Deathtouching non fighters

One glance at their kit would beg to differ.

This isn't just a "Oh they have a defensive stance, that means Tank!!!" thing, but a significant portion of their AA's and skills are 100% useless for anything but tanking.

We're talking things like their inherent and AA based Taunts (Other Scouts can panic cover a tank by hopping into Def stance without needing taunts), things like Lunge Reversal, Ruthless Riposte and En Garde which are primarily avoidance based (Sure, En Garde can proc off CA's, but the consistent damage is through actually getting those avoids), their Stamina tree has much heavier focus on tanking than any other DPS's (Including threat gain!), there's Battle Endurance and Impenetrable Chains (Along with a Focus for only their defensive stance, unlike every other Scout and even some Fighters...) that bolster their defenses, there's Duelist's Perception that can increase their threat gain (Again, unlike every other Scout that can back up Tank in a pinch) as well as Dance of Metal and Pris de Fer which provide significant defensive benefits.

Meanwhile, they're very limited in the pure offensive boosts you might expect for a class that's entirely "A DPS class and always have been"

It's almost like you're trying to blatantly ignore the parts where I've said that I don't agree with the "Do billions of DPS + Tank" thing and where I've said, multiple times, that I'd prefer to see it so that a DPS class that specs into tanking also has to neuter their DPS to the same level as a Fighter when they're tanking.

Whilst also simultaneously allowing a Fighter to forgo their tanking role and instead just do the billions of DPS like a normal DD would but sacrificing their defence to the same degree as a Mage/Scout exists at.

This would mean that no Archetype would ever become "Obsolete" since a Fighter could be played as a DPS (This means, they might be able to actually get a spot in a raid!?!?!?! Instead of being cast aside 'cause the 1-2 Tanks required have already been covered. Madness I tells ya!!) if they were disinclined to Tank or if they were with someone else who spec'd and built themselves to tank on their non-Fighter.

But again, to reiterate:

I do NOT agree with the general concept of DPS classes barely affecting their damage output while "Tanking" and would in fact prefer if steps were taken to ensure that in order to be able to Tank things, you had to undergo significant damage restrictions.

I've not said this before, but I do want to point out, that I'm not too sold on the idea of Bard (Or Chanter) classes performing proper DPS/Tanking/Healing roles, given that their mere presence is in of itself a unique role that is highly sought after and literally impossible to recreate on another class (BL's can get close due to their potential mana regen, but they won't bring the same level of buffage)

Opening up Fighters to do more than just Tank, would help the archetype immensely, because one of the sticking points is how few places there are for Tanks in end game that even if someone might WANT to main a Fighter, they might HAVE to go and main something else because there's no spots for them in Raids/Heroic Teams.

Changes to fighters need to come before anything else, or you may as well delete the archetype. We've been waiting for (and being promised) class balance fixes for over a year. If it takes another year there flat out won't be any fighters left except for the dozen needed to keep the raid scene going.

Which is fair enough.

That said, it's worth noting that this particular thread was not made around Fighter's and the changes they need (If you try and use that as a major point against the premise of this thread)

What would be nifty, is if there was a thread where people can discuss changes that they believe the Fighter archetype could use. I know I'd find it interesting to read over.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find one, which is strange, given that Fighter mains seem to be waiting for changes and all seem to agree that "Changes" need to come, but unlike here where some non-Fighter tanks have come together to discuss changes they want, there doesn't seem to be anything about Fighters anywhere (At least, on these forums... Prolly a Reddit thread somewhere... There's a Reddit thread on everything...)

I would like to see Fighters become more prevalent. With changes they deserve. So it's a shame there's not much active discussion on the topic...

Also it's worth noting, that the longer the Deathtouch mechanic stays around, the less likely that a proper Fighter rebalance is to happen. Since, it's very possible (If not quite likely) that this band-aid fix to make Fighters "Relevant" could be left as the only thing they get. Meanwhile without DT, so people are competing Fighters with non-Fighter Tanks, there's much more pressure to ensure that Fighters get changes they need so they can carve out a place to thrive in the game (Without using stupid mechanics)

but it's just like some fighters .. Bruisers were kind of meant to be able to be used as dps class.

in their AAs they have an alternative buff which desaggros on every proc (opposite to manhandle which adds threat when proc)
control hate which loose a hate position if in off stance
they also have positional attack (from rear)
my epic rep buff states that my proc will add hate if front of mob, or lose hate if rear of mob (so again hybrid)
and in prestige they have attacks that make them do more damage if the bruiser isn't the target or if the bruiser is behind the target

so there were really thought behind it ..; but is it usefull ??? nope, not anymore.

so you always say some scouts were designed as tanks .. yeah .. back in the days, 10 years ago. Brawlers were hybrid tank dps 10 years ago also.

but as we all know lots of AAs are useless nowadays and lots of stuff don't make sense and it's not by looking at AAs or spells that's u'll sometimes see if they can do stuff or not.

so u cannot base your ideas of a class based purely on AAs. Some were just there for solo purpose.

Healer's off stance is mostly to help them solo. Not DPS in group. while scout's def stance was to help them solo harder stuff and AAs helped that too. A bit weak .. well got u a parry buff to help u vs incoming damage.


in some games like ESO, diversity comes after picking a class, .. there are few classes but lots of possibilities.
In WoW it's a mix, starting to have more and more classes, and then sometimes u are able to pick roles (some u can't)
EQ2 diversity comes at the beginning (class picking) .. u can hardly change role when u chose your class. u can do that a bit through gear and AAs, but it's very limited.

now some people ask "why should I have to play a tank to group ?" ... well because it's a game with the holy trinity and if u don't play with those rules that are clearly stated, u might get stuck. And it's still Devs that decide of those rules. Players can bend them for a while but it's still DBG game.

even in games, choices can have consequences. U chose to play a less boring class to level, but there is some kind of price to pay.

because it's all related

So what do I look at? What they can actually do? 'cause then we're right back to the "Everyone can Tank" thing because everyone can get hate mod and mitigation gear and start tanking.

You know, until Deathtouch rears its ugly head and says "Nope, can't do that. Not any more. Not after 10+ years of doing that."

So, to look at a character and what it can do, I shouldn't look at AAs, spells, or anything. I just go "Oh, this class can do X" using magic powers of insight or some crap?

Fact is, Rogues are set up in a way that lends themselves to tanking. Much like Fighters. They don't do great DPS compared to actual DPS classes, much like Fighters. Certain mechanics call for Scout tanks and some effects actually include Scouts in their umbrella of tanks in regards to threat modifications.

In addition, Rogues CAN physically tank. They have the tools to manage threat, and even have a snap to assist with spikes (Which, if used well, can actually be used to generate threat since it's a hate swap, so you can let someone throw a big alpha that would normally wreck tanks and then just take all that hate yourself.

The AA's that Rogues have that assist them in tanking, are actually some of the few AA's that actually do something and work

Technically, Fighter's detaunt AA's also work (Bruiser's have Alternate: Shiftiness and Monks have Alternate: Mongoose Stance as well as Enhance: Tranquil Vision) they just lack the DPS to back it up... Though, with current Dragonfire, it might actually be feasible to run DPS Monk.

No, they ask "Why should I have to play a FIGHTER to group?"

Since, it is possible to Tank on non-Fighters. Hence this entire thread about a mechanic that literally just shuts that down and brings nothing else to the game.

Fighters are meh, in my and apparently quite a few other's opinions (Else there would be more of 'em going around). There's a lot going against them, such as sucky Epic 2.0 timeline, slow leveling due to relying on basically 1 maybe 2 half decent offensive skills (With horribly anaemic "Offensive" stance benefits), lots of pressure to perform as a Tank (Currently their only viable role) and the end goal to strive towards being to get sidelined because there's no spot for the newbie Tank in end-game content.

What does Deathtouch bring to alleviate any of that?

Oh, it makes people sit around waiting for a Tank to do casual Heroics and Dailies? Until they get bored of waiting for hours and go off and do something more enjoyable, like watching paint dry...

Still doesn't make playing a Fighter any more enticing, other than maybe putting a bit more effort to get your alt semi-decent set up to PuG some HC's every now and then while your Main sits around hoping someone else will bring their alt tank so they can do something.

The price for picking a certain class should be in terms of available skills, utilities and numbers. Rather than picking a class to only get people to whine about how crap their class is until a stupid mechanic gets put in that simply serves to make my class as bad as theirs while still not actually improving their class in any way, shape or form.

Hardly.

Deathtouch as mentioned above, doesn't do literally a single thing to alleviate Fighter concerns. Other than maybe some cases from last expac where Fighters may have been turned down for a group in lieu of running a 3rd DPS (I'm not wholly certain on how prevalent that particular scenario was... Especially when the anecdotal evidence is "Oh, the run may take 2 whole minutes longer!" as the reason why people wouldn't take the first body that can tank to their group...)

The class still suffers from all the problems, and DT doesn't help. As I've mentioned, since it's now forcing Fighters to get used, it's possible that it can make DBG THINK that they've solved every single woe a Fighter main might have, without actually addressing any of the core issues that is present with them.

And again, I'm not looking to just have DT removed and that's the end of the matter, no. I'd like DT removed, AND some balance changes to come for both Fighters and non-Fighters so that there isn't a case of a T1 DPS just equipping a shield and doing T1 DPS while "Tanking" which would obviously cripple how useful Fighters are (With their less than T1 DPS when tanking or not) - Not in the least, because it also would affect my Swashy, which is in the same boat as Fighters in that it is not a T1 DPS no matter what role it fills.

Every expansion up to this one didn’t have a new 1 shot thing That’s a fact. you are always going to take a tank over other classes if you have the choice but to suddenly ram it down our throats over a decade later is hard , good luck finding tanks later in the expansion when they have ran the zones a million time , the summer ethereal event will certainly be a challenge people stop logging you lose player base numbers.

Most expacs until statflation happened didn't allow non-fighters to easily tank zones, and didn't have a large amount of + Mitigation gear available for non-fighter.

Changing the AA that increases max hp based on Pot/CB to be a fighter only AA, making the dragon ward apply to indirect damage only and generally reducing the amount of +Mitigation gear for non-fighters would provide the same effect. Mob damage would have to be retuned though, so I doubt it'll ever happen.

Honestly fighters need reasons to play the game, other than just to tank raid mobs. Making 1/4th of the classes in game pointless for anything outside of raids is silly.

For those three people that asked, why don't the fighters make their own thread to improve their classes or get their issues fixed, the answer is simple.

We know, it is, a waste, of time, to even, try.

No troll, no sarcasm, just a plain historical fact, we are all done fighting with one another over it, it is a fruitless endeavor to suggest it now. The lines have been drawn so let sleeping dogs lie.

As to why so few fighters left, well... veni vidi vici... at some point you set your goals in game, you either achieve them or you don't, then you move on, most real fighter personalities have a certain amount of finality in the way they approach both the game and perhaps conflicts in general.

Give it a few more months you won't be running heroics for anything anyway, not unless they add a T4 or T5 set of heroics with equivalent loot that is better/faster to get than the T3 or T3.5 raid loot.

That aside, death touch is excessive amount of control to exert. It should not be present in heroic content. It just wastes peoples time needlessly and causes them to be irate as a result.

During the massive rush for Ethereals, I sat on my paladin, spamming LFG for 3 hours. plenty of groups looking for a 6th, or just lfm, sent tell after tell. but I wasn't needed. because they'd rather another DPS, so that the required amount of zones they had to do a day would be that much faster to get over and done with. no one wants to spend 20 minutes a zone, when you need to do 4 zones, when you can do it 15 or LESS with DPS tanking.

me being damn near unhurtable didn't matter at all since I only put out 1/10th the damage that Conjy does. the swashy only takes slight damage, and he still does 5x what I do even without his positional attacks. THAT is the problem. So what is the solution? well, you could up my damage stupidly high so myself and other fighters become the obvious defacto choice for a tanking role. look, now I'm basically unhurtable AND I can put out numbers! but they tried that with Reckless, and it horribly backfired on them, cause those scouts? they threw a **** fit.

So..should we nerf the abilities/armor stats/AA powers of the other classes so the Fighter becomes the Tank again? make it so you can't tank even remotely close to what I can, but hey, you put out a lot more damage then me? that was how it was intended to be before, but stat inflation and such has destroyed that without nerfing the hell out of the other classes. I don't particularly like that outcome either.

So we're left with putting in some kind of mechanic that punishes you for not bringing a Fighter to tank.

if you want to make me an Assassin in plate armor, you see how well that goes over again. you want to make me yet another healer? you see how well the healers appreciate that. Hell they still piss and moan about how much the BL can do in Spiritual. (and rightfully so, imo)

the Archtype roles should be untouchable. that should be the one area that you or I have a for sure slot. for the Fighter, that is Tanking. for scouts and mages, that is DPS, for preists, that is healing.

your flavor for doing your archtype role should come from the class you choose. want damage plus a crap ton of debuffs? those are your rogues. want just flat out damage? those are your predators. want damage and insane buffage? those are your bards.

it shouldn't be, want damage, tanking, and debuffs? pick a rogue.

anymore then it should be, want tanking, healing, and buffage? pick a paladin.

no scout or mage should touch me in tanking. no scout or fighter should touch a priest in healing. and no fighter or priest should put up numbers like a scout or mage.

But to get that back in parity, that'll take a lot of adjustments, and lets face it, more then a few nerfs to non-fighters. so which is the lesser evil, the backlash from nerfing 8 or so classes across the board to make fighters viable again for thier sole function, the backlash from giving fighters solid secondary functions (stepping on the toes of priests/dps like the tried with Reckless) or the ******** from a mechanic that makes you bring a fighter along to deal with it, or eat a bunch of deaths over the course of the fight.

I'm wagering the mechanical fix ala the DT to non-fighters probably pisses off the least amount of people right now.

A simple solution will be to add some group buff if you have all 4 architypes, and if you dont you get nothing.

But yet, Fighters are so afraid of 1 single thread about Deathtouch that they feel the need to come in and whine about how DT is necessary for the sake of the class...

Or is it simply that there's an actual fight being made here, unlike what Fighters are doing for their changes, that there might actually be some traction to gain in regards to having changes happen?

Since that's a thing. Developers aren't psychic, they're often ripped into by people saying "Do they even PLAY this game???" so, often, if nothing is being mentioned about something, then they assume its fine...

You make 12+ page long megathreads about the changes that Fighters NEED and you're more likely to have something done about it (Not necessarily guaranteed and even if something does happen, it might not be in a timely fashion... But hey, you tried instead of sitting back and whining when someone else tries to fight for their own changes like that'll do something)

Heck, I might start threads soon about the AA system, since it's in dire need of an overhaul, not just due to the extreme amount of useless points (Such as all the reuse affecting points, which seem to be vestigial skills from a time before 100% reuse from gear was the norm... Heck, at this point it's like you may as well just remove reuse from gear and just slash all CD's in half baseline and then adjust these AA's to have lower values...) and then of course there's stuff like the Focus skills which, if the level cap increases much more, then you'll have more points than there are actual things to take...

It's actually not all that massively insanely hard to think of a way to make non-Fighter Tanks as poop as Fighters if they want to tank - Without either nerfing non-Fighters damage output massively or buffing Fighter tanks into plate cannons.

It would simply require threat to be overhauled in how its generated. Then, make it so that a Tank would have to be in a Defensive Stance with a shield equipped to properly generate threat (With Brawler's being the exception to the shield requirement obviously. Possibly also making it so that BL's can't be tagged as a Tank, due to their Def Stance being oft used for healing). Then you simply make Defensive Stances punishing on your damage output, but with boosts to threat gain to compensate.

Voila. You've opened up the path to make non-Fighter Tanks, but they have to sacrifice their T1 DPS in order to do so. Also, you've opened up viable avenues for Fighter DPS, but they have to sacrifice their ability to Tank in order to do so.

If you want to get really quirky, you can even attempt to create some new AI interactions so that when a non-Tank has aggro in an instanced zone, instead of them being the only focus of the mobs attention, they instead randomly attack ANY non-Tank (So you can't just try and generate threat to tank by going balls to the wall on DPS and having focused heals + wards bypass the loss of defences from Def Stance, 'cause there's the possibility that someone who isn't getting focus healed goes splat instead)

The outcome of all this?

No nerfs needed. Fighters can Tank without being outclassed in damage by non-Fighter Tanks. They also have the potential to be made to also be able to DPS in order to have a spot in end-game content when they aren't required to tank (Thus allowing raiding guilds to perhaps include a sort of "Tank Rotation", all the while allowing all the guilds Fighters ample opportunity for gear upgrades from the raid content).

In addition, non-Fighters also can Tank, but they have to legitimately sacrifice their DPS to do so. It also creates the potential to allow them to fit into those umbrella threat effects that single out Fighters for buffing threat (Or not reducing it) due to the nature of the "Tank" tag conditional.

Also, you as a side effect, make the stances more meaningful than they currently are... Right now, only BL really has a majorly noticeable effect in different stances, but that's only because their skill selection is tied to it, rather than the inherent stats from the stances themselves...

Heck, if you even wanted, you could even skip over potential threat boosts to Scout Def Stances, so you have a situation where a Fighter will be able to inherently get threat boosts needed to Tank, while a Scout would need to put in the effort to get Hate mod gear to be viable.

But no, just sit and whine about how crap your class is and how DT is necessary to make your crap class not crap (But it's still crap and you'll still whine about how crap it is) instead. Meanwhile, people will continue to spend days looking for a Tank until they quit the game 'cause they can't do anything since PQ's, Heroics, Events, Raids etc all require tanks but nothing has been done to help make Fighters actually want to be played by more people...

just a few points i want to make...

1. no group, in the history of ever (exceptions due to personal reputation apply) would a group of 5/6 LF tank, reject an actual fighter to do the job. i.e. if they rejected you rainmare, as a tank then they either 1 already had one, or 2 don't like you. people do not have to be nice.

2. groups that formed up with a tank already (as someone that could do the job) were lookin for that last slot as a dps, which you are not. would not generally take you either.

3. the archetype of fighter tank isn't being attacked OR effected here they are secure in their standing of main tank and main heroic tank. what they have done is kill off groups that could have formed and played the game. thus hurting the non primetime players, hurting the heroic soloers, hurting the people that do not have a static fighter. and its only gonna get worse as players gear up.

4. you want to know what ideal gameplay is ? i'll tell you its simple. form a group and look for a tank + heal and 4 dps / util

lets pretend its me and my mate, (troub / defiler) we need 4 slots. a tank / 3 dps - filling the dps slots is generally super easy as i like to think i have a splended rep for building a group on AB, so now i have myself. a shaman and 3 dps now we just need a tank.. post in general and lfg and shout for a fighter to tank zones...

shoutin for a fighter to tank zones... 1 hour later - replaced 2 dps that decided to do something else

shouting for a fighter to tank zones, 2 hours later - gave up and irritated that had i been able to just play the game and run heroics sans fighter we would have gotten stuff done.

in this same situation i would take -any- fighter 5 million hp 300 resolve as long as its lv 110 to zone in but guess what? people don't want to feel like a useless piece of garbage in a heroic group knowing the only damn reason i brought them is so we can do the content without getting DT'd, and they get to play the game of how long can i hold aggro off the mythical'd up bard and do 1/1000th of my dps.

NOW lets pretend its from your point of view.. you shout . / general / lfg chat : group looking for healer + dps/util. may take a moment to get a healer. but bam. heroic group formed. go run stuff.

can you tank better than me? hold aggro better? do as much dps? - all of this doesn't matter - it simply DOES NOT MATTER, no one is gonna quit playing the class they enjoy because soandso does it better. what WILL make people quit the game is not being able to enjoy it unless they get lucky and get a group going with a fighter in it.

A few points id like to make

1. Your splendid rep for building groups evidently does not extend to fighters

2. Maybe you should make more friends that are fighters

3. Threads like this probably dont help point 2

4. You can run Torden and Innovation to your hearts content

5. Isnt it about time you stop flogging this dead horse and let it go?

1. if i only kept a list of fighters i ran heroics for (and tanked) for their epic 2.0

2. i assure you all 7 of them would count me as a friend

3. they support this thread, the change is killing our server slowly choking pug groups out.

4. the death touch is still there, gninja doesn't doesnt know the difference between script death and script death by extreme unwardable/dodgeable damage.

5. im protesting an unfair change, should i sit back and let the FCC er DBG decide who gets the fastlane to groups?


should MLK just sit back and relax in a segregated society? ect ect...

The scout QQ is epic in this thread.

No, you're not a tank if you're a scout or mage. End of discussion.

Take this Death touch mechanic as equivalent to a curse that only priests can cure. There. Done.

Obviously someone at DBG wants there to be at least 1 priest and 1 tank ( tank means fighter, you thick-skulled whiner) in groups.

Ever wonder why it's never hard to find dps/bard/chanter ?

Good job on repeating yourself for 12 pages, oh mighty non-fighter-tank.

What needs to happen is a massive stat revamp, and tone everything down... The issue is stats are so insane.. nothing is difficult in the game anymore for anyone just time-consuming, so they have to put artificial barriers. Why do you think some raid guilds that never were top 10 on there server are top 10 world-wide now. - The inflation is nutz i think they made a hole they are having issues climbing out of. lol

Well, no not really. Hence why there's a discussion to be had.

Since outside of DT it is very possible to tank on a scout... With some scouts being pushed towards that direction with their kits...

Honestly, you're not in the best position to be saying this, given that I've only had to repeat myself for 12 pages because FIGHTER MAINS are too busy QQing about how trash their class is and that if they had to compete with Scouts for tanking how they'd become obsolete because they're garbage and don't even care to try and become not garbage to actually read the points raised in the thread.

Like, literally, several pages could have been cut short had some people I'd been responding to had actually read my initial posts, ones that included things like not wanting Fighters to be in such a poor position as a whole within the game (Which is literally the only counter arguement brought in regards to the topic... Just a "But Fighters are pointless if they're not 100% necessary to bring in every group QQ!" and a "I didn't get insta-groups just for existing last expac!")

If you want to "End of discussion" statement on a topic, you'd be better served if you actually brought some evidence to credit your stance.

I've brought evidence of non-Fighter tanks. In the form of mentioning about things in a Swashy's kit, the ability for a Scout to gear up in a way that they can hold aggro and have the mitigation to survive it, the intricacies of skills to include Scouts in their threat components.

I've even gone so far as to provide a reasonable course of action that could facilitate Scout tanks alongside Fighter tanks, with neither of them inherently outclassing the other to the point of obsolescence - In a way that also happens to include a fix to one of the many, many problems faced by the Fighter archetype (The highly competitive nature of the class at end game due to being restricted only to a role that is in very low demand due to the required numbers being so much smaller than any other role)

But no, better just whine about how badly Fighters need changes, while simultaneously just blindly accepting a mechanic that quite likely will prevent any changes coming to Fighters on the pretense that it "Fixed" them because they're no longer "Obsolete"

Well, until the game dies off because there isn't enough Fighters being played to let people do... Anything. So they get bored and leave... (Again, because DT doesn't magically fix all of the aforementioned problems that cause Fighters to be underplayed... It only band-aid "Fixes" a single facet)

except it DOES matter. It flat out does. if you can DPS better then me, AND tank as good as I can, then there's 0 reason to bring me along. nothing. there's no incentive I can bring, there's no additive I can bring, there is literally no reason at all for me to exist in that group.

and this has been happening to the ENTIRE FIGHTER ARCHTYPE.

if you can tank as good as I can, and do 5x the damage I can do, the fighter archtype is rendered effectively worthless. that's all we bring to the table, Tanking. that's it. that's my occupation. saying it doesn't matter is like telling the people that used to build cars for a living it doesn't matter that a machine can do it faster and better then you. But we know it does, and so did they, when they got replaced by an assembly line entirely composed of machines.

Now they tried to 'fix' this before with Reckless. it meant that I could DPS to hold aggro, adn put out numbers like you can, and still take hits better then you. and scouts like you hit the damn roof with complaints to the point they pretty much took it out of the game/nerfed it into oblivion. it was lets give the Fighters and seconadry role as pseduo-scouts. and it caused a shitstorm. think it won't again? think it wouldn't if they tried to somehow make all fighters able to heal?

now the shoe is on the other foot. your crowding in on MY role, and I don't care for it too much. So if they best solution they found was force you to bring a tank, becuase the backlash they've ALREADY GONE THROUGH trying to give fighters a 'secondary role' or the backlash of nerfing the bejesus out of you, then I'm all for it. I'd prefer an alternate solution, and when you come up with one that isn't 'make me do what your doing to the other archtypes' and isn't 'nerf the **** out of the mages/dps infringing on the fighter archtype role' then go for it.

and your right, those groups might just not have liked me. and they don't have to be nice. but I was specifically told that they were waiting for another DPS. over and over again. because the 1.7 bil rogue, the 3 bil pair of conjies, the 3 bil warlock, and the shaman didn't want to bring the 25 mil paladin over another 1+ billion DPS. adn they didn't NEED me for tanking, they got a rogue for that, and it's not going to bother the shaman or cleric and even druid in the slightest to heal him.

so what is left? nerf the healers so the only tank they can effectively heal is a fighter? nerf all your mit/defensive stuff so your ability to tank is 1/3 or less of what I can produce? exponentially up my damage so I can equal your dps output plus I have better survival?

the path of least resistance is always the one the majority of players go with. the fastest zone runes, the quickest kills. why drag the fighter and his piss poor damage along when we can have the scout or hell the mage can tank and we can get another several billion dps instead.

why have the man build a car by hand when the machine does it just as well and faster? same principal.

you have to find a way to make fighters vialble in ALL content, not just hope enough stick around for the 1-2 slots per raid guild they can fill, or just soloing. that means there needs to be an incentive to bring a fighter to a group. they tried giving us a secondary damage role, and it failed. I seriously doubt they'll try it a second time, or try to give us a healing role or a utility role, becuase they'll get similar backlash from the priests and the chanters and bards.

no one wants to be nerfed outright.

so it seems, right now, that the idea is 'bring a fighter, or else you WILL suffer deaths' due to a script. can the script be powered through? I dunno. I'm sure if it can, we'll just be back to square one again. becuase the method of 'powering through it' will filter through the community, adn we'll be back to 'well, we don't NEED a fighter, and bringing that extra necro is another 3 billion dps so...screw the fighters.'

It works the other way as well though. If you remove the DT mechanic then wait a year to fix fighters then there aren't going to be any fighters left and they may as well not bother. Remove the DT mechanic and watch scouts and mages tank this entire expac while fighters twiddle their thumbs and eventually quit.

Right now the issue is temporarily "fixed". Your suggestion is to remove that fix and maybe possibly hopefully fighters will get some attention. With Daybreak's track record of completely ignoring class balance issues that's a big maybe. The better course of action is to leave the temporary fix in place until such changes are made.

This is where suggestions of changes to how "Tanks" work comes into play...

Such as the premise of making it so that those Scouts or Mages tank their DPS (Pun intended) in order to fill the role.

There doesn't necessarily need to be an incentive to bring a Fighter to the group, but merely no incentive to NOT bring a Fighter to the group. Equality is just that. That's the end goal for me, a place where if someone wants to play a Fighter? They can. With no issues. No having to put up with tons of drawbacks, not having to get to a point where they're not useful end-game because they can only partake in the 1-2 slots per raid because they can ONLY Tank, no having to have a hissy fit towards the end of expacs because things become a zerg-fest and because they can ONLY Tank they're less needed (Which is perhaps what might happen again this expac even with DT... You blow things up instantly, then they can't DT you...)

As far as the point about them not doing Reckless again, well, it seems like they only filled half the equation with it. You know, by only giving 1 archetype the option to multi-role...

Meanwhile, if you put into place changes such as ones that allow Scouts to tank (With aforementioned DPS reductions when they do so) and Mages to do... Things... While also doing a similar Stance related balance sweep to Priests... Then you have all archetypes able to do 2 roles = No-one has grounds to complain (People will, because that's what people do). Whilst also alleviating the pressure on Fighters who aren't able to secure the limited Tank spots in end-game content... I must note, that, due to the amount of utility they provide, it's possible that this scenario might end up with Bards/Chanters being left untouched as singular Support role classes... But given that they're always useful (Doesn't matter if the meta is zerg or if it's traditional holy trinity... Supports fuel everyone else's mana and buff their damage significantly)
no one wants to be nerfed outright.

Well, if you wait long enough that Fighters have left before fixing them, you at least have the opportunity for people to main swap after the fact, to brand new shiny, not awful to play and gear up Fighters. Meanwhile, if you wait until EVERYONE ELSE IN THE GAME to leave before fixing DT, then who are Fighter's gonna group with? More Fighters?

Well, if it's only a temporary fix, then that's fine, I can deal with that. I'll just play an alt until it's done. However, we have no guarantee that such a fix is temporary. Unless it's made aware to DBG that players disagree with the mechanic and that Fighters actually need to be addressed irregardless of forced participation mechanics, how will they know to actually make progress on such vital things?

At least with a discussion like this, I, and others, can put forward our thoughts about why Deathtouch is a dumb mechanic, how it tries to gloss over core issues with an entire archetype and how it paints a giant neon sign over the fact that stats are inflating at a ridiculous rate.

Not only that, but people can also put forward ideas towards helping alleviate these concerns. Such as my idea about Make Stances Great Again™ and can even potentially bring rise to a proper Fighter rebalance discussion thread (Still hoping one arises...).

It can also help to point out certain, potentially overlooked, aspects of the DT mechanic, that can serve to impede Fighters themselves. Such as the fact that people might leave the game due to inability to find Tanks for basic tasks (Thus, less groups/raids for Fighters to be in), or the fact that the mechanic itself could potentially be bypassed later in the expac if stats inflate to the point of being able to use 5 DPS and burn targets down before they get a chance to DT (Heck, what if people start going 6 DPS using BL heals all in an effort to get maximum DPS in order to burn things before DT can come into play?).

Heck, even just something simple like, what happens if a Fighter main wants to play a DPS/Healer/Supp alt? But can't because there's no Tanks 'cause all the Fighter mains have geared past that content? Or they wanna do solo/duo shiny farms on alts but can't because only Fighters can do that?

There's a lot more to a discussion over the DT mechanic than just having it instantly removed with no recourse. I for one, would not like to see a flat out DT removal and nothing else, I've mentioned that. I've mentioned I want to see actual penalties for any non-Fighter Tanks capabilities if they choose to partake in that role (Other than the loss of an off-hand auto-attack and minor amounts of weapon skills associated with a shield and def stance). I'd also like to see Fighters get their just rewards too.

But the core of it is, I don't want DBG to sit back and thing Deathtouch is the end-all-be-all of work that they needed to do to manage all of these things. I want them to get rid of the stupid mechanic and to instead actually fix the game. This all requires discussion, like this thread.[/quote]