Removing their key abilities to tank pretty much puts them in the roll of a healer, with mitigation and avoidance. It's not just scouts who surpass them with current changes to offensive stance. Healers who take the time to learn how will out damage most tanks if not all in offensive stance, and remain tankier because they do not lose their; 1) rune death prev, 2) dragon tree death prev, 3) castable death prevs or stone skins. And with the hate positional jewelry and/or cloak they could hold agro indefinately. So by putting such a major penalty on a tank in offensive stance, they're giving up too much for too little. It doesn't make a lot of sense, especially with many game mechanics in raids designed to one shot the target, and requires death prevs and stone skins. The whole point of having a tank who can DPS is so that they are not a waste of space on DPS strats, and you can afford to keep a second one in raid. It's silly that people log in one toon, then another, then another just to meet the strats of particular mobs. Allow players to shine if they have the skill too, under and circumstance. Quit putting useless penalties in the game.
I may be returning from a long absence but a lot of these arguments are still the same ones being rehashed from way back in T7 - (well I could say earlier but there were bigger issues back then which overshadowed) Multiple tanks have no real place on a raid Tanks doing more DPS than they should Tanks have no ability to drop hate leading to compromising the raid Tanks can tank in their "offensive stance" Tank gear restricts tank DPS, which is hate; leading to agro problems <---- I'll only discuss this one The new changes look promising but it looks like the only thing this extra potency will bring will be a disparity with which classes will receive the most DPS (SKs due to them getting a flat 30% boost to all their spells CAs in TSO coming out top); likewise if they concentrated too much on melee the balance will shift towards the other direction. I think a much better solution would be to add in a extra adorn slot in defensive tank gear "Armour Patch?" so tanks can choose to go down the "shove potency in everything as it effects me the best, or maybe going weapon damage mod or accuracy, spell double cast - or just use the patches to clean up their missing stats such as ability reuse or multiattack. DPS classes complain (they always have) but unlike say extra DPS mod or more multiattack - tanks *need* the +mitigation +block +health% etc in order to perform their job in a raid - an extra special adorn in tank armour will add in the flexibility which is lost when equipping defensive tank gear
OK, read a bit more into it... and I kind of like the idea of "a way for tanks to deal with their excess hate" is a good thing; although I don't think you are going about it in the right way. Currently we have (not going to include any of the AA stuff and only working off Paladin) Blessing of the Paladin (http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/3684247937)• Increases STA of caster by 60.6• Increases STR of caster by 101.6• Increases Mitigation of caster vs elemental, noxious and arcane damage by 2476Knight's Stance (http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/1821202)• Reduces physical damage done to caster by 5%• Increases STA of caster by 253.4• Adds 5.0% to base avoidance.• Decreases Slashing, Piercing and Crushing of caster by 22.4• Increases Defense and Aggression of caster by 49.6• Increases Mitigation of caster vs arcane damage by 3238• Increases the caster's effectiveness of worn armor vs physical damage by 15%Wrath Stance (http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/1410908907)• Increases STR of caster by 257.0• Decreases Defense of caster by 30.2• Increases Crushing, Piercing, Slashing and Disruption of caster by 75.6 And just merge them into one "Stance" which is neither defensive or offensive Blessing of the Paladin• Increases STA of caster by 314• Increases STR of caster by 358.6• Adds 5.0% to base avoidance.• Reduces physical damage done to caster by 5%• Increases Defense and Aggression of caster by 49.6• Increases Mitigation of caster vs elemental and noxious damage by 2476• Increases Mitigation of caster vs arcane damage by 5714• Increases Crushing, Piercing, Slashing and Disruption of caster by 53.2• Increases the caster's effectiveness of worn armor vs physical damage by 15% And Change Wrath Stance to something like: (recast is like 2min but you can cancel it QUICK) Wrathful Paladin"The Paladin becomes vengeful striking out at all enemies with such ferocity most refuse to face him in battle"• Decreases hate gain by 100%• Holy Ground's damage increases by 100% but its threat and positional hate have been removed• On every combat or spell attack-----• Increases Weapon Damage Modifier by 1.5%------------ • This lasts for 4 seconds------------ • This can stack up to 10 times with itself-----• Decreases threat by 2,000 So there will be no more "he's not in his tank stance" "reckless is too powerful" "what's the point of offensive stance" arguments. you have a single buff with stuff on and a secondary - and optional buff which you can run if you just want to deal damage and not get agro. Decreases hate gain by 100% Most tanks will have +hate gear on - they may even be heavily buffed with it in raid at best they'll drop to -100% most likely it'll drop you from like 80% or like -20% - it seems like a lot but perhaps it can scale with level/spell tier? Holy Ground's damage increases by 100% but its threat and positional hate have been removed Holy ground is a significant boost to Pally DPS and one of their "signature spells" removing the positional (temporally whilst this is active as well as the hate) will allow it to be included in the DPS flow without compromising the group/raid. The extra damage was just because I felt generous Other classes could get similar boosts to primary abilities or damage added onto previously underused abilities • On every combat or spell attack-----• Increases Weapon Damage Modifier by 1.5%------------ • This lasts for 4 seconds------------ • This can stack up to 10 times with itself-----• Decreases threat by 2,000 This is pretty self explanatory; I've been playing around with AA specs and the new abilities over the weekend and I've noticed that my previous flirtation with "Arbiter of Justice" has now become a preferred favourite of mine especially when combined with the new prestige abilities and taunts stacking up health increases. It doesn't matter that my CAs and Spells are not the best order in the world or the biggest - but keeping a certain "using CAs or Spells" in a timeframe makes me feel like I'm doing damage - because I am - not by the CA doing 10k... but my autoattack doing 180k - I reduce this rate by being interrupted/stunnedl or I need to heal/cure things drop down and the buffs drop and my autottack hits for only 120k. Obviously what bonus is given will depend on each tank Adding in the decrease threat and the reduced hate gain tanking in this "wrathful stance" will be significantly more difficult possible in groups (depending on what transfers are running), and in raids may actually be impossible - the better the tank's gear the bigger this de-taunt will hit for and the temptation of more DPS by spamming CAs will keep this detaunt spamming. tl;dr version: Just merge all the stances into one - there is no offensive or defensive arguments there is simply a self buff and a dehate(+DPS boost) buff which can be cancelled quickly
I agree with Mahgnus, this is a terribad idea. A far better idea is not losing all abilities in offensive stance and including a much larger -block and -mit, but with something a little more significant in terms to a dps boost.
I really don't' understand why a monk will use the offensive stance.. For only dps, the pot addet is irrelevant, change AA in dps and a secondary gear set (haste/wdb armor, and dps proc on jewelry), will have a much better result. Is bad even for solo..
The new offensive stance should remove positionals just like reckless did. With putting potency back on tank gear DBG had to nerf or kill reckless as a tank could easily be at 2000 pot in tank gear and a dps geared tank could be sitting at 3000 pot in mage group in reckless. Having a dps stance for a tank is a nice option for times when a OT in raid is useless cause the scouts are having to tank or the mob is a DPS check (not every raid has extra people to swap in) or when you cannot find another person to fill a group. That said, the offensive stance should make the tank like other classes where they can only pull hate by dpsing (no snaps, no taunts, no hate). Also, no temps and no death saves. To be fair to all tank classes there should be other options beside the addition of potency on tank gear and a one size fits all new offensive stance. My SK will love the potency, my Guard and zerker will be wondering why they were left out, my Pally will take it and be happy but not trilled, and my brawlers while be left looking for more. Nothing will be perfect. Everyone will gripe about something. I for one believe tanks should have a dps stance that makes then a T2 dps class but it should prevent them from tanking. Of course T1 or T2 dps classes means something different for different people. I know warlocks who parse 50mil and ones who parse 1mil. The ones who parses 1mil will cry foul when a tank parses 10mil.
Same old issues with yet more terrible fixes. The "anti-DPS for Fighters" crowd really needs to get over it. Fighters should do decent DPS period. If you look at the best time for Fighter number representations in raids, its when Fighters rivaled T2 DPS. Get rid of the stances already and simply let Fighters hit T2 DPS. T1 is still going to be there topping the parse, the other T2 DPS are still going to be bringing all their utility as well. We know healers are never going anywhere. Its so simple and yet people at SOE over think it and create these band-aide fixes that don't fix anything and just causes more frustration until they finally get around to looking at it and wasting resources on the same issue again in 1-2 years.
I will love to see more dps when i tank mob, not when i try to do some dps in scout gear/aa. The pot addet is nice for agro, but will not fix the CA, at least for monk.
This was my whole point on my first post when i said crusaders would benefit from this new stance then others as they get to keep their healing, Wich set Mahgnus on a rampage But i also see how OP it would be to be able to just temp thru the fights using this stance. However i am still happy with getting the xtra pot on the gear. I never use Recklessness anyway the new stance wont make a difference to me.
That probably had something to do with the silly post you did about an SK with 7K mit mass pulling oss contested and doing 10million dps, or some such. I LOLed. The pot on the stance and the gear will help me as a SK, if I ever even use it, yes. Given I OT for my raid guild, I'm rarely at a point where I wouldn't be in defensive. Guess it could be useful for heroics though.
No that was post no.2 and it isnt silly, its true. You think i would just sit here and make up numbers? Also the two things (oss contested with 7k mit and the 10mil dps) Was two different occacions alltho it was the same Sk. The 10mil dps was a zonewide parse from HC. Yeah i know its an easy zone i was just trying to explain my point when i said new stance and pot on armour will make Sk godly and i didn't mean "godly" literally. I also said that i didn't really care and i didn't mean to crap on anybodys class! Yes potency on armour will be nice for your Sk. It will be nice for my bruiser too! The new stance however will be utterly useless for my bruiser but still viable for your Sk in easier Heroics.
Ok i really do not know exactly what got you so worked up in the first place? I didn't mean to attack Paladins or SKs either for that matter. I was trying to use them to explain why the new Offensive Stance would work alot better for some classes then others. Paladins Base Ca/spell dmg might be as low as bruiser Base CA i do not have any data to prove you wrong there. I do however, know that my overall spell dps from my pally is better then the overall CA dps from my bruiser, while bruiser does better autoattack dps ofc. Probably due to the many blues on the pally. I will ignore the part where u basically called me stupid linking that book for me. English isnt my language. I do not want to argue with you, you probably know your class so ill instead ask you why or what makes Paladins bad this expansion? Paladins can mitigate magic dmg very well and theres a lot of that this expansion. They have a few serious setbacks ill admit that. Lack of stoneskins/snaps and hardly any mit temps to speak of, but overall are they really in such a bad spot? Peace out
tldr While great feedback, DBG isn't reading here anymore, and you need to go post on reddit and find 5 friends to agree with you.
I met fire with fire, you came out blazing in your response to my post; I responded with the same enthusiasm. Moving forward, I apologize. "Probably due to the many blues on the pally" Potentially, its most likely more gear and time invested in the characters that offer the distinction. The best way to answer your question imo is to compare Paladins to another Fighter. Monks/Guards/Zerks are all just about on the same lvl. Monks being the best choice in just about any situation. I'll compare Paladins to Monks since they are both ST tanks. Which the concept of ST and AOE tanks that this game has tried to implement is just insane. Defition Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Thx Albert. Anyhow getting started ill start with defensive abilities Crusaders have long gotten boned over the fact they have self heals and lifetaps. These may work acceptably well in heroic content but they're near worthless in raids. The Paladins heals have an added determent of having to be actually cast reactively to take effect. This is a problem Brawlers/Warriors dont have to worry about. Now, this look at this for a second logically. The supposed bread and butter survivability of Paladins is founded on the notion to reactively deal with dmg after you've already taken a maximum hit. This is a core and fundamental problem that Crusaders have always had especially Paladins. Let me stand here unprotected and allow mobs haymaker my in the face in and then after try to stop them from killing me. If Paladins had billions of HP they could stand there like Rocky Balboa and could take haymakers to the face all day and then reactivity heal themselves but thats is simply not the case currently. You simply loose about 1/2 your defensive ability's to one shots. Currently in game if you don't have a have a good temp running for Ancient Devastation, you're getting shotted. Now lets get down to some facts for comparison. Defensive abilities Paladin All of the Paladin heals add a tiny buff so I'm not going to list that on every one of them. All of them are very small and not worth mentioning. Heals Holy Aid- 28-7 - 35.1 Heal, 22.5 sec recast Prayer of Healing 14.3-18.5% group heal. 4.5 sec recast LoH - 78.6 -96.1% heal. 1m 45 sec recast, 1 SS with left side spec (which is basically mandatory) Myth Buff 10% DR 10% heal (One of the best Myth Buffs) SS/DR Mana Wall, 4 sec duration SS that drains your power Faith - 4 sec immunity, ******** spell that reflects dmg Stonewall 12 sec immune to physical dmg 45 sec recast Divine Favor - Death Saved until canceled, that you have to spend AA's to remove a 10 sec stifle when its triggered. 1 trigger 2m 30sec recast Devout Sacrament 56.2-68% Heal. 35% DR on 12 sec duration, 45 sec recast Legionnaires Conviction 40% reduced magical dmg. 20sec duration 2m Recast ALL below are junk Divine Aura, Stops attacks that are less than 50% of your max HP, Even when combined with Draconic Shout many attacks get through. Its very unreliable. 16 sec Duration 2m 30sec recast Demonstration of Faith - 22k ward with 30 second recast Blessing of the Paladin - Very small reg ward Myth Clicky, an absolute joke, it's a temp pet that runs around jerking the mobs off Crusaders Faith - When the group dmgs the mob you get healed (doesn't give DR like the SK does) Monk Tsunami 22.7 duration with 90 sec recast Superior Guard 16.5 duration 30 sec recast Provoking Stance 25% DR 13 sec w/ positional attached to taunts while active Tagteam 100% avoid to themselves or an ally 60sec recast Bob and Weave 13.2 seconds of god mode on 75 sec recast Inner Focus 2 trigger SS /physical 60 sec recast Brawlers tenacity 65 sec duration, 3 triggers 2m 30 sec recast. Recast is started when used there for it only really has a down time of 90 sec. Mountain stance and Body Like Mountain - Physical mit Myth Buff gives 50% (extremely nice for reforging) Stone Cold 15% DR thats up most of the time 22sec duration 45 recast Large Increase in Health from AoM Fighter AA Monk Heal 90Sec Recast- Same problem that Paladins have Outward Calm - Regen ward that is junk Utility Paladin 1100 mit to non fighters RW Holy Warding 30% DR for the group 10 sec 1m 30sec Recast Clean Rez 5% potency to Heals, 331 to resists and 91Wis RW - junk Heretics Destruction 15 CB/ Potency RW - junk Monk 5%Acc/Resistibiliy, 14.8 Cast speed 37% attack speed Combat Mastery 13.2 secs of max dmg on melee based abilities and auto attack. Wow where to start with this ability. In a nut shell its probably the best utility spell in the game. Time Warp is up there as well, but thats from a UTILITY class and is degraded some with mages already having high SDA. I could write another entire block of text about Combat Mastery but lets just stay on topic and accept hope insanely powerful this ability really is when properly combined with things like RO/VC. Monk avoidance buff 60% like all Fighters but since they naturally have significantly better avoidance this matters more. 3.3% max health debuff on Mantis Star and reduces agi/str 295.7. It can be on multiple targets. Snaps/Hate Paladin Holy Ground, 1 postion AE snap when cast, threat and small amount of dmg every time you hit something after. Amends 49% Transfer Sigil of Heroism 36% group transfer 20 sec 1 min recast Monk Peel 50m range (very nice so you don't have to chase mobs etc) 4 positions, w/ large amount of hate over time. Hidden Openings, 6 positions 45 sec recast (lol) Provoking Stance 13.2 sec as mentioned before makes there taunts into snaps. 4 sec recast taunt now becomes a positional. 90 sec recast Mantis Leap basically teleports you to the mob for 16 seconds (again you dont have to chase mobs) Every melee hit gives you a positional threat increase. Combine this with 100% AE auto and lulz so much for being a ST tank. The best part only 45 sec recast lol To sum this post up yes Paladins are inferior to Monks in just about every way, snaps, defensive temps and utility. Paladins potentially have edge in sustained threat due to Amends. However, Amends in its self is a PITA ability. It was quite liberating to play another tank for awhile that doesn't have to rely on such a big crutch for your threat management. Yes, Paladins are in a bad spot when compared to one of the 3 preferred Fighters atm. Monk/Zerk/Guard. I could have easily done the comparisons with either the Zerk or the Guard with similar results.
Makes sense, i will admit that i have been during certain fights in sum heroics thought to myself "phew, im glad i wasnt on my Paladin". Also yes CM is amazing! You left out one trigger on inner focus ;-) Also lay on hands i use for the stoneskin mostly, not that it changes much but you COULD get Lucky and reset it Divine Aura: totally agreed with you. Should be changed into a 50% DR or sumthin useful instead. Given the cooldown it wouldn't be OP. I love faith but the cooldown is too long. Lay on hands is good as it is Thanks to the stoneskin. Crusaders Faith is only useful against stuff that wont 1 hit kill you. Legionnaires Conviction is nice to have this xpac Imo. Ok really i dont have to comment every ability, u did it just fine. Paladins are good at mass pulling weaker stuff but they fall short against hard hitting nameds, ill admit to this.
How hard does stuff actually hit you in raid these days? A couple of years ago Pallys had the tools to deal with one-shots by using excessive damage reduction abilities *as long as their health was extremely high* I think I had like the 4th highest health on the server when I quit raiding; I intentionally pushed it to maximize DR capabilities. 30/35/40% Damage reduction + health at the time was enough to deal with most threats leaving LoH stoneskin, Faith and Divine Favor to deal with the "insta kill stuff" Of course if everything in raids these days hits you for 500% of max health after resists then only 100% immunities and stoneskins will work; making paladins a very poor choice for MT. If there are more regular AoEs to avoid but can be absorbed by 30%+ DR (which there were when I last raided) a pally save rotation is actually one of the best. (manawall was still junk tho - and it looks like it has sadly not been improved :/ )
I cannot comment on raid content on any xpac since RoK launched, IRL forced me to not make in game commitments :/ Still even in heroics theres enough of these max HP based mega hits that would make certain fights hard on a pally. And lots of script related insta death hits that can be stoneskinned.
I would say it is more a bad case of zone/spell design than class then. I thought the idea was you geared up enough and as long as the tank was skilled enough they could rotate saves to survive. max health/power attacks only serve to pander to the less well equipped tanks. I remember a while ago that it was actually prefer NOT to buff up your power pool as it was easier to deal with power drains with a smaller pool than a larger.
I wouldnt want to give you the wrong idea tho. It is mostly manageable in one or the other way, such as interrupts, jousting and/or other things like dps checks and such. This xpac is more about the overall grp performance to survive. Its just that certain tanks have it easier becuz they can, for example extend the dps check and temp thru a lot of it or stoneskin/deathsave a lot etc etc.
