Warriors, starting in Kunark, could handle nuisance mobs (Drolvarg Ragers, Jord Kerigers, etc.) and some harder named mobs in group content significantly sooner than knights. Knights couldn't tank these mobs like a Warrior could. But, SK's had FD pulling and Paladins are half-cleric and pwn undead. You win some and you lose some? Not hardly. During GoD rather than adjust the content as suggested by SOE's initial response SOE gave knights "defensive abilities that should not be shared" (but were). At the release of DoN SOE announced tank parity - knights would be able to tank all group content (thier survivability had been raised substantially in the interim). Warriors were told "Warriors build their strength and stamina to unheard-of levels, making them far hardier than any other class. When combined with their heavy armor and excellent defensive skills, warriors are unmatched in their ability to survive the most brutal battles." really meant: "Warriors build their strength and stamina to unheard-of levels, making them far hardier than any other class [BA: which does not result in fast recovery from wounds taken so we often take less damage but require more healing by others than knights]. When combined with their heavy armor [BA: a microscopically better return of effective AC from displayed] and excellent defensive skills [BA: shared with knights], warriors are unmatched matched in their ability to survive the most brutal battles [BA: and for a variety of reasons the worst tank of the three in most other content]." Some people argued that Tanking = aggro + survivability. If you can obtain and hold aggro but not survive or survive just fine but had aggro issues your class was deficient as a tank. If knights could successfully argue their survivability was "below par" with Warriors (who were supposed to be their survivability superiors), then Warriors quite reasonably could argue knight aggro advantage especially given the LDoN environment and player expectations wasn't fair to Warriors. Continue that line of thought and you wind up understanding that there's a Tank Archetype within which there have emerged expectations of parity on all fronts (rather than the superiority Warriors were quite properly promised). Performance in fast kill experience groups, yardtrash clearing, add tanking, ease of picking up new adds/switching target and having fast refresh aggro helping in that, group named, etc. all fall under the Tank Archetype. And outside of the Tank Archetype abilities like healing and curing others, FD pulling, the Warrior unmatched ability to survive (not just take less damage and/or require less total healing during) the most brutal battles (now confined only when raiding - non-raiders get nothing/nada) are not subject to it lies within the Tank Archetype parity. You can't take things as fundamental as the rate a tank can get experience or their ability to self-recover from wounds received and say. "Parity?? Parity? Um that part of tanking isn't subject to parity [BA: only the things Warrior were supposed to have superiority in are subject to parity] that's for 2 out of the 3 classes that tank - the advantaged tanks."
fransisco, When's the last time you tried using Knights as main tanks in raids? They actually last longer than warriors in many situations (see pwning's post). We are terribly lacking in the group game in general, and are barely better in the raid game. We rely on the culture that the warrior should tank the raid mob, or maybe it's because we'd have no use if we didn't, I don't know exactly.
I notice you said in "many situations". Not all. Both classes can cover for each other in many situations, and each has their place where they are best. However, it doesn't seem possible to convince anyone that their class is actually good, because no one is willing to admit that on these boards.
The only place warriors retain a real edge over knights is a handful top-end raids with the heaviest hitter boss mobs (currently 100k ish). In every other kind of content, that is, older raids that are not top content any more and grouping, knight abilities mean they do as well (raids) or far better (grouping). This is not conjecture on my part. I have seen this done directly, SKs and Paladins with gear roughly equivalent to my own tanking the bosses on raids I participate in, and knights being by far the better choice to tank in groups because of their innate healing abilities. You see, currently knights have defensive abilities that give most of the mitigation that a warrior's defensive abilities can give (except that they also have enough of them that they can chain them in ways warriors cannot) and they have self-healing that warriors cannot currently in any way emulate. Knights have analogs of warrior abilities; warriors do not have analogs of knight abilities. Outside of my using defensive, in equivalent gear a knight is much easier to keep alive than I am. He can take more risks, and survive fights that would leave me dead. Heck, I have seen SKs who did not bother with an external healer at all in fast-kill blue-con XP grind content, just because adding the healer would mean less DPS and slower killing. That sort of tactic is flatly impossible for warriors. Honestly, I have to wonder if you have played a warrior. I think it would be very surprising for you to have done so and not been aware of this disparity.
This is a fairly straight forward and accurate assesment of the current game and how the tanks stack up, however I doubt we are doing much good as we have not gotten any Dev responce to this thread, and I have sent a number of PM's with no responce or even an acknowledgement.
I used to raid as a war but my schedule doesn't permit me to do this anymore. I did come back recently to raid a couple events for giggles and experienced just what Aonghas detailed. Knights have been gaining ground for years on innate mitigation but exploded advancement of their respective healing tools. This put a bad taste in my mouth then and even more now. I switched to necro because of wanted something I could solo with and go afk for hours if need be but I needed a tank to do some of things I wanted to achieve. Then, against my better judgement, I made mage. This really opened my eyes on how broken this game really is because not only were knights kicking warriors tails in mitigating dmg but mage pets dominating them too. I refused to purchase this so called expansion so I didn't get the chance to use NTTB but I really feel sorry for you guys that did. To take away this tool in any form is truly a slap in the face. This class needs help and especially the group game wars. This is going no where for you guys and I feel for you.
Yeah, I didn't want to bring that up, but this is a huge issue as well. Outside of defensive, a mage pet is a better tank than a warrior with anything less than end-game raid gear. That's flatly ridiculous, but there it is. I have seen a mage friend of mine burn down a named mob with his pet tanking after that same mob had killed me dead once def dropped, this with only 1 healer merc running. His pet had no trouble tanking and staying alive against a mob that killed a max AA 10.5 KAC 120khp warrior. I really had to wonder at that point what I was doing playing a warrior anymore. It seemed nearly meaningless to continue to do so at the time.
Bring in an add, and the mage dies. Mage pets cannot tank multiple mobs simply because they have no means to agro them both. Maybe its time to stop trying to nerf everyone else to make yourself better.
Unfortunately, Fransisco, this is where you are wrong. With a single healer, I have not run across a single mob or set of mobs in game that my warrior can tank more reliably than my shadowknight. On the raid end of the spectrum, it takes very little digging to see that knights are perfectly viable as a core presence in the MT lineup on big bad bosses. Defensive -> Final stand -> Last stand has been so effectively stagnated that is simply can't compete with 3 different defensive discs on different timers that knights receive on top of their self healing. So yes ... why does it matter that a knight can tank run of the mill content without any healers? Because they can tank named mobs better than warriors while simultaneously being a viable substitute for warriors on raid mobs. Tell that to my group geared mage who, with EM15, can manage to tank 3-4 HA mobs (a bad pull) with a single reactive cleric merc and no slows/cc (assuming reasonably "not stupid" group-mates who know how to assist). Mage pets are really only limited by the skill of the player controlling them. I'm not a fantastic mage, but I can handle 2-3 adds. An intellectually disabled mage might have a problem with "an add" ... but I guess what I should say is that an individual of a grossly overpowered class is probably just likely to be disingenuous about their capabilities to escape unwanted attention. Mages who pull the "Gober can't handle adds" card generally fall into that 'second' category. Those who really, honestly insist that "Gober can't handle adds" ... let's guess how many of them are beam kiting babies? Regardless, this thread isn't about mage pets - it's about the absolutely piss-poor state of the warrior class. 18 Pages later and we're still waiting for a Developer to get in here and talk with us.
Strange that I have seen mage pets tank 2-3 at once then, isn't it? Whether or not the mage can handle adds with his pet is a function of the mage's skill. Mage pets have insane aggro generation from their attacks, far more than a player, so if the mage is fast enough to bounce his pet from mob to mob, he can very definitely hold aggro on more than one. The only question is the mage's proximity, and any mage who has half an idea what he's doing knows very well to move clear ASAP. And frankly, any situation where multiple mobs will kill the mage will likely kill me as well, because the healing won't be able to keep up. If def and NTtB are up, sure, I will live until they drop. But they will drop eventually, and then so will I, while the mage pet will continue to do just fine tanking multiples (or that named mob). Once again, this is not conjecture on my part. I've seen this happen. I have seen my mage buddy recover us from a bad pull after multiple mobs wiped most of the group (including me) by managing to use his pet to tank them all. Nonetheless, this is a sideline, and no one is asking for either mages or knights to be nerfed; they need to be able to do what they can do to function. What we're asking for is for the devs to stop nerfing warriors and ignoring their concerns. Do try to keep up instead of derailing this thread further.
hhmm not so much fransisco. I play my mage and the pet does tank multiples even easier. Don't get me wrong, I like it and I hope it continues. But there is NOTHING fair about it to the war class imo. I frequently tank adds with the one pet and it holds agro just fine. Typically a mage would send in a RS pet to off tank it but sometimes that isn't an option or I feel lazy and have pet tank both anyway. This is with a group EM pet item from RoF. Tell me this is fair in anyway shape or form.
Ah yes, I did forget to add: That SK of mine that runs circles around that warrior of mine? My group geared EM15 mage pet runs circles around that SK. Lava Mantle in WK is probably the hardest hitting group mob I've run across so far. I've had some close calls with my SK - haven't died but it got close more than once with full debuffs/slows and a single reactive cleric merc. EM15 earth pet handled him without slows, debuffs and enough less total dps in the group to make the fight last twice as long. Single cleric merc and his hp never dipped below 50%. So yep, as much as warriors suck by comparison to knights ... on hard hitting content knights find themselves comparably sucking just that much to a group-focused earth pet. When you also consider that the mage is capable of putting out top notch dps burn damage while fielding a tank that is unilaterally stronger than the alleged toughest tank in the game (warrior) ... Mages would be wise to stay out of this thread. The more you post, the more unwanted attention you will garner.
Come one, let's be honest here. You meant "Why does it matter that a knight can solo tons of weak stuff indefinitely and come out full health". We have a tiny sliver of an advantage vs raid mobs, that widened maybe slightly again now that raid bosses actually hit for serious amounts. That's our "perk", and the only one that's left.
If you dont raid is there even a point in making a warrior? Always wondered what non raiding warriors actually do in game when Knights and Mage pets can do group content far better.
a 7% mitigation bonus vs knights while last stand is running... Itemization.. is there even a 1% difference in AC/hp on warrior equipment VS knight, superior knight weapons Group tanking - 1 DI less on hits, and about 2% less total damage due to Phalynx.. whats that like ohh 7ish % less damage taken vs a knight (without self buffs on knights) DPS - very close if not better (SK) This is all before the healing and utility.. some attention is warrented
Give me a non-solo situation (so you have a healer) where a knight can tank something and a warrior cannot. Any solo situations are meaningless, cause warriors never were and are not a solo class. Now name places warriors can tank and knights cannot. Oh ya, raid bosses.
I don't think we're being completely ignored as a class (though all the feedback directly related to the NTtB nerf seems it was), my guess is that Sony is down to a skeleton crew maintaining EQ1 and they haven't figured out what to do with Warriors to fix us. If somebody comes in here to talk to us, they're going to be dealing with a large group of upset people who will be difficult to reason with. We're looking for answers Sony just doesn't have, or doesn't want to provide for some reason. The unnecessary NTtB nerf, all of the discussion on tank parity, threads about how to improve Warriors, and the ease with which others perform my role better in this game has me mad and even moreso disappointed. There's this bad taste in my mouth where I don't want to play my Warrior, because what's the point? And that's pretty awful, since I've been playing since 2000, and started maining my Warrior once Ykesha was released in 2003. I'm very attached to this character, but he feels less useful as the game goes on. I will keep playing him because my guild needs him, but I am waiting for the Froglok Monks to get released so I can play the hell out of one of those instead. At this point, I expect that there will be fixes to the stacking issues associated with NTtB released in an upcoming patch (I almost said next patch, haha), but the duration will not change. We will not get an explanation, players will continue to be mad, cancelled subscriptions will survive off of krono (which I think is actually a win for Sony, at an extra $3 per month), and the game will continue unbalanced with Warriors feeling outclassed in every respect except for a 3 minute window of Last Stand during raids.
