Also you can have the best tank in the world but if you have 1) slack heals < merc 2) slack DPS < If named take more then 45 - 60 seconds your DPS is doing it wrong 3) crappy puller/CC Its going to make the tanks job alot rougher. If a J5 Tank merc is outtanking your tank... There's an amount of fail I cannot even comprehend. Some of us were Moloing/Soloing named in Argath/Valley at 95 in group gear < as tanks... So no I am sorry I don't feel alot of sympathy for a level 90something Tank that can't do the named with a group. Keep in mind; especially if your grouped/boxing with friends. Class Synergy and ability overlap. Especially if you box with a friend, Almost perfect set-up can be made group wise. Good or Perfect setup can trivialize group content. Every group needs the following 1) tank of some sort (unless its a kite group) 2) someone to heal said tank 3) deepz < if trash mobs take longer then 30 seconds and named longer then 45 to 60, You need more Cowbell and less Suck. Alot of tanks problems isn't their problem... Every single person in the group needs to carry their weight to justify their spot in the group, or they are a waste of space. How many of you that are claiming problems are running around with a J5 healer merc?
You can be as rude about it as you like, but it does not change the facts of what happened. Perhaps you are just a superior sort of person that not all of us are worthy of aspiring to be like. Are there enough of you to populate EQ?
I think most people that complain about tanks tanking, actually are attempting to utilize sucky (merc, or poorly played real) healers. It has been my experience that most group healers mainly just spam their lowest casting cost (usually LONGEST cast time and immediate refresh) heals, and that mercs do even worse than that. Generally speaking, if your healer isn't continuously using their most expensive casting cost, longish recast heals, as soon as they become available, then they are not healing as well as they are capable of. My 98 baz/T4 group geared, half augged, 3k AA SK can easily tank any single trash in game with just my boxed cleric healing him, and can hold his own (doesn't always survive) vs. RoF named if add a cleric merc helping heals too. If you use your discs, self buffs, activated tanking AA, and have a real, competent healer, a tank with minimal ish gear/AA does ok. Also, definitely, being able to kill the named faster than your tank discs wear off, and killing trash fast enough the healer only needs to cast 1 or 2 big heals per mob, is much more important than most people realize.
Yes, fair enough. As I said, however, we were making progress. It just became frustrating enough for our tank to quit. Being the Cleric, I can attest to the fact that it was as easy or easier to heal the mercenary than our tank who was wearing the gear that we earned as a group. Take from that what you will. We had played as a group off and on over the years and had managed to get through previous content. I think that the last end zone we spent much time in was Crystallos, but as far as I can remember we killed all of the named in there with the same group.
No it wouldn't be nice because everything would have to be tuned around the lowest common denominator and that would make for a completely boring game for everyone.
wrongish. sort of. Timing of heals and knowing when to cast Big heals is far more important then blowing them when they are not useful. < Also group content is made for 1 healer 1 tank if your having to pop a cleric merc + a real cleric, don't try to give advice on healing or tanking... a Cleric, Druid, or Shaman spamming Light/Vida/Mending can easily keep even an undergeared tank alive, IF they weave in a quick cast/long recast when caution would dictate such. < The main problem being alot of low skill priests try to play the reactive healing game instead of the proactive healing game. It works 80% of the time... 20% of the time its a splat. The Caveat being Cleric: Since a cleric can keep 2 Renewals, 2 Interventions and Remedy on a multibind they never have to resort to anything longer then 1.8 second cast... Also your tank if a tank merc was easier to heal, was poorly augged/crap AA purchases or just bad play skill. I've boxed a Knight (either SK or Pal) and some priest (have all 3 maxed...) since DON. Since the inception of mercs, I can't recall a tank merc ever even approaching the ease of healing a real tank. I don't raid, but I don't get stuck on content, or blame pets, or burn out because "its too hard". It has nothing to do with superior, I do research on my class. TBH I am probably at best an Ok to Decent tank, there are plenty out there that make me look like I have Down Syndrome. Pretty sure they will tell you the same thing though, they might just sugar coat it alittle more.
I thought that my anecdote was relevant to the conversation, so I shared it. If all that I have accomplished is to provide some people with another reason to feel smug, so be it. Everyone is free to draw whatever conclusions that they like from it. To me it is irrelevant now anyway. So with that, I'm done here.
I agree with Khatnip... dumb the game down and people will get dumber.. and you'll have the dumb it down some more. keep the bar high ( or higher) so people can learn and play their class and feel the need to group instead of merc'ing trough everything ( as a side note, my group-geared beastlord actually tank RoF T1-2 names... can't see how a tank isn't able to do it. not the pet, the beastlord)
While I appreciated the anecdote I do think that the many non-raiders who got through the content you were having difficulty have the right to feel a little smug. Let's remember the attitude was I couldn't do X, therefore the situation is broken. Not we can't do X, we think we should be able to do X, what are we doing wrong and how can we fix it. Now if 50% of all level 90 players are stuck on the first tier of a level 90 expansion and can't get any further into it a content, and not necessarily a class issue, can be raised. I've raised such issues repeatedly despite getting through the content myself.
If a single j5 cleric merc can't keep a tank up on routine trash pulls, that's tank failure. I honestly can't remember the last time I died to hard hitting named with a single cleric merc - almost always full mana. Some named with nasty aoes can prove a problem for a single dumb cleric merc, 2 Mercs or any real healer make even those easy. With my Shaman main healing, I keep group heal over time always up, save radiant cures for the end of the fight mostly - save group heals for emergencies. Besides that - its pretty much blezon's mending until the cows come home on my group geared tanks - never a risk of dying really. I'm sorry, I fail to see the problem. I don't raid. RoF and cotf with very few exceptions are really easy. VoA was a much bigger challenge in its day - now significantly easier with tradable 90-95 RoF gear. I'm sorry, I fail to see the problem.
voa was hard on tanks, though. my fellowship has gotten together for years one night a week, running missions or camping gear people want. like equanimity said, all upgrades went to the tank first, and we spent more time camping gear specifically for him. once he was set in the gear for the expansion, we'd move on to things the rest of us want. when you play with a tight group of people, it only makes sense to gear the tank first, but this attitude doesn't fly in pugs or a group of casual friends. our fellowship tank quit a few months into voa as well. the rest of us still get together with a merc most of the time.
You know, according to some people in this thread: Your tank just sucked. All is fine (Mostly for people who play this game since 15 years, and forget that it's 2014 and not 1999 anymore)
Some people posting in this thread forget that this is a character progression game where you improve your character through in-game EFFORT. According to a Producer's letter posted elsewhere in this forum there are going to be /cough Heroic Characters (why SOE thinks given and not earned advancement is heroic I don't understand. Maybe they'll give out Royal Order of Norrath medals for sitting in PoK too). (PURE SPECULATION) IF they follow what looks to be EQ2's pattern they'll be level 90 500 AA with gear. You'll be able to roll one from scratch or promote an existing character. For two weeks you'll be able to claim one free. Afterwards they'll be $35 worth of SC. I seriously doubt they they'll sell unable to advance characters. So there yas go. BUT just as occurred on progression servers there are going to be doers and leaching complainers within a month. Some people will be begging for new content and some will be complaining it's too hard and they've only made 1 hours progression in that month. A character progression though in-game effort game operates like an apple sorter. The tiny apples fall through the holes into the bins where they'll be processed for vinegar and the 80% of the apples that are up to standard advance. That's exactly sirs how it's supposed to work - even if the little apples complain. I'm looking forward to seeing some little apples watch freshly created level 90's beat them by 3 months to level 100. I guarantee it'll happen. Mark my words.
i think it's more that tanks were given skills to close this gap, but they're 95+ skills. i'm not sure exactly what knights got at the end of rof, and warriors have NTTB now. it seems to me that some lower level tanks see what led to these abilities being added, without making it high enough level to see how they've been addressed.
Nod, it's amazing that 10,000 tanks manage to advance from level 85 to 100 given the horrendous gap. Man, I'm a prophet - having pointed out even heroric characters wouldn't stop the excusifying I get to read the"crippling gap was closed at level 100 with NTtB" excuse within 30 seconds.
i'm guessing you were raid geared 85-100 too, so i don't expect you to understand the frustrations of camping upgrades in group gear.
I'm guessing I have two alts that spent most of their time in group gear and most of the time without mercs and things like defiant that made 85-95 already easier than earlier content dead easy.. You were sayin'? There were group geared 2 person partnerships (at least one) that boxed 85 content in less than 3 months. Reached the endgame and were fully geared and augged. No problemo. Group content is tuned for group players. Nice one though - "Group Tanks have Frustrations Others can't Appreciate" goes into the playbook too.
I was group geared. 85 to 100 these days you can skip UF which is the only "hard" content in that level range. VOA could be alittle rough but no tank only items drop on the "hard" named anyway. So I fail to see your point Bluejaye.
Named? Some of the best level 90 group armor now drops from random yardtrash in RoF (you don't get the awesome practically free accessories until level 92). Sure you need to kill some named but then so does every other non-raider and I'd venture to guess the majority did and are sitting at level 100 right now. "Heroic" Characters make Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start look weak. You call that a cheat code? THIS is a cheat code!!
