Bruener wrote: So now you want rogue+ dps and you want to nerf predators/sorcerers so your shadowknight can compete with them too. Yeah you dont want to be overpowered at all.
Gungo@Crushbone wrote: Its not about being overpowered, its about adding value to your class outside the "click X every 50s and Y every 40s". If Bards brought only buffs and debuffs and did only 50k DPS. you would see the same arguments. Oh wait you did; previously and right now with troubs. Troubs right now do everything by "being there" and clicking a few buttons occasionally. That is *not* skill that is boredom. Chanters have gone from a class which constantly *just* casts breeze to one where their DPS is valued as much as their buffs and you value skill of a payer by not what buffs they bring or if they are able to click a few buttons at the right time... but by their DPS as well. Both are supporting classes... they join a raid primarily for their buffs and debuffs so other classes can perform better. BUT as well as DPSing they can compete with each other for DPS and feel they give more worth to a raid than simply logging on and being there. Tanks *should* have saves and taunts ... but in the same way DPS should have higher DPS abilities and short term buffs which allow for higher DPS spikes; right now due to the gear itemisation and the appauling hit rate tanks are being forceably reduced in DPS just.... "because".
I really don't think that much needs to be done to bring the tanks closer, below is my list. Some is probably wrong because admitidely I don't know some classes as well as others. I do have a Monk/Paladin and Guardian, the Guardian has always been my main raiding tank though so I've not really played the other 2 in raids much. Tank Balance - Global Changes - The removal of strike through immunity from Brawlers defensive stances and the addition of strike through immunity to ALL Tanks temp damage absorbs so they are all useful and do what they say. 100% Parry, should be 100% parry, NOT 100% parry unless the mob has strike through in which case it will be 60% Parry. If any changes are needed to strike through after that, adjust the mobs themselves and keep the values low and able to be debuffed. Guardian (Class I know best) - Pretty much where they should be IMO. Zerker - Uncapping of AOE auto attack. Another stoneskin or avoid although I don't think a stoneskin would suit the AOE nature of them. Blue AOE? "Cripple", reduces outgoing damage of mob(s) by 20%. Recast 1 min 30, duration 20 seconds. It's a 20% reduction in damage, works AOE, and will also provide some raid utility. Berzerk proc (DPS etc) - Changed, they've been uncapped but it adds nothing, maybe change it to a low amout of flurry with ability re-use. Also maybe a very short duration max melee damage, group wide... The groups next CA or spell attack will hit for max damage, so each time Beserk procs the group gets this, or 3 triggers per group member.. not sure, just throwing out ideas Paladin - A Decent single target stone skin, not a heal, something that will keep them alive for 2-3 hits or can absorb an AOE etc. 2 min recast, 10 sec duration, 3 triggers. A decent snap tool with moderate reuse. 2-3 mins. SK - Remarkably squishy at the mo, I'm not sure why, one of our 3 tanks is an SK and always has been and he's never complained as much as he does now about how hard he is to heal compared to myself and our monk. Something to reduce their incomming damage very slightly. Similar to Zerker, something to stop/reduce inc damage for a duration. Reduction in recast of Graves or addition of another decent AOE snap. Monk - OP at the moment, if the above changes don't bring the tanks in line then somthing will need to be done, nothing drastic. As I see it, over the years brawlers were given temp absorbs and snaps to enable them to be the pick up/utility tanks. Gradually though they've had the damage they take normally reduced to the point where they now take equal or less damage than the other tanks, but also have all these temp abilities still. 6-7 Snaps, 4-5 Damage absorbs.... You can't really justify having all those tools now as well as taking less over all damage. Bruiser - As monk but not quite as OP, the only reason I can see for this is they don't have quite as many temp abilities.
Boli@Splitpaw wrote: Nice to see somebody else that actually gets it. What some people here don't realize is that new games get this completely. By making DPS much more equal it takes the huge focus off of DPS. I was having a discussion with some folks that have a hard time staying with EQ2 and specifically talking about Rift. I tried Rift during Beta and believe me I am not saying it is a phenomenal game....but he was mentioning that the focus is not on DPS. It just didn't seem like there was a ton of difference in DPS. I am sure SWTOR has a similar feel. Just like some of the other games coming out. Companies realize that people want to do their job while contributing. There is absolutely no reason that T1 DPS needs to be doing 2x the DPS of everybody else in this game and Tanks need to be doing the DPS of healers. Set T1 DPS at 20-30% higher DPS than everybody...than make it pretty much equal across the board. People that slack will parse lower...people that work their tail off will parse higher. They will do it while doing their other functions in a raid as well. Whether that is tanking, debuffing, buffing, etc. There are plenty of reasons to bring chanters/rogues/bards/Fighters/healers individually, but with how skewed things are on the DPS spectrum right now all it is about is trying to replace with T1 DPS to kill things faster and make it easier.
Soul_Dreamer wrote: I definitely think that “the addition of strike through immunity to ALL Tanks temp damage absorbs†needs to be don ASAP. I have not hurd any tank say it shouldn’t. Next, before you start playing around with “The removal of strike through immunity from Brawlers defensive stances†we need to know are monk designed to be a viable MT in raid, or just a POS temp/snap tank? If we are designed to be a viable MT then by all rights cant take strike through immunity from our defensive stances. It would be like saying well SK’s and Zerkers are not supposed to be MT’s thus they shouldn’t get Uncontested Avoidance from their shields? I think the only reason that strike through immunity looks so OP is that the div’s are way over using it. Strike Through should only ever be on a very few select raid mobs in any quantity more then about 10%. When strike through is used in significant quantity on a mob it should be counted as one of there BIG Abilities that and at most have only 1 other AoE or what ever. This is on the idea that most mobs that have 1 Massive Ability only have 1 other AoE and it’s not that big. I know this generality doesn’t hold true for all raid mobs nor does it hold true in HM. As fare as the other tank Balance … I am not enough of an expert here. I have seen a good Paladin MT all of DoV EM, most of HM and most all of Drunder EM with very little problem. There have bin some fights that I tank since it is just easer for me as a monk.
Silzin@Crushbone wrote: NO other classes have strike through immunity, or are you claiming that Guardians/Berzerkers/SK's/Paladins now aren't designed to be MT's since they don't have it? Now ONLY Brawlers are MT's? Strike though immunity won't remove their ability to MT, they already have substantially higher amount of uncontested avoidance and very similar numbers of % mitigation, normally only 5% out from an equally geared plate tank. ALL fights would be easier for you as a monk, some add fights like Eireen would be easier for the Paladin if on adds, but Monk > Paladin as MT and by a huge margin. The current mechanic IS strike through, it was put in game to combat uncontested avoidance...... having immunity doesn't "look" OP, it is OP. Sure if it wasn't being used or as excessivlely as it is it wouldn't matter, but the fact is, it is being used that way. You can defend it as much as you like, but 2 classes out of 6 being completely immune to a whole mechanic is throwing tank balance out of the window. As I've said before, how about we add "Mitigation Strike though" so a mob has a % chance to ignore all or even 50% of your mitigation, then make only Warriors immune to it... would you be happy? It's a completely stupid mechanic idea and we all know it, Strike through is the same so F**k off, it's OP and you know it, stop trying to defend it. Brawlers where MTing before you got Strike through, and they would continue to MT raids without it. 2 Tanks, 1 a plate tank with 68% Mit and 41% Block. 1 a brawler with 62% Mit and 54% uncontested avoidance. 100 hits of 80k at both of them, 8,000,000 damage in total. The Plate will avoid completely 41% of attacks, and mitigate the other 59% so only 32% of damage gets through from them. 8,000,000 x 0.59 x 0.32 = 1510400. The Brawler will avoid 54% of attacks, and mitigate the other 46% so only 38% of damage gets through from them. 8,000,000 x 0.46 x 0.38 = 1398400. The numbers are relatively similar, only 120k in it from 8,000,000 total damage, which isn't really noticable, the Brawler would spike a little more but is taking less damage. This is actually how it was for a while but Brawlers where getting 1 shotted when their avoidanced failed for a couple of rolls in a row, I'm pretty sure changes where put in during TSO to help combat this. Now add in a mob that has 30% strike through (pretty common amount). This means 30% of the plate tanks avoidance is worthless, so his uncontested avoid will drop to 28.7%. Now run his numbers again. Will avoid 28.7% of attacks, of which are mitigated by 32%. 8,000,000 x 0.713 x 0.32 = 1825280. Almost 500k more damage. Even at the cap of 75% mitigation the Plat tank will take. 8,000,000 x 0.713 x 0.25 = 1426000 damage, which is still MORE than the Brawler. Then add in that 20% (about average for a raid mob) of these attacks would have been MA's, when the brawler avoids one it also by default avoids the secondary MA attack, when the plate tank doesn't he takes both hits and with his now pitiful avoidance he's taking most of them. You can easily see these numbers in game by reviewing ACT parses from a plate tank tanking, and a Brawler tanking. Again, strike through immunity is ruining tank balance.The gap between Brawlers and Plate tanks gets larger as avoidance goes up due to the plate having his avoidance cut by a static %. The avoidance number posted above are a little low, but as I stated it gets WORSE as they get higher!
Gungo@Crushbone wrote: You don't seem to understand that in a lot of cases you cannot use these AoE snaps in a raid because you will rip aggro from the MT and thus ruin positioning (and therefore raidwide DPS) even if it is for a couple seconds. As a raid Zerker I would trade Insolence for Reinforcements or Mantis Leap, easy.
Soul_Dreamer wrote: I am not saying that Brawlers should be the only MT’s. atm there are still plenty of plat tanks Mting… and you know what there are also for the first time in a VERY long time a decent % on non high end raid guilds that use Brawlers and plate tanks a like as MT’s. In TSO Brawlers didn’t have strike through immunity and guess what… we had no chance of being a progression MT. Unless we out geared the Fight we couldn’t tank it. And even then we still look less dmg over time then plate tanks. We still where getting one shotted and for a very long time since haven’t bin considered real tanks by … just about EVERY one, even our selves. Just because the Brawler in your scenario takes less damage over the coarse on the time doesn’t make him easer to keep a live as a tank. If the tank is dyeing too random attacks that are not designed to one shot then they are not a feasible MT for that fight. If plat tanks are dyeing to normal auto attaches then it needs to be looked at. Named having large amounts of MA makes the damage out from the named way more sporadic and harder to deal with then I think they are intended to be. If the Named is wanted to have more dmg out then ether up him base damage on auto attach more sped up the attacks. But using sever hundred MA makes the named may to spiky.
Tekadeo wrote: Reinforcement has the same issue. We don't have a Paladin in our guild so I (Guardian) OT the adds on Eireen HM, I have to be VERY careful when using Reinforcement because if any of my AOE auto attacks or one of my 2 blue AOE's smack the named she'll turn and beat on me. Reinforcement is an excellent agro tool, I won't argue that, but on a Zerker/Pally/SK with all their AOE's it would be even more effective. Guardians only have 2, after that we have to rely on AOE auto attack and tabbing to proc it enough to get all mobs on us.
Tekadeo wrote: I understand completley what I am talking about because this is exactly How I handle co-op strike adds that spawn on the maintank or under neath the named. As a bruiser i have an blue aoe snap with 2 positions and green encounter snap with 2 positions and mantis leap. Most of the time adds are unlinked so i have to use the Blue aoe snap. Of the three I DONT USE MANTIS LEAP when I am grabbing adds. I use mantis leap only when I am past 10m away from the named. Mantis leap procs off every aoe auto atk. And will garanutee I grab the freakin named if I am within 10m. Even though it only lasts 10 secs that can be a massive amount of positions. Taunts and regular blue aoes dont really help grab those adds unless i have massive hate gain. And When I have massive hate gain it causes me to rip aggro. I make sure I have just enough hate gain so that I can hold those short duration adds long enough to kill them without having enough to climb the hate list very fast. Generally I wear 3x white 5% hate adorns(15%) and have coercer buff hate (19%) and tell the dirge to buff something else instead of hate gain(37%), I only ask for a dirges hate gain when i want to have a permant agro lock on whatever I am targeting. This allows me to use wild beating AS SOON as the adds pops underrneath the named, grab them and pull them back past 10m so the dps can kill them. Hit temps, craneflock, mantis leap, blue aoes etc. You might do something different then me but this way has garaunteed an add NEVER co-op strikes the tank and allows me to full burn on the named when I am not tanking since I am not overloaded on hate gain. And when I need to hold agro on something with the raid going full force I simply need to ask the dirge to put another 37% hate gain on me.
Soul_Dreamer wrote: Reinforcement (and the old holy ground) you could use to quickly tag and gain agro on specfic targets, either AoE or single target. That is its greatest strength; I used to toggle off AoE auto in TSO and use HG to pull single mobs/encounters away before AoEing to lock them down. A simple AoE agro snap; to use effectively you either have to position yourself perfectly so the AoE does not hit the named; or do not DPS/or generate too much hate on the named at all so when you fire your snap you do not move up enough positions. With Co-operative strike a AoE snap is pretty much useless... also it doesn't help most adds are now separate encoutners and NOT linked (and sometimes spawning at staggered intervals). Honestly the adds are not "hard" to pull off (short range CA/rescue/ire proc), it is just plain annoying to deal with it time and time again knowing if you failed even once and got the named or didn't get an add in time its pretty much an instant wipe.
Boli@Splitpaw wrote: Grabbing adds is a bit harder now that auto atk range is 5m. It doubles the area where an aoe auto atk can hit the named. So while in TSO you could stand in range of combat arts, etc and still be out of range of aoe auto atks. Now you cant use those abilites without being in range of aoe auto atks. Furthermore alot of high end gear in DOV has innate aoe auto atk. So even if we go through the trouble of removing and casting our aoe auto atk your still going to proc hate positions on the named if you cast reinforcments/mantis leap. I almost rather have staggered spawns it allows me to cast multiple single target snaps on them as they spawn instead of casting a blue aoe snap and use the blue aoe snap when I am further away from the named. If multiple spawn unerneath the named then I use the blue aoe snap because It allows me to grab them all in time. There is a place and time for all these snaps but through personal experience I find mantis leap/reinforcements to be alot less controlable for offtanking if you are anywhere near the named. I find a blue aoe snap infinitely more controlable and useful for offtanking. The only thing i would like as a bruiser is a snap that is longer range then 10m. Sometimes its a pain when an add memwipes and is just out of range and i have to chase after it with rescue.
Glad to see you mentioned MAs later in your post Soul since those favor avoidance tanking even more. There is also a mechanic that starts with Statue of giving the mob a big proc based on a successful hit....Statue it is like 120k physical damage. The more you are hit the more you get hit by that as well. Than of course there is the mechanic Brawlers have that procs a 30% damage reduction for 3 seconds if they are hit that can be up every 10 seconds. 30% less damage taken on those MAs and procs like the above make a significant difference.
Boli@Splitpaw wrote: Aye I know, I'm simply pointing out that it's not all that some tanks think it is. Reinforcment is a good tool and can be used in different situations. But if I decide to use it with an AOE to catch adds on a lot of fights I'll also be pulling the named off the tank if I'm not MT. This would be the case for any tank who had it. IF you couple reinforcement with a class that has 5/6/7+ blue AOE's then you have a very, very powerful ability (old Holy ground). I think the only reasons Guardians have kept it is because we are so limited in the number of AOE's we have. If reinforcement was on a Zerker, with their 100% AOE auto attack and lots of blue AOE's it would be very powerful in lots of AOE situations. It would also be almost un-useable in some situations without sacrificing that 100% AOE auto attack and the AOE's, which would render a lot of Zerker utility useless. You can't point at Amends/Reinforcement/<Ability X> etc without looking at the class as a whole, I think reinforcement is balanced on the Guardian because of their limited AOE's and how it complents the class. It's always annoyed me when people say... "Guardians can't have DPS because they're the most defensive", or "Pallies can't have Snaps because they have the best sustained hate", "SK's can't hate abilities to absorb damage because they have the highest DPS". ALL Tanks need a tool set to be able to do their base role of tanking, yes some tanks will take more damage, or be able to absorb more, or be better at AOE, or have more snaps, but at the end of the day they should all be able to perform all tank roles to a certain degree of success. @Silzin, I need to get home from work and check my monk, as I said I don't know him as well as I know my Guardian, but.. 1. Strike through didn't exist in TSo. 2. I'm pretty sure in TSO mechanics/abilities where changed to help stop 1 shots on Brawlers, or at least drastically reduce them. 3. Strike through immunity would be needed if Brawlers were taking more damage than plate tanks, this simply isn't the case anymore, you can get withing a couple of % of the plate tanks mitigation but the avoidance difference is huge now. Couple that with all the tweaks made over the years in snaps/damage abosrbs and you have 2 very very powerful tanks that are very hard to kill in raid content. The removal of strike through immunity from the defensive stance with the addition of it to ALL tanks saves will balance out the avoidance numbers so they're closer to the balance in the mitigation numbers. Brawlers will still be very good tanks, they just won't have 30%+ more uncontested avoidance on very high end mobs like they do now.
Paladin: Highest Sword/Board Melee DPS, Highest Aggro, Third Highest Defence, Weakest Snaps. Monk: Second Highest Melee Damage, Third Highest Aggro, Best Defence, Second Best Snaps. Bruiser: Highest Melee Damage, Fourth Highest Aggro, Second Best Defence, Best Snaps. Guardian: Second Highest Sword/Board Melee DPS, Second Highest Aggro, Fourth Highest Defence, Third Best Snaps. Berserker: Third Highest Melee Damage, Lowest Aggro, Second Lowest Defence, Fourth Best Snaps. Shadowknight: Highest Spell Damage, Second Lowest Aggro, Lowest Defence, Second Weakest Snaps. Ranked Fighters: Paladin: Damage=8, Aggro=10, Defense=8, Snaps/Utility=2 Monk: Damage=10, Aggro=7, Defense=10, Snaps/Utility=7 Bruiser: Damage=10, Aggro=7, Defense=10, Snaps/Utility=7 Guardian: Damage=8, Aggro=8, Defense=8, Snaps/Utility=8 Berserker: Damage=9, Aggro=6, Defense=7, Snaps/Utility=5 Shadowknight: Damage=10, Aggro=6, Defense=7, Snaps/Utility=3 Overall Ranks: Bruiser=34 Monk=34 Guardian=32 Paladin=28 Berserker=27 Shadowknight=26
Soul_Dreamer wrote: Your pretty much wrong in all your points. 1) Strikethrough was introduced in TSO. 2) Brawlers were getting owned in TSO, none of thier avoid buffs worked, they didnt get any mechanics/abilities changes to stop the 1 shots until sf. Sentinals fate gave brawlers ALOT, a death save, strikethrough immunity, and fixed a bunch of old AA lines. TSO only really gave brawlers the shadows tree. Brawlers didnt get tweaked until SF beta. 3) During sentinals fate brawlers didnt get OP until theer 4 rune/ wing 3 in UD when guilds noticed raid mobs had increased strikethrough and thier tanks were getting owned. Brawlers also could almost cap mitigation in SF with high end gear which was fixed when DOV was released. Brawlers still have at least 5% less mitigation now in DOV unless of course the physical aoe is "harder to mitigate" effect. In which case it is a bit higher. 4) The damage absorbs(stoneskins) and avoid buffs existed since TSO. The snaps as well. Sentinals fate and DOV didnt give brawlers any new stoneskins. And sentinals fate and DOV didnt give any new snaps/avoid buffs except tag team in DOV, which has been bugged since its release and doesnt work as a snap. I agree with removal of immunity and adding it to temp avoids. I simply think strikethrough is a bad mechanic. If the devs have no intention of removing strikthrough then i suggest they add in enough debuffs for strikethrough to the game in order to reduce striketrhrough to zero and implement an ability that will naturally contest uncontested avoidance such as a redesigned accuracy stat.
Gungo@Crushbone wrote: Meh, I don't mind I'm wrong on some points, I could have sworn there were changes near the end of TSO to help out brawlers with 1 shots though. 1. I didn't see any any Strike through in TSO though, if it existed it was in small enough numbers to not matter. 2. Our brawlers have always tanked fine, in TSO and SF we had a bruiser who managed well, now we have a monk who is OP as f**k. There was an issue when brawlers where getting one shotted if their avoidance failed on 2-3 hits in a row. Now that brawlers can survive these hits though there is no issue. 3. Yes it got a lot more noticeable in latter SF, but 5% Mit != 20%+ Avoidance, which is the huge issue. IF mitigation is within 5% then avoidance needs to be within 5% to balance it out, it's simple maths really. If one class avoids 20%+ more hits than another, is easily healable when they do get hit, has the snaps and temps to avoid the large damage/get mobs on them fast then that is the class that is chosen. 4. There are snaps/damage reducers etc in both SF and DOV aa. Granted some are improvements to current abilities, but unrivalled focus is pretty sweet to name but one. You're kinda prooving my point though really, Brawlers were ok at tanking and didn't need much, it's not been since these massive amount of strike through on mobs that they've started to dominate. I don't understand how your redesigned accuracy will be any different to strike through currently. The only avoidnace worth anything against raid mobs is uncontested avoid anyway, which strikethrough contests. IMO, no fighter should be immune to Strike though 100%, temps need to have strike through immunity so they work and avoid the percentages they say they do. Strike through needs to be in low quantities on mobs and it also needs to be debuffable. @Failathion, what exactly is that meant to represent? What is going on in your own little world or what you want to happen in your own little world?
Soul_Dreamer wrote: Not going to get into the back and forth on deatils but on the above topic Strikethrough is currently a flat % to hit regardless. It contests the uncontested avodiance but in a direct hit or miss way. What i want to see is a natural contestation of uncontested avoidance. SO say you have 70% block, 50% uncontested parry, 25% uncontested riposte, 50% defense and that raid npc has 20% accuracy. You would instead roll on 50% block, 30% uncontested parry, 5% uncontested riposte, and 30% defense. Instead of the npc just rolling on a 30% chance to strikethrough once you block/parry/riposte. Dont forget if your contested version of these stats are higher you will always use the higher value instead. This means you can also overcap uncontested avoidance because the overcap will increase your chance to avoid when you fight harder and harder content
