Has it not been the case since the beginning, where fighters were essentially seen as punching bags? Even in the old school MMOs, I would imagine the tank class has been nothing more than that. The real question or concern you probably have is the fact that people have gotten so used to be dps on fighter classes, that reverting back to the punching bag role is not going to fly with most, if not all of them and there lies the root of the problem. Getting used to a playstyle just because we have been forced to does not make it any more enjoyable. You have just gotten used to it, like we all had to. I think if it was working well then we won't be having these discussions to begin with. When I said, making the fighters removed from DPS requirements to tank, this will require a shift in the content design, the gear, the stats priority which will be a monumental task and would most likely never happen (one can hope, right?). As it stands, adding more dps to fighter classes is just going to keep this drip-feed trend of doing the same thing over and over again, with little to no customisation for each fighter class to play, we will be wearing the same things, going after the same stats and arguing over the fact that some fighter classes still come out ahead overall. Does not remotely sound like any sort of solution in my view. I would park, nay, remove ascensions altogether. They were the worst thing in the game as they literally made the primary class, secondary to them. They could have done so many things to make it into a worthwhile aspect but in the end it messed it all up so much so that we are still reeling from its effects. The point here is that we need effort from devs for each of the 26 classes, anything else is supplementary but should never be mandatory -- which ascensions were over the recent past.
Ascensions are phasing themselves out quietly. Since there have been no improved Ascension spells, they have lost in terms of efficiency to profession spells. Some will continue to be useful, but I am pretty sure that usefulness will continue waning.
I can see this becoming yet another problem for returning players, as none of the old guard will bother with Celestial Doctrine, and the ascension buff is still and probably always will be relevant.
This is a distorted view of the past. ONLY Guardians were considered punching bags but there are 5 five other fighter classes who had other roles and were more than just meat shields. There was a lot of variety of what fighters could do and roles they could perform. Paladins had heals and SKs were plate mages. Monks and Bruisers where basically dps classes. Guess which class was the most popular and which one was the least? If you guessed Guardian was the least played fighter then you would be correct. The player preference for fighter dps goes back to the very start of the game. So going back to day one of EQ2; literally on day one my class was not a punching bag. As a Bruiser DPS was my main course and any tanking I did was a secondary role. If I wanted to tank better I would have been told to roll a Guardian or quote "real tank™." The dps role was not forced on me. I chose it. I didn't adapt to being a dps fighter. It was a day one condition. But now you telling me to revert back to a punching bag role. That nonsense won't fly in any year.
Good lord. EVERY guild had a guardian until mid RoK. Some had multiples. Speaking of comments that "won't fly". Even if brawlers were a "dps" tank, you weren't anything close to a real dps.
All fighters have been tanks as their primary role since the beginning. Brawlers were doing the most DPS of the 6 earlier on, but that doesn't mean Brawlers were DPS. Warriors were the mitigation/tower shield tanks. Crusaders were the healing/kite shield tanks. Brawlers were the avoidance tanks which is the only reason Brawlers weren't considered punching bags as they were intended to avoid the punches from the beginning. Yes, Brawlers were the top DPS tanks but not basically a DPS class.
I haven't tanked in ages, but there are other games where I have tanked and enjoyed it. Mainly these allowed me to do AE aggro that was solid and could be boosted. The dps folks in those games couldn't easily pull aggro once I had put down my two or three AE aggro spells and they lit up so I knew when to replenish them. At most I'd have to worry about one dps person who just had way more gear etc than normal so keeping any eye on one wasn't an issue. And gear didn't affect my aggro spells as much as they do in eq2. I didn't mind that others were doing all the damage, I was doing my job. The healers were keeping me going and I was keeping them away from harm. In EQ2 there is a great variance in tanks. If they don't have ancient this and ancient that etc they have trouble holding aggro, even if the dps folks are using de-taunts. I like being in a group where you might fail, it is the challenge. In eq2 you can be in a group where if the tank is uber no-one else matters. They run from mob to mob and the rest have a hard time keeping up. If the tank isn't uber then folks complain that they couldn't get their weekly done in an hour. It should take a while, regardless of the tank's gear. (Hey this is all my opinion, I never would claim to be an excellent player of any class). I'll let others discuss raid tanks, I've never done that in eq2 Oh also, in other games it was more fun being an 'off tank' than in eq2. You pretty much tried to keep your aggro just below the main tank and would off-tank adds unless something bad happened to the main. There seems to be less use for an 'off-tank' in eq2, but maybe in raids.
Every guild wanted a guardian up until RoK because they were pretty much a required class for a lot of encounters. The other fighters just couldn't take the hits. As for the popularity of the class Guardians were pretty scarce as not many people wanted to play guard. And there were definitely a lot more brawlers around than guardians. As for Bruisers they were "real dps" because T2 dps is real dps. Bruiser couldn't parse T1 level but they could keep up with rouges and summoners in the early days of EQ2. Bruisers at the time were also considered a valuable class to have in raid due to avoidance lending and the dps they brought. They were a well rounded and balanced class. Not so much any more though.
What makes tank play fun is simply the challenge between content and mastering the class. As a tank and healer, you generally have the biggest task in the game and not many can do that, so there are few good tanks and healers. Although I have to say the good old days were much nicer as a tank than now with Bulwark and the new mechanics, tanks are unfortunately a little limited like certain other classes. Why I'm addressing this is simply all tanks need some new care in terms of taunts, these need to be expanded more, all tanks should also receive a little care, be it in defensive style with deflecting damage and also some tanks need a little love in terms of DPS See the Guardian, but Daybreak is currently missing a person who plays himself and learns the feeling for the classes again himself so that you can understand what's going on. Programming through more mechanics such as scripts and certain items has gotten so much mixed up that it has lost its appeal for many players, which has been evident for years. What I still love as a tank is the challenge of playing with the top without raids, which means you know what and how the class has to work, not many can do it. In the end, everyone should play what they want, but it takes time and, especially nowadays, a lot of platinum to play to the maximum. Times have changed, which always has advantages and disadvantages. Eventually Daybreak should go back to the old way in general so that the classes are what they were and what their purpose was. Have fun and nice Hunting
[quote=" Eventually Daybreak should go back to the old way in general so that the classes are what they were and what their purpose was. Have fun and nice Hunting [/quote] Perfection.
Hold on, let me check my notes from my time as a guardian from DoF-TSO. Yup, plenty of guards around. If we want to compare one classes total to 2 classes total, I'm sure you're right. There probably were more brawlers than guardians. As far as guardians being unpopular, nah. Then your summoners and rogues sucked. Until autoattack damage started to take off in RoK/SoH, fighter "DPS" wasnt a thing. Sure, you may have done more dps than any other fighter, maybe. Never saw that personally while playing my guard, but I suppose it's possible. I distinctly remember crucifying a brigand shortly after SoH launched for being outparsed by my guardian. This was a top 20 guild at the time, so hardly the epitome of the best of the best, but still quite a bit better than the top 20 today.
I remember this vividly because in the early days of EQ2 there was so much competition I couldn't even raid on my Bruiser. My first raid character was a Troub. This wasn't a character I wanted to play but a character I had to play in order to get my foot in the door. Every guild I applied to even the lowest ranked causal guilds were swimming in brawlers. The guild I raided with had 2 in the raid and maybe another 1 or 2 on the bench at all times. My Bruiser had to earn the right to raid by first gearing up as an alt and then jumping around a bunch of guilds before I found a raid slot for my Bruiser. But when I did start raiding my DPS was pretty solid. I had no problem keeping up with rouges and summoners. The other Bruisers I raided with or compared numbers with on flames were also high parsers. Those were good times.
New PTW crap incoming today. Maybe it's something that actually makes taunts work??? Nah, it'll be ridiculous, and more people will quit. Fun times.
Tell the story you need to in order to fit your narrative, bro. Those of us that were there know the truth of it. If you think you "competed" with t2 dps pre-SoH, your dps were terrible
I have played almost from Day 1 (about 2 months late out of the blocks) and have lived exculsively out Freeport. My very first toon was a Guardian and I was one of many that were in the game at the time. From memory, there were SKs and Pallys coming out of the woodwork, Guardians were probably the next most, followed by Monks then Zerkers. I don't think I even saw a Bruiser until the DoF expansion when we had one tank a PUR in Living Tombs. I was so impressed that it inspired me to roll one that I still play it today. Over the following few expansions, as FoTM changed, most Guards switched to being Zerkers, Monks became more popular because of the buffs they received due to being one of the Dev's favourites. SKs and Pallys remained very popular, especially when their DPS took a massive boost at one point. Bruisers remained the red-headed step-child. I don't ever remember having the DPS to come even close to a competent T2 DPSer unless I was over-geared. I have raided on him but usually as OT, because Monks (cough, Dragonfire, cough) and due to the ropey tanking rotation, which I have to say seems to be improving over the last couple of expansions. More damage reduction options does seems to be helping. I have been asked if I would like to betray to Monk but always politely declined. I would rather not raid than swap, tbh. I am happy to potter along in Solos and Heroics if that is the best I can get as a Bruiser, but I would like to see the end of stupid mechanics (looking at you, Bulwark). I don't think fighters should be on par with DPS classes, but I understand that this runs the risk of raid snobbery and off tanks getting dropped on fights where they are not needed to make way for more DPS. As an aside, I had a Brigand alt that I rolled because at the time they had a tanking AA line that made use of a shield and they were quite capable tanks in groups. Someone put a stop to that line of fun too
Projecting much. Accusing me of the very thing that you yourself are doing. LOL You think I am making this up? I have real proof that Bruisers were damn good parsers back in the day. Take this little gem from the wayback machine of a post on flames made in June 2007 made by NPU's Wizard. This was a full year before SoH came out. Oh look at that, the Bruiser was parsing up there with the rouges and summoners just like I said. I am sure NPU's Brig and Necro were just "bad." Amiright. Nevermind that NPU was the top guild in the world back in 2007, and in 2006, and in 2008, and 2009 etc. These were the best of the best players. I don't remember the Brig or Necro's name but the Bruiser they had was named Sardonis. He was a monster. If Bruisers could parse like they did back then, Bruiser DPS would be well over 1 trillion in today's inflated numbers. Back when the classes were actually balanced guilds wanted a Bruiser in the raid and lots of people wanted to play that class. It was a virtuous cycles. Players got to play the classes they wanted, guilds got the recruits they needed. The devs got more subscriptions. Everyone wins when you make the game fun for people. Want to make a class more fun. Add more dps. Nobody wants to just stand around and watch other people kill the mob. That is no fun. This is how you get more fighters into raid. Give them more dps so they can be something more than just a punching bag. I am not just talking about Bruisers on that point.
For me, tanking was always about standing up to the biggest baddies in the game and saying, give it your best shot... but with all the one shot mechanics, that isn't so much fun... especially when you don't have death saves or snaps or anything else useful to actually, you know tanking... And now, with all the complex mechanics and never knowing what tank will be the 'chosen one' for a given xpac/update, it just isn't worth it to learn all of that to run a group that will probably fail anyways. Any more it is easier and more satisfying to just pew pew and make things dead...
LOL - every DPS class (Swashy, Brigand, Ranger) I have is so much easier to play as compared to my tank. But like any class, playing it, and being good at it are two different things.
I agree and I miss tanking, though I keep a guard pretty much geared to do stuff with, if I ever get the chance to
