GU#51 Fighter Changes Discussion

double posted

As long as I can hold the same, or better, aggro than I am now, I don't care.
They really should rename Offense and Defense stances to "DPS stance" and "Tanking stance". You go in DPS stance if you want to DPS, and you go in Tank stance if you want to tank. If you're DPSing it should be impractical to tank, and if you're tanking you should have reduced DPS, but significantly improved hate generation to compensate for the reduced DPS. And aggro wise, Tanking stance should always generate more hate than DPS stance.

it has seemingly always been part of fighter progression to tie negatives to positives, examples are temporary stances and temporary buffs, they basically all follow this rule and have since the beginning. it is just now that it is going to be a determining factor to whether we will be able to do our job when required. this is not simply a berserker issue but one both warriors will face, except for berserkers it is and has always been more pronounced because we have no alternative way to actually hit the mob, even temporarily, the raid set bonus helps a small amount temporarily but it still is a bandaid on a wound that needs to get fixed with all of the upcoming changes.
for example, scouts DPS more evenly accross the board regardless of whether they are solo, grouping or raiding. fighters rely on auto attack, which scales to how often you are able to hit the mob with those auto attacks. now this borders again on DPS stance but i still am going to assume it will still play a major role in our ability to maintain aggro defensively. to how this will be overcome without making melee have 100% hit rates again, i am not sure. basically the only way i can imagine it to compensate is by the following: even if a swing misses, you still generate hate, even if a CA misses, you still generate hate. special hate snapping and force targets missing: should not happen if aggro is going to be so dependent. what i want to see is some retention to playing by a players skill, not playing by a RNG putting me in the toilet for a period of time, wiping my party and people questioning my ability.
the possibilities of how to accomplish these upcoming changes are mind numbing, but which is going to yield a result that will keep tanks from having aggro on lockdown, balance this to heroic tanks in mastercrafted gear AND retain full functionality as a survivable tank? it is a game of chess.. except instead of 32 pieces you have 10,000.

Lyger@Mistmoore wrote:

At level 80 at least, I would fully hope no tank is tanking TSO instances in mastercrafted. TSO instances should be balanced around having a full set of void shard armor (since it's relatively easy to get).

Xalmat wrote:

I don't think it is. To get void shard armor you have to run TSO instances, it'd be a bit of a catch-22 if to run TSO instances you had to have already gotten void shard armor. What I found is that if you've a decent set of RoK legendary gear (quested pieces and instance drops, especially the class set gear), you can run the first tier of TSO instances at least far enough to finish the mission quests and get the shard chest.

I'm still pensive about these changes. It's all good and dandy if we have more tools to generate hate, but the whole reason fighters tank in offensive, is so that we can hit the mob, and not suffer continual miss hits. It doesn't matter how many snap agro tools we have gained, if we cannot hit the mob, we will not maintain any sustainable agro generation on the mob.
The fact no SOE person has realized this, gives me no comfort in these changes. All I personally think is going to happen is they are going to merge some of our buffs, like putting HTL on the defensive stance, and probably put more negative penalties on our offensive stance. At the end of the day, not being able to tank in O stance, is going to mean a loss of 78 melee skill points. The melee skills need to not be tied with our O and D stances. Remove them, and place them on another buff. Then tanking in Defensive might mean something. As right now, all they have mentioned is agro via taunts, and TPS. Our melee dmg, and the most important factor in holding agro, is going to suffer to the point of insanity. Even if our taunts are upgraded, the miss hits and huge loss in melee dmg is going destroy this class. And we have faught hard, and held onto the hope that we would get some attention. Finally with this expansion we got some love, but it's going to be short lived.

Was just pondering what if you just don't buff in either defensive stance or offensive stance? lol

I know it could probably counter the defensive penalties, the offensive penalties won't be there but you lose probably +skills...but in a raid setting your +skills are high up anyways right? Hmm.... Would tanking with either stance be more effectively balanced or am I just over thinking this? lol.

I know I'm not a zerker... heck, I can't even tolerate tanking... in any form... but my significant other... is a one toon kind of guy... we've been playing since release...
And he mainly sees the zerker class as it was originally presented at release... and offensive tank... so, I guess... my only concern is... if an offensive tank can't tank in offensive stance... what does that mean? Sure, maybe he'll be able to tank... but I can guarantee I'll never get him to log in again if he thinks there's no differentiation between himself and a guardian... (which he tried levelling one a long time ago... and couldn't stand it)

Jrral@Unrest wrote:

I don't see a group with full mastercrafted accomplishing much in TSO zones. Even if you did just the quests in Kunark, you will have a few pieces that replace mastercrafted. To do well in TSO, you'll need to run VoES, CoA, and MC a few times to gear up so you have a mix of mastercrafted and legendary. Folks should also take down the overland named mobs in Kunark a few times, and do a few runs thru Sebilis. If you get lucky and get some excellent drops, you'll be ready to dip into TSO.
Although the devs keep moving the goalposts and shrinking what percent of TSO is doable by casual groups, there is still Deep Forge, Najena's Hollow, and Scion of Ice. As long as Najena's Hollow void shard quest is the Jailer one, then it's pretty easy to do. Each named has a strategy which makes it possible to kill them with a casual group. Even Befallen: Cavern of the Afflicted if you have an AoE tank and some group members with AoE damage (warlock, wizzy, swashy) you can do the Risen and Disturbed void shard missions since you just have to kill trash.
I know it is frustrating to not clear a zone, but gearing up with void shards should be your #1 priority. Don't fall into the trap of trying to pick the Daily Double and beating your head against a wall for 3 hours trying to beat one dungeon to get a couple of shards. You can do the 4 easiest Void Shard zones and get 6-8 shards in that same 3 hours and come with with a lot less anger and hurt feelings!!
I'm not sure why the easiest dungeon -- Deep Forge -- keeps getting scaled up though. I feel sorry for very casual groups who cannot clear ANY dungeon in TSO but that is the current situation. They have scaled up the difficulty of Overseer, and Doomsmith has too many hitpoints. Deep Forge is SUPPOSED to be easy, yet SoE devs keep tuning it up for some reason, as if the end of the world will come if every TSO dungeon is not hardcore.

feldon30 wrote:

This is OT, but I've seen you write about this a few times, and honestly, I've just not seen any noticeable increase in difficulty for the named in Deep Forge. I suspect that what you've run into is the random number generator; both Doomsmith and Kaern can be nasty if they score criticals on your tank; a couple of heavy hits back-to-back can floor an indequately geared tank, but it has always been that way since release.

If full group of lvl80's can't clear any of the new zones they just plain SUCK. No offense, but they are not that hard unless the group setup lacks dps, buffs, heals and most important, skill.

Hardain@Runnyeye wrote:

Actually.. gear should apply to that list as well.. U cant really perform as well with a PUG with a mix of treasured/legendary/fabled gear in TSO instances..
I do alot of PuG's to the TSO instances, and we run around with 8-14k zw dps.. I dont find myself doing Varsoon with that type of group.. Not even the final 2 nameds in Ravenscale for that matter.
When ur lowest dps do 7k+ and the highest do 12k+ tho u can easily bypass alot of the troubles your normal PuG's cant.
I wouldnt say they suck just because they cant parse above 4k.. Thats usually for those in raid gear, or the hc casuals like myself..
I do agree that the new instances require some sort of of skill to complete tho.. and not to mention focus.. But it is alot easier doing the instances with a 20k+ dps group than an 8k one..

Aeralik wrote:

Very basic doubt.
Will we fighters be excited by this changes?
We are FIGHTERs.
Not only meatwall, but also fighting men.
I want the feeling that I'm fighting.
Will the changes, which will connect particular buffs with defensive stance, be more exciting for us, who want to not only tank, but also appease our combat instinct?
To be honest, I'm afraid that ShadowKnight will be nerfed by this changes.

Every Paladin I talked with on Innovation and myself are nervous about changes to Amend.
All 5x other Tanks out-dps an Paladin, so DPS in it's current state is no Aggro-Options.
We have no passiv/active aggro buff like Guards/Zerks.

Without real superior aggro managment, Paladin is messed up, as Guards are vastly superior in Defense and a good stake in DPS, as Guards can do more things in offensive stance then other Tanks.

A nice solution would be more interactivity between Tanks.
Like raidwide Aggro-Transfers with Tank to Tank only.

For the Paladin+ Swash/Warlock = better Group Aggro then Zerk/SK.
The Groupaggro-Tank is an dead-end evolution. Not enough Group-Named encounter, Groups in there to make it an niche. An alternative is not no nerf, instead to increase. Zerks and SK with transfers for warlock/swash only, with an high deaggro buff for Guards for Warlock/Swash. I go this specific, as multi-mob aggro is 90% of the time an issue with warlock and swash.
As long as Dungeons don't change intelligent with the Tank of group, we need quite similar abilities.

It would be nice to revamp Zerks to Two-Handed weapons including revamp of two-handed weapons and a viable defensive mechanism for two-handed weapons. With Zerks giving the ability to Tank with two-handed and giving SK superior offensive power with a two-handed. Solution for mystical weapons should be an clicki effect to morph them from two-handed to one-handed. Alternative a defensive solution for dual weapon fighting and giving SK's dual weapons. An SK with Sword + whip/flail would be stylish.A third two-handed stance would be nice (including two-handed revamp)
Generelly, more equality and more versality then the sword & board.

Vulkan_NTooki wrote:

i think he meant a group not being able to complete any TSO zone whatsoever. of course it's easy to be a fabled raid tank and do a pug, it's not so easy to be a mythicalled wizard in a pug with a mastercrafted tank and no transfers because the group leader is a knucklehead.

Yea, ofcourse with treasured gear you ain't gonna do other than wipe in places like Outer Stronghold, but zones like Scion ect are quite easy if you use common sense and have better than handcrafted gear. Gradually upgrade your gear and advance to tougher places.

mmm looks like its gotten slightly off the GU51 topic
anyway i just wanted to add, the hate gain in the stance better be D*MN good since it appears all transfers and such are being removed. So now when theres a hate problem you really pretty much can just blame the tank. so much for group mentality.

This is how i hope they do it and if so i think all Fighters would be happy...
Hope Agro in Offensive Stance stays the same pretty solid but can be shaky at times depending on if the Assn/Brig wants to be dumb....
But in Defensive your Agro is Solid and nothings ripping it off you... Granted your dps goes way down your hit rates go way down but who cares if your Solid on the agro.
As a Zerk fighting in Offensive except Tanking the hardest named is all we know...
As a MT Zerk i go Offensive and DW Trash and relative easy named because i can but im hoping i can still do that after changes on easy named and not have agro bouncing all over the place.
because itll basically kill Offensive Stance for us except for when we are soloing which will blow because its nice to help the Raid burn the mob down.
but i guess itll be just as nice knowing your Agro is sick being in Defensive and people wont have to hold back on hard named when your Defensive because the mobs not going anywhere except stuck on you.

Sounds like you want the Def stance to have permanent Reinforcement added to it, which would totally suck. Nothing could rip aggro? That's just dumb, hit auto attack and go afk for 5-10 mins? It's allready very easy to keep aggro in a good group/raid, making it noticeably easier would kill all the fun.

then i guess we will still have to rely on putting out as much DPS as possible while in Defensive then..... Tanks have to constantly Juggle Survivabilty and holding Agro on raids... you give up some survivability to DPS to hold agro but if u give up to much your butt hits the floor.... Tanks should never be looking at Chain or Leather pieces as a means to hold agro and it has happens and im sure still happens.... we should be as Hardcore tank as possible to stand at the Front lines taking the beating never having to lessen our survivability on something thats trying to kill us.
we are built to be Meat shields meaning stand there hold agro, live and position the mobs in the best spot for your party. the 2.0 revamp is allowing tanks to be defensive and hold agro which is how it always shouldve been.
How lame is it that TANKS are forced to be in offensive just to keep agro its the way its always been so its hammered into our little brainwashed heads but honestly we should go into offensive as often as scouts go into Defensive..
dont get me wrong i love dpsing and such but only because i have to... my Zerk is built like a swash im 98% crit in raids 80% DA or so and DWing hitting everything in front of me, sure its fun on trash but when its time to go up against a Heavy hitter it sure sucks to be in defensive worried the entire time the Assn whose been parsing 15k on trash is gonna try to do the same on the named take it from me and then run it into raid on a out joust call and AE the raid.
you can say all you want the Assn should know better but i dont think youll find a single tank that hasnt had this happen