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

monks were neutered we know it all too well.

As a war I thought when knights got the 35% it was a little much. One of my thoughts was can we have more aggro? Well, Harmonious gave us that this expansion. So I thought things were pretty good.

I've got a feeling this SK nerf is going to have some very unintended consequences and I really hope it doesn't go forward. This is fixing a very minor balance issue with a chainsaw instead of the scalpel it probably deserves (at most). Ignoring it would be the best thing and just next expansion give the other tanks a slightly larger new toy.

bards never got a toy to begin with... wheres our new drum?

Just remove weapon stances... reduces swarms of mobs tanking.. reduces tank dps .. mobs will be tough again.. add a few more ranks of shield block and remove defensive proficiency altogether.. leech effects etc will be fine without needing nerfing .. final stand will be premiere disc once more and have a bigger edge vs knight disc .. yaaaaaaaay!!

The issue I have with this SK nerf, is they are addressing the wrong problem in my opinion. Going back 10+ years, SK melee damage has always equaled healing with 2.0, mortal coil, leechcurse, etc. In the past, SK melee DPS was never that great, so this somewhat balanced out the healing provided by these melee leech abilities. In the past, SK DPS was very spell damage oriented.

However, they added visage to the game which greatly increased SK melee damage, which in turn greatly increased the effects for melee leech abilities. However, this had a fairly long refresh so it was still somewhat balanced.

The big change that really put SKs over the top was when they decided to give knights stances for some reason (I'm still trying to figure out why they did this). Not only did this make all tanks ridiculously OP in the group game from a mitigation standpoint (shield stance), but the 2H stance absolutely spiked knight melee DPS to insane levels. With this huge increase in melee damage came the unintended affect of greatly improving melee leech abilities to absurd, never seen before levels.

SKs, and even Paladins, are now routinely beating some actual DPS classes with full ADPS. The only reason there is not an outcry over tank DPS at the moment, is they rarely get full ADPS on raids. I really think they should leave melee leech abilities alone and instead look at tank DPS currently and tone that down to where it should be (i.e. well below DPS classes). They do that and the leech issues will take care of itself without completely neutering a class and mechanics that have been in place for over a decade.

Short version:
1. SKs were never meant to be driven mostly by spells for dps; that is just outright wrong and only happened in ~3 expansions (SoF, SoD, UF).
2. Before 2her stance went to knights, the supposed dps tank was outclassed by the other tank classes.
3. Swarming actually started well before Visage. Drogba's 'swarm' video of spiders is a joke compared to what true swarms use to be before blockers & hit limits.
4. The addition of stances to only Warriors created an issue within the tank classes. While you may argue that the defensive stance should have just been removed, if it wasn't going to be, it had to at least be given to knights after the rift it created.
5. 2her stance isn't even what boosted tank melee most recently - it was another change.
6. Outside of short pares (which, who cares about <60 sec parses?), all of the melee centric classes appear in line, save beasts and to a degree, monks. Those classes can use some love.

I agree with Xan. I used to see SK's tank a raid boss (old raid boss for an SK who is overgeared for it).

It went like this:
1. Wow, SK is crazy good tank.
2. Discs wearing out, SK is getting a little spikey.
3. Holy hell hang on tight, did the SK main change to a ranger?

Pallys were similar but with the events at the time it made more sense to reduce them to splash monkeys and not let them tank anything. That's a content issue. Good pallys were good tanks if we let them do it.

Giving knights stances as well as wars fixed that. Maybe given their other abilities the stance was too big? So instead of the obvious maybe reduce stances a bit fix, or something else, massive gutting the class.

This really is a huge collateral damage fix.

What was that stupid shadow (verbiage could be incorrect, was a square room zone that only silk could tank the boss??? maybe a phase?? probably was drunk. I forget) raid that required silk classes to tank? Lets solve all of EQ by having silk classes tank. Never mind I can't rune tank anymore.

That was during HoT, and lets not re-visit this. Some of us signed up to be tanks, some signed up to be dps. If you want to tank roll a tank.

What if they made it stay the same but made it an activatabe AA every 10-20 mins. Or leave it passive but have a 100% chance to not be used again for 5-10 mins. (I don't play an SK but throwing out reasonable alternatives.) Still get your situatonal riposte taps or just less use of it.

What should be nerfed? Raid gear.

Cue: Raging (Actually just bring up group gear somewhat close to raid gear, maybe 30% difference in effectiveness - ie: dps potential / tank / heal potential?)

For every class, not just tanks. I know some of the stats are even less than a 30% difference, but when all the stats start multiplying with each other, the difference between raid gear toons (all classes), and group gear is more like a 100% difference.

this!
Can we get a mage illusion Mod Rod Goat, please?

I would argue that you are hurting your own position with this, Millianna. 6 current mobs is an enormous amount, and for non-tank classes it would be insta-wipe. If you can always tank 6+ mobs, then there is no need for the aspects of pulling and CC, which are the very core of the Everquest experience. Mobs need to be so dangerous that getting to fight them in fewer numbers is a desirable challenge, that has been EQ since the beginning.

If you can tank 6 current era mobs all the time, then you are trivializing a number of classes, as well as making the game too easy. A lot of people like that the game is hard, it is a differentiator for Everquest.

We really like to play with a good tank, but if he is pulling all the mobs and doing all the damage, it takes out the fun of it. My friends and I (we are groupers, 3 players, 6 subbed accounts) deliberately avoid playing with tanks currently, because they trivialize the game. It is that bad.

No class should be able to tank 6 current era mobs consistently in group gear, without using all the bells and whistles. 6 mobs (groupers, group gear) is an oh--situation, that will require everyone to do their best, or cause a wipe. This brings incentive to pull and CC, and to fight the mobs 1, maybe 2, at a time. This allows devs to make mobs even more hard hitting, and again makes tanks even more desired in groups.

Playing with a good group getting mobs 1-2 at a time is great XP by the way. Very rewarding game play experience.

Lol was a joke

HOW bout no?? whats the sense in raiding then if your gonna have almost a level playing field between the two? make the sacrifice for such or play at your own pace, there is a price for both.

Can we close this thread already please? No matter how much complaining people do this WILL be pushed to live, there is nothing anyone can do about it. Out of years playing this game people need to realize it's not " play your way". It's " keep paying us to play our game the way we deem fit". So yah, lock this crybaby thread.

Yes yes shut down any differing ideas that's the key to fixing issues. Scroll past if you don't care but trying to get something changed before it hits live and takes months+ to fix is a good thing.

Not enough dank memes on this thread. Come on people, get out your inner redditor!