If you guys are pulling ten mobs at a time safely and think that is "normal" then no explanation is going to be good enough for you because you just don't get it. On what planet is that considered "balanced"?
Safely is relative to skill, gear, spell line-up, and AA, but I consider normal as what other classes which have less of a multi-mob build mentality to their abilities are capable of. Warriors are the pro mitigaters, but SKs have a non-linear per additional mob difficulty increase, it's logarithmic and given ideal circumstances in all of the above categories we should be able to perform better than a warrior in this regard, but much worse against less mobs. This is what being a shadow knight is all about, however it doesn't mean that the logarithmic increases need to lead to infinity mobs, it could even out by means of a different patch, but right now it's not what I could call logarithmic any more. That being said, I also find it a bit strange that there's no longer a huge need to single pull things, since all tanks are capable of handling the adds provided the puller merely goes to the nearest mob and not the furthest in their sight. Perhaps it's time to reconsider the mob damage potentials rather than what individual tanks can do. Just a thought, I only want the game to highlight the abilities of each class equally or nearly equally, unfortunately I don't think the GMs are good enough testers due to not being skilled at every class so you end up with overpowered abilities that they may not be able to master but someone who's played that class actively for years could.
Is a paladin main, I would absolutely be delighted if they did away with stances for all of the tanks. Why? Because I think that the game was better and more challenging before tank stances were added. That's not to say that I agree with all nerfs, of course, but they can't just give us buffs every patch.
Stances have been given to warrior to compensate for the knight self healing advantage. The error has been imo not to give stances to knights, but to give them at the same % than warriors because they kept their self healing power intact. I like stances. Because it allows tanks to go beyond defensive disc, and trying to survive longer. Instead of being one trick pony use defensive disc, give to next warrior etc. It's more challenging atm to find ways to stay alive outside defensive disc. If the problem is tanks survive too well against content, maybe you could reduce the % of Def Prof stance, at most - 15 % for warriors and - 20 % for knights, so a base of 15 % for warriors and 10 % for knights. Reduce too the DPS power of 2H stance if you want for the three classes. But removing all stances for all tanks, and also not giving back a defensive advantage 24/24 for warriors, would not work at all.
Definitely, knights were supposed to get a lower % stance but we were pretty weak compared to warriors beforehand. I even remember thinking how ridiculously overpowered the same-rank stance was that warrior's got. It made tanking almost too easy and suddenly all of the bad shadowknights and paladins were able to tank like pros could before that and the pros lost their challenge.
Cracks me up you tanked a Droga named "with no issue". Except of course this change had zero impact on a single-target encounter. Would be a bit more constructive if you actually tested and posted about actually-affected content. This change most definitely impacted quite a few styles of play (not the "s" word). I am noticing and parsing non-trivial differences in 3-4 mob difficult encounters. I think most SKs who say "doesn't impact me" never were pushing their limits in the first place - and no, once again, I'm not talking about the "S" word - but higher and higher levels of 3-5 mob encounters, etc.
Who's sick of the bar being raised out of reach of the common player because of one exceptional one? I know I am. I'm voting with my dollars.
Wuddy posted on the forum! Everyone mark down this day as a glorious day for us all to rejoice! In all seriousness thank you Wuddane for being you and being so helpful and friendly when I was in Valhallah on Lisandra. I loved tearing through COTF missions with you back then before or after raids and the raids themselves were a ton of fun with VH because it was such a cohesive unit and everyone was expected to do the best they could do. I miss those days and maybe someday I can come back and raid again.
1. EQ has an issue where ripostes tend to increase in rate with more mobs. It is what made real swarming possible to begin with. A real swarm was not 10-30 mobs but pulling all of Beza, for example. 2. Holy / Unholy Guardian were nerfed a while back to no longer proc on ripostes. 3. VoDecay is a 55% increase to spell damage. Unholy Guardian is a base 3126 lifetap. Do the math. Harm Touch is not focusable and cannot 1 shot a mob for a number of expansions. Nor can TL. 4. Vizat's effect, when on, absorbs 5613 off 3 hits.
Warrior defensive stance was too strong (now that knights have it, apply the same comment). When it was new healers couldn't really tell if I was using it or last stand (our big generic defensive disc). BUT... now content is tuned around us having it. So they can't really nerf it without revamping all content the past few expansions.
Due to how hard non-tank classes get hit, I don't think we can say that the mobs are too weak. If they were made strong enough to threaten tanks, group geared dps/casters would get 1 rounded.
Survivability is needed because it is very difficult to single pull anything these days due to the changes to fade abilities a while back. That said, being able to deal with 2-4 mob pulls, depending on the content, is OK IMO, but beyond that the ability to OT more than that in current content is inappropriate. Abilities that allow you to do that, particularly things like reactive heals/runes, should not be in the game unless they have severe counter limitations. I am not saying that all unlimited reactive abilities are bad, for example reactive HoTs and reactive slows are fine since they don't inherently turn the tank into something that is potentially invulnerable to attack.
Why do people keep saying this? It isn't true. Get a puller and single pulls are cake. Get a good ranger and you can single pull just about everywhere. Other classes as well. I can and have single pulled in EoK dungeons for a group as a ranger in 99% of the zones. You guys need to employ a pulling class in your group and stop trying to pull stuff with those classes who are not well equipped for it. Not all classes are meant to pull. Is pulling a lost art?
You want to know why I say this??? If you had been reading the "This nerf hurts only the group players and lower level guys and not the top end SKs" posts everywhere in this forum, then you would see why. I don't just tank singles, even after nerf. Geez, my SK tanked 3 red con mobs in the Kor-sha lab HA while a healer kept me alive and the rest of the group DPS'd them down. One of the DPS'ers was my rogue, who sucked as I was devoting all my attention to the SK. You don't have to tank singles in the group game, only if you are not good at tanking multiples. This change in SK abilities doesn't hurt the group player at all. I am living proof as I am not a high end guy and not that good. It only hurts TWS.
And yet you continue to use your experience to speak for all SKs. You may be correct for yourself or some. You are very incorrect for ALL SKs - and not just "the weak ones" or "the crappy ones". This entire experience has been extremely hurt by SOME SKs speaking for ALL SKs. Again, that's expected from other classes but not within. Very disappointing. But shouldn't be surprising. People rarely care about more than themselves. -- I try not to partake in bashing others. But here's my honest opinion: Of course anyone can adjust to the change. Of course SKs are still very very capable. However in my opinion - anyone who sensed NO CHANGE in this was truly not being all they could be before. They weren't pushing themselves and being as good as they could. Thus the people who aren't seeing a difference were never really being good SKs. They were okay being adequate. If you want to try and speak for all SKs at least try to speak for the competent ones who pushed the limits and tried to master the class. Not for those who apparently were always willing to only use some tools and some effort. This is a significant change. Don't realize it? Then you never knew what you had to begin with.
Goldenfrog, I think you misunderstand me. I am neither pro or con on the nerf. If you read my earlier posts on this thread, you will see that I admit that I am not fully utilizing what my SK can do either by my lack of skill or knowledge or character development. I know why the change didn't affect me greatly. I am not a dummy by a long shot. I am not trying to bash others, but those like me who don't fully utilize their SKs, shouldn't be too worried about re-rolling or quitting the game. I am trying to get others to see it isn't the end of the world. I am not speaking for others. I am not trying to justify the nerf, I am trying to get those who react so strongly and negatively about this change to realize the change isn't game breaking or bad enough to quit or re-roll. My efforts are not selfish here. I am trying to encourage those like me that the class is still worth playing. There are more or me out there than there are those at the top. Those are the ones I want to reach and say you can still group just fine. You can still raid just fine. The sky is still up above us. I know this affects others in the way they play a lot. I have grouped with some very excellent SKs. I know they are upset about it. I know if I was doing some of the things others were doing, I would be more upset about the change. Just trying to put some positivity out among all the negativity. If all we see is negativity or mis-information, then others who come here reading the forum thinking they might want to play EQ or try a SK class, won't be turned off by all the one sided spin on this. Yes, I have called others out who simply just want to complain and spew negative nonsense that isn't true. It is my nature.
Nerfs sucks......THIS is a game and that means FUN, Nerfs=No Fun (Every Dev suggesting a "Nerf" should be fired...end of story)
