I don't have a cell phone, but I get your analogy. To address some of your points, though... Can you elaborate on this? What abilities and buffs do not work? Does "do not work" mean it's too weak, or that it literally does nothing? Do they work, but other issues negate their function? Just as an example, snaps have been mentioned as not working in this thread and others. Do they do nothing when pressed, or do they simply work, then the tank immediately loses aggro again? This distinction is important for actually providing valuable and actionable feedback. If the snap works, but the tank loses aggro, then you're looking at a design or balance issue. If the snap doesn't work, at all, you're looking at a bug. I've noticed this, as well, and one of my many complaints about the game since returning is the half-abandoned AA system. The revamp arguably had some good changes to it, but the tooltips are inconsistent, often unclear, and many times just outright wrong. Others, as you've mentioned, are just super outdated, with things like 2.5 crit bonus to your group buff in exchange for 5 AA points. Even as a support class, it'd be hard to justify taking 2.5 crit bonus to your party over 30 effectiveness to an ability that hits 200 billion. Then there's incredibly anti-returning and anti-new player systems, such as the Shadowed Ethereal Trackers, which turn otherwise completely useless AAs into AAs that are worth picking. Why should anyone be expected to farm for weeks to unlock the proper values for AAs? It sets a very dangerous precedent for having players farm to unlock what should just be fixed, because only a fool would argue that going from 55 Ability Mod to 600k Ability Mod per point isn't broken. The AA should just scale based on your level and give 600k when you're level 120. Or we could reduce the stat inflation, but that's a separate issue. Imagine the absurdly weak AAs you describe, with things like 10 DPS to your party in exchange for 10 AA. Now imagine having to farm an additional 2400 Shadowed Ethereal Trackers (or whatever new currency they come up with) to make it give 1000 DPS like it should in the first place. I'm going to go through all of my characters and take a good look at all of the AAs and abilities, compiling a list of outdated and broken ones. Maybe a neat and tidy list will make the feedback more digestible for the developers. I have mixed feelings on it. On one hand, protecting the group from damage does seem to be the intended role of a tank. On the other hand, it's a group buff, arguably more appropriately placed in the hands of a healer or a support. However, its design is flawed. Instead of being a large damage reduction cooldown to used at key moments, it's a toggled "live or die" button. Its existence mandates the presence of fighters, when the content should otherwise already do so. Why aren't tanks more... tanky? If a group can survive the damage of a large AE mechanic, why should they not be allowed to heal through it, or ward through it, or reduce its damage and heal after? This is a flaw of "I know best" boss design, where the developer has an intended way players are meant to clear the content and refuses to let skilled, creative, and/or overgeared players approach it differently. Rather than outright removing Bulwark, it should function instead as a significant damage reduction buff, somewhere in that range of 80-90%. Rather than abilities that outright kill you, instead have abilities that do lots of damage. Other classes can contribute to the damage reduction, healers can pick up the slack in the event of failure, and so on.
Allow me to clarify. I do QA for a living so I notice how the language many players use when describing their inability to do T1 DPS means abilities are "broken" and it makes me cringe. When I say "broken" I mean the ability literally doesn't do what the tooltip and/or description says it's supposed to do. That can either be a mechanics bug, a display bug, or both. While I've been playing EQ2 since launch, I just returned to tanking last month for the first time since the Bulwark mechanic was added. I've been playing classes from the other archetypes and only maintaining my tanks to stay max level and do solos for the past 9 years or so. So I was alarmed to find so many problems in my limited experience tanking in the Bulwark era. Here are some bugs I've posted as well as a Wizard bug to boot. No acknowledgement or action taken. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...-doesnt-work-on-death-march-ii-or-iii.602630/ https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/crusader-aa-gallantry-is-broken.603025/ https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...-chamber-xi-lost-damage-compared-to-x.603072/ https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/paladin-shadows-aa-blessed-warding.603245/ There are several other bugs posted this year by Cropster and Priority that don't seem to have been acknowledged or resolved either. Heck, there are other players posting bugs in the same boat where mechanics just don't do what they're supposed to do before even considering if the values are appropriate. There is a huge programming difference between an ability not doing enough and not even functioning as intended. So my argument in my 1st post is that perhaps if they fix the abilities that aren't even mechanically doing what they're supposed to be doing, it'll give a clearer vision of what values need to be tweaked to move towards a more satisfactory experience for players (balance carrot). This is an excellent point about how the devs decided to wrap a fix for some outdated AAs into the Ethereal system. Notice how the only AAs boosted are those common to every class. They did boost some class specific AAs as you mentioned, but several others are still in need of attention. I thought they said there was going to be another pass when they did the 1st round of fixes, but nothing yet and it's not on the roadmap posted.
Can you link the thread saying there were going to be changes to tanks? I would like to read the source for this thread.
Dude, seriously, your not getting it or don't get it. You don't play a tank. Really can't speak on it. If you don't have numbers and you don't tank, probably best to leave it be.
Finally, something you say rings in worth reading. Maybe you just took a bit to get warmed up, but I think your getting it now. I don't know if all of what you spilled there is perfect but I would say it is something I have posted in discord before and seen others post here and there. But again, I don't think Devs actually ever come into the Tanks forums anymore. I think we are a dead class that just needs bulwark to get grps. I don't need to parse with the T1's to enjoy my tank. But if I don't do absolutely everything I can to increase my DPS, I cannot maintain aggro from the T1 monsters on my raid team. Even with dehates, shouts and crappy transfers.
Please leave the Zerkers alone, they are fine. They do their jobs, take the aggro and smite stuff relentlessly.
Hey there. I been playing guardian since around KoS. Focus on what your avatar can do. Learn the ropes, do the work, and run with players who do the same. Quit bellyaching & Do your best - How Hard Is It?
There is actually a marvellous template that could be used for making Tanking engaging in EQ2.. Steal the combat mechanics from EQ1. I've played at least one of each archetype up to Raid level in both EQ1 and 2, and I find (or rather found, I've stopped playing EQ1 now) that the engagement is a LOT more involved in EQ1. There are very few "one shots" there, but the healers absolutely need to be on their game all the time to stop the Tank's health from dropping fairly quickly. Tanks have time to adjust their equilibrium of damage (can they absorb a little more to tide them over until the healer's next big heal comes round, or should they save it in case a few heavy hits come their way etc.). DPS classes absolutely MUST be on top of their own aggro there (you soon know when someone's got a bit too heavy handed on the damage dealing with a DPS, as you soon find a smear on the ground where they pulled aggro from the tank), and it's understood that just because you can hit that next bit hit button, increasing your DPS, doesn't mean you should hit it. That was probably my biggest shock coming to EQ2.. Being in groups with 'serious' content where the cloth (and leather and chain) classes weren't bothered about getting aggro.. Seeing a cloth wearing caster casually wading through after taking aggro from the tank had my jaw on the ground. In EQ1, they'd have had maybe a couple of seconds to get it off themselves before it ended badly. And any DPS that regularly ripped aggro from a tank, getting themselves smushed in the process would be laughed out of any serious groups for having no aggro control. I suspect some of that more cavalier approach has stuck a lot of people with not learning aggro control. Other classes are supposed to help the tank out with it and manage their own aggro as part of the package. An EQ1 tank simply can't hold aggro if everyone goes full pelt, but it almost always goes poorly for the party if they do lose control, so it's the whole group working together in a thoughtful manner that gets the job done. Having other non-tank players able to 'temporarily tank' or full time survive a beating means crowd control has gone by the wayside too.. EQ1 has that as an essential part of keeping the tank alive. Healer overwhelmed and tank getting low? Mez. Too many mobs causing too much damage and whittling the tank? Mez rotations. Tank is tied in with this, working hand in hand with CC classes to deftly pick up critters leaving mez and heading for the CC. A good EQ1 tank doesn't do that much damage (unless they use 2 handers, which do decent damage, but really expose them to getting hit quite hard, so serious tanking doesn't use that). Sword and board all the way if you're serious about being defensive. And there are a horde of skills that don't do huge damage, but they inflict a lot of hate, and that's the core of what I remember about tanking there. You didn't do the big damage figures (that was for other classes), but you could sink a LOT of what their DPS caused hate wise. You could occasionally taunt directly back onto yourself, but it wasn't guaranteed. And most of the time, when someone went "splat", it wasn't a problem with the tank, people would just turn round and say "learn to manage your aggro". It was the tank's job to stay alive. The healer's job to make sure the tank was replenished enough to keep themselves staying alive (and field collateral damage elsewhere). CC's to make sure things stayed stuck on the tank that drifted off now and then, and DPS to do the damage and stop doing so when things started looking their way with serious glances. What I do find very strange in EQ2 (still) is the focus on DPS as the central metric. If the tank class has DPS cut back (because it's coming too close to the actual DPS classes, or even exceeding them, which I do often see) then the solution seems to be "Give tanks more DPS so they can get the DPS hate back". What I'd prefer to see is that a lower tank DPS figure causes an increased amount of hate generated (i.e. if you reduce a tank's DPS to half of an average number as part of the combat system calculation as a developer, then you add a multiplier for that class on hate, so that half average DPS counts for double for hate gain). Or, you vastly increase the amount of hate gain the numeric hate causing skills cause (not the hate places, the actual hate deltas). And make mitigation really scale properly with the damage figures. If you're in plate, with very high mitigation and some avoidance, you should be soaking up damage for breakfast. If you're in chain with high mit and avoidance, you should still be feeling it, and be hurting if you're taking the front for any length of time. If you're in leather without very serious avoidance, you should be crying like a baby when something smacks you. If you're in cloth without so much avoidance it's unclear how you could get so much (without a very short lasting buff perhaps), you really should look like you've gone through a meat grinder. Twice. Which is really what EQ1 is. I'm not a full time tank, but I do get that it's not an easy job (where's the fun if it is), and the way EQ2 has panned out over time seems to have made it less satisfying and engaging (and far more thankless) than it should be. The part that made it 'subtle' in EQ1 was the extended threat meter, where each mob had an entry (similar to the encounter window in EQ2) except each one had a percentage marker by it. That was your approximate threat rating for that individual mob. The trick for the tank is in juggling those figures and hopping round to try and stave off the inevitable by siphoning off the aggro from the more 'twitchy' mobs looking to wander elsewhere and adding some hate to them (increasing the tank aggro percent, thus reducing the 'other' character percentage. The trick for everyone else was to make damn sure that none those percentages ever hit 100 or more. So, perhaps it's a case of providing the tools in game for players to see how naughty they're really being at the time, and learning to juggle that themselves. And giving the tanks enough to soak most of that naughtiness by skills inflicting hate rather than pure DPS. And making sure the DPS characters have enough to soak most of the impact of their activities if working in conjunction with a tank going flat out. And leaving just enough headroom for them to get into trouble if they don't rein themselves in that little bit. And make sure that it actually feels like trouble when they attract it.
I am not sure why people do not enjoy their tanks right now. I am having a blast with my paladin. I came back to the game after a 5 year break and after getting spun up on all the changes and getting the required past content taken care of, I am loving it. I have looked at the current meta of the game, adapted. Now I can tank raids, and blow up heroics for fun, and keep the DPS on their toes. As a fighter arc type, I feel we should be able to be very defensive or deadly as needed. Taking multiple tanks into a raid should not hinder the raid force when clearing trash mobs, your raid force should want your tanks to be able to DPS when not having to focus on survival, it speeds things up for everyone. We are fighters, "fight" is in our name. Over all I am a tank, I have always been a tank, we have heavy armor, but should also have a big gun.
I spam my taunts, with the AA spec for damage in them, they do a significant amount of damage, which adds to the effectiveness.
Oh, have the AA spec to add damage to them and I use them, but I don't hold aggro in raids with taunts these days - I hold it with a hate transfer and the dps I can do. In the beginning, I held aggro with taunts - like back when I was level 50 and lower. DPS has outstripped what taunts can do for a while now. I use my "snaps" for mem wipes and mem drops, not to hold aggo.
good morning I've been playing the guard since 2005 and unfortunately I have to say that keeping the dps and therefore also the aggro has become extremely exhausting! You can now forget about the taunts, it's just about snaps or special spells! without support practically impossible! Then there is the fact that all other tanks e.g. Monk,Paladin do 4x or more dps which is very balanced again! Paladin's Crusader's Judgment and Monk's Dragonfire should have their damage cut by at least half!!! translation errors are included ^^
Asking to nerf this or that class is the wrong way. Asking them to know their game would be more judicious.
Taunts are just in my macro and really do nothing for holding agro other than added DPS. It's all Auto Attack holding aggro for me. If I lose a mob due to script or one of our big hitters just hits multiple crits I use a snap and it's back to me. I think the taunt discussion will always fall on deaf ears here. But snaps work well enough and if you spec yourself correctly to do more auto attack dmg, at least for me, I don't really have an issue holding aggro and snapping it in bad situations. (Zerker) Don't play other tanks. So it's my own experience on this as a Zerker. Could vary for others. I will say it is a bit more challenging at the beginning of an xpack rather than later on.
On guard, apart from menace and dissociating limbs (which is still underpowered), the primary taunts score the highest dps. No other combat art comes close to the taunts in damage and that is not to say they are OP, far from it.
