Warr vs. Pal. vs SK

If Warriors, Palidins and Shadowknights are all going to have full time 35% mitigation, and additionally their classes Discs and AA's, why in the world would anyone pick to play a warrior.

Palidin can buff, heal, res, SPLASH, stun

Shadowknight can FD, snare, life tap, harm touch

Warrior can tank the same as the above, and do nothing but tank.

Why would any guild that wants to max their roster continue to recruit new warriors?

Some of the recent major changes to the game, like nerfing fade, came atleast with some sort of explanation about how it makes sense to them. Is this not regarded as a major change to the game since it was given no explanation? And, it is months past the release of TBM and it is still filled with bugs, broken or unusable items, broken quests, but all the time is for nerfs?

Anyone with basic math skills and understanding of game mechanics can tell that Knights WILL tank as well as warriors with these new changes. So, the only arguement is should there be any benefit at all to playing as a warrior? should they do considerably more dps then knights? What can a warrior do that would offset things like Splash, Res, healing, etc. How do you keep a balance?

I'm all for knights getting as much boosts as needed to tank any raid boss, or do well in the group game. Warriors still have to have something unique wether it be teleporting, healing, nuking, tanking better then all others, something that makes them a good choice over knights, or all you did was eliminate 1 of the classes.

It's also hard to believe that both Shadowknights and Palidins were in need of an exactly equal boost to their abilities, neither was slightly or greatly outperforming the other, they were both exactly equal and in need of an exactly equal change to their tanking abilities. The changes being thrown around lately seem in line with the releasing of TBM expansion completely untested and not ready.

Warriors will continue to be the toughest, hardest and meanest looking tanks out there. Even comfortably so.

FD and snare are not exactly what raiding guilds look for during raids (I assume you meant raiding guilds when you brought up maxing out their rosters).

Not sure about Paladins (as they can perform a very decent job as a healer on raids also), but especially SKs needed a boon to give them back some raid desirability.

That out of the way, I am fully for warriors to get something nice in return for having the other tank classes catching up to them in raw tanking power. Perhaps, warriors will then even stop to constantly cry for nerfs for other classes ... ah, who am I trying to kid?

How do you arrive at this mathematicaly if all 3 tank classes have 35% mitigation.

Defensive Proficiency for wars is a relatively recent addition to EQ. With DP being handed out to knights, it goes back to how it was a couple of years ago, with wars tanking the main boss because of Final Stand. Wars will still have 9% better mitigation while discing, which is still pretty significant on raid boss hits.

I have to say I find it odd that most of the wars are complaining about raid tanking. Raids are all about min/maxing, and as long as wars are even slightly better at tanking, they'll always be first pick for MT. If anything, wars have more of a problem in the group game, where utility is often more important than min/maxing mitigation.

I don't know, I want my MT to be able to snare above all else.

warriors will soon be able to dual wield shields. big shields with sharp corners for +10 bash damage. rawr.

I'd like it if warriors could go back to dual wielding weapons and be as effective tanking as they currently are with sword/board. Maybe with some increase in DPS, because warriors are just that good at dual wielding that they can go all weapons-shield with their offhand permanently, but it's still a weapon and can do damage. Sure, I understand shields offer protection because.....shield. But I also see we run around carring 10 backpacks with enough stuff to fill a 2 car garage.

Then maybe that is a possible avenue for them to pursue to help compensate for tanking parity in the raid setting. You know, improve their class by actually improving their class and not by impeding other classes natural evolution.

Then you would not be tanking.

You're just going in circles.

Tanking just as well as we do with a shield, but dual wield. It's a video game.

Wars should be the only class to deca-wield backpacks (one per finger). Each slot in a backpack can fit an entire house. Nuff said.

Please show us your math, then we can extrapolate from there and fill in the missing pieces for all classes if you would like. There is a ton of stuff that you can pack on top of defensive prof. If we can get a good honest discussion from all 3 classes, that might be a good starting point.

There's already a huge thread with lots of math. I don't know why people keep starting new threads to repeat what's already been said.

Sojero you wrote a very nice SK guide that lists all their stuff. I could repost that, plus one of the Palidin's guides here I guess. Or like beryon said all the math has been laid out. You say we need an honest discussion, but its like asking a dps class if they think they need more or less dps then they currently have. Most people could reroll as palidin or shadowknight heroic alot faster then they could have endless forum debates. If experienced knights think having warrior defensive stance, a 5% innate mitigation AA, in addition to all their other class abilities makes the game a fair balance between the 3 tank classes then so be it, I disagree, and I think guild recruiting will reflect what I'm saying. Also, like I said, this isn't anything against knights, but warriors still need to have some niche, and if its not going to be tanking, it has to be dps or utility or something else. As always, if a SK is 1/4th necro and 3/4th warrior, and a palidin is 1/4th cleric and 3/4th warrior, somehow a person who is 100% warrior has to be different then that. For some reason about once a year all these same arguements have to come up and everyone acts like its the first time they've had to think about it.

I'm not sure how everything plays out after buffs (long and short) but gear wise. Every tank should be equal in AC. Since warriors have higher softcap and returns, they will win out on raw mitigation power. They will have a higher chance of being hit for a DI of 1.

HP wise the class specific gear seems to be WAR > SHD > PAL.

I'm sure the devs did run the numbers on this, maybe they will share.

Ironically it seems that most still do not understand how things stack or all of the abilities that they can use. I have no problem filling in blanks for people that need it, but as you said there are tons of threads on the topics, but since then, things have changed, obviously. I also know that most people don't know how to use the search functions if it doesn't say google, even then I am skeptical.

Tanking is a bit easier to lay out than dps, because we don't have the AA differences that the dps do. not saying it is easy but easier than dps classes. I have no problem helping others figure stuff out of they actually want to learn. I can do the math in my head because I know most all the abilities and know where people are going to stand, it wouldn't be for me.

Hybrids haven't been like their parent classes since around TSS or so. That is an old way of thinking that does not really pertain to the discussion anymore.

Wish i could find the developer comment from this same argument from before stances came out (for warriors). The developer commented warriors being weak at tanking was good for the game because it allowed healers to feel more needed. They said, a warrior can keep 2 clerics busy in a group, where as with knights only 1 gets to play. And they were dead serious. I have 0 confidence that developers, understand any of the math, have fully thought through any changes (look at how TBM was released), or have the same concept of the game that most players have.

Please find that because it has never been said.

Maybe give warriors the ability to flat out not be mezzed, charmed, snared, slowed or mezzed. Not a chance to not be affected, flat out it can't happen to a warrior. I'd be happy with that and it'll be a niche. Unless Defenders Defiance works better than Myrmidon's

Roll with a knight in a group and he may just turn on you against a chanter mob or become useless for Xseconds, however he can snare and FD and heal and stuff. Roll with a warrior in a group, he doesn't tank any better than knights, nor can he flop around and take forever to pull a single or give you a nice hitpoint buff or ride around on a unicorn, but he is flat out immune to enchanter shenanigans.