Warr vs. Pal. vs SK

SKs have an innate Life Tap proc. Does damage and heals the SK.
Paladins have an innate self Heal proc. Heals the Paladin.

Perhaps the Warrior could use an innate rune/mitigation type proc. One that prevents damage being done in the first place (and should stack with as much as possible, if not everything).

There was talk for awhile of an Iceflame-style proc.

Thing is, warriors were pretty decent with defensive procs early on. We got Aura of Runes (defensively procced runes) and Shocking Defense (defensively procced stuns) back in 2004.

The next year in DODH, they dramatically boosted defensive procs for knights, while ignoring wars... a trend that continued for a long time. Warrior runes didn't get any usefulness until 2013 with NTTB and Last Stand, and even Last Stand's procrate is laughable low.

Ironically, the thing they gave us in place of procs in DODH was Mock, with a 2-hit Absorb/Vie recourse. When they gave that line to knights ~4 years after that with Withstand blow, they shortly after gave knights a vastly superior version that ended up as Repel.

Armor of Runes line has been in need of a fix & revamp for a long time. Funny thing is, most undertuned discs (like Shocking Defense) they just let die out, but they keep giving us broken Armor of Runes iterations without fixing it.

Knights got defensive price in dodh? Who knew.

As a newbie to end game tanking and no real ties any tanking class in particular, my perspective isn't one from the trenches where the battle lines require towing the "party line", regardless of logic or fairness..
So, from an outsiders perspective it looks like class design has altered from its original intent and now looks like three choices:
1. Tank
2. Tank+a
3. Tank+b
'Tank' being equal across the board, we are left to deal with the variables and what those mean. Tank 1 needs a unique variable. I present to you: TANK + >>C<< (queue applause and cheering!)
The road to victory needs to be paved with fresh ideas and design. It is clear the original framework is being ignored in lieu of ease of balancing content? Cries of tanks who can tank but can't 'tank'? I dunno.. Regardless of the reasons, now set aside, here is:
TANK+C
C =
1. Alcohol tolerance for warriors now provides X benefits. Warriors can now consume a new line of beverages due to their tolerance from years of seasoned training and also keeping taverns and pubs flourishing across Norrath.

• These brews could tie into the brewing tradeskill (warriors would start with a mucher higher brewing skill). Make the brews 'warrior only' consumable or possibly allow any class to give it a go and watch the hilarity as they are knocked down for several seconds.
• Various ales and lagers providing various benefits. Flame brew, poison brew, regenerative brew?
• Warriors, freed from the 'sissification' of finger wiggling, immune to the need to dance around like fairies dodging and hiding, are able to use their brawn and eh, brains? to focus on things that really matter: Beer.

2. Warrior bonus damage(WBD), Knights split their devotion to melee and spells. Rogues strike from the shadows, tickling ribs and other chiropractic work.. Warriors sole devotion is weapon training.

• Weapons now have a new statistic similar to backstab damage and warriors are able to use weapons to a much greater degree than less dedicated classes.
• WBD could scale with weapon skills.
• Specialization. Warriors could choose a weapon specialization similar to casters with their spells. This could control the damage variable and reflect the warriors dedication to a specific weapon type.

3. ? Your turn

'C' needs to equal something. This will allow the tanking argument to be put to bed and the tanking mechanic to be handled more efficiently from a design (game/raid/balancing) perspective.
Warriors need to be fun. Warriors need to be collectively on par with other tanks. Just my suggestions.

You are correct, and it isn't hard to figure out the situation. The issue is, there is no acknowledgement that "C" is missing and/or needed, and as it sits now, it is just a broken situation. Over time i've heard a ton of really, really, good ideas on things that could be added to warriors, but when will it happen? how much of it will happen? During the past year, warriors have had nerfs to their abilities, not gained new ones. My concern is, for the foreseeable future it will just be a broken, unbalanced situation, even though you don't have to be an expert to see, it is out of balance.

This keep coming up and it does not work. I'll spell it out again.

SKs are tanks that gave up tanking exactly like a Warrior to add damage dealing spells and debuffs. If Warriors melee for more than SKs, then part of the damage SKs 'gain' from spells is merely making up for the difference in melee. That in turn means that either SKs do too little dps for it to be a meaningful difference from a Warrior or SK spell dps has to grow so much that SKs stop being tanks that cast and become casters that tank. Right now, I'd argue SKs are too caster heavy (and standing to become moreso with DoT changes on the horizon) and still lacking in base melee.

I'll reiterate my stance before someone comes along to mud it up - I do NOT think SKs should tank as well as Warriors. I do NOT think SKs should replace Warriors on raid mobs. I DO think that all tanks should be viable in all group content and that all tanks should have an 'oh ****' capacity to tank a tough mob. In my experience, from a tanking perspective, that is what we have now. I take part in our guild's casual raids where we've done some Arx, PoHate/Fear, CotF1, some CotF2, and have given TBM a cursory look a couple of times. My SK certainly can't replace a Warrior on the tank lineup - and I don't want him to - but I can fill in with deflection followed by RB & mantle for a bit. RB + M never lasts the duration for me as I always die first, but I can typically buy the raid some time until the next Warrior is ready - and that is all I expect to do.

I'd personally like to see a tad differentiation in DP, see 2her prof negatives removed for everyone (by using it, you already losing DP, shield block, shield AC, and stats - that's penalty enough), see Warrior DW / 2Her dps scale correctly in comparison to 1her + ISS, SK 2her dps scale correctly compared to Warrior's, and Warriors to get some downward scaling tools that effect the group game as much as heals effect the group game for the knight classes.

I feel as though I walked into an ongoing discussion from your comment. Let be honest. I have not been following it. I play on the TLP servers and have no live end game tank to speak of.
I've also played EQ off and on since Kunark. Not to mention various other mmo's.

I don't have the 'street cred' to dive into some specific debate or attempt to mud anything up as you say. Instead, what I see is a lack of excitement for a class.
I think its great knight tanks have been made more durable.
What would be nice to see is to encourage this kind 'same but different' design philosophy. How that will play out remains to be seen, but each class needs to have something that is cool/unique/fun(gasp!) and that something does not need to be a fundamental tanking mechanic.
Just from reading your reply I can already tell the discussions on unique fundamental tanking mechanics has been a bitter one.
Its time to step outside the box and look at it from a different perspective and find something to give warriors a variable of their own that can be tuned, apart from 'tank' mechanics, that is fun and desirable to play.

You have. There's been a number of threads on these topics now.

I didn't mean you when I mentioned someone 'mudding' things up; check the threads and you can see who those folks are pretty quickly.

Pally>Warrior>>>>>>>>>>>>SK

In that, exact, order!

Brace for Impact is probably something along the lines of what you're thinking about. It got nerfed not too long ago

We also have our Runes disc which is essentially the rune proc of our LS without the 45% mitigation. It's a heap of junk. Even the proc rate of the rune on LS is pretty awful. I see it procing 2-3 times a minute at most so 6-9 procs in 3 minutes of it's course. That's roughly 40-60k damage mitigated in 3 minutes.

They need to change the rune disc to make it a self buff that procs a rune. Much like the function of BFI but using a different SpA since it's a rune. That way we can at least use it with our AC disc.

warriors are the most succesfull class in everquest history and still are . i like where paladins are and happy there happy , shadowknights could do with a small increase in dps to keep with there traditions .

all this class warfare nonesense is just that nonesense . warrriors are and allways will be the premier raid tank .

The most successful class in EQ actually ? lol not really. Did you mistake us with Enchanter atm ?

After the overtuned proficiency % given to knights and add the Knight Sedulity (I was favorable at a proficiency given to knight, but certainly not at the same % than warriors), in term of power between the 3 tank classes it is now :
Paladin > SK > Warriors.

This is one of the biggest change ever done to an archetype, without explainaition from the devs on why a so overtuned buff.
Or it has been tested, and the devs are knights fanboys and decided to just down Warriors.

You've inspired me...

Good Warriors btw can still do exactly what they were doing before it, so for those that say they cannot do anything anymore maybe step up your gameplay?

Oh my god, it's infested a new host and come back to life.

For raid tanking, sure they're success. Outside of that, you'd find the warrior class lacking severely.

Im happy with my class but let's be real, friggin enchanters can outtank the three real tanks on almost all group content. Balance, for the most part, only exists on raids and even then you could argue it's not very balanced.

Here is my experience on this topic. First and foremost, nothing has changed that puts warriors at any type of disadvantage on the raid or group level. Regardless of increases to Paladin mitigation, 2hand stance, etc, you guys seem to be missing the most crucial component . Aggro. (Now I suppose I wil receive all kinds of hate and insults about my skill as a Paladin. But the truth is this. Paladins cannot MT any raid boss with our current aggro generation. It is pathetic, and embarrassing. No amount of mitigation increase will compensate for how horrible our aggro is. If we cannot keep and maintain aggro on a raid, mitigation means nothing. Now, I am not complaining, I am pointing out the fact that as long as SK and Warriors aggro remains this much greater then Paladins, we will never compete with warriors in that area...We will be assigned to traditional paladin role. And thats fine. Can we move on to another topic now. Nothing has changed for Warriors. SK's have taken the number 2 role as far as tanks are concerned and paladins, a distance 3rd. I dont see the problem.
Btw: Pointing out figures, combinations, in theory, sounds good. But put in practice, they arent enough......example..Tag with Ageless (ok good so far, aggro obtained, I got its attention), Projection of piety , pet down, FoD, Valiant, Crush, Crush, Fod, Valiant, repeat. One of many combinations, tried and tested. it is not enough on the raid level. Clicky BP for more hate, Unflinching, Marr's Salvation, Beacon, etc, etc, it is not enough.

Now this is where everyone gets to tell me how of a paladin I am, go ahead!

Sorry you picked a class that was specifically designed to be and still is, the corner stone of every raid. You rolled a class that is dependent on a system of other classes supporting you. Knights support you as well. Nothing has changed to usurp that away from you're class. No one wants to break the "warrior monopoly" (if that is what you wanna call it), that is what warriors do, and do it better then anyone else. period. That is what you knew when you rolled a warrior. If you are no longer happy with you're choice. Roll again. Leave knights alone.

Oh can you tell me exactly how knights have a monopoly on group tanking? This is news to me

Finally....Someone with common sense. Well put Bruccy!

Except giving knights near equal mitigation (Prof) with their superior utility makes them the kings of the group, again.

Let's not pretend otherwise. A knight even within 90% mitigation (and it's arguably a lot closer than that atm) will run circles around warriors due to combat self-healing capabilities.

I'm fine with that, but people have to acknowledge it. Knights rule the group/OT scene while warriors are still #1 in main boss tanking. This is pretty much the way it's been for the entirety of EQ.

I'm not sure how that makes us the most successful class in EQ though. We virtually control one role and are the most dependent class in the game, even when performing that one role. By this logic, clerics should be the most successful class in the game because they 1) are the premier raid healers and will always be and 2) aren't dependent on other PCs to do their job.

A good argument can be made for an assortment of classes being more successful.

My biggest concern is the upcoming changes to SK dots. How will they effect balance between tank dps? We'll find out soon (tm)