Warriors Beyond TBL

Yeah to hell with that guy. It's the only Gradual Pull (unless you count forceful attraction) ability we had.

lol...that was in my HEAD when I heard his response.

I think the negative stigma with Grasp was tanks using it to take agro from other tanks, and then lose it once the taunt effect wore off. Some of the most annoying I ever had to deal with.

Using it for the pull effect is so nice.

I would love to have one of our taunts (Blast of Anger probably) have a really good range on it. I feel locking down a mob that I am not already on top of us a chore or near impossible in some situations.

I wouldn't mind having Offensive Discipline improved a bit for those times we don't need to tank.

Also..... more AE agro, reduced reuse time our AE Taunt would be a good start. Like every 3 minutes or faster would be nice.

Some things I've dreamed of (I'm allowed to dream right? But understand some aren't reasonable):

- Being able to have another ability (besides flash/fort etc) on quite short cooldown that completely dodges/blocks or parries one or only a few attacks. Similar to our shield topple, but doesn't do damage. This sort of ability becomes more fun if there is some sort of "ideal" time to utilise to vastly help you with certain "powerful" attacks the mob does every now and then (which you should see an incoming message for). Would make tanking a bit more fun in my opinion as you'd want to keep an eye out for these key moments that could really help.

- Add some spell mitigation to all our defensive discs so it isn't just melee dmg they help mitigate. (Or passive spell mitigation.) As we are so tied to others keeping a warrior up, it feels appropriate to have higher mitigation. Again, more fun would be somthing similar to above, but for it to work on spells/key moments to set yourself apart a bit on being good at reacting to the environment around you.

- I'd like to see a revamp of our defensive rune disc (currently tenacious) to be a more similar to what dragon glyph is for it to be a useful option, and would suggest dragon glyph is nerfed in uptime or power.

- Being able to dish out ae agro slightly more often (reduce some timers further) than we currently can. As in quick and high dps groups you will often find yourself out of all options (besides tab targeting) in certain moments after having used all your tricks (which are plentiful, just with too high timers to have a more complete coverage).

- Consolidate our precision and expanse discs (currently concordant) into one and remove all hate/dmg they do, and instead have it only increase incoming heals and give you a low chance to parry/dodge/block an attack (make sure it works on raid mobs that are strikethroughing everything atm). The reason I'd like this is because it feels like such a gimic to tie threat to incoming heals, this would remove that, but to compensate I'd like an increase in our threat on some key skills to compensate this. (More on this below.)

- If doing the above suggestion, I'd recommend to increase the amount of threat of some key skills to in order for us to manage agro better (due to the loss of threat tied to precision/expanse if revamped the way I described above). Skills such as: our insult line (slander), roar (kluzens), blast of anger should be greatly increased to compensate.

- I'd like to have a better way of regaining endurance after having died on a raid. In many events you are unable to utilise skills like breather because you are instantly put into combat again and the alternative of using a lackluster "wind" line that just gives you a bit of endurance (with huge cast time) doesn't cut it.

- Further reduce all dps disc timers. I don't think it is reasonable to increase the damage we do under our discs, but instead just be able to disc a bit more often than we can would help sustained for those moments you arent on tank duty.

Besides the above that I've just written from the top of my head, of course the regular x% increase to what we have is always nice, and expected. But would be awesome with something extra for sure, especially since TBL was so lack-luster in the aa & skill department.

I'm sure I'll think of more things that we will never get, but I can keep on dreaming right? =p

Please add new AA ranks to make Mark of the Mage Hunter a 15-20 minute duration buff or drastically speed up the reuse timer for it instead.

If I were given free hand with warrior abilities, I'd consolidate a whole lot of the buttons.

+Hate buttons especially. Currently, differences between them exist in the details, like with their added effects, but on a functional level in "EverQuest as she is played", they're used virtually interchangeably so those details become meaningless. Further, their effects aren't deployed "tactically", they're just subsumed in spamming to generate hate. Looking here at:

Kluzen's Roar (1/10s = 6/min)
Slander (1/13s = 4/min)
Gut Punch (1/20s = 3/min)
Blast of Anger (1/min)
Phantom Aggressor (1/min)
Roar of Challenge (1/min)
Burning Shout (1/2min)
Rage of the Forsaken (1/2min)
Projection of Fury (1/5min)
the hate part of Warrior's Bastion (1/10min)
and the 20% uptime 25% multiplier of Warlord's Fury (so avg 5% boost to all the above)

That's 20ish +hate abilities each minute, spread across 10 buttons for reasons that aren't really reasons given their functional deployment by players pretty much ignoring the differences. Warriors, as they're played, either just want to be touching each minor mob with "something" (doesn't matter what) or are piling every ability (again doesn't matter what) on a big mob.

I'd kill basically all of the +hate buttons by lumping them into a singular button with 2-3s cooldown that had the appropriate +hate value (yaulp style naming, imo. Provoke XIV Rk. III!). It shouldn't have an over-time component, as agro reinforcement/buildup can be well covered by weapon procs and a bump to Phalanx of Fury AA proc rate, or, when playing against aggressive (ahem, "good") dps by re-tapping the ability.

Taunt (and its AA companion Ageless Enmity) does something functionally different by jumping over the agro list, so it's not in the same mental bucket for me. It goes untouched.

There are a couple add effects whose fate probably ought to be negotiated, but there's natural-ish home for them in /autoskill procs the style of mnk/bst. To wit, Gut Punch's SPA184 chance-to-hit debuff, and Roar of Challenge's SPA216 accuracy debuff (that each make tanking marginally easier) could be made a proc on /autoskill Bashes, and Knee Strike's SPA172 chance-to-avoid debuff and Burning Shout's SPA174 chance-to-dodge debuff (which are marginal dps boosters) made a proc on /autoskill Kicks. We don't currently have to choose between them, but any perceived loss should be made up for by better "up time" on the chosen debuff, and having access to both as options would provide a bit of benefit to multiple warriors attacking a mob. The actual damage currently added by those (Gut & Knee) buttons can likewise be addressed by monk style Resonant Kick & Strike AAs. Happily pay AA for those to get rid of buttons.

If I've kept track well, this scheme basically only strands the defensive portion of Warrior's Bastion - I promote it into taking the shabby Armor of Runes' spot as an actual defensive discipline! …with a way higher cap on its SPA451 protection justifying taking up the Combat Ability window slot. Basically Roaring Shield as a class ability. <3 that redundancy. In the manner of "striking while the iron is hot", make Dissident Shielding also occupy the Combat Ability window, both to reduce stacking conflict and to encourage somewhat more dynamic disc rotation. That would unquestionably be a nerf to Dissident Shielding, but worthy in formatting the class better to disc for defense as actively as ber/rog/mnk disc for offense, and perhaps better for the game if warrior's can't go quite so monstrously tall by stacking everything all at once.

Warlord's Resurgence I've ranted about before. It should have been passive to begin with, and the value could trivially have doubled with each level up expansion and still not be broke. If one wished to get fancy with it, the regen/HOT could be a proc at low hp, with higher ranks triggering higher HOTs before autocasting the ranks that existed before. It started with 300/tick in House of Thule (level 90), so the present 110 version would be like "at half hp, trigger 4 ticks of 4800/tick HOT", with a duration-fade trigger of the lv105 4 tick 2400/tick HOT, and so on down the line. If the warrior were bouncing around half hp, the highest tier would stay active, benefiting her nearly as much(!) as half of a spell so low powered paladins don't bother casting it at-will. Really and truly, though, I wouldn't bother with all the nonsense; Warlord's Resurgence wouldn't be OP as plain full time 4800/tick regen. Reinforces the "general toughness" of warrior characters, instead of granting a shabby & out of flavor instant heal that takes a hot bar slot.

Call of Challenge ought to be deletable as fully redundant with Warlord's Grasp. The sweeping nerf to positioning tools did warriors dirty, taking the absolute wrong half of its function and leaving warriors with, very very weirdly, a quintessentially enchanterish button. There's nothing I can think of more warriorly than insisting on a fight with the enemy, but that half of it went away! Warrior want to protect someone? Warrior isn't a paladin or cleric or enchanter or SK, warrior does it by taking the hits instead. Warrior wants an enemy to be somewhere in particular? Warrior doesn't do it by controlling or cajoling or misdirecting, warrior does it by insisting the face bashing happens to them, at them! It's my understanding that there are concerns about abusing powerful positioning tools, so I volunteer Grasp to jump onto AA timer 11, locking out the warrior fade ability Howl of the Warlord for Grasp's 30s reuse cool down time; also it can deal a point of damage every 2sec thus breaking all roots & mezzes.

I don't have a brilliant plan for revamping the 20 minute things Rage of Rallos, Mark of the Mage Hunter, Warlord's Tenacity, and Warlord's Bravery buttons. So I just think it would be appropriate to shorten the cool downs on them. By lots, like chop them in half. Things that take up buttons should have high utility. Fortitude Discipline has a similarly long cooldown but is Super Powerful to deserve it. The other things… are good, but not "this will make you win while it's on" good. Rage of Rallos in particular, as a 1/5th duration version of rng/bst/brd AA, shouldn't also be saddled with a double cool down.

Enough wishful thinking for now.

almost missed this tidbit. Yeah /shield needs Lay on Hands style target-of-target functionality.

i dont really agree with some of your points Brogh wile i understand your points and some are valid. i think lumping all the bottons in to 1 or 2 is takeing away player agency and cleaver use of pairing abilitys together to amplyfy effects

like makeing sure you use blast with a hate amp . the ability to use your phantoms as temp add tanks if needed rather then just looking at them as hate genrators you can also use them as hp bags basicly in a pinch to save someone or yourself by them soaking up mecanics (maybe not something intended but you know it works so useing it )

as far as revamping dico/dissedent to take up the CA window im not a big fan as i dont just use this ability as a mitigation tool. i do choose to use it sometimes just to rotate the ability as a hate multiplyer and the mitigation part is of secondary considderation as controlling the mobs is more importent to keep heals focused

i do agree with you warlords resurgence. i dont even know why this is a botton it needs to be relooked at and made in to a passive ability or alternatly rescale and trigger when we go in to a berzerker rage when at low hp

im not a big fan of restricting gut punch and knee strike effects to auto skill abilitys that means we could only use one effect at a time . i see warriors as a versitile fighter that should be able to attempt both at the same time when they see the opening to do so


with regards to Call of challange and Warlords grasp i echo Broghs veiw fully

This next request is not warrior class specific but would be really nice. A new 1hander rune proc aug available either as a drop from rare mobs or as group vendor currency purchase in next expac. Last good one was Energizing Attachment from TDS.

Despite my intense skepticism that you actually make a practice of micromanaging Gut & Knee & Shout & Challenge debuffs, I'll satisfy myself by pointing out that if you really do, then it's entirely within the bounds of the /autoskill system to alternate them for both debuffs, as it it now for mnk/bst to utilize multiple debuffs (but pretty universally choose not to). And it's well within your mental bandwidth to do so, should the resources dedicated to carefully arranging the current buttons be freed up

I'm going to side with Repthor on the topic of player agency (the fun factor) in terms of design. However, Brogh is right that you can apply multiple effects with active autoskill usage too, though it's a indirect and bit convoluted.

On my beast lord, I do actively switch autoskill kicks to apply the various debuffs and dots mid fight. To me it's little different then using bandolier for debuff weapon procs the past many years before belt procs were a thing. I had even made a macro (on the beast lord) that switches autoskill every 8 seconds (2+ kick rounds) to automate application of those debuffs. But a macro running for 30 seconds locks out other game play, so that's not a good idea outside of boxing. If running macros did not interfere with active game play then I would say that's a good direction to simplify the UI. Unfortunately that's not the case.

Do you feel "player agency" in clicking Gut Punch, Knee Strike, Burning Shout, Roar of Challenge? Or do you click them whenever they're up, as aggressively as possible, for the primary purpose of generating more agro. Are their debuffs tactically deployed? or are they nice (if almost unparsably minor - but nice) side benefits?

The former because those abilities are not strictly about +hate, rather about stacking melee debuffs on the NPC that tilt the fight in the warrior's favor. I want them all applied to the NPC as much as I can manage. Roar of Challenge for example debuffs up to 3 targets so I want game play and UI design that facilitates my activating that on demand. Not as some random side-effect to another activated abilitiy (that might even be single target).

If the debuffs are as unparse-able as you emphasize, then that's an indictment of worse yet placebo game design.The player should be able to press buttons (agency) that affects the outcome in varied circumstances. A warrior should not be 100% dependent on having a healer to protect with /autoskill +hate abilities.

I will say that roar of challange as it is currently is just a botton i use for ae aggro the debuff it provides can not be counted on at all as it has such a poor resist check to land. its like winning the lottery to get the debuff. And also the hate component and small target restriction on it is very outdated. But as i stated in an other post i want the ability as a whole upgraded and added as a staple to one of our main ae aggro skills rather then comming up with something entierly diffrent we alreaddy have a good skill here that just need some love and updates.

As far as gut punch and knee strke i do use them independently so i dont snares mobs when i dont want to or event worse take up the raidbos debuff slot with useless knee strike debuff. As for gutpunch i use it pretty much on cooldown. But i also dont want to have to wait for the next autoskill to com around for me to snare something, the element of instant cadt abilitys is one of the upsides of warrs thats one reason the cooldown on some of our stuff is longer the we like . The fact that we have the option to push the botton and have a decent chance to do whatever as fast as the game can register the keystroke has value .As for burning shout this i micro mangage so we on raids have as high uptime of the melee debuff as possible as we just use 3 warrs in my guild makeing as much of this debuff makes me feel like i get to contribute more to the guilds burn calls and or sustained melee dmg. I get its small but its still something.

I get that im prolly in the minority on all off this but its the small things that somtimes can push you just over the top

As i said just my 2cp

I enjoy these kind of threads.

I tried to avoid turning this into a long-winded post but couldn't help myself. Sorry.

Preface: I'm a noob and these are my opinions, mostly about the group game. The points I bring up are not yet well fleshed out. I will make mistakes and likely be wrong about many things in this post, you have been warned.

I've had a warrior since very early on in my EQ life. It's only been max level twice, level 90 HoT and 110 TBL. My stint in HoT didn't last too long as I wasn't up to snuff to raid or even group with my guild, a raiding guild at the time. That was mainly due to my lack of time I was able to invest. Even then it would have been daunting for me to learn everything there was to learn and obtain all the gear. Here in TBL land it's been a little easier and I'm almost at the top of my group gear (just the gear, not the quests) game, still lots of augs and other things to get though.

Point 1: Skills

After I was given all the AAs, I was in for a new shock. There are so many abilities to manage. I managed to fill probably at least 4 bars with abilities or things I would need for tanking. This includes AAs, combat abilities/discs, clickies, etc. For someone who didn't grow up learning all of what everything did, it can be overwhelming to manage. After some research I was able to figure out about multi-binding and the like, something that is useful for solving the current situation but shouldn't be necessary. What Brohg said is absolutely true, there are many abilities that do the same basic thing. These abilities should be consolidated ASAP.

Point 2: Gear

Obtaining the best gear possible is absolutely necessary to perform at any relevant level. This point is obviously super obvious for all classes but I feel it's even more true for warriors. Without the most current gear (current or 1 exp ago) we are effectively unable to perform our tankly duties and relegated to farm old content until we outlevel it to the point that it's no longer fair for the mob or we get carried by others. This is not fun and is bad for the class in general, the gap will always only widen between the few warriors that are left out there.

Point 3: Skills, gear, and suggestions.

I'll attempt to get to the point here. There are too many layers of damage mitigation and absorb effects to manage effectively. There are too many layers of hate and aggro management tools to manage effectively. There is way too much emphasis on gear as a warrior to manage effectively. On top of those three things, the flavor of the class is lost due to another issue brought up earlier. Most of the cool, martial-like effects miss all the time. What good is a gut punch or knee strike that doesn't leave its target reeling from the blow? The status effects of our abilities should be noticeable in our mitigation. SK leeches are always working for them as long as they are missing HP and they only become more efficient when the SK's HP pool gets bigger. I propose a system which highlights our martial prowess. Amplify our stances, reduce our ability bloat, and make playing a warrior as fun (not strong) as playing a dps.

S&B - Shield focused, damage mitigation stance designed to be used when you have aggro. % damage mitigation, absorb and debilitating skills for rotation fillers.
Aggro stance - % aggro modifying, aggro skills for rotation fillers. (DW or 2h, probably DW)
DPS stance - % damage modifying, dps skills for rotation fillers. (DW or 2h, probably 2h)

Put all of the abilities one would use in a stance on cooldown with abilities of another stance to ensure that only one stance could be utilized at once, no bandolier spam since abilities should be on CD.

I got tired of writing this midway through. I may come back to rant again.

Condense AAs more please, there are too many that do the same thing.

I disagree about the need to merge all hate abilities into one single one, especially merging the hate % increase ability. Overall, this would be a net loss of aggro for us, because we could have our button greyed out when we need this aggro at one moment for whatever reason, and the hate % increase abilities can be chained atm so that we have a good sustained aggro
You can yet fire all your short refresh aggro abilities together by using a macro or a multibind.
Same for merging mitigations abilities into one stance.
So you want to end with having to click one aggro button and 1-2 mitigation buttons maxxed ?
Would make me think to be back to old EQ where warriors had indeed 2-3 buttons max to press and it was so boring. Yeah at this time yet, tanks with faster reaction were better than the others.
But today, while fast reaction remains definately a difference of tanks better than the others, the way you chain your mitigation abilities can also change the dmg intake tanks can take, and there furthermore can show which tank is more skilled than the other.
This is much more interesting to think about how you are going to click your abilities one by one to try to survive the longest possible, than going very easy mode with everything merged into just a weapon stance you would choose.
Lastly, let dissident shielding going into buff window, and not in disc window, I use dissident shielding mainly for its mitigation purpose (and also making sure it doesn't land while another hate % increase ability is running so i get win / win in both areas, aggro and mitigation), and this would be a nerf then.

I should have stated more clearly that I prefer less buttons, not just one or two buttons, that was my fault. I agree, only 2-3 buttons would be boring and should be avoided but that's essentially what multi-binding does. If you have to utilize a work-around (exceptions excluded) then it's already become a problem. 10ish single target hate/debilitate buttons, 3/4 AoE buttons, and 12ish mitigation buttons are too many. They're redundant at that point and could be used to do something else.

Forgive me for getting the following information wrong but I don't have it in front of me to copy.

Disc - % mitigation
shield stance - % mitigation
bastion - % mitigation? and absorbs?
pain - absorbs
D. shield - absorbs
chest piece - absorbs
shield topple - absorbs
slander - absorbs

There are more that I didn't list but you get the idea. The same goes for AAs, clickies, trophies. There are too many pieces in the puzzle and it all becomes a micro-management simulator. While I understand it can be fun at times, I'm of the impression that we should be focused on the environment around us and the mechanics of something more than timers. (inb4 "get good" and "keybinds" and "memorize your abilities")

The idea with any % modifiers, in any form, is that they can and should be adjusted to keep our net the same. There should be no loss overall because the abilities are being added together. These changes in conjunction with gear changes would be enough to keep everything feeling similar to how it does now. I understand that I am generalizing when it comes to these designs but the principle still remains.

Agree with all your sentiments on button consolidation, obviously.


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Total side topic, it's worth being right about mitigation things everywhere they come up since one never knows which thread folks will find down the line:

Melee Shielding Heroic Mod, based on hSta - reduces base damage of melee hits.

Disc (Defensive, Last/Final/Culminating Stand) - SPA168 reduces random damage of melee hits
Defensive Proficiency (shield stance) - SPA168 reduces random damage of melee hits

Bastion - SPA451 absorbs damage off the top of large melee hits
D.shield - SPA451 absorbs damage off the top of large melee hits, also SPA452 absorbs damage off the top of large non-melee hits
Roaring Shield (chest piece) - SPA451 absorbs damage off the top of large melee hits

Brace for Impact - SPA162 absorbs damage off the bottom of melee hits
shield topple (break, sunder) - SPA162 absorbs damage off the bottom of melee hits
slander - SPA162 absorbs damage off the bottom of melee hits
pain - SPA162 absorbs damage off the bottom of melee hits, also SPA161 absorbs damage off the bottom of non-melee hits

Warlord's Bravery - SPA197 reduces total damage of melee hits
Guardian's Bravery (Omens' BP click) - SPA197 reduces total damage of melee hits