"Best Tank" and "Balanced": what does that mean?

I'm a little confused;
I've heard a lot of "SOE says this is what they intend, SOE never intended that, since beta SOE has been saying..." but, isn't what is written in the manual, also what it is saying? It seems to me that there are many conflicting arguements that use the "SOE says" line to defend a position, any position.
How can we believe anything that is said if there is no clear, and I MEAN clear statement about what is the role for each class, what each classes support role is and where we can look to find information about our class. Currently, the Class section of the EQ2 boards still has way out dated information.
Now there may have been one of those little window flash thingies that if you clicked on it brought you to some kind of new class description page, if there was, I missed it.
I get the impression that they just changed all the classes around and threw the changes out there and said "ok we fixed it now its up to you all to figure it out".
What does this all have to do with best tank and balance?
Well I would like to see an offical statement that clearly defines the roles, not posts by todays CSR or tomorrows. While they may be trying to help, I get the impression for example, that Moorguards comments are just that, his, and not an the offical policy of the SOE design team.
We should all be speaking from the same reference point when we talk about what we want. If we are going to pull the "SOE says" trick to defend our position I don't want one group referencing old information while another references new.

That's EQ1 thinking Grummp. I don't play EQ1 anymore.

ok understandable,

but again, work with me, whats the main difference between gameplay from EQ1 to EQ2?

if you ask me its basicly the same, right at this point I can tell you pretty close what class is the best in every catagory.

I can also tell you that trying to come up with a reasonable answer to a balanced system, well, quite frankly is going to be like trying to balance the fruit market by makeing all fruit round.

a orange isnt going to complain to much but I'd hate to be the bananna

So? I have guardians in my guild that can solo like no other, even better than me. I can't solo anything other than some low blue heroic melees. /shrug

Quit making sweeping generalizations, it does nothing but hurt your arguement.

There you go, using the G word again.

We're talking about archtype balance Gaige. You and your guildmates ability to play the game or lack of, are not really an issue.

I've been able to solo green heroics in some situations, but that's just me. Just because I can do it doesn't mean that the class isn't broken, and the arch types unbalanced.

Just like because you can doesn't mean they are.
Soloing is such a hard thing to gauge, and especially comment on when referring to balance. Rarely do you know what spell levels they are using, and people tend to ignore various things like what type of mob is being fought, etc.
I find it amazingly difficult to believe as he says that any monk/bruiser of his level can solo things that his guardian/templar duo can't duo.
Sure, maybe in a few unique and specific scenarios, against a certain mob one or two brawlers, who are exceptionally good players can kill something that he had a rough time duoing. But how many tries did it take? Etc.
To then add in statements like "the monk/bruiser killed it in 25 seconds" -- etc etc just helps to make it look even more unrealistic and less helpful to discussions about class balance.

LOL
Good point But that is their problem (SOE). Our problem is keeping them on track with the proper changes that keep within the scope they have deemed law.

Actually it is more like ordering a bowl of chocolate ice cream and getting the Chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips, chocolate sauce, and a cherry added. You keep going back and ordering the same chocolate ice cream and keep getting the extra's. One day you order the ice cream and get just get chocolate ice cream. You complain; however, you got what you ordered. You where just used to everything else.

Actually its not. Not unless you believe the /godmode conspiracay theory Gaige promotes. Guardians were not that good a character. They were great tanks but lousy dps, not very good solo, kinda second choice for a duo or trio and overall pretty one dimensional. they did however have a slight advantage in tanking because the buffs stacked, which was buff). Now that slight advantage made them obvious raid tanks because slight advantages equate to huge difference in raid performance. Now they decided noone should have a slight advantage (which is absolutely and unarguably impossible by the way).

So what your left with is a not very good character that no longer has the one advantage it did. the character i chose was the old guardian which was a well balanced class vs other fighters IF you removed the buff stacking bug. I had a char with a purpose. Now I have a **** that might get some utility, and whose purpose might be buff bot or utility boy. it aint the same bowl of icecream, it aint what i ordered.

Whereas some monks chose monk cos they felt is should be a tank and that sony had promiced them it was a tank (still not seen this promice) and some others chose it cos they knw it was actually a dps class. Now with the new uberMonk they are both happy. And why would they not be. First choice for tank and great dps. The new brawler is the closest we have had to a /godmode class.

Guardians are still THE MAIN TANKS on all MELEE mobs. Its not arguable.
The "L33t" guld on Oggok the other day killed Fist.
Most of them late 50s and stuff just farming basically, I wouldn't consider old world contestants raids anymore, rather just farming, things like "Hand of the Caldara" can be trio'd now.
Anways, Point being, They had 60 Bruiser, All Adept3/Master/Fabled/T6 Rare gear. Set him up for Main Tanking Fist, guess what happened? One shotted. Tried with another lvl60 bruiser, same story on gear/etc. One shotted. Set it up with a Guardian Level 58 All Adept3/Fabled/Master/Cobalt. Tanked it, Had about 8k Mitigation and fist was Auto Attacking on him for 4k (Which is a lot). Friends were telling me "Fist hits like a tank", fact is Guardians are still the main tanks on all melee mobs.

Although we aren't a very fun class to play, are dps is still ****, we have no great skills, if you want to main tank pick Guardian. You will STILL be the main tank on 80% of mobs.

I quit my Guardian and rolled a Bruiser a few days after the expansion hit. Why? Yeah, I felt ****. But the Guardian was just no longer fun and I felt like I didn't hav a purpose. Fact is though in the raiding game Guardians are still better tanks than Brawlers and are always going to be the main tanks from what I think. Even now though realizing this, I don't want to go back to the Guardian b/c I still feel they aren't fun.

omg.. i need sleep i'm just rambling on meaninglessly

Ok well i do find it a little reassuring that there may be one or two encounters where we have purpose. Maybe at 60 things are different. But its so painful at the 50s that many arent gonna make it to 60. And when sony make statements that their intention is that brawlers are the best tanks vs physical and crusaders best vs magic its hard to be totally convinced.

Its just hard to imagine whats gonna change between now and 60 to make such a huge difference.