This is incredibly painful. Brigs and Swashies have always been tank-lites and can no longer perform in that function.
My 2c on this whole topic: Insta-death mechanics are stupid. No matter what game they're in, they're just dumb. It's much better if you have the option to try and mitigate or counter mechanics (I.e. High burst damage is fine, since you can use CD's and build health/defences against it to try and survive) Secondly, railroading classes into set roles is also stupid. I mean, we have AA's for Swashys and Brigs that give them threat, defences and on-avoidance damage procs (Like a Zerker/Guard does ) letting them spec into tanking. We have AA's on Fighters that give them de-taunts and/or replace high threat moves with lower threat ones to allow them to DPS (Heck, there's even AA's that give bonus damage to skills when attacking something that is focused on someone ELSE). We have things like Yaulp and Exorcise (In addition to capstones for Shadow line of AA's on pretty much every healer) that allow a Priest to give up their ability to heal in order to DPS. Flexibility in building your character is something that should be lauded rather than stifled. I mean, otherwise, what's the point in the AA system? If you're just going to get cookie cutter role specific boons irregardless of your "Choice"? But then again, I'm still kind of irked by the fact that you need to take like 80% of the class tree in order to access the Sentinel's Fate section (Meaning your choice is like "Which 3 things do I NOT want out of all these options?") But yeah, it's Fighter, Priest, Mage, Scout for the classes. Not Tank, Healer, DPS, DPS. As such, mechanics that force the latter rather than the former are not welcomed by me (Even if I am a bit of a newbie to the game)
I understand insta-death on failing a script. However, insta-death just for having the audacity to try to tank an encounter on something that is not a fighter isn't good or fun. It's the same as panic scripts on raid mobs, not good or fun. In beta it appeared that pulling multiple trash encounters in raid zones had an artificial effect that made you likely to wipe, not good or fun. We are given tools. We want to use them. Sometimes we want to use them in a way that might not have been anticipated but is certainly not an exploit. Just playing differently. Why create artificial and ham-handed barriers to doing so?
healers and tanks CAN dps but it's more for solo content. a tank/healer will not be on par with a same played/same gear DPS i understand your PoV. u want to play the way u want and if u got used to tank u want to continue. But then make off stance fighters be able to join a group as a DPS. Things must go both ways, but I know already lots of people would complain if tanks were able to be too high on the parse
Actually its not fighter, priest, mage, scout anymore.. its Etherealist, geomancer, elementalist, thaumaturgist.. then you have subclasses
from what I gather it's not so much a 'instant kill' if a non-tank has it, it's more of a 'you pulled aggro get rid of it in very short order or you WILL die'. mechanic. still a death touch, I suppose, but not an instant one. it's a design to make sure those jackarses that just LOVE to see if they can tank cause 'ma dps!' learn not to do that crap. I woudl think that a rogue in defensive should get a 'pass' since they have a defensive setup designed to offtank things or pick up a boss if the tank drops for whatever reason. but mages? bards? predators? no, you guys need to learn self control. let the tank do his job. and the reason why you guys complain that 'having to wait will ruin it' is precisely becuase of the problem of 'my scout can tank anything your actual tank can'. it made people shelve thier tanks, since they weren't 'needed' for jack all except 1 or 2 spots in a raid. Well, no you'll need actual tanks to do thier job of you know, tanking. as to the 'kill boss A, run aroudn and FD to shinies' that can be done by brusiers and SKs. Paladins don't get that.
can't easily anymore --> need first boss dead sometimes zones are locked without killed said named ... cannot go farther now last shiny pops when last named is killed.
its not about letting a fighter be useful or do their job as it were. but creating more heroic groups when there would be none because now instead of me just tanking a zone for a group i have to take a fighter out of the already shrinking LFG pool. bards and rogues have defensive stances.
This feature should really make for some comical "fun" in many of the raids. I have visions of tanks getting killed, memory wipe or getting a bit laggy and watching the raid/group wipe, continually. And raids/groups doing so little damage to stay under the Tank's DPS/agro that the mob goes to sleep feeling like the raid is just cleaning the cobwebs off it's back and presents no threat to it's baby toe. And someone saying manage your agro .... yea, sure ..... against a mob with a bazillion hit points. They must be drinking too much coffee, espresso, and monster drinks. I do have a tank alt but rarely play her for raids/group. Unless you play for a raid/group, you need some decient gear. Which is usually only afforded the Main Tank, or Assist Tank. Raids don't go with alt tanks, they just are not needed and provide no extra assurances of a suscessful raid. Alt tanks have NO use in a balanced raid/group force other than tanking, and hence won't get the gear, spells, or experience needed. There is just no alternate role for an extra tank to be asked to join a raid/group as there are for the other classes. And for any Alt Tank being played by a player who is one of the other classes, the tendency of the alt tank is to be played like a other class (mage, healer, support) tank. They just can't switch off their main class and play the Tank with out it being appearent what their main class is. (Things like turning a mob away from the other raid/group, agro pull, body pulls, etc.) Gads, I hate being in groups/raids with mage tanks and tank mages, or being the necro and asked to tank with my necro for the instance. So unless there is something to get a alt tank into any raids/groups for the entire raid/group, there will be always 50 mages/support for every tank. So having a death touch for just non tanks as soon as they get agro, isn't really the best for game play. It is not a good fix for our single role tanks. Dye
This, sweet Jesus, this. Even back on EQOA years ago, there were only a handful of mobs (most of which were EXTREMELY high-end) that had the ability to death touch. I couldn't believe how bananas EQ2 had gone with the "Simon says or you INSTANTLY DIE" mechanics. I remember one of the first few times I went through Scourge Keep, and seeing that script that allowed the orc miners to death touch you if you didn't kill them fast enough (or whatever it was). Sure, I've fought dragons, avatars, saved the world a few times...but I really need to be careful of that orc miner over there. Nothing says, "Well, we're completely out of ideas on how to make this fun and challenging, so we're just going to phone this script in," quite like the ol' death touch mechanic. Thanks to EQ2, I was actually nervous to try out dungeon/raid content on other MMORPGs, and every time I did, I was waiting for the instantaneous, out-of-the-blue insta-death. When it never came, I had to adjust to this new feeling; this feeling of...fun...
Making mobs insta-kill non fighters with no counterplay affects all players, not just players who group with tanks and rip aggro off them. Any class should be able to tank if the mob doesn't deal enough damage to kill them. -Why not predators? They have a defensive stance too. Not only that but they have a 12 second avoid-all attacks ability, plus their Evade bonus gives them another 4 seconds of 100% riposte. Is this death touch going to go through that? -Bards? They had(/have) an entire shield AA line in their KoS tree, plus are the scout that gets hit the least for being in front of the mob instead of behind. -Rogue's defensive stance isn't even what makes them good tanks, it's DoM and PdF. -Back at 95 and early 100 cap I reforged my inquisitor to 100% hate gain and tanked things as a priest. Why can't priests be allowed to tank if I can make myself survivable enough to not die? -Are summoner tank pets going to get insta DTd as well? Making mobs instant-death touch non-fighters is not the answer to this. It's a design band-aid. Tanks aren't going to be doing any job; They're going to sit there and have a certain class flag, and the class flag is the only thing that matters...not the player's gear or skill. Tanks should be the only archetype able to tank RAID MOBS because of how hard RAID MOBS hit, not because they happen to be a fighter. A more inclusive way to do it would be to make mobs not death touch you if you're wearing a shield (or are a brawler). It would still let them death touch players who rip aggro because they're not paying attention but not if they're making an active attempt to tank something by wearing a shield. SK FD has an incredibly long recast. It's more viable to do it on a rogue or necro than SK. On a side note, if this effect does stay active in heroics, Monks will be able to troll the crap out of their friends by using their AA positional dehate to kill people in heroics.
If this indeed is something that is in heroic zones ill be kinda annoyed , i personnaly was looking forward to a few months down the road where i could duo heroics with a friend to get shinys it shouldent be there I havent tried raids yet but is this something that could be like 2-3 window to get a deagro or a snap from a tank on? i know grabbing agro is something that is just that much eaisier with acensions especially if it does a fabled/myth crit.
I also think this change will have far reaching consequences later in expansion content. As has been noted the only reasonable way to finish meta collections for shineys often comes down to solo or duo options, Especially when the concept of rare ones comes into play. If this mechanic is left in play it will kill this aspect of the game..certainly now with the implementation of no-trade collectibles Also later in the contents life cycle people stop logging in. This is a problem for folks recently returned still trying to accomplish tasks. Thats when the unconventional groups happen. I dont think anyone wants to see this go away. If the true purpose of this mechanic was just to make folks manage their hate..there must be a better way.
Oh and I'd also like to point out on the topic of completion of meta collections and making it harder for solo, duo, trio players to farm their own just gives those that choose to CHEAT by botting in this game yet another advantage. Im glad that finally DBG is taking certain steps to enforce its no botting policy but at the same time changes like this that outright encourage it need to be avoided.
I'm not sure how I feel about the overall thread, but this I don't agree with and this is why. You're talking about current raid mechanics, first of all, not outdated old zones. And even if it's "not fun" to wipe when you go Leroy Jenkins, it's appropriate to do so. If that happens, people should LOL and start over. You know when you're trying to "get away with" something, so laugh and enjoy the moment. Even in white box D&D I could probably find you a reference to goblins being easy one on one, and deadly in large groups. And what about that module with the explosive balls f gas in a room that aren't aggro, but if you get in a fight you can set them all off in a chain reaction and kill the group? We roared with laughter when we died to that one. Why isn't it just funny instead of not fun? If the zones didn't have such mechanics, people would then complain that it is too easy, or supports plat farmers. At least now, it takes a dedicated multiboxer to "farm" the current content alone. And that's a reward they've earned, because they've paid much more for their playtime than I have. And on a non-free trade server, that means I have one more way to get gear, which benefits us all. I do think that the Swashy should get more chances to tank. The duo zones will hopefully add interest in that area. I know I can't wait to try it with my husband.
and it is just about making tanks actually useful. I tried many times during the ethereal event to get groups as a paladin, and ws flat turned down, in favor of another DPS class. why? because I simply wasn't needed. this is a situation of they coudl do 2 things. A) drastically reduce the abilities of the potential 'tanks' of the other archtypes to do that, which would cause you to fuss and complain cause you got 'nerfed', or b) add a mechanic that makes you trying to tank simply not feasible at all, which causes you to complain cause you got 'nerfed'. the entire point of a fighter archtype, and the fighter classes, is to tank. that's literally the only reason we're there at all. we don't have a 'back up' role. I can't be 'Tank or DPS' or 'Tank or Support'. you other guys have had the luxury of being able to go 'well I can be badass DPS/support, OR I can play '98% badass DPS/support, and also Tank' adn rather then simply make the abilities different to the poitn where you have to go 'I can be badass dps/support' or be '20% badass dps but Tank' they simple siad 'you are badass dps. stick to that, please.'
Or C) They could make Fighters actually enticing to play and have in a team. Right now, aside from a couple of classes (Notably SK + Bruiser) there's no reason to really take a Fighter. Why? Because at the end of the day, a large portion of threat is from doing damage. Combined with lack of utility found outside of Tanking + Damage in the Fighter role, why wouldn't you just run with the highest damaging class that can tank? I mean, they could make threat (Thus also, the lower damage Fighters) more meaningful by implementing damage amplification for the team. That would be an easy way to make it so that your threat bots aren't outclassed by the offensive tanks in terms of team damage overall. They could bring in other utilities for Fighters only, that other "Tanks" lack, that aren't necessarily mandatory, but would give people reason to seek out an actual Fighter over a Swashy. All these things promote diversity. You get the option to choose what kind of tank you wanna look for (As well as potentially causing the Fighter class to get a plethora of playstyles within itself, by creating significant differences between an "Offensive" tank like Bruiser and a more "Tauntier" tank like a Paladin) You know, instead of your suggested options which downright kill diversity by just being blanket "Yeah, you just can't do X on Y" (Which also renders a significant portion of the affected classes AA skills to be worthless. Like Swashy's are like 40% tank AA's? Focused around defences, debuffing offensive skills, aggro and being the target of attacks (Through avoidance based damage and threat procs))
