ON HUNGER STRIKE until Zerker/Guardian issue is resolved

The difference is, I will have a lot more health than the other class, so each hit won't take as big a % of my total health. Add to that if the other class takes 100 damage on a hit, I might only take 70.

Group heals take more power than the single-player kind. Our shields, in my understanding, are there to protect if we lose aggro. Berserkers have the big-damage skills to quickly gain aggro back.

While I don't have a high level cleric on EQ2, from EQ1 experience (and so far in EQ2), you don't want multiple people getting hit - its a drain on power. I'd also rather heal one person for 70 than two people for 50.

The only real issue is communication between the zerker and the guardian. The zerker can tank and let the guardian just use his defensive skills and the group can work well - the guardian just may not operate at 100% (i.e. not taking advantage of his mitigation abilities). The guardian could also act as MT, but then the berserker is not working at 100% (i.e. he/she would need to tone down the damage to avoid aggro).

Your not understanding.

Mob attacks bersker, mob always attacks berserker.
berserker good at keep agro so he keeps the agro.
I use intervine or ally, spam sentinal and stand firm on the berserker. The mob is still attacking the berserker at this point ok?

When the mob hits the berserker, I take his damage.

Lets repeat.

Mob hits berserker. I take the damage.

One more time. Mob hits berserker. I take the damage.

I'm at yellow, berserker still at green health.

I'm at orange, berserker MAYBE just starting to show yellow.

Cleric heals me back up to green. Berserker has already regened back to green because he hasn't been hit in awhile/moster is out of power.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

I take about 75%, sometimes more of the damage for a fight. He barely needs healing at all because the time the next fight has rolled around he's already green again. I never worry about agro because he's a berserker and he's good at keeping it.

The cleric heals my damage, and heals the berserker for less than it would take just to heal the berserker if I wasn't there.

The result: More power to heal both of us then it would just to heal me, but less then it would take to heal just the berserker.

We gain his additional DPS in this trade off.
Message Edited by Migyb on 12-16-2004 12:50 PM

So you're saying the higher level shielding spells take pretty much all of the damage? If so than I see your point -- I'm going by the lower level stuff admittedly. If so, I don't see what the complaint is if we're not getting hit -- since we are anyway *grin*

I thought you were saying its ok for two people to be taking decent damage at once, which would drive a healer crazy.

Yes, now you see.

We take all the damage, we are the tank. Whoever the mob is facing is just a pissing contest all these other whiners are trying to win.

lol sharing out the damage is usually not a very good idea. Not only does it use up the healer power, those dam group heals lag the heck out of everyone!

Look I'm tired of explaning this.

I'm not sharing the damange I'm talking almost all of it. If I give you a slice of pizza, and then I eat the pizza is that sharing?

Re-read my post.

You can have the guardian tank, and lose the berserkers DPS cause he can't rage, or have the berserker tank; get his DPS and have the guardian take the majority of the damage.

If the guardian doesn't guard the berserker; Either the mob is going to take longer to kill which means the cleric is going to have to heal you more, or the mob is going to bounce agro between the guardian and the berserker which means he'll have to heal BOTH of you more.

I have never met someone who missed the point as much as you have.

Guardians dont want to be the best tank AS LONG AS WE GET COMPENSATION for not having the DPS we do.
In other words, we want YOUR dps mr. berserker when equiping a 2hander or dual wielder, if YOU get to have our tanking ability holding a 1hander and shield.
We do not want bloodlust to be the end all be all of taunt. This works out better for everyone smart guy. Why? Because then if the Guardian wants to tank and the group agree's, he can with out gimping the dps of the berserker.

What I and my berserker buddy do, because of the way taunt is so horribly broken, I just let his [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] tank. Then I cast allay, stand firm. Then if needed I cast intervine and sentinal. This actually in the end works out way better for us, because if there is ever a point where the healers go oom, I with my full bar of health can cast intervine and sentinal, and start taking all the damage for the berserker when he gets below 25%. Last night on the Zek boat access event, one healer died from being on the wrong side of boat where the named spawned, we got down the first named as the first inq died, then the second named half way through the temp ran out of mana. The berserker continued to tank and sure enough when he hit 25% health I Cast intervine and Sentinal, by the time all mobs died I was at 15%, the berserker was at 15% but we all lived. Had I been the guy with aggro that long, the berserker would have never pulled it off me and we would have all died since no one else in the group had protection spells.

So the jist is:

Both Berserkers and Guardians need to learn their classes better and quit playing this game like its EQ1... but also Idiot berserkers who come into this thread in OUR forum, where WE discuss OUR problems with OUR class, need to realize that your taunt IS broken, and needs to be fixes regardless.

sou, I had the same thoughts, but if its as Migy is explaining, then there's no point trying to get aggro -- just shield the zerker and take the damage that way.

Yes, you lose your mitigation which is better than the zerker, but the additional damage the zerker can now put out (since he WANTS aggro) will kill the mob faster - the need for heals should be about the same either way. And since they are equal, why not let everyone go all out -- heck, we can even use dual wield in that situation.

MIgyb,

I think you make an excellent case. I, as a Zerk, hope you succeed in convincing your fellow guardians of the usefullness of your proposition. However, I am doubfull. I think most guardians will be offended by the notion of working together unless it is them who get all of what they perceive as tank glory.

Ghrim

Sigh.
Ok, before I say anything, I appreciate the rest of your post. I really do. Bloodlust overaggros, most of us Zerkers agree. The ability does not work anywhere like as described when you right-click/examine it, and until it does, it is simply buggy.
Please though, stop this tripe about needing some form of compensation for not having the DPS of a Zerker; you already have it in spades, through damage mitigation. People are flaming zerkers left right and center for coming to 'your forum' and spouting off - heres some news: When people are discussing 'our class' on 'your forum', it becomes our problem as much as yours. I'm sure some people would like a nice podium from which to scream their opinions about other people who are not present to defend themselves, but it isn't going to happen. Note that this is not directed specifically at you, I know that you are not calling for 'nerfs' per se. Some are.
What makes a 'best tank'? Is it mitigation, or aggro generation? Neither, they are both required. And neither the berserker nor the guardian is best at both - if this changes, or the scales are tipped too far in one direction, we might as well merge the two, into some EQ1 warrior class.
Edit:Typos

Message Edited by Jherad on 12-17-2004 01:37 AM

But whats' the point? I can just save myself all the trouble and ditch the zerker and get a dps or chante or healer.

That's what I do now and it works great. 2 or more tanks is just a waste of time in EQ2..

Absolutely, and thats the joy of it...

As a Zerker, I don't need a Guardian, for my day to day run-of-the-mill grouping either. Generally my group is made up of me, a enchanter, an Inquisitor, a couple of DPS and whomever else in the guild happens to want to come along. And we do great!

You build your group to make up for any shortfalls (An enchanter helps me heaps for this, as would a shaman type), or your grin and bear them - and to be honest this is not a bad option either for normal regular group-play. If there were no shortfalls however, there would be no point in two seperate warrior subclasses, and less choice/customisation

**ALL INFORMATION IS BASED ON 25-30 LEVELED CHARACTERS**

Character Name: Koroshiya
Level at time of post: 26.8
The problem is my friend, that your mitigation difference, is not even close compared to our DPS loss. So because of this, if there is a berserker in the group, there is NO reason for a guardian to be. We can not taunt as well unless the berserker actually controls his aggro, We cant do the DPS you can wielding ANY weapon combo's, and if we DO tank, we dont mitigate damage enough to compinsate for the power loss, and time spent on having to spam taunts instead of using DPS styles.
You have to acknowledge that things are broken. Either A) you are so worried about your class getting nerfed, instead of gaurdians getting bumped you dont want to admit it in the public eye (Who blames you, SoE is known for a quick unthoughtfull nerf stick, instead of taking some time and consideration in their changes.) or B) you just havent had as much experience in Gaurdian / Berserker groups.
I have, why? Because one of the people I play with 2-4 hours a night with is a berserker. At first we really tried for me to pull aggro, and you know what, there is one out of 10 or 20 times that for some odd reason "Taunt" just works and he cant get aggro off me. Nothing on our end changes, just for some reason that one out of 10 times either his bloodlust isnt proccing right, or everything in the stars just allign.... but the other 9 out of 10 times, the ONLY way im grabbing aggro from him is if I use rescue, and even then its on a half hour timer, and he will grab aggro back from me with no real effort.
Now, I do minimal DPS while not tanking, and EVEN LESS while tanking. Why? Because unlike a berserker I have to spam taunts to keep my aggro consistant. This includes even the fact that im using hold the line, NOT using things like soldier stance, and other utilities like hunker down which downgrade my taunt and DPS.. There is a problem here, why can you tank almost exactly as well as I can, yet I can do NO WHERE NEAR your dps when im not tanking?

I for one am not asking for a berserker nerf, I am asking that IF taunt stays the way it is, and we are unable to keep aggro, that we get the same varation of DPS to DPS ratio between the two classes as you have for mitigation. The real fix? Just fix [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot]ing taunt.

EDIT: Wanted to add for all those people who are bound to say "Well when you get 35+ This isnt a problem. FU. I am not playing a game AT level 35, and I dont expect things to be broken until I get to said level. I want things balanced from level 20+ not 35+ when over 2/3's of the game has already been seen and played with frustration. I love my class, I played a warrior in EQ, I knew this was going to be the way it was in EQ2, I should have never picked this class. I am not whining but when you play a game for 5 years, and at level 55 there were times I would still catch mad aggro and almost die in Upperguk, and 25-35 zone from GREENS (which were grey in EQ1 compared to EQ2 --didnt have grey cons in eq1-- for those people who didnt play), you tend to lose faith in a developers ability to correctly balance things.
Message Edited by Kiris on 12-16-2004 08:21 PM

Traditionally in the dnd universe berserkers wore light to medium armor, and no sheilds. Giving the Berserkers Vangaurd plate and tower sheilds, gives them the option to have the same ac as a guardian, but more damage.

That option is the imballance, alot of groups take zerkers and the zerkers hold agro with bloodlust and have same ac

Simple solutions, Restrict Zerkers to medium armor, no sheilds.

and make there bloodlust go off a bit more, so they do more damage,

that should make everyone happy

ok i see the point here , but one thing if the zerker is MTing with you guarding he WONT use Bloodlust as well let me see it does more damage to us then we do to the mobs , i am zerker But i have guardian and played guardian in beta , if the zerker fights propaply and targets the MT then he wont pulll argo this is what i do and never pull argo , Guardian has much better Damage migration if in my guild we have me and guardian in the group he MT and i assist him , it works quite well , but the Tuant needs to be uped for the guardian as anyone with high DPS can pul argo off them , but i find HoLd the line works very well. or Bloodlust does give high Tuanting , but it broken at the moment so we asked it to be fixed but havent heard nothing , but this is getting like the SWG forums with TKM , peeps will cry Nerf nerf till the DEvs nerf then it will start to destroy the game look at swg now ,

we want some suggestions eh?

1) improve the power of aoe taunts.
2) possibly a concentration slot power similar to hold the line (to be made stackable with htl) that procs a taunt on every successful hit. this would be nice as it leaves us more mobile.
3) up our damage a tad bit.. as of right now were a one trick pony... damage sponging.

Thats really all i can think of to improve us without stepping on the other classes toes.

-Aramith

Message Edited by Jherad on 12-17-2004 10:20 AM

Jherad: I do not post very often but when I do I try to be constructive in my postings... I will try to explain how me and many other guardians look at the issues now:

Guardian: Defensive tank... a tank that offers offence to have better defence.
Berzerker: Offensive tank... a tank that sacrifice defence to get better offence.

As it is today both the Berzerker and Guardian have exactly the same possibilities when it comes to defence BUT the berzerkers have an option to go berzerk and then sacrifice a bit of the defence to have better offense. And even if the Berzerkers do not go berzerk then you have a bit better DPS then a guardian. He is the thing that makes it a bit unbalanced since a berzerker without using berzerk have same AC and better DPS then a guardian. And you also have an option to increase your offence and sacrificing defence by going berzerk.

The guardians have some buffs that increase the defence skill and decrease the offence... but currently the defence skill cannot exceed more then +6 point of your current skill since SoE have put in a cap on the max a skill can increase. And since that max is very low then it means a berzerker can reach that cap as well by using Soldier Stance. So then a guardian have no extra defence compared to a berzerker.

Also many of the defensive buffs we as guardians have are quite useless as it is now.. I take these numbers from my head now and they may differ with a few points when it comes to the AC. In example:

lvl 30 Art Dig In... descriptions says: The guardian sacrifices offence and movement speed and GREATLY increases defence and mitigation. Now to the fact.... it increases defence skill with 5 points and it reduces all weapon skills with 5. It adds around 60 AC at Apprentice I. Well why would I use this over Call of Command? Call of Command gives 5 extra in defence skill and have no negative effects. Ok I do not get 60 ac as I get from Dig In. But 60 ac is not GREATLY as the skills says. Especially not when I also loose 5 points of offence (causes me to miss more often) and also makes me move slower. Well well I thought I should give it an chance and invested one gold piece to buy Apprentice III version of Dig In... that gave me a whopping increase of 5 extra AC.. no defence skill since it get capped anyway.

And because of the cap then we have no use of Call of Command and Dig In together since each give 5 extra skill in defence and then we are capped. If it didnt cap then we would have 10 extra defence skill. But by doing this they have made either Call of Command (Yellow con at lvl 31) or Dig In (Orange con at lvl 31) useless since we only get benefits of one skill. There are alot more examples like this that I will not write in this thread.

Conclusion as I see it is:

Berzerkers do NOT need a nerf by any means... I think they are perfect as they are once they reduce the aggro of bloodlust.

Guardians do indeed need to be brought up in line with the berzerkers.. and by that I mean a guardian should have more defence overall since he sacrifices defence. And many of the skills a guardian have do not work as good as they should.

/Azatoth

Lvl 31 Guardian

Thanks for the reply Azatoth -

The thing is, we -don't- have exactly the same options for defense, even if you take berserk out of the equation. Quite frankly, the only time a berserker and guardian have the same mitigation is when they are both afk, not using abilities. Sure, in the early twenties, things are very very close - but as you progress from there the seperation becomes clearer. Another point to note is that berserk is not something that really ever changes - It feels pretty hot at level 20, when you first get that red glow and extra DPS, but it will never be a factor in providing extra percentage DPS over a Guardian scaling past that in levels.

I know that people are complaining that they don't want to wait until 35+ for differences, but really, each 'stage' in the profession path is a mini-reset. At level 6, A mage tanks pretty much as well as a Fighter. At level 16, a Crusader tanks pretty much as well as a warrior. At level 26, a Zerker tanks pretty much as well as a Guardian. Differences come, but they do take time.

Now, where I will agree with you and REALLY hope things change is on the subject of Defense caps. If this is hurting the Guardian in comparison with ANY other class post 30 (Zerkers included), then the Devs need to take a serious look.