great post aonein as always, The bottom line is that some classes sacrificed defense for offense. I knew it when i played a bruiser, and you knew it when you played a zerker. Its not the same situation as with a caster type or with a scout type, in the lines of what is TANKING - offensive and defensive matters greatly. Now i will admit that if SOE planned on having offensive/defensive based tanks, then they shouldve made the kill speed difference able to surmount that lack of defense so that the OFFENSIVE types could balance that bogus ratio that is offense to defense. That in essence would be balance in the fighter archetype. Within the current setup, the differences between a shadowknight and a paladins tanking ability is SOOOO apparent it causes a stir. Simply because the shadowknight doesnt kill the mob at the same rate that the paladin can sustain his own Hp. Same thing in relation to guardian/zerkers. Zerkers shouldve had some form of damage increase while tanking exclusively so that they do great or even massive dps while tanking to balance the simple consistency based tanking of a guardian. So yes, people would be able to pick the flavor of tank they so choose with the tradeoffs being understood. Instead they just gave 2 classes a leg up on the defensive side of abilities and expected it to be okay. (guardian and paladin). At the least offensive classes shouldnt have been able to recieve riposte and parry and such. That might just throw the balance of being an offensive tank into the realm of holding aggro a bit better and killing the mob faster as opposed to the slow and steady approach provided by a guardian. That TO ME = would be a better direction for achieving balance. Message Edited by SageMarrow on 04-02-2005 09:33 PM
Vox dead, Venekor dead, T'haaen - workin on, Arch Lich dead, darathar dead, borxx dead, Lord Nagalik dead, all instances dead (cept zek)... not a full list.. but ALL these killed with ME as MT.. 50 zerker, and my gear is improving, but it wasn't always this good when I started tanking and we were still winning. Lodoz - Nektulos - Archons Message Edited by Zerofault on 04-03-2005 03:39 AM
I'm telling you right now. If you are a berserker going dps in a raid situation and you aren't taking aggro, then you aren't doing good dps. The reason that berserkers aren't a dps class is that we have no detaunts/hate reducers. Please think about this. Even though a berserker CAN do more dps than any class in game, they CAN NOT do it without taking aggro. SO, in order to keep from taking aggro the berserker has to cut their dps drasticly, thus getting outdamaged by all the other dps classes, making us in effect a crappy dps class when not tanking. If you don't cut your dps, you are going to take aggro and die very quickly thus cutting your dps for you. Ask a guardian friend of yours to self buff one day and you do the same and compare what you see. Similarly equipped guardians and berserkers will have similar mitigation and avoidance. People who think berserkers are not tanks are just going by misconceptions from eq1. I wish players would realize that this is a totally different game. Oh, and P.S., there is no way you are rampaging when not tanking and not stealing aggro. The move does too massive of damage for that to be so.
Oh, and about monks and bruisers. I agree that they would die very quickly tanking in any raid situation as the game is now. All fighters are meant to be tanks and tank to varying degrees of success based solely on their gear and playing abilities, not their class. The devs are working to make this so and I believe they will succede. One problem that I have with the game is that there is only 1 MT in a raid and 1 backup and the other tanks are pretty much useless. Conversely, you need many dps classes and 4+ healers for group x2 and up. The thing is, there are the same number of fighter classes as their are scout, priest, and mage, thus there will be similar numbers of people playing as fighters, but the demand for fighters in groups is just not there. You only need 1 in an XP group and 2 MAYBE 3 in a raid. I'm sure you can see the problem. In a few months, once most people are done lvling, there are going to be a lot of fighters with nothing to do. In fact, I've started lvling an illusionist just in case they don't have a fix for this problem. One way SOE can combat this is to make more zones like Nektropos: Revisited (which is very fun I might add). I'm hoping they come up with ways to make having more than 2 tanks useful in raid situations, but if they don't and my guild doesn't choose me as MT, then I'll always have my enchanter to fall back on. I know this doesn't really fit in this topic, but starting new ones is too much work. Please forgive me and think about my thoughts =).
Multiple tanks on raids is a good thing, especially when you have balanced groups, you need multiple tanks and balanced groups on raids for the simple fact who is going to tank adds if encounters ever decide to start popping ^^ lvl 54 mobs during the fight? Wizard? Scout? Preist? I dont think so, and the MT is to busy controlling the Raid mob itself, and unless the mobs are attacking someone in the MT's group setup, then group buffs arent going to peel those mobs off and too the MT himself, so thats where people will need or start to need multiple tanks. Another reason for multiple tanks is to dissapte damage done in a raid encounter so that it still makes it possible to keep a MT alive, having the MT take 7500 damage while the Healers are only healing him for 8000 isnt effcient, and your riding deaths door, when you can easily have off tanks tank those extra few adds to lessen the impact of damage done to the MT, while the MT maintains agro on the main raid mob himself, DPS in the raid turn its attention to the adds, burning those down then back to main raid mob, and rinse repeat in the event it happens again. Raids might be just one mob or linked encounters at the current moment with a low possibility of adds, almost no possibility, but give it time, and i do believe they will increase it above 24 people one day, wont be anytime soon, but they will, they will have too, it cant revolve around 24 people forever. Taemek Frozenberg 47th Berserker 16th Outfitter Everfrost Server Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired ) 70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist Five Rings on Luclin Server Message Edited by -Aonein- on 04-03-2005 10:23 PM
Why am I a 'non skilled player' because I have yet to see evidence of certain 'tank' classes fronting a decent raid mob? You're pics show me some interesting information which I haven't seen before, and does surprise me to a degree. I do note there isn't a shot of a Berserker there..but I'm sure you will find one for me. The bottom line is, Guardians tank raid mobs 'better' and are currently first choice in raids. Don't mislead people into thinking they are going to be doing a job that they - for 95% of the time - aren't going to be doing in a raid guild. As for 'believing they can't tank', I have tanked this game from lvl 10 to lvl 50 so I know we can tank xp mobs and the very ordinary 'raid' mobs in these areas - I tanked Tundra Jack @ lvl 43, so don't tell me what I can and can't do. If the game stays fundamentally the same, Berserkers/Monks/Bruisers etc, will get little to no chance of 'attempting' to tank the big boys, and as more and more dps classes level thru 50, we will be come a redundant entity. Nobody is more p!ssed off about this situation than me. I started to play this game to tank raids, and I believe I was mislead by SOE on their description of the fighter archetype. If they had given us an honest assessment, I would have chosen a Guardian. As for you, don't ever speak down to me again you little [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot]e.
And therein lies the job of the Berserker in a standard raid. King Drayek is a good example of where the Berserker starts to shine, as is the Feerrott instance with the eyes - don't put a round peg into a square hole, regardless of how much you 'love' the class. Reading some of your posts, it seems you have an obsession with them - do you dress as one at home when you play?
Losing interest beating a dead horse here but Aonein, you sound like a fairly inteligent person so I'll spare some un-needed details here. You've said it at least twice that each sub-class will have to handle tanking differently it's just a matter of who's tanking that determines what they do. Not sure I really get you on this one, and what I mean is....Guardians, Zerkers, Monks, Bruisers, Pallys and SKs all have "X" amount of health. Each one of them has "X" amount of mitigating abilities whether it be buffs, gear or innate abilities or stats...hell even racial selection. By the way, that last sentence is where I think you're going with your point. Each one of those subclasses varies mostly by these mitigating factors....not health, because anyone of those classes can obtain gear or be buffed to equivalent hps...the only thing that would make a difference would be your race if equally geared and buffed. I hope we all agree with what I've said so far. Ok so now you have all these varying levels of mitigation or avoidance to compare. Guardians having a nice blend of both due to their self buffs, where as we don't. I will say, that this shouldn't be the case....the reason I say that is due to the fact that several of our self defense buffs do absolutely nothing. If you open up your skill stats window, your character hud window, and your persona window and buff yourself with each one of your buffs....singularly not all together as to illiminate any stacking issues...you'll notice that only three of your buffs actually affect your stats....and only two of them stack. Our defensive stances....work. Our weapon shield which is merely a parry buff...works. Our low level short duration defense buff (forget the name) actually works. Our stifled rage line of defense buffs....affect nothing. Hunker down....does nothing. And come to think of it....I need to re-test Anarchy...because at master 1 I don't believe my avoidance number is moving with it up. Even our Infuriation, Vehemence and Stand firm targetted buffs do nothing for any visible stat. If....all of those abilities/ buffs were fixed...we might actually tank more comparably to a guardian. Again....this isn't an argument of whether a zerker CAN tank.....the point is that we dont tank AS EFFICIENTLY as a guardian. It's mathematics. Yes, said poster child zerker here has alledgedly tanked very difficult content....and I'm very excited about that. For those of us who don't know how that's possible, it's quite simple....GEAR. I'll wager to say several of his slotted items have +vs Crush, Pierce and Slashing dmg on them. Those items are invaluable to a MT. Our best tank is probably pushing 400 in each of those areas, and the difference between him and even the other guardians in our guild are staggering. If you want to raid tank as a zerker....insist on tanking gear....not strength enhanced dps gear....which is what I've done so far. I'm not regretful either....I have the 2nd highest magic hit of any zerker world wide as of yesterday. First on my server and 13th worldwide (thank you Sony for Rampage) but that's what I geared for....dps.
The bottom line is, Guardians tank raid mobs 'better' and are currently first choice in raids. Don't mislead people into thinking they are going to be doing a job that they - for 95% of the time - aren't going to be doing in a raid guild. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ within the system currently in place, guardians will always be the most defensive tank to some extent, so that simple fact wont change... no matter what change they make unless they take the guards defense down to zerker or paladin levels and give them a dps boost... but then they would be just zerkers with defensive buffs...
Taemek Frozenberg 47th Berserker 16th Outfitter Everfrost Server Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired ) 70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist Five Rings on Luclin Server
Tundra Jack is hardly a raid mob, i watched 8 people kill him, your going to have to do better then that son. Im not misleading anyone Spaceweed, im simply trying to get people to see that any Fighter class in any archtype can tank raids, not JUST Guardians, so your little notion of SoE misleading you is pure BS, cause as it stands right now, every Fighter in the entire Fighter archtype has tanked Raids, reguardless of wether its once or twice or three times, they still can do it, and im sure if they had too do it, they could do it on a constant basis. They gave us a honest statement, all Fighters with in the Fighter archtype are tanking raids and are all tanking for groups, some are lucky enough to be able to fill a DPS slot if there isnt any real DPS around while some are pure Tanks and its hard for them to play a DPS role, we are one of the lucky ones Spaceweed, if you wanted to be MT every single time on every single raid, then you have defiently chosen the wrong class. In other words, if you want to hog the ball and run 500 yards for the game winning touch down, on a constant basis, then you chose the wrong class. Now if you like to pass the ball and help the TEAM win, then your playing the right class, cause any class reguardless, can help the team win Spaceweed, and thats what its all about, in a guild your part of a team, if you cant sit on the side line and wait your turn, then why are you playing the class you play? Oh thats right, SoE mislead you, my fault. Taemek Frozenberg 47th Berserker 16th Outfitter Everfrost Server Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired ) 70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist Five Rings on Luclin Server
What more proof do i have to give that berserkers are raid MT's.. I've maintanked just about everythign out there and won. There are guilds with more people then us that can't beat what we do with a berserker... I don't care about the numbers, they mean nothing... I tank better, I hold aggro just as well, and we win everythign we try. We just beat the supposedly broken Menagerie instance... which btw isnt' broke, its just hard. I am not saying we win all these raids just because we have a berserker tanking, we also have some of the best players in the game period. Guardian playing support/buff role fora berserker is actually the way to go, believe me or not I don't care, we kill [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot]e and you dream and cry about not being able to. For those that have, grats... every guild can come up with strats and group combos that work for them, but don't come to the berserker forum and say we aren't MT's just because your **** and don't know your class. Alledgedly? hahah you make me laugh... go ahead and look up Archons, send cross server tell to anyone in the guild and ask who the MT is on 99.9% of the raids... that .1% was the freak time i couldn't be on for whatever reason. I have just recieved my second item with dmg resists on it, 90% of these raids have been completed without the zists.. and the boots were nerfed 8( BTW Defensive Stance is what is broken if you pay any attention... say your defensive stance gives 12 def and you cast Stifled Rage, what happens? your defense goes up to 13... Stifled rage isn't giving 1 defense, its knocking your defensive stance out and only giving you the stifled rage buff... so the actual problem is that your def. stance isn't stacking properly. Lodoz - Archons - Nektulos
I can do much better than that, 'son' - we were one grp. Do yourself a favour and stick to what you are good at - ranting about broken arts/spells, and debating whether a Berserker can dps @ 98.2 or 98.3. Don't forget to take the following wind into account. Message Edited by Spaceweed on 04-04-2005 04:36 AM
I think Zerofault above your post here Spaceweed has something you might want to hear, because about all you supply here is hot air, and if 98.2 - 98.3 dps is all you do a fight, thats pretty....how does Zerofault put it, **** is the word i think he mentions. Its painful when someone proves you wrong isnt it Spaceweed, especially after being so sure of yourself. Taemek Frozenberg 47th Berserker 16th Outfitter Everfrost Server Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired ) 70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist Five Rings on Luclin Server Message Edited by -Aonein- on 04-04-2005 10:53 PM
I'm going to leave the argument that Guards tank more efficiently alone, since I really dont know for a fact either way if thats true or not. I'll just say that on paper that makes sense, they are supposed to be better at mitigation. As for Lodoz, let's just put to rest any "allegation" talk. He is the MT for Archons. I'm in the guild as a recruit and have been there for some of the harder fights like Borxx, Vox, Darathar. I'm trying to gear myself as a DPS Zerker, and Lodoz was the Main Tank, he handled it like a champ. The tanking group being made up of excellent players is part of it and gear is part of it, but thats the case with any guild and any Tank, right? By the way this isnt "ideal" circumstances really either that I'm aware of. Its a bunch of good players who worked through content, geared up and now can beat the crap out of stuff =) I'm glad to be along for the ride heh.
This coming from the guy who said "you dont know what you are talking about cause you aint been ON (not tanked) the high end raids I HAVE"? Come on Space give me a break. You start on that path you end on that path. Want people too speak nicely to you, start on the high path man. As for tanking high level mobs, I could give you my resume over the last 6+ years as I'm sure alot of peeps can. EQ2 raids are *primitive* at this point. From what I've read of this thread the main point is that a Bers can: 1. Tank raid mobs successfully 2. Off tank raid mobs successfully I dont think anyone is advocating changing a Bers in front of a Guard.
I dont think anyone is advocating changing a Bers in front of a Guard. I sure am and the OP is too. Berserkers have 1 single move that they can place on another player that makes their defense go up. Guardians don't have a ton of moves that buff up other players for no reason. It's to enhance the tanking ability of another person and to intercept damage to make it easier on the MT. Don't make me laugh and say it's to guard the healers and dps for when then take aggro. In a raid situation any dps or healer that takes aggro is going to die very quickly regardless of any shielding moves someone can place on them. For proof, FIND A GUARDIAN WITH SIMILAR GEAR AS YOURS AND GET THEM TO BUFF UP AS IF THEY WERE TANKING. YOU DO THE SAME. Compare what you see. It will be nearly identical. Most people who advocate the MTage of a guardian over a berserker havn't any evidence of which is better. Again I say, everyone just assumes that guardians are the ideal MT for raids because of MISCONCEPTIONS due to eq1 and the name "guardian". In reality, the name guardian implies that they guard others, thus they have a lot of guarding moves. These are useless when the guardian is MTing, BUT with someone else tanking, they are very useful. The berserker as MT and guardian as backup works very well considering berserkers have moves that proc when they get hit, ie the Fury line of moves. With guardian buffs, a berserker is definitely the best choice (provided they have better or equal gear than the other tanks) as the MT for raids. If the guardian has better gear than the berserker, then he should be the tank, but if the berserker has > or = gear, he should tank.
For proof, FIND A GUARDIAN WITH SIMILAR GEAR AS YOURS AND GET THEM TO BUFF UP AS IF THEY WERE TANKING. YOU DO THE SAME. Compare what you see. You'll see the Guardian has about 10-13 more defense and hundreds more hit points.
