  Tradeoffs need to exist in any game to make it interesting. In terms of typical full-party situations, it is my opinion that the tanking ability of say, Guardian and Monk, were well balanced.  You can determine how much damage a tank will take, on average, using the formula (1 - Avoidance) x (1 - Mitigation).  Comparing this figure for Guardians and Monks on Test, the number was pretty close for both, but slightly favored the Guardian. The difference, though, is that Mitigation seems to scale better, as a means of defence, when fighting a particularly difficult opponent.  Therefore a tank like a Guardian can be said to be a "better" tank for an epic raid, for example.  Does that mean that, for instance, a Bruiser is pointless to have in a raid?  Absolutely not.. they have unique abilities that make them extremely desirable to have in the tanking bloc of a raid party. The one thing that I think needs attention, though, is the AOE taunting ability of the bruiser.  A bruiser really can't serve as main tank in a place like Runnyeye, because their only AOE taunt includes a fear proc.

[GraymaneGravitic]

"Quote #1:

Moorgard: "In our game, any member of an archetype can fulfill their main role in a group as well as any other."

There it is. Plain as day. In english. That is, in GROUP, not in RAIDS. You see that now? Or do I need to put it in yet another color? They're defining archetype role in that quote as within a group, not a raid. The person kind enough to quote that for me was sensitive to that. You, clearly, were not. "

 

Soooo, it is apparently your contention that players participating in raids AREN'T performing their respective roles in groups? Are your raiders soloing? It's no wonder I am so ashamed and embarrassed to belong to such a village idiot species!

[Opa]

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Blackdog183 wrote:

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Good Job taking what I said completly and using it completly out of context.  Next time your going to quote me, Kindly dont twist my words to suit your needs.

Now when looked at in actual context, you will plainly see, I was referring to TANK BALANCE, not anything to do with scouts.  I no where at any point said anything about him refuting something to do with scouts.  I said show me somewhere that he took back/changes his statements about tanks.  For those of you that are context impared(Opaki for one) read the underlined area above and show where MG or anyone else at sony said that was changed from the time of the original statement(the underlines above).

 

Next time Opaki, be very careful about what you use from my posts, and to what context you use them.  Read and learn,  and next time do try to not be so whitty, especially on someting you KNOW im gonna call you on,

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Alright, this is the last time I'm going to dignify your posts with a response. The fact that I didn't quote all 2 or 3 pages of your rambling post does not mean that I was disingenuous when I quoted you. It does not mean, even though I removed a certain point you made from other things you said, that I was somehow manipulating your meaning. Not all of us believe that correctness is a function of the length of our posts.

When I tried to leave and entire quote in context, you missed the point I was making with it, and claimed it was non responsive, when it was not. So I'm gonna break this down real slow-like for you, and make sure you get it. And I'll do it without quoting 65 pages of irrelevant crap either.

Moorgard: "In our game, any member of an archetype can fulfill their main role in a group as well as any other."

Moorgard: "All I can tell you is what we intend for the near future, and everything--EVERYTHING--is subject to change."

 

Moorgard wrote: With fighters, damage potential is weighed against tanking ability. The latter is defined not just by avoidance or mitigation, but by the kind of buffs and abilities they get. Guardians and Paladins get the most defensive-oriented abilities, both for themselves and their groupmates. As a result, they will have the lowest damage output. At the other end of the scale are Bruisers and Monks, with Berserkers and Shadowknights in the middle....

 

Okay. You requested that I give you an example of where MG or any dev changed his position regarding statement one above, about tank balance. Please see statement three. This is the quote in which MG changed his position regarding tank balance, and the originating post of this thread. I would think you would have known that.

 

He justified making such revisions to his position in statement two above, which you erringly read as only having to do with scouts. You'll note that I removed all the stuff about scouts from that quote so that you could see the part which I was drawing attention to. Leaving things in context confuses you as to relevance, clearly, so I'm trying to do some of the readership work for you by quoting the relevant portions ONLY. You would do well to learn that relevance matters.

 

Now, finally, I'm not contextually impared. I read and understood exactly what you meant, and tried to save some space by not quoting your entire page of meandering prose. If you're under the impression that this was some sort of tactic on my part to twist your words, sorry, but you're wrong. I try to be fair to the people I disagree with, without calling them names. I also try to make relevant posts, and not quote pages of nonsense.

 

Feel free to call me on anything you like, because, quite frankly, namecalling doesn't frighten me. Nor do you. And nor do your long, meandering posts.

 

Finally, your posts would benefit greatly from some proofreading.

 

I'm not going to bother responding to people to try to gun for me in these posts because I disagree with them. It's childish, pointless, and usually said individuals don't even realize when I'm rhetorically destroying them.   

[Opa]

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GraymaneGraviticus wrote:
"Quote #1:

Moorgard: "In our game, any member of an archetype can fulfill their main role in a group as well as any other."

There it is. Plain as day. In english. That is, in GROUP, not in RAIDS. You see that now? Or do I need to put it in yet another color? They're defining archetype role in that quote as within a group, not a raid. The person kind enough to quote that for me was sensitive to that. You, clearly, were not. "

 

Soooo, it is apparently your contention that players participating in raids AREN'T performing their respective roles in groups? Are your raiders soloing? It's no wonder I am so ashamed and embarrassed to belong to such a village idiot species!

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No, that was not my contention. My point was that there is only one tank in raids (maybe two, maybe three). Thus, additional tanks aren't tanking in raids. They are DPS'ing.

 

Healers, scouts, and mages still serve pretty much the same function in both groups and raids.

 

No, raiders aren't soloing.

 

You don't make good arguments by assuming mine is weaker than it is.

[deusdivini]

What's funny is, I got so tired of being jerked around and lied to that I went back to FFXI where you're straight out told things the way they are:

-Warriors and paladins are king tank, no way around it. Samurai can do the job, as long as they have a warrior subjob, likewise ninja can do in a bind when they blink tank... but they're no warrior or paladin.

-You want XP? Group... period. This is why the community in FFXI is so tightly knit. If you want to get anywhere in this game you're going to group, and you're going to do it a lot. Sure you can duo, even trio and make out ok... but the group is where the fun and excietment is.

 

A lot of people who play MMO's don't like this, but you know what? I love it... I find myself questioning why I ever left this game... and it would seem that a lot more people are rediscovering it as well. With massive desertion from both WoW and EQ2 there's been a huge influx of people. Guess people are just sick of being lied to by both Blizzard and SOE, I know I am. Until SOE shoots it to me straight I'll be in Vana'diel...

[Sebastien]

Opaki, not to provoke you, but you are oversimplifying things. Just because a given fighter is not tanking the primary target doesn't mean they have nothing to do besides DPS.  That simply isn't true.  Several fighter classes have abilities that can augment the defensive capability of the main tank, for example.  Many of the raid encounters are also now being designed so there are lots of additional critters that pop out during the fight as well.  Sometimes the total DPS of the encounter is too much for any one tank on your roster to manage, and needs to be split according to your battle plan. These are just examples off the top of my head, but the idea that just because a fighter is not MTing the primary target that they are useless in a raid is false in my experience.  (BTW we have completed several raids and epic encounters in my guild and we do not have a guardian on our roster)

[Opa]

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Sebastien wrote:
Opaki, not to provoke you, but you are oversimplifying things.

Just because a given fighter is not tanking the primary target doesn't mean they have nothing to do besides DPS.  That simply isn't true.  Several fighter classes have abilities that can augment the defensive capability of the main tank, for example.  Many of the raid encounters are also now being designed so there are lots of additional critters that pop out during the fight as well.  Sometimes the total DPS of the encounter is too much for any one tank on your roster to manage, and needs to be split according to your battle plan.

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Provoke me? Sheesh. Maybe I'm coming off a little harsh.

Indeed, you have not. And you're quite right. As a bruiser, I use Shrug Off to buff the MT's avoidence, and another buff which increases the DPS of my group when raiding.

I never meant to imply that on a raid, fighters other than the MT are useless or even "simply DPSing." I understand how you took what I said to mean that though.

My point was, more directly, that when a fighter is not MTing a raid, they are not performing their archetype function, INSOFAR as that is understood to be tanking. I graciously accept Seb's revisions. 

[Eadric]

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Opaki wrote:

I've never seen a guardian with 100% evasion. And I bet you couldn't show me a screenshot of one. And evasion is something I think needs adjusting. Also, aggro control doesn't depend on the number of taunts, it depends on their effectiveness.

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Did a quick search and came up with:

http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=7&message.id=4827&query.id=0#M4827

How much do I win?

[GraymaneGravitic]

"You don't make good arguments by assuming mine is weaker than it is."

 

Actually, I wasn't endeavoring to make any argument at all. I was just poking fun at the twisted logic in your argument. I fiound it somewhat comical that you are attempting to split hairs over the distinction between grouping and raiding when raiding is done by groups.

Message Edited by GraymaneGraviticus on 04-28-2005 10:12 AM

[uzhiel feathered serpe]

Our Guards can get 100% evasion all the time. As, for the "Official Game guide" hmn..guides are LISCENCED to outside companies. Now if this guide was made SPECIFICALLY by SoE then I might have to take some of my words back.

I'm going by what the DEVS personally post on this board, not what some game guide which was printed way back when says.

let me put it to you this way, Opaki, because you're a bruiser..

A guard can get the SAME evasion or more than you, gets more hit points, more mitigation, more taunts/ aggro skills, tanks about 3 to 4 lvls above you..

You DONT see anything wrong with this? How is this considered a small gap? There is nothing small about this.

This is NOT balance...IM just as concerned for my Paladins...because they are putting us in DIRECT competition with guards in the heavy tank category..but we dont get the nice 3 extra lvls of tanking ability and the nice 2 extra taunts. We get a heal and a ward thats costs so much power they are practically useless in a raid, if a Paladin is using them to keep himself as the MT....

But rhey sure as hell will lower our DPS to second lowest..so if our DPS is low and we STILL cant compete against Guards in RAIDS....

[expletive ninja'd by Faarbot],  are Paladins supposed to be rezzers in a [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] raid? thats it? because our DPS is going bye bye.

Message Edited by uzhiel feathered serpent on 04-28-2005 10:25 AM

[LFo]

In response to the OP:

It is exactly the kind of thing I have been thinking of. I play all tank classes except for paladin and monk. What I noticed in my guardian is that he has a hint of specialized utility that make *others* mitigate/avoid damage better, sometimes by soaking up part of the damage they take. This is a very useful ability but I don't think it has been fully realised in the class. A shame.

I really hope that they don't abandon the tanking equality idea. It can be done. Just give all subclasses definitive secondary roles.

[Opa]

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Eadric wrote:

How much do I win?

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A cookie, and the unending gratification of proving me wrong. Really, though, there's no way to get the cookie to you, so I'll probably just eat it myself.

[Opa]

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GraymaneGraviticus wrote:

Actually, I wasn't endeavoring to make any argument at all. I was just poking fun at the twisted logic in your argument. I fiound it somewhat comical that you are attempting to split hairs over the distinction between grouping and raiding when raiding is done by groups.

Message Edited by GraymaneGraviticus on 04-28-2005 10:12 AM

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Well, in trying to poke fun you missed my real position. I'm quite aware raids are done by groups. The distinction I was making, again, is between miscellaneous tanks' roles in groups versus in raids.

 

You haven't explained how my logic was "twisted." And I'm not spliting hairs. As a tank, I know that I do very different things when I play in a group (where I'm generally tanking) and when I raid (when I'm not). The abilities I use, when I use them, what I'm paying attention to, all vary quite considerably.

 

I find your inability to grasp my point, even though it's now been repeated several times, pretty comical too. Also your lack of understanding of the term "twisted logic."

[Opa]

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uzhiel feathered serpent wrote:

let me put it to you this way, Opaki, because you're a bruiser..

A guard can get the SAME evasion or more than you, gets more hit points, more mitigation, more taunts/ aggro skills, tanks about 3 to 4 lvls above you..

You DONT see anything wrong with this? How is this considered a small gap? There is nothing small about this.

Message Edited by uzhiel feathered serpent on 04-28-2005 10:25 AM

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No, I do think this is a problem. Once again, I never said the system is perfect. I believe mitigation tanks shouldn't have 50% avoidence base to my 76%.

I want avoidence tanks to be true avoidence tanks, and I want mitigation tanks to be pure mitigation tanks. As it stands now, both or sort of half breeds. "Plate tanks" are about 50/50. I'm about 75/40. I think it should be much more stark. Something like 90/10 and 10/90 (or however the numbers work out).

But, in short, my position is this: it's okay that we're not all raid tanks. I don't need to be a raid tank. And I think it's unfair to say that just because an SK or monk can't tank Darathar, that somehow the tank classes are unbalanced.

So, long before all the crazy word games, rhetorical battles, accusations, rants and defensive manuevuers, that was what I was saying:

Things aren't perfect. I'd love to see them changed in certain ways. And I don't think it's true that if I can't tank Darathar, I'm broken. I'm not some archconservative about the current system; I like lots of the ideas brought up here about spell resists, and about building raids so that different tanks have a different sort of situational superiority. I hope the devs are looking at them seriously.

And for once, I'll close my post without egging someone on.

[Eadric]

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Opaki wrote:

A cookie, and the unending gratification of proving me wrong. Really, though, there's no way to get the cookie to you, so I'll probably just eat it myself.

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Just as long as you have milk with it because I like milk with my cookies.

It was done in good spirit, Opaki...you threw out the gauntlet and I just love a challenge.

Thanks for the cookie and I hope it's an Oreo! :smileywink:

[Nibbl]

 

Message Edited by Nibblar on 08-10-2005 02:46 AM

[Nibbl]

 

Message Edited by Nibblar on 08-10-2005 02:46 AM

[Eadric]

/shrug...that was only a month ago.

[Sebastien]

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Opaki wrote:

No, I do think this is a problem. Once again, I never said the system is perfect. I believe mitigation tanks shouldn't have 50% avoidence base to my 76%.

I want avoidence tanks to be true avoidence tanks, and I want mitigation tanks to be pure mitigation tanks. As it stands now, both or sort of half breeds. "Plate tanks" are about 50/50. I'm about 75/40. I think it should be much more stark. Something like 90/10 and 10/90 (or however the numbers work out).

But, in short, my position is this: it's okay that we're not all raid tanks. I don't need to be a raid tank. And I think it's unfair to say that just because an SK or monk can't tank Darathar, that somehow the tank classes are unbalanced.

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Opaki do you play on test btw? Anyway experiences with the current mechanics are largely moot because the combat mechanics are changing so much on Test.  The net result of all the changes is a game that feels pretty similar to the one you play now.  But the specific details of the mechanics are very very different. One thing that I suggest you keep in mind is that avoidance and mitigation are essentially the same thing.  Both allow you to ignore NPC DPS.  You can combine the two according the following: Damage taken = (1 - Avoidance) x (1 - Mitigation). To give you an idea of how monks and guardians were balanced in ver. 1.0 of the combat changes, I will plug in some actual numbers for you.  Both were from level 45 players. Monk Damage Taken = (1 - 51.5% avoidance) x (1 - 22.2% mitigation) = 38.5% Guardian Damage Taken = (1 - 37.3% avoidance) x (1 - 41.1% mitigation) = 36.9% In otherwords, on average, if both tanks are fighting an even-con NPC that does 100 DPS, the Monk will take 38.5 DPS, and the Guardian will take 36.9.  Since lower is better, the Guardian wins, but only by a small amount. These numbers are no longer relevant, though, because now we have ver 2.0 of the combat changes, and everything is different.  However I am just trying to point out to you that yes, all fighters must be half-breeds, as you say, because avoidance and mitigation are tied at the hip.  Another point to keep in mind is that avoidance generally scales different from mitigation.  For instance, if you have an avoidance rate of 50%, you are likely to dodge only 35-30% of the incoming blows from a mob that is 1 or 2 levels higher than you.  On the other hand, mitigation doesn't get cut down as quickly. Because avoidance scales more sharply than mitigation does, a fighter that favors mitigation will always have an advantage when fighting particularly strong opponents, especially those of a yellow or higher con.  This is the real reason why plate tanks are preferred as the MT in a raid. For the same reason, you cannot make a tank that is 10% avoidance / 90% mitigation.  For such a tank, all encounters would be trivial because mitigation scales so much more steadily than avoidance does.. meaning even against a red-con encounter, that tank would probably still absorb 70% of all incoming damage. But regardless.. ALL these things are in flux right now, and not really worth debating.  Base avoidance numbers were just changed again.. a typical player will have a base avoidance of around 26%, and can expect to get a few more % out of that from AGI.  Shields account for a VERY significant portion of any melee class' avoidance.. any heavy tank that does not use a shield under the new combat mechanics will be missing a very important aspect of their defense. Likewise, all armor now has associated bonuses and penalties to avoidance.  A base avoidance of 15-20% is typical of heavy-armor wearing players, whereas players wearing medium might be closer to 25%, and light armor wearers could get above 30%.  These numbers are before parry and shield block btw. The net result is that brawlers do indeed reign supreme for avoidance these days.. and Guardians who expect to get 100% avoidance out of the new combat mechanics will be in for a rude awakening; it's not going to happen.

[Elda]

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Opaki wrote: (edited for brevity)

I never meant to imply that on a raid, fighters other than the MT are useless or even "simply DPSing." I understand how you took what I said to mean that though.

My point was, more directly, that when a fighter is not MTing a raid, they are not performing their archetype function, INSOFAR as that is understood to be tanking. I graciously accept Seb's revisions. 

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This is such a great point, and gives tremendous insight into the lack of balance in recent MMORPGS.

I must digress for a brief moment to explain a mechanism which highlights this particular problem. There are three varieties of tasks (in cognitive psychology). Conjunctive, Disjunctive, and Additive.

Additive tasks are those in which each member does his job, and total outcome is dependant on every members performance, like a relay race, or the class average on a test. One especially bad members score can be made up by a good members score, and vice versa.

Conjunctive tasks are those where each member does his job, but total outcome is heavily dependant on the weakest members performance, like a musical concert. A good member cannot make up for the mistakes of a bad member; you'll hear his horrible playing and it will ruin the entire performace.

Disjunctive tasks are those where each member does his job, but  total outcome is heavily dependant on the strongest members performance, like a crowd of people all racing together to catch a runaway baby carriage. Even if there are 100 slow runners, one fast runner can catch the baby carriage and save the day...and become the hero.

Sorry for the psych lesson, but I swear I'm going somewhere here with this....

 

In MMORPGs, especially those in the vein of EQ, there are six main roles a character can play. The issue that opaki just brought to light is obvious, but subtle at the same time. Each of these main roles in an MMORPG is a different type of task, and that has major effects on class balance.

1) Healing: Additive task. The more healers the better. There are very few issues with healer spell stacking, so having a weaker healer working with a more powerful healer will still get the job done better than having just one healer alone.

2) DPS'ing: Additive task. The more DPS the better. There are some issues with DPS stacking within the same class, however, other than this, group DPS will still be improved by adding a second or third DPS to the group, even if they aren't as powerful as the first DPS.

3) Helping group members prevent damage (buffs/debuffs): Additive Task: Generally buffs/debuffs stack rather well across archtypes with some exceptions, but even in those exceptions, the stronger buff wins out...meaning the weaker buff doesnt hurt anyone.

4) Helping group members deal more damage (buffs/debuffs): Additive Task: same as above. There generally isn't a way for other group members to mess up your offensive procs, or debuffs.

5) Crowd Control: Conjunctive Task: No matter how good your enchanter is, all you need is one knucklehead who refuses to /assist to wake up all those anrgy monsters. Having good crowd control is just as dependent on the weakest (in this case dumbest) members of your group as it is your chanter. Throwing more chanters at the problem won't stop that [Removed for Content] from waking up mobs.

6) Tanking: Disjunctive Task: You can have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 tanks in a group, but only one of them at a time is generally tanking....only the "best" one. In fact, other tanks in the group really have nothing to contribute to the actual tanking, which we've defined as Mitigating damage, Avoiding Damage and Maintaining Agro. Even if they cast buffs on the Real Tank, they are simply performing role 3, helping group members prevent damage. Even if they DPS they are performing role 2 (DPS). I guess there really "can be only one".

 

All of this is basically confirming Opaki's point, and highlighting that tanking is the only major group role that can be filled by ONLY one character at a time. In my opinion this is a issue with tanking, and not just a issue with the tanks themselves, in part due to the simplistic nature of the aggro system and enemy behavior.

Now, obviously, the EQ2 tanking system is going to stay pretty close to it's current state, and I'm certainly not suggesting that it do otherwise. I am just drawing attention to the reason why fighter balance is a more visible issue than priest balance, or scout balance.

For example, I'm a defiler, my healing is rather gimpish compared to a Templar. But a group with a templar will still value my healing services, because adding my gimpish healing power will still increase their overall healing. Even though I don't heal quite as well as a templar, I do still get to heal when I am in a group with a Templar (which is good, b/c templars are the 2nd most popular class in the game). I can also perform my secondary role, debuffing enemies, while I perform lighter duty on my primary role (because there is another healer present).

A Shadowknight(or pally or bruiser....) however, doesn't have this luxury. Even if their tanking skill is only slightly worse than a Guardians, a group who already has a Guardian will not want them for their tanking ability. They may want the SK for his DPS, or a bruiser for his MT buffs, but the group with a Guardian will not invite them to Tank, as that role is already taken. Thusly, the SK in a group with a Guardian, has no choice but to perform his secondary role, and ONLY his secondary role.

 

 

 

[Ibis]

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DUNN wrote:

Let me put it in a Sk prospective

-Wards are broken i get hit for more damage when i use them

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I came in to speak on one issue.  This is not true.  I'm tired of hearing shamans and crusaders saying it. Its a lie based on bad or non-existant testing.  If there are a few wards that aren't behaving properly, they are the exception and not the rule.  I tank extensively in single groups and raids, receiving wards all the time (hell my shoulders PROC a ward) and I NEVER take maximum damage.  Damage is always properly mitigated.  So quit repeating this nonsense.