for one, that's what this thread is about, how to improve the experience of group geared tanks. i know few truly group geared tank mains in the game today. part of it, like i said, is my fellowship tank quit a while ago. part of it is that i'm in a raiding guild now, so the tanks i meet are raid geared. part of it is that i don't play as much as i used to, and the tanks i hung out with have either retired or joined raiding guilds. i'm not saying the content isn't doable by group geared tanks. we were making progress, but i think he mostly didn't want to relive uf. voa was similar enough that he no longer enjoyed the game like he used to. i also believe that some of these lower level tanks should hang in there and see if they enjoy their class more at 100 than they do now.
As basic reading comprehension and civility were apparently not covered in forum warrior school, please allow me to clarify what I said a bit further. Nowhere did I say that we were unable to progress, in fact I said that we were making progress. It was frustrating enough to do in group gear from the same expansion that 2/3 of the group eventually quit. These facts led me to conclude that the current situation is broken. If they lead you to a different conclusion, that's fine. Nowhere did I ask for anything, nor did I propose changing anything. There is absolutely no call for some to be as obnoxiously rude as they have been in this thread.
It's going to be even worse now that they are nerfing no time to bleed sorry group tanks you are about to be even worse off then you just were.
Aye, Heroic Characters, sweet sweet level 90 armor and 92 accessories dropping off yard trash in RoF, shield use practical for Warriors. Let's be clear. (Nearly) Everybody understood that there is a difference between combat self healing and mitigation through runes. I said so, Shiftee has said so, and SK's have said so. (Nearly) Everybody understood that anything like NNtB wasn't going to give Warriors parity in things like swarming - group players pfft. They didn't care. (Although it was clear swarming was going to end past 100 anyway). Offset AE damage? Um, said these players, how about spell damage reduction - they're willing use 1500 things to come up with a lesser form of combat self-healing. NNtB is good for fill in use when Final Stand runs out and a boost. But it ain't swarmning capable, doesn't put HP's back in the HP bar and was not going to stay a use 100% of the time ability. A thread with a title like "How to fix group Warriors" presumes group Warriors are broken. They are not. RiF. Aye it's not 1999, it's 2014. And may I point out some of us have played the Warrior class for 15 years with all of it's ups and downs - not playing the class for 3 months or nearly the same 4 hours a week for 2 years. We play on servers where you can't (easily) buy and sell raid loot and want advancement tied to in-game effort. Warriors are very likely to chime in with support for fixing things that are broken. And a lot of us are just as quick to point out where they are NOT.
^ I still think a majority of your problem was play skill or not changing your approach from how EQ used to be played... Especially during VOA the change in the general pace and style of the game became quite obvious. If you went into VOA playing like it was SOF/SOD you were bound to have problems. VOA is where it became painfully obvious DPS was the be all end all in group content: You had named in T2 already that had 5x as much health as T4 named in HOT, Hit reasonably well, and sometimes had some interesting effects. The key to VOA named, and to a lesser degree most named in EQ since is make it dead post haste. VOA named also required ample healing or a way to minimize needing healing, granted it was all doable with a merc if DPS was there. If you didn't pass the DPS check and it became an endurance/sustained fight you needed to have some serious heals, If you had neither of those or a lack in one or the other, problems would ensue shortly after your defensive dropped (which by then the mob should have been dead). ^ the problem being most people didn't adjust their strategy to suite the content, so they slammed their face on a brick wall trying to progress. Any tank that is tanking for a group with slack DPS or slack heals is going to have a degree of problems. This doesn't mean tanks are garbage. Group content is designed for a group, so when you have leakers putting out 50% to 70% of what their class should be doing in a given situation, even if the tank is a miracle worker your going to fail. The power gap for all classes is pretty astounding when you compare a max group geared/max AA/well played toon to an undergeared/under aa'd/ehhh to mediocre played toon.
I used to say "play better" all the time. I'm glad someone else has taken up that torch, because I used to get suspended or banned from the forums for saying it. A majority of eq relies on that simple aspect of game play. The game demands that players know how to operate their way around their chosen class. If/when you combine players into a group that do not it becomes a rather difficult experience. Tanks have a myriad of things at their disposal to make the group game easier. Part of the problem is that tanks will save these abilities for named mobs, which will make those encounters easier. But seeing as how named are rare spawns that will in turn leave a majority of play where their enhanced abilities are being ignored. This happens to all classes really. Players who rotate their abilities and don't hoard them are going to find themselves more successful overall. I think the casual players who make up most of the pugs and lower tier guilds want a slower paced game where they can watch tv or attend to their children. Unfortunately that doesn't lead to success. A moderately played dps player is still contributing to some capacity. A moderately played tank is contributing... but more than likely that contribution is towards failure. And then add in the steep gear requirements and it is a recipe for disaster. They could/can adjust content to be easier, but it will never be easy enough for certain players until it becomes a console style game with pause buttons and selected difficulty levels. When content is overtuned it makes sense to tune it down... when the majority of players are finding success a retune seems less practical. Mileage is always going to vary... but there has to be a point somewhere that the line is drawn. I haven't ever really encountered anything in EQ that couldn't be overcome that wasn't broken. I also realize as a tank that if I am dying a lot or too much it was back to the drawing board (gear/augs/aa/levels etc) until such a time as the content became more feasible. I also knew that I chose that path by signing up at character select for a tank class. Some people are not that intuitive I guess. I have found that playing a tank has stayed true to the original EQ I grew to love by what it demanded I do to progress my character. I always found a poorly geared, poorly aa/level toon achieving high rates of success in current content to be an affront to the design of EQ but that's why I don't play those classes. Player power and progression is supposed to evolve from the course of playing your toon.
What kind of changes are in the works for NTTB? This is potentially very bad news for warriors who were finally starting to be competitive for the first time in a while
To a large extent I agree with you. The most basic strategy has always been to kill the mob before it kills you. What we encountered in VoA were mobs that could take sometimes 60-90% off of our tank in a single round. There was almost no margin for error at all. In that situation, heals are indeed critical, dps is extremely important, but two bad rounds in a row often killed us regardless. This does not make for a very fun way to spend one's evenings. I consider it broken, you don't, fair enough. Thank you for that.
As a group geared level 100 SK, with level 100 cleric merc buffs, level 94 Shaman buffs, self buffs (all rank 2) and Demand for Power (rank 2) up I finally broke 10K AC yesterday. 10123AC to be exact. I know displayed AC isn't real AC. But it's still a number to gauge progression by. Is that good AC for a group gear tank? Low?
Everyone has to learn how a game works, and most lack the time or inclination. So most people probably do have below average skills. From my experience with my boxed 92 sk, an sk should always out-tank a merc. I replaced my merc tank at 85 with an sk and I've never used a tank merc since. Replaced the sk at 92 with a mage pet because I lacked the time to aug him properly - maybe if you had too you'd all still be playing If something is frustratingly difficult, either it's broken or the approach is. Consensus here is it's the group's approach, and this faulty and frustrating approach has led you to equally faulty conclusions. No-one likes to be wrong, but we all often are. At this point you'd be better served by dropping the argument, and instead starting a new thread with more details on your group's approach asking how it could be improved.
It might be hair splitting, but IMO there's a difference between saying "play better" when three months into an expansion only eight guilds have made it through the first raid event (UF) and level 90ish group content every level 100 has made it through or could avoid. Without drawing the line somewhere EQ becomes a role playing amusement park where mobs put on an impressive show before inevitably falling over dead - "Fun for the whole family!" IMO "get geared up" is the fairest way of drawing the line. Future success is predicated on accumulated effective effort. Not unraveling a gordian knot of of complexities for complexity's sake or requiring the situational reaction time of a teenager. But then I've always been attracted to EQ as a magical world strategic combat simulation game and not a puzzle or twitch console game.
Here is why I think that way of thinking is wrong. If one were to plot a graph of skill vs population, with skill on the Y axis and population on the X, the graph would likely start high on the Y then curve down along it then trail off along the X. This would mean that if you were to quantify "skill" then indeed, most of it would be concentrated in a smaller number of the players. The steeper the curve along the Y axis, the greater that concentration. The reason that it is problematic to look at things that way is that the average skill would be represented by half the height of your curve, with the skill level being far above your least skilled players, at the right end of the curve, closest to the X axis (which is the majority of your population). If instead you were to divide the population in half, taking the person for whom there are an equal number of both more and less skilled players than, that skill level would be lower, and therefore closer to the majority of the population. If group content were designed with the first scenario in mind, every expansion would result in losing more and more people from the low skill end of that curve, shifting the average skill higher and higher, concentrating it in fewer and fewer players. That means that every expansion would be less and less accessible to more and more people. Instead, if group content were designed around the average of population, and raid content were designed around the average level of skill, you would end up with what EQ has nearly always been: Fairly inclusive on the group end, fairly exclusive on the raid end. I think that it would be a big mistake to design group content to be as, or nearly as, exclusive as the raiding content. It seems that is the direction things are headed in. That is why I said that I think that it is broken and that it is a mistake to think of the average group tank as being less than average skilled.
You've made a good point that "average" is the wrong word to use, so instead let's say there's an "expected" level of competence that the developers set. Your view is that it is too high, but most seem to disagree. I think that EQ actually used to be far less forgiving of failure. So over the years adjustment has been made. Personally I'd say it's forgiving enough...personally. Anyway, my original point is this:- your group could be successful, but it will take you research, testing and a willingness to change. Right now your group seems to think that you should be able to play any way you want, but many others who have been successful (players of varied levels of skill and playstyle) are telling you that it's the way you're playing that's to blame, not the class. Why not actually look into what's being said, rather than spending energy trying to convince people that they're wrong and they can't be finding it ok. If you try everything that's suggested and it's still too tough and frustrating, THEN come back and argue the point. For example, I'm a 6-boxer. There's no way I played my sk to the skill level and attention of a single player, but there was also no contest between my sk and my merc. So if your merc is tougher than your sk...see what I mean? Maybe the real problem is there just isn't enough readily-available material to teach players how things work.
While not agreeing with many of the things you've posted and not necessarily agreeing with your conclusion here I believe some of the things you say or imply here as an article of faith: 1. The are some extremely good non-raiders who prefer group content, don't like guilds or required attendance raiding or ..., and/or don't have the opportunity to raid. SOE should do right by these players. I contend that they have. 2. There are some casual players that can not maintain membership in a longstanding group much less a raid guild. 3. There a people who are not able to play EQ as an average anyone plays EQ. They have to look at the game differently and a fair number of them do. While I would have preferred automatically having experience acceleration, more loot drops, and wider Required/Recommended numbers on gear all along where the older content got the easier it was to get through it.... That's something best put into a game right from the start. Defiant and other drops from yardtrash armor, hotzones, AA aceleration, hotzone augs, catch up content, and likely soon Heroic Characters are a substitute for a gets easier the older it is mechanism. Given SOE has these substitutes things are not broken.
And yet if these players are playing anything else.. and not playing a warrior or tank.. they dont actually suffer. That is the contention that most are trying to put forth but many are simply ignoring. I work hard on my tank.. however if I play other class types.. I dont have to work hard at all and its simple... This is the frustrating part of the game... pre level 90... if you are a tank.. you have to work 10x harder than any other class to reach the same benefits that other classes get... While it is possible to do everything and to succeed, its the view that many new players that try out tanks quit once they see the divide and go to the easy class. Mage of course is the go to class for all new players and for all players wanting to return to game. This should not be a well lets nerf the mage discussion.. but a lets make the tanks more viable at lower levels when they may have to solo or molo.. and when they may be in group content and be undergeared and or not geared enough... This would not hurt the game any. Making warrior tanks more viable at lower levels would encourge more players to play them. And the whole bad players deal.. that gets sorted out by the players themselves. So no need to specualte that majority of players that quit tanks are bad players that cant tank... because thats not the reason for most people quiting a tank. The bad players tend to stick with the class they stink at. They are stubborn.. hence why they are bad.
said it before..will say it again..if you feel you're so bad..then go raid.. there isn't any rule against people raiding. why should soe reward laziness? if you want to be good then put in the effort and raid..if you want to group..then you should expect to be less capable and require an actual group. raid geared tanks do just fine solo..with groups..whatever. group tanks are bad without a good group and some equip..it's not a solo class so i'm not sure what people expect. too hard to level just means you don't have a strong group of friends to group with and/or plvl with. dying too fast? you have bad equipment and/or are not using your skills properly. if you want easy mode group game..then raid..if you don't want to raid..then accept you are going to blow in comparison.
I love the gotoo answer.. that is thrown around so much.. Hey you suck, you should just raid. Because you know, raiding is the answer to all the problems. of course Lets forget the fact that if you are having issues in group gear content that raid content will somehow will be magically better. lets also forget that Raids will not likely let you join because of your gear and or limited play ability. Oh and lets not forget that if you raid you are GUARANTEED to get upgrades. See im sorry but be realistic. Lets Understand that maybe your on the golden server... but not every server has such a friendly lets help people sorta population. Lets also not forget that we are discussing how to make tanks more viable and thus more enjoyable to play at lower levels and in group content pre level 95.. that Silver and Free to play players may choose and are thus may be NEW and not know anyone that is high level or in raids.
1-70 your tank merc can plvl you, 70-90 takes almost no time at all doing your hotzones, and even the most minimal of grouping. 90-95 is a bloody joke if you do partisan/merc of RoF t1 zones and your teek quests, and those require almost no support. 95-100 is a bit harder but if you don't have good enough equip to tank your hotzone crap by 95 you should reroll since you clearly don't know how to tank in general. beyond that you can completely fill your slots with 28+ ac augs without even touching VoA, player crafted cultural armor is quite good and if you do raid you can get the raid augs for it that brings it up to t2 or better raid equivalent..and in my experience those augs rot or go to probationary members 99% of the time...so thats easy right there. as to aas..laziness is not a reason for a game update. go grind light blues solo and get them if you can't find a good dps group..why make it easier to do what is already easy? lack of time? eq has always required time and dedication to be good. i see no reason to change that.
