Changes that need to be made

[Kailyn]

Now that we started to get our melee stuff, there are somethings that need to be changed to bring balance back to the game.

1) If incite is truely not ment to be a pulling tool, its splash agro needs to be bigger. In a 65 LDoN I find its a very effective pulling tool.

2) Anger auges need to have warrior only removed from them. The logic that we needed no longer applies when you consider incte and that most of the EB items are knight useable.

3) Royal Sands needs its color changed and a way to make the had invis :-p.

[Cuclain MacLlir]

1) It's fine the way it is.
2) Sounds ok. But remember the first monk/ranger/beastlord we see with angerIII on a Copper Hammer, it was YOUR idea.
3) Just dye it. I would vote for no graphic helmet though.

[Phantron]

There's no reason at all why the Knights need access to Anger 3 procs. If they're going to fix the free aggro Knights get then sure put Knights on those too but otherwise no.

And I don't see any reason why any other classes should get Anger 3.

[Superchum]

1- Incite is not a pulling tool. An antonian javelin is a pulling tool. You could make every pull you're doing in LDoN with something other than your incite button. Happy Dragon perhaps?

2- Anger needs to stay WAR only. It's taken YEARS to finally get warriors a leg up in the aggro department. And you already want to start UNRAVELLING this ball of twine? By giving an aggro boost to every other class, you start to erode the POINT of the changes. Anger 3 being available to any warrior with the time + Incite being available to any warrior in the game + 5 percent more mitigation being available to any warrior in the game = THE ABILITY TO BE ABLE TO TANK REGARDLESS OF GEAR. No more are warriors HEMMED in by the CRUTCH that is Enraging Blow. They can stand on their own two feet. They can make their OWN aggro weapon. They can use their incite skill. And when they get hit, it's not as hard as others get hit. It's all related. All inter-connected. Don't screw it up now.

3- GET DYE. Don't waste time with randomly assigned armor colors from the SAME brain trust that brought you AoW pants, Elysian Armor, and Windblade drop rates. Find the colors you like with the slider bars (or surf the web for some RBG codes) and make your OWN destiny. Wear the color you want, ALL THE TIME.

[Gerick]

Kailyn, your not thinking, you dont balance the game by adding to both sides, incite was made AS IS with the fact that the anger 3 is warrior only in mind, now your just asking us to go back to being shit again, warriors by no means have aggro lock.

how about you get used to warriors having groups alot (ALL warriors, not just the super elite)

id have to meet you in game before i beleave you are a warrior

[Battleblade]

Any non-Warrior class that wants an aggro buff can use Force of YKesha or Strike of YKesha. The majority of aggro weapons aren't Warrior only.

I suppose if a Warrior was level 65 and still pulled in LDoN then the Provoke line is serviceable. I don't use it for pulling because on rare ocassions the named or the unmezzable hiding behind the rock that ya didn't see comes too and there ya are - threw away yer Provoke on the wrong mob - now don't ya feel silly :p?

Besides, some of us prefer to taunt after slow and Provoke after a successful taunt. We'll learn I suppose.

Most Warriors afaik use a bow or proximity aggro. If I'm feeling particularly fiesty I use a Blazing Bracer of Finnen Ro. Warriors are not the best pullers, unless you actually want to get a small train ocassionally. Then again, in LDoN that's exactly what you want.

Frankly if a room is nasty enough to justify pulling, it's pretty hard to beat a Cleric or Bard.

Armor bought with AP or from the bazaar should be the color of Deepwater armor and not be dyeable. It definately shouldn't be Warrior Blue :D.

BB

[Kailyn]

Here is more of my argument for Anger having its rescritctions removed:

Nearly all the uber warriors could, in fact, keep agro quite well and the knihgts at that end of the game do have access to great taunting weapons (SEWS and BOWS).

The Anger procs were put in to allow warriors, like me, who might not be able to get CHSD or better EB weapons. We now have that--unresistable agro--from level 20 on.

And the crux of our agrument was that depending on the RNG for agro, did not really count as agro. This same logic applies still--Anger was not the agro tool we were looking for (or needed) and now the logic that created them, no longer applies, as we have the on demand agro tools we want.

Anger was a failed attempt at a solution. And the fact that the high end game was balanced (agro wise) before Incite, points to the fact that knights can have access to agro procs and leave the game balanced.

And Battleblade, no I don't. I still have an agro disapline and AE Taunt to back up incite. SO what it goes for 30 second on the wrong mob...waiting for taunt to land probably means I use it more--and still have the back up tools.

That said, I don't know which of us is using incite in a better way.

[Eriatha Egan]

Anger was a failed attempt at a solution. And the fact that the high end game was balanced (agro wise) before Incite, points to the fact that knights can have access to agro procs and leave the game balanced.

Right, that's why the majority of Warrior outcries for the past year were from high Elemental to Time level Warriors who had Blades of War, Stone Etched Warswords, Bloodfrenzies, Blades of Carnage, Edges of Eternity, and Darkblades of the Warlord. Their argument consisted of two reasons. One, intial agro in the first ten seconds was near impossible unless you got a lucky proc. Two, enraging blow was fine for holding agro, but it was never fucking consistant. Adding the Provoke and Anger lines helped solve these two problems. Provoke for initial hate so when the CH lands against that 1300 hitter, the mob doesn't go twirling off to the cleric or slower. Anger allows us to actually see a hate proc before gray hairs start to show.

Wake up.

Knight don't need Anger. Hell, why are you even argueing to give it to them? It's highly unlikely Paladins and Shadowknights would bother with it anyways. It's like feeding a cat dogfood.

[Battleblade]

Kailyn,

In your post that started this thread, you stated:
2) Anger auges need to have warrior only removed from them.
To which I replied:
Any non-Warrior class that wants an aggro buff can use Force of YKesha or Strike of YKesha.
I fail to see the "need" to have Warrior only removed from Anger augments.

Anger augments are unresistable, as they should be. YKesha augments being resistable shouldn't bother Knights who have taken advantage of the excessive aggro created by low level resisted stuns even against immune mobs to avoid needing to use aggro weapons like Warriors for years now.

Just because Paladins may in the future have to use level appropriate stuns and pay more than 50 mana to cast them is no reason for Warriors to have to share Anger augs.

Let them get aggro with the tools they were suposed to use for a bit. If it turns out that they can Aggro no better than Warriors by using appropriate spells, actually seeing their mana bar move, and ocassionally cursing the Taunt button - that's how it's always supposed to have been. If they have to camp, buy, or pay DKP for aggro weapons - why welcome to the club.

The best thing that could happen to the game is a less secure Paladin Aggro Lock. One of the worst would be strengthening it with unresistable Hate augments.

BB

[Gerick]

Originally posted by Kailyn
Here is more of my argument for Anger having its rescritctions removed:

Nearly all the uber warriors could, in fact, keep agro quite well and the knihgts at that end of the game do have access to great taunting weapons (SEWS and BOWS).

The Anger procs were put in to allow warriors, like me, who might not be able to get CHSD or better EB weapons. We now have that--unresistable agro--from level 20 on.

And the crux of our agrument was that depending on the RNG for agro, did not really count as agro. This same logic applies still--Anger was not the agro tool we were looking for (or needed) and now the logic that created them, no longer applies, as we have the on demand agro tools we want.

Anger was a failed attempt at a solution. And the fact that the high end game was balanced (agro wise) before Incite, points to the fact that knights can have access to agro procs and leave the game balanced.

And Battleblade, no I don't. I still have an agro disapline and AE Taunt to back up incite. SO what it goes for 30 second on the wrong mob...waiting for taunt to land probably means I use it more--and still have the back up tools.

That said, I don't know which of us is using incite in a better way.

BUT incite's hate numbers where made with Anger 3 in mind, so they knew we would use both, so again, there is no need to balance the game again because the chances of a knight or warrior getting a group is 50/50 now

[Heimdall-RN]

If you really want 3 things that need fixing:

1) Revisit Incite and look into the range bugs people think they have found.

2) Get a map, directions, and a native guide to the area called Knightimization so they can visit that in the near future. They need to reestablish a meaningful HP gap between Warriors and Knights. (Edit: Possibly looking at the buff levels as well. A huge effect on the HP gap has been buffing. When ~ 3500 hp is coming solely from buffs, that cuts deeply into the advantage we had.)

3) Increase the mitigation bonus. An additional ~5% mitigation bonus, along with a meaningful, but not crippling, hp gap advantage will go a long way toward returning the warrior to the premier MT choice, and balance the loss of knight spells with warrior efficiency.

[Madronedorf]

I dont see any real reason for anger line to be warrior only, except maybe roleplaying reasons but then sk should be on it and roleplaying was generally thrown out a few years ago...

but i also dont see any real need to make anger 3 usable by other class's..... Yak is fine when coupled when natural aggro abilities...

This is sorta off topic.... but was evasive given a hidden boost because of the mitigation boost?

IE with defensive their is no difference because way disc was changed - but with evasive you still get the mitigation boost + what evasive used to offer?

[Barraind]

Right, that's why the majority of Warrior outcries for the past year were from high Elemental to Time level Warriors who had Blades of War, Stone Etched Warswords, Bloodfrenzies, Blades of Carnage, Edges of Eternity, and Darkblades of the Warlord

The majority of complaints, both in quantity and percent, were from sub 65 or 65 sub 50 aa warriors with mostly bazaar or low end (ornate and below) raid/drop armor, lacking decent aggro weapons.


No real reason to remove warrior only from anger3 unless they start messing with aggro more.

[BrikBludgaard]

Oh my god, I am going to agree with the "nerf knights into the toilet" crowd...

Knights do not care for Anger procs.... Aggro has been fixed for warriors (for the most part.. needs a few tweaks as mostly everyone agrees) as the sensible knights agreed it must be.

Knight aggro is fine... we have other issues right now.
(like warriors being all - around better in every case period except taunt where they are equal)

Oh and the scale thing...

You do TOO balance things by adding to both sides... especially when its a multi-headed and multi-threaded scale!

I begin to wonder if anyone in the devs actually has used a balance before... I need not ask about the warriors...

Brik

[Cuclain MacLlir]

If you actually believe warrior aggro is equal to knights, I want to know what game you're playing. Because it's not. It's not really even close, but it is closer; and it is sufficient for almost any situation. But it's not equal.

[Flair]

low end (ornate and below)

Odd I think thats the first time I've heard Ornate called "low end" (kinda more "mid-end"...wait... is that word?).

I think the complaints were fairly well distributed across the warrior spectrum (god knows we all read enough of those threads).

Personally I see zero reason to ever see other classes with Anger mods. I'm still pissed over the day other classes got our critical hits.

[Heimdall-RN]

Hey, I'm all for removing WAR only from Anger augs. As long as you also remove all agro generation from any Pally or SK spell. Do that for a couple months, and lets hear it from em :p

Now I have heard the theory that they're going to drastically reduce the spell agro PAL and SHD can generate. If that happens, I wouldn't be too averse to them getting the aug.

[Grondorr]

"Personally I see zero reason to ever see other classes with Anger mods. I'm still pissed over the day other classes got our critical hits."

I agree...with two exceptions to the critical hits...Monks and Rogues...if any of the classes get to have crits besides Warriors its them, for obvious reasons. they are pure melee.

just my 2cp...

[Gharghael]

This is sorta off topic.... but was evasive given a hidden boost because of the mitigation boost?

IE with defensive their is no difference because way disc was changed - but with evasive you still get the mitigation boost + what evasive used to offer?
Evasive doesn't have anything to do with mitigation, so it isn't affected by changes in mitigation whatsoever. Evasive and defensive are each used in different situations, so even with the innate mitigation boost you aren't going to change where evasive or defensive is being chosen to use.

[Ealsur Helevorn]

I see no reason at all for Anger procs to be usable by other classes.
*If* they (knights), somehow, need an agro proc, they have the Ykesha line. I dont think there is another class that needs the Anger procs more than Warriors, and God knows those couple of Anger procs when the natural proc of my weapons didnt go off saved a lot of chanters :p And no, Incite doesnt make Anger procs obsolete, cause it has been stated that Incite works somehow like Terrors, so using Incite is not proccing Anger II at 100 range.
So basically, I dont agree with making Anger procs usable by everyone, Im already sick of getting groups with BSTs that dont understand the amount of agro on a CHoS proc, and you wanna allow em to use Anger? No thanks :p

[Mhila]

If you actually believe warrior aggro is equal to knights, I want to know what game you're playing. Because it's not. It's not really even close, but it is closer; and it is sufficient for almost any situation. But it's not equal.

Myself and the top Pally in my guild are roughly equal on hit points and armor class. He's around 100hp behind me and around 50AC behind me and tanks almost as well as I do. You put a mob between us and we can trade agro off on each other all night long with no problem. I can steal agro from him, he can steal agro from me. I can even steal that initial snap agro he gets from him pretty easy. Puller pulls, Pally stuns, I get to the mob before the pally, taunt successfully once and throw an incite in on top of the taunt, kick/bash swing proc and agro is mine for the taking.

Stop spamming your freaking hotkeys and think about what your doing and you won't suck so much.

[Phantron]

If you believe Knight aggro is supposed to include stuff like casting Cease or Fear nonstop on things that it can't possibly work on then of course you'll never be satisfied.

Knight aggro on the high end is not significantly higher than Warrior if they're doing what is normally expected from those classes. Now if a Knight is chain stunning with Cease or chain casting Fear, yeah you'll lose, but that's because that part of the game is messed up.

[BrikBludgaard]

FYI

Chain casting Fear is stupid and pointless...

It results in a Shadowknight who deals less damage than a warrior, taunts BARELY better (effective), and who noticeably and parsably absorbs damage less than a warrior, and contributes ZERO utility. (chain casting a spell means you are not casting anything else)

(please note, the preceding is a shadowknight chain casting fear for aggro - an intelligent Shadowknight will outdamage or at least compete in damage with a warrior... the LATTER is currently more often the case on non-undead mobs as it currently stands - but that is another matter.)


Typical Shadowknight taunt typically works the following way:

1) Dark (time SKs use Festering, non-elemental use clinging)
OR
1) Fear (if mob is immune/commonly resisting dark... dark doesn't cause that much aggro anymore when resisted)
2) Spear of XXX (the highest that SK has)
3) typical damage/lifetap/dot as situation allows/makes most damage efficient.
4) Dark refreshed as necessary

(notice the distict lack of "terror" spells... this is due to their long list of exceptions and caps and bugs that just plain make them ineffective at the level Sks get them, especially in the 60+ range.)

The warriors I parse with now have little trouble getting and holding aggro. If a taunt gap exists... it is so minimal as to not matter in practical application with two intelligent players.


btw, I would be all for removing most of the taunt associated with a spell the mob is "immune" to if they would retune "terror" spells to actually DO something short of waste a spell slot.

Brik

[Superchum]

"I would be all for removing most of the taunt associated with a spell the mob is "immune" to if they would retune "terror" spells to actually DO something short of waste a spell slot."

Good idea. And a change that's probably easy to do now with incite around. They have a baseline to measure the hate against, to sort of balance it well between both classes.

Dunno why they keep ignoring the problem.

[Gobsmash]

"Myself and the top Pally in my guild are roughly equal on hit points and armor class. He's around 100hp behind me and around 50AC behind me and tanks almost as well as I do. You put a mob between us and we can trade agro off on each other all night long with no problem. I can steal agro from him, he can steal agro from me. I can even steal that initial snap agro he gets from him pretty easy. Puller pulls, Pally stuns, I get to the mob before the pally, taunt successfully once and throw an incite in on top of the taunt, kick/bash swing proc and agro is mine for the taking."

Taunt is the problem because you can not trust it to work, and do you traily bring a pally along to all your groups to stun so you can piggyback there agro?

Stun produces a lot of agro but something that produces even more are the group heals they get, I have seen a pally group heal when all members are down 30% haveing only attacked and not cast up untill then and have the mob snap around and stay on them as if someone slowed a mob on inc.

[Doomflayer]

Oh and the scale thing...
You do TOO balance things by adding to both sides... especially when its a multi-headed and multi-threaded scale!
I begin to wonder if anyone in the devs actually has used a balance before... I need not ask about the warriors...
Brik [/B][/QUOTE]

Oh, my I am going to agree with Brik! The idiot Programmers never look at balancing, they hapazardly give stuff and nerf. Expect more huge problems with char level 66-70 added. There is no justification for it, we as players don't really want it. Casters will bitch they need more spells, tanks more equipment, why are they adding levels 66-70, or even thinking about it in next expansion. Expect Berserkers to do Monk damage and tank like Knights Brik, plus have good aggro control. Like we need another class too...though I will probably play an Ogre Berserker for a bit at least.

[Kadah]

The next expansion wont have a level increase.
Jeez, Bezerkers wont tank like knights , they are CHAIN class
maybe they will do damage like a monk, who know's.

We will learn what the zerker class can do when we can play it, And no dont tell me how you think you know how it work's, You'd be breaking NDA more then likely by trying to explain your leet beta sekrets.

Why have all these wanna be's come out as warriors? Why do they think they know it like they do? I can give Brik credit for SK's (I hope he is a SK) But some of these new kids on the block just dont seem to know how good warriors are getting now.

More, more , more just ends up in inbalance.

Kadah

[Heimdall-RN]

Um Kadah, what I've read from SoE says they WILL raise the level cap to 70 in GoD.

[Gharghael]

Care to provide a link?

[Ciae Redemption]

I have seen a pally group heal when all members are down 30% haveing only attacked and not cast up untill then and have the mob snap around and stay on them as if someone slowed a mob on inc

I'm a big fan of Word of Redemption (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=1523&source=Live). It's invaluable for situations where more than one person needs a heal fast, casts faster than a CH (with any haste focus; BoR helps too), and used right, it's the most mana-efficient heal there is (costs about 825 mana after spec/SCM/focus effect). Critting for up to 29k 3 times in one cast is fun too :p

Very rarely does Redemption pull aggro at all, even with multiple mobs in camp. It's not like I can sit down after casting one, but it's definitely nowhere near snap aggro / aggro lock on its own.

Group heals are an aggro tool for paladins, but it isn't an instant insurmountable amount of aggro by itself.

[Phantron]

Group heals are good aggro but their mana prevents you from using them on a regular basis, at least it isn't free like their low end stuns or even compared to Force of Akilae.

[Heimdall-RN]

Hey Gar... I'll have to look and see if the newsletter spam they sent about it is still in my inbox. I think that's where I saw them say it was increasing to 70. You really want to talk about what needs to be done?

Shrink the survivability gap between High end, and mid to low end toons. They've made the GREAT gear too good, or haven't improved the average gerar enough, depending on your perspective.

They need to rebalance the melee combat system so that on challenging mobs for a full group, non-tank classes can live long enough to take a few rounds, but aren't able to full out tank.

They need to revap a large number of zones in order to provide realistic amounts of high challenge mobs for all levels, especialy the level 60+ levels. There weren't nealry enough zones open, nor are there yet enough, to sustain all the 60+ people on the server. Changing the XP mechanic from zone based to level based just exacerbated that.

They have to retune warriors, or CH, or both, to allow warriros to be the most EFFICIENT tank again. Either ~15% inate bonus mitigation, or a 15K CH and 1.5-2K Innate gap at 65.

[Phantron]

Average gear isn't good enough? Never been to LDoN Hard? I mean you could just take a group and start, track to closest named, and if it's too far quit and start again. Easily farmable 90 hp/mana gear and about half of them is tradeable. You don't even need a group that can beat a Hard LDoN to do this.

Not enough content? PoP has plenty of 100-125 HP range items on the lower tiers.

And a 15% mitigation and/or 1.5K more HP is just stupid. It accomplishes nothing but forcing all new content to be 15% harder which means everyone else is nerfed 15% (or more actually). You might as well just nerf Paladins and SKs that way at least not as many classes get nerfed in the process.

[Heimdall-RN]

Why does everything have to be 15% harder? They didn't make it 5% harder when they gave us that piddly assed boost they just finished with. They're balancing classes. Tell ya what... you tell me what your primary language is, and I'll translate this into it. 5% mitigation does NOT offset the healing/tap capabilities Knights have already. Warriors "claim to fame" or primary reason for group desirability is CH efficiency. What part of that do you not understand?


100-125 hp stuff? On what? Agnarr? Average gear isn't taking that difficulty very often.

LDON hard? So people in average gear are supposed to totally FUBAR their LDON rankings because SOE FUBAR's itemization?

[Phantron]

It's not SoE's problem that you're too stuck on your win/loss record that no one is going to care about for some really nice items that are easily farmable.

Tier 3s, VT, etc... plenty of stuff to do. The Tower bosses respawn in what 6 hours or 12 hours? I honestly have a hard time believing you'll never have even a chance to try those.

Mobs did not get harder because it has never been SoE policy to change current game, but count on every mob in the future expansions to account for this innate 5% mitigation. Obviously the game has always been tuned around warriors and thus everything will hit that much harder in Gates and expansion after it to make up for the 5%. If we can now mitigate 15% and have 1.5K more HP then you bet mobs will be made hard enough to still pose a threat to us, then what happens to everyone else? Screwed, that's what.

[Aielman]

1. It's fine the way it is...don't start monkeying with it or you'll break it.

2. F.u.c.k. no. All hybrids and other melee can go piss up a rope, in this regard...we don't need them buying a pure anger aug. In fact, I think they should make yakesha warrior only too, for that matter. They have enough ways to steal agro from us.

3. /shrug.

peace,
Aielman

[BrikBludgaard]

relax Aielman...

Shadowknights (yes Brik is a SK) do not want +hate augs on their weapons. You see, hate is a diminishing return. If you have enough hate to stay above the highest hate-causing member of your group/etc, then having more does not help.

With spells as they are (including normal spells, and not using lowbie spells for aggro) Shadowknights can keep aggro just fine.
(thats without terrors as well...)

Like I have said MANY times before the patch, the ability to CHOOSE when you add numerical aggro is a HUGE help. Adding a LITTLE aggro at the right time is more powerful than adding a heap of it randomly. This is why knights aggro well, and why the taunt upgrade to warriors was so effective.


Oh, and for the doubters that Berserkers will be fine tanks...

-We continue to have our enchanters tank in time...
-Beastlords (and not even only uber-equipped ones) continue to grab "tank" slots in standard XP groups.
-Shaman continue to add-tank in XP groups,
-and when it comes down to it, our MONKS generally do the transition tanking in time... and this was BEFORE we had been doing it for months.

Note, this is NOT a "nerf" request for any class, just observations from the "front."

I have little doubt Berserkers will challenge knights for tank slots and outdamage rangers in melee consistently; and yes, perhaps even monks will be sweating...

Chain class? our rangers have 1850ish AC and well over 7200K HP unbuffed... our rogues are at 1800AC with almost 7k HP.
Any questions about their ability to tank in XP groups if they wanted to?

I have little doubt Berserkers will have more HP than rangers or rogues... and more AC as well.

GoD is not looking optimistic for Shadowknights...

Brik

[Superchum]

"So people in average gear are supposed to totally FUBAR their LDON rankings because SOE FUBAR's itemization?"

What's your LDoN ranking have to do with anything? At all? It gets you no benefit whatsoever in the grand scheme of the game. And all taking more LOSSES does is mess with your win PERCENTAGE, not your wins. Get your 300+ wins, and you'll stay top 20 or whatever no matter how many L's you take farming GOOD items from hard adventures.

"and yes, perhaps even monks will be sweating..."

Most monks already dislike the class, or want to twink one. And are very worried that another melee crowded into the TINY phone booth of melee class roles is going to create a crapload of havoc.

They have problems balancing the classes they have out NOW. Adding a new one is going to suck for someone. And most likely that someone will INCLUDE the monk class, if berserkers are even REMOTELY involved in the DPS equation.

I can just see how this mess started though.

Beancounters vs. Developers.

Beancounters win by enticing the devleopers with a chance to try new things and be creative.

Game playability gets fixed later, after the damage is done, of course.