ZhouyuTheGreat wrote: I really mean no offence by this, I really do, but your entire point is moot because it is based of PvP which doesn't let you merge the entire class system together to get the maximum benefit that the game has to offer, now that right there is a personal choice and that being said, the game doesn't revolve around pvp, its a pve game first, pvp second. Now do not take this out of context, I am in no way saying that PvP players are second rate citizens, but merely pointing out that the game is designed to be PvE first and then they make changes for PvP servers for those rulesets. Let me just recap on something here, the old argument of days gone by about Zerkers being the best snap agro or overall agro control is long gone we lost that title after lvl 50 and when AA was released, that debate simply doesn't hold up anymore and can be a number of reasons that basically only boils down to player skill, AA specs (Not only for Zerkers or Guards, but speaking about entire raids/groups) and group formations in a raid/group sense, that is about it. We all like to think we are great players, but some just aren't despite what you may think about yourself OR spec'd to compliment your spec or others playstyle.
Kage848 wrote: I'm not attacking your post, but I've bolded something important, which folks have mentioned before. (All numbers following are rough estimates, so don't jump on me, I could give two [I cannot control my vocabulary]) As it stands right now, simple auto-attack damage far surpasses any taunts in the game in terms of pure threat accumulation in any given amount of time. There really is no contest. For example: Confront, the level 57 single target Guardian taunt has a threat value of 1126-1377 for 50 power. It's anywhere from a 6-8 second recast with Ritual of Alacrity from a Defiler and/or Jester's Cap from a Troubador. Conversely, in a Guardian/Dirge/Coercer/Assassin/Templar/Defiler setup, I hit from anywhere between 1.5-3.5K with my Grim Brimstone Hammer, every two seconds to two and a half seconds on average. So we'll take an average hit of 2.5K, multiply that by 3 (being generous with taunt re-casts), and you have 7.5K threat & damage in 6 seconds. Compare a 1200 threat taunt to 7.5K threat+damage hit, and the choice is obvious what you want. You could factor in that you will miss on occassion and that's true, but then again, taunts get resisted so I figure it more or less equals out. And guess what....my auto-attack doesn't cost power. This is the evolving problem of EQ2's combat mechanics; a one-sided race of auto-attack damage versus taunts. Even if you multiplied current taunt values by five or even six times to even out against the amount of damage I showed earlier, it would still only be threat, not additional damage one obtains from auto-attack. So if you wanted Paladins, Guardians and possibly Monks as defensive, threat oriented tanks with low DPS, you'd have to give us additional survival skills to compensate for the fact that we would only generate threat, as opposed to substantial amounts of damage and the threat that comes along with said damage. The problem is, if you followed a route of more defined offensive and defensive tanks in terms of threat versus damage, you create the possibile (and very real) problem of a raid simply telling offensive fighters to screw off because they want a defensive fighter who will soak up damage much better and still hold aggro. Who cares how much damage they deal, as long as they perform their job, others will pick up the slack. This is the reasoning I can think of why you want all tanks to be somewhat relative in their damage spreads, and why having one tank truly marginal in their damage output compared to their counterpart would be a very, very bad thing. The OP's original thread is well-researched and thought out, and I agree with most of it. And I will say that the new EoF Berserker ability rocks, and is much better than the Guardian one. I cannot comment any further for obvious reasons, but as someone posted earlier, they have given the MT ability to Berserkers, and the OT/support marquee spell to Guardians, which is why I keep saying wait until RoK until you make judgements.
ZhouyuTheGreat wrote: Currently Zerkers (with a skilled raid) can tank any mob in the world with an offensive aa spec and do more DPS than an offensive speced Guard, but still almost any raid guild in the world would anytime prefer taking the crappiest Guard in the world over a Zerker because they believe Guards can do magic, have more mitigation and other bs and that Zerkers can't tank any serious raid zone or mob. Guards can increase their combat art damage with their EoF AAs, reduce Reinforcement recast and get double attack and now another 20 points for more enhancements. That is more hate generation than our whole EoF tree offers if you could spend 200 points there. I'm also wondering how this ends up with RoK. If Guardians can spend all their AA points on more DPS that could equal Zerker DPS, have far superior non DPS hate generation (aka taunts), Reinforcement and the common believe that Guardians can do magic and now you come with your Zerker, every point of hp you lose will come for them from the fact that you can't do magic, you can't snap aggro like Guards, you can't do more zone DPS... I really hope that the Devs see this problem and will adjust our EoF tree and finally make the very first patch that improves Zerkers since over 2 years.
Tyrion wrote: There is more than one taunt available, and add to that the other self-buffed taunting procs that Guards have and they've never had difficulty maintaining aggro. I've never heard a reasonable Guardian complain about aggro management (or a berserker for that matter). I believe the point is that Guards are supposed to be more defensive and bererkers more offensive. Being more offensive means having higher DPS. We can expect to hold aggro using a combination of DPS and taunts but never DPS alone because the DPS classes by definition should out-parse us on damage. Guardians should have a higher level of taunting power to make up for the difference in DPS between guards and zerkers only - and they always have.
the main FACT is that most guards never take a DPS role and why they never seem to realize their potential for DPS and all the defensive skills they have over zerkers. they call us whiners, maybe we are, but who wouldn't complain a little if you keep falling down the chain in the area where you were supposed to be specialized in? keeping in mind our raid buffs are completely useless, group buffs are about the only thing we marginally have that is useful and the fact that guards can DPS as well as we can is the main point that gets us upset because all things said at the end of the day, even though they may think we still have the upper hand in the DPS department that just isn't the case anymore, as we NEED to focus our energy on DPS to maintain aggro where they do not so much, so they rarely notice their potential.
Lyger@Mistmoore wrote: This is on the money. I am not trying to complain at all, but I just want there to be a distinguishing factor between the fighters here.
-Aonein- wrote: I agree with some of the points you made here. It boils down to this, both guardians and zerkers can tank any mob in the game. They are just played differently and require a slightly different raid formation. Howerver, I do not see why so many zerkers are complaining about guardians getting the better out of the EoF tree. Who cares ? IMO and thats just my opinion, Zerkers are the superior MTs specially for a freeport only guild. Alot of the guardian class abilities after lvl 50 seems to be more towards support roles. Such as Sentry Watch, Guardian Sphere, ect. Guardians seems to be there to protect, rather than take the actual damage. In our guild we use a zerker as MT and a guardian as off tank. Depending on group set up the guardian is placed in the melee dps group, with hate transfer and having moderate on our top-parsing brigand, when our melee are in and mobs AE or when the melee is taking too much damage, the guardian steps in and intercepts damage. If it is required, the guardian has the best snap aggro ability, renforcements, to pull a mob off the zerker ect. However, I played a guardian for a long time, renforcements is only good for snap aggro to save a wipe or to pull an add off MT til things cool off. In a raid that does 25k+ dps, once renforcements is up and finished (13 seconds later) the guardian WILL start to lose his AE aggro. That was the main reason we stopped using guardian as MT. Just zerker been working a lot better for us. However I believe both classes are toitally capable of doing their job perfectly, it comes down to raid set ups and player skill. Therefore I see no need for whinning about our zerkers fall short, we simply dont
-Aonein- wrote: Irrelevant. Raids are based on PvE rules. Being on a PvP server has absolutely zero effect on PvE content, except when someone is trying to kill you... which doesn't happen in raid zones.
Tyrion wrote: "So if you wanted Paladins, Guardians and possibly Monks as defensive, threat oriented tanks with low DPS, you'd have to give us additional survival skills to compensate for the fact that we would only generate threat" Um Pallys have heal/wards...and guardians have sta/parry/tower of stone...Thoes are additional survival skills that Zerkers dont get. Thats part of the reason we should be so much higher in dps. I dont know much about monks so i cant comment but hey it seems brawlers have been grabing there ankles for a while now so they should be used to it....=0) I agree with you on some of your points. But i have to say there are only two solutions here. #1 give the guardians the taunting they need to hold agro and nerf ( Yes i hate that word but i have to use it, sorry ) there dps or #2 Merge the classes. And i still think Off fighters will be good as MT raiders because they may take more of a beating but they also will make the raid parse higher. Maby usefull for that raid force with too many healers? Only porb i see in it is it will make the guardian like kinda useless if hes not MTing. That is a problem, but the zerker is ok off tank dps so let the guardians get there own offtank talent lol. Just dont know what that could be?
Paikis@Venekor wrote: This was covered, read the post. It might be based off of PVE rules, HOWEVER its a FREEPORT ONLY guild. Therefore, they don't have templars, mystics, swashies, conjy's, etc etc. Those classes make a HUGE difference and impact on raids between thier buffs and debuffs. Thats why the farthest progression guilds in pvp servers are exiled guilds that can have a full compliment of classes. ZhouyuTheGreat wrote: No offense there bud, but you really need to work on your guardian skills. Stonesphere is great to use as the MT, whether or not your grp is taking dmg, because it still gives you a stoneskin proc. If your troub's have you first in the JC rotation (and they should) and your defiler is alacricty spec'd and using it on you (and they should) then all of your refresh timers are cut way way down. Then as someone already mentioned, if you like the short duration avoidance buff that debuffs your haste/dps so much over the permenant one that guards got, I will gladly trade you... Our raid does anywhere from 25kdps-35kdps depending on who we have that night/what zone we are in, and our guard tank rarely ever loses aggro. Even in FTH with the big grps of 5 mobs that AE classes can parse 6k+ on, he doesn't lose aggro once. With the new AA coming out, the only things zerks really get over guards offensively is destruction/juggernaut, open wounds becomes moot since guards will all be down agi line now and have a permenant 40% AE autoattack while ours is short duration with a couple min reuse. And Kemts eval of the CA's is off a bit since guards can boost the dmg of all of those signifigantly on thier way down to getting 9% more double attack, making the gap even wider.
Wonderful comparison of CAs Kemt. Indeed, the only difference between zerker and guardian dps is the zerker destruction, open wounds, and juggernaut. Open wounds takes a beating because AGI becomes much more feasible. Sadly, the destruction line is probably not going to be updated since its a 50/70 spell (I'm not in beta so I don't know for sure). So what we have is juggernaut, relaitvly weakened destruction and half an open wounds for a dps edge. While guardians have Stonesphere, Moderate, Return to War, Fortified Conviction, Tower of Stone, AND more HP per STA for a survivability edge. Zerkers also get some hp regen junk that I'm throwing out. I'm assuming War Cry/Call to Seige moxnix. Likewise with the slightly better Zerker Ostance moxnixing with the Guardian's more reliable reactive hate buff. (50% vs. 25%) Now lets take it to the EoF trees. Cyclone v. Slaughtering. Guardians can enhance the damage of their single target CAs, Zerkers can enhance the damage of multitarget CAs. Never, on any raid parse have my AEs outparsed my single target CAs. Guardians get 8% double attack with their final ability. Zerkers get a 10% taunt resist. Even spamming taunts, they amount to less than 20% of my threat generation. Whereas 40% of it comes from autoattack. I'm assuming that Zerker investments in destruction/open wounds in the previous analysis above. Guardian is the clear winner here. Debilitation v. Crippling Zerkers get to AA enhance their their taunting strike, which gives them a large edge here. Of course Guards get a similar ability out of the Slaughtering tree, so they moxnix. Gut roar and Cripple are both of marginal situational use. Neither class has an advantage. Stalwarting v. Perserverence The trees are fairly similar. Zerkers get some HP regen junk that's thrown out. Guards get some special AA enhanments that are already figured into the above analysis (just like destruction/open wounds) Other than that, both classes have similar defensive abilities that roughly moxnix. So its Block v. Perserverence. And Perserverence is a joke. Still, the difference is slight because its only one ability. Slight advantage for Guardian. Bulking v. Stability These two lines don't match up well, but we'll force them to. Rage and Juggernaut enhancements are already factored into the above analysis, as well as E: Ally and Reinforcement. So what we have is E: Weapon Shield, Hunker, and Berserk versus E: Intervene, Rescue, and Got Your Back. The weapon shield is nice because it produces dps. Berserk is utterly useless because you'll be berserk all the time anyway. Got Your Back is roughly equallly useless. However, in terms of threat generation E: Rescue is going to do more than E: Weapon Shield. Intervene and Hunker are useful tools, but are of limited use. Neither class has an advantage. So you see our dillemia. Guardian CAs are better than ours, their class tree is better than ours, and two out of our three defining DPS abilities will not be upgraded in ROK, and thus will take on relatively less importance. We both do the same autoattack dps, we both borrow liberally from the buckler spec. Warrior tree analysis is even worse, assuming that both warriors are specced 4-4-8-8-2 STA, 4-4-8 STR, 4-3 INT. Guards would add 4-4-8 AGI and tack on 2 to INTB. Zerkers will flesh out INT to 4-6-4-8-2 and add 3 points to STAB. Um, 40% AE autattack versus some haste a zerker doesn't need plus some parry? Clear winner is Guardian. So why play a zerker come RoK, unless it is for flavor. Guards should be getting MORE protective abilities in this expansion, not getting more DPS and treading on Zerker turf.
I do believe that all spells are getting upgrades in T8, including Open Wounds, Destruction and Juggernaught.
nope, was already said that most % based stuff like OW wouldnt get upgraded. I imagine that includes jugger as well but... we will wait and see.
No % spells (including our beserk proc buffs) will receive upgrades and Open Wounds, Juggernaut and VoM are as good with 70 as they are with 80. The best thing about Juggernaut is that this means, that it penalties will be reduced, because you have higher stats with 80 than with 70.
As a guardian, I'd love to be able to be pure defensive. To hell with offense. The only problem with this is that we have to have offense to be able to keep and hold aggro. DPS is king when it comes to aggro generation. Hence all the buckler spec guardians. Now if Sony was to buff up our taunts, perhaps we could live without the DPS. I'd love to have them drop the power per taunt cost of our taunt buff dropped. Also Sony has painted themselves into a corner with the diminishing returns on Mit. Basically all plate tanks have close to the same Mit, so no one class has a large advantage over the other. If Sony increased a guardians defensive capabilities it wouldn't make much difference defense wise. As far as the extra AA's goes? The base tree of the Guardians and Zerkers are the same, so to me this is a wash. Most guardians have already maxed out the DPS portion of their EoF AA line so, I don't see the extra points there adding much offensive power. I guess I'm just failing to see where RoK is going to make Guardians more powerful than Zerkers when it comes to offense. Of course I don't know what RoK has in store for either class. I wish NDA was lifted so we could know for certain. Anyway I wish our zerker friends luck in getting some love from Sony and I pray they do not get the Guardian class nerfed. That would be a sad day.
Raahl wrote: No, its not a "wash" as you put it. Just because the tree is the same, doesn't mean both classes get the same benefit from every AA. Why would a zerker go down agi line for the AE auto attack? We already got open wounds, and its up most AE fights anyways, so it would be a waste of points. However, and guard can go down this line, get the AE auto attack, and BAM, they got a slightly weaker version of one of the zerker CLASS DEFINING skills thats up all the time instead of every 2 mins. That imo is bull. Class counterparts should not, in any way, shape, or form, get any version of their opposites class defining skills. Raahl wrote: There is a lot more to this game defensively than mit. Your right, mit is almost useless, but avoidance is not, and guards get a self buff for that. HP is also really important, oh and guards get TWO buffs for that (sta and straight hp). Add those to ToS, SP, Block, etc, and guards have a large defensive edge over zerks, and here in two weeks you guys get to have a weak version of our main AE skill too....but yeah, no big difference at all ok.
Your right, theres no Big diff at all, cept Your combat arts are better with better debuffs, and you can raise all there damage by an extra 25% and you can get 9% Double Attack. Whats better 600 damage combat arts, 69% Double attack, 40% Area Effect Damage to all targets (perm) + All The Extra utility or 450 damage combat arts, 60% Double attack, 100% Area Effect to only 4 targets (for 20 seconds)
Yes the base tree is a wash. Just because you deem an ability as not a benefit does not mean that it's not. Yea you already have something in this area, but unless I'm missing something, you will still get the same benefit that a guardian would get for those skills, right? Basically both classes get the same benefit, an added chance to AoE on a primary auto attack. Adding this ability to a Zerker should make them even better at holding group aggro. I hate to break it to you, but many guardians already use this line specifically for the AE attack. I currently do. So it will not be something new. Don't Zerkers have some ability to increase their haste, above and beyond the base tree? If they do, that would make this auto AE ability even more effective. As far as avoidance goes, it's really pretty useless against epic mobs right? At least that's what my monk friends keep saying. If I am wrong, I'll need to rethink this. Basically when dealing with normal heroics both Zerkers and Guardians have little to no problems. In the end, the difference is when dealing with Epic mobs. In the end I guess it will come down to similarly equipped Zerker and and Guardian's tanking the same zone and displaying parses. Will this happen? Don't know.
InsaneChaosMarine wrote: I took out the one thing that both classes can get. Or I could add it to the Zerker if you want. Where are you getting the 25% extra damage from? Not so sure on the 600 vs. 450 either.
