Severe and shortsighted SK nerf with Feb. 8 Test server patch

Sks....meet monks.....after the lovely nerf bat of our dps and after losing destructive force and imo a TF that still doesnt work as well as intended....but as mentioned, we moved on, still do what we do and the sun will rise again tomorrow. Adapt and overcome.

Winter is Coming for you guys too.

Wait for it....wait for it.....

But before you did NOT have to burn all those AA and disc - you could tank multiple pulls more often.

Few points.

Ranger is my main, mage is my alt. I used to have a shaman alt but shaman fell behind (imo) and rangers tankage is pretty poor, and generally I'm ok with that.

I never ask for nerfs of any class and to present ideas can get you yelled at and called names, so whats the point.

That being said...

Rangers used to be able to swarm kite with a AE archery spell, they limited how many mobs were hit to nerf it and it's the first thing that I thought of as a solution to MC from SK swarming. I now see in the last couple pages people bringing it up. This would allow the ability to be used by everyone, the top 1% and all the rest of you 99% with no issue that I can see.

My only gripe in general is the gap in tanking between war/pal/sk and the rest of the classes. On my ranger when I think I'm doing ok tanking, but then have a guildy pal/sk/war stop by I realize it takes somewhere around 5-8 mobs at once to spike life on them like I have on me with 1 mob. So to have the ability in last expansion old content to new content to tank 15-25 mobs at a time and kill it while getting loads of xp seems like a serious problem. Imagine seeing a Beast Lord wiping out 20+ mobs in under 5 min in new content, then do it again, and again annnd again... Imagine seeing any class able to do that.


Mage pets are fine, I tank all named in EoK with mage pet and 2 healer mercs. I can kill everything in EoK that I know of, some of it can be pretty hard and close. Why do so many mages feel they should be better than 3rd in the tankability line up, War - pal/sk - mage? The crazy thing is all you really need is the spell and some basic AA to accomplish having a very strong tank.

Ranger has some EoK raid loot and otherwise all TBM raid geared, all AA is done that couple matter in any way and the Mage pet still is a better tank, I know, I play both the toons... side by side. I'm not talking about using AA/Disc abilities that are short lived, I'm talking about mob to mob. The mage pet (even on named) is the 100% safer bet.

If you're willing to quit, whatever class because of a nerf, lolz at you.

I love where rangers are, we are no longer some "tank" class with utility and bleh DPS. We are a very weak tank with decent utility and very dependable DPS when compared to other classes. Should I be able to pop LoD, pull 10-25 mobs and wipe them out in a few min, log out and do it again in 15 min for max expz? In new content, no, no one should. And has been shown with my class you can get a nerf that does no destroy your class but brings it back down to reality.

Still here after all my classes nerfs. I think i was just born stronger. =D

Zerker vs SK

I main a zerker, and I have a SK alt, both 105. Both just average characters, and here is how they compare.

Zerker has TBM raid weapon, 1 TBM non-vis raid gear piece. EoK T1 & 2 group gear visible, 1 piece non-vis, rest is TBM group T1 group. Most augs are still HoT heroic, but a few have been slightly upgraded (augs suck).

SK has 2 pieces EoK T1 (chest & face-maybe T2), rest is all T1 TDS group gear, weapon is TDS group, augs same sucky stuff as the zerker.

Comparison of the 2 solo wise... about the same now, just that the zerker handles singles better and the SK handles more mobs better. In Neriak 4th gate, the SK can handle 3 mobs, the zerker can handle 2 (dies with 3). Both just using a healer merc. Before the zerker got the raid weapon, he could not handle 2 mobs there. With regular play, not burns.

Yeah, zerkers can DPS, but without support from tanks & healers, not much we can do. Please leave us zerkers alone. If you drop our DPS, then raise our defenses... we're crazy warriors to begin with!

This reminds me of when many years ago Shakerpage was stripped from warriors. That change of only being able to proc on the targeted mob while rampaging, and then reposes shortly later, should have always had this sk ability included. It's only logical and SKs have benefited from its exclusion because of a dev playing an SK.

I didn't think I was using that much at all. I could do it very often. Save doom for one group use the other mantle on another. 1st spire doesn't take long to refresh and neither does the DD enhance item. I still had lots of tools in the toolbox to use for other groups of mobs.

There was no "burning all those AA and discs".

I'm pretty certain SKs main purpose is not to swarm or tank 5+ mobs.
AE agro abilities exist to handle adds. Not 5-8 mobs continually.

A good next step would be to remove tank stances.
The dps of tanks compared to dps classes is pretty extreme. Add in how easy tanking is now, and how weak everyone else is compared to tanks, it shows that tanking is overpowered.

For the record, when I discuss tanking, I mean tanks using their abilities. They have enough to always have something running 24/7, so discussing tanking power without abilities is disingenuous.

All these posts thinking about this nerf as being good because of swarming(doesn't really fix) but this hurts group content quite a bit. There are other ways to fix swarming and SKs are not the only tank with the ability to do it. If people actually watched the video of drogba swarming they might notice mortal coil/epic are not the key. Obviously they can help but when you bring any of the 3 tanks with a cleric and shaman healing and 2 necros for RB you have 4-5 players in the group healing the tank with slow proc on everything and all the heal backs from them and the cleric shining procs.

Now I get that seeing raid geared groups swarming easy content sucks but this is not a common thing and not limited to SKs. I don't expect the swarming to stay and am fine with it being nerfed but this is not the proper fix because a group just like in that video will be able to run out there swarm even after this nerf(again look at the pulls without the lifetap procs up).

Nerfing this will only cause issues for group SKs without fixing the actual problem of swarming. Lower the number of targets(4-8?) that riposte or the procs will target but nerfing any over 1 is not the answer.

One of the biggest fixes to this whole mess of people over gearing current group content would be to close the gap between group and raid gear. I know that will strike a nerve with many but you can't sit here and say you want the game to be harder for you without thinking about people who are stuck in the group gear trying to clear the same content. If the gap was closer raid gear would still provide an advantage but the zones could be made harder because the base level of expected gear would be higher. One last note to really upset some people, maybe look into all these groups that sit there with 6 characters but 0 humans farming 24/7 for attuneables, much bigger issue than 6 humans working together to pull 16 mobs a pull for an hour or less.

Probably a useless ramble but thought all the people cheering it on might change their mind if they noticed it isn't the fix they think it is.

Just to clarify here for daybreak devs.

The issue is not a class issue with SKs. It's a gear and inflation issue.
You've gone multiple expansions with no level increase coupled with a MASSIVE increase in gear quality.
You overhauled gear stats (heroics) in such a way you made 99% of the content in the game trivial. Then you released 2 expansions in which group gear was on par with the previous expansions raid gear (have had a sort of standard that you usually made an expansions group gear roughly around the stats of 2 year old raid gear)

It's fantastic, I love have like 7 toons over 3 accounts all in insanely powerful gear nearly as strong as my main that is in full raid gear from TBM (and working on eok!) BUT it has made things way too easy. It's not my group geared shadow knight that is making me able to farm pulls of 3-4 mobs non stop, it's the entirety of me and a friend boxing together 6 toons all decked out in group gear much stronger than ever before compared to the strength of the toughest content available in the most recent expansion.

It was a noble idea, help more people get geared up faster and able to raid and do end game content better, but you didnt balance out the content of the game to match.

Now, dont go hacking off the legs of a few classes and their core functions to help cover a completely different mistake.
The answer obviously not so simple, cant retune an entire expansion now, just jack up difficulty obviously isnt like just changing an 8 to a 10 in a settings file hehe. I wish you would though, would be awesome to see it made more difficult, the named are all cake, nothing fun or difficult or new to any mechanics, only mechanic to deal with is a few zones being difficult to navigate (awesome to see that back though!) BUT i think you got to just live with your mistake and just not do it again for the next expansion.

On one hand there is this TL;DR explanation of what's wrong with the tank class balance in general etc etc etc... /yawn

On the other hand there is this in-your-face video by Drogbaa basically screaming 'NERF SK!'.

Ask and you shall receive. What exactly did you expect?

Quality forum name right there, sir.

Rangers were given headshot then when that happened as a trade off.

I seem to have missed the tradeoff of this nerf.

Double your base melee damage again to offset this travesty!

For those that endorse the nerf, just wait till its your class that gets the hammer or shotgun approach versus a rifle shot. Nerfing skills that have been in the game for 13 or so years is horrid knee jerking response.

Will this cause every SK to stop playing, no, but there will be some that decide the game is less fun with such a massive correction. Surely something could have been better thought out and implemented.

I don't have a SK character I play at all, just think it sucks when other classes get shafted.

Ruven

Possible unintended scenarios

1) Mid tier raiding guild. The nerfing of sk abilities cause progress in the guild to stall.
2) An sk or two quit. Lack of tanks causes the guilds progress to stall.

When guilds stop progress, this puts them at risk of collapsing. When guilds collapse, people quit.

I am not saying this will happen, but it could.

Everyone cheering for nerfs of other classes be careful what you wish for. You know what they say about karma.

Mulleteer

So a video gets posted, of one of the best geared tanks in the entire game, tanking and killing multiple mobs in current content....with a full group. Sounds pretty game breaking to me.

Welcome to every game ever made where characters have best gear available.

already been through it, multiple times

I remember having agro on a mob once. Then a Shadowknight breathed near it, took the agro, and kicked a puppy.