Be careful what you wish for, guys... [Archive]

Ainmer

05-30-2003, 12:24 AM

I see so many threads talking about giving warriors a little more taunt, a lot more taunt, a guaranteed taunt, etc., etc.

Further pigeonholing us into a SINGLE function is not going to help our class. It will make us even more boring to play than we already are. Where it currently takes some attention and dare I say it, "skill" to perform the tanking function, adding the ability to taunt more will only let us sleepwalk through another 200 AA points.

I don't want to sleepwalk through another 200 AA points. If we want to be desired by groups, let's try to come up with some suggestions that would make us desirable by the average reasonable person that plays this game, while also allowing us to have fun without trivializing the game.

For those that think I am an elitist uber guild omg-you-have-a-BoW-so-you-have-nothing-to-add-to-this-conversation guy, I joined my guild during Velious, when they were already in Sleeper's Tomb and halfway through NToV. I had a reputation for being a "good tank" among people on our server, and I was tanking at level 58 with a Jade Mace and a Crystalline Short Sword. I understand the issues. I just don't want you to think that guaranteed or increased ability to taunt will make your gaming experience any better.

I have a Blade of War. Aggro is annoying to get sometimes but it's generally unshakable aggro. The fact that I can post here while tanking xp mobs in fire tells you how fun keeping aggro 99% of the time is. Here's a hint: It's not all that fun.

Now I'm not talking about the bullshit mobs in Air and Earth that mem blur a ton or seem immune to taunt. Those are just stupid, frustrating encounters. It would be nice to be able to do something about it in those kinds of situations beyond pounding a stupid button that gets me aggro most of the time.

Rumblingdeth

05-30-2003, 12:42 AM

Yes, it is much better now that warriors are either not getting groups or buying SoDs and BoCs for RL $$$.

Rumblingdeth

05-30-2003, 01:21 AM

Congrats on the BoW, there are three elemental guilds on my server and prob around 2000 warriors, should we all join those three guilds and keep going to each of us gets a BoW? Your view point of the average warrior is so far off base it is hopeless.

Dinian

05-30-2003, 01:30 AM

Are you an idiot or something? He's clearly saying that while there is an imbalance and that taunt is part of it, that longterm it won't make the game any more fun for us.

Valeris

05-30-2003, 01:34 AM

I'd be inclined to agree with Ainmer myself, problem is, so long as knights can dictate a mobs target nearly at will I'm not sure that there is ANY class ability that could be granted to warriors which would offset the current situation sufficently.....although it would at least give us something to do in a group other than hitting the 'a' key when not tanking - I hate the feeling of not being a truely valuable to the party, it's the feeling that I'm a make up the numbers character that I hate, not the idea that someone else should be able to tank....

Superchum

05-30-2003, 01:39 AM

So, question ...

Why won't it make the game fun?

What's going to make it bad for warriors, that they must be careful for what they wish for?

"Further pigeonholing us into a SINGLE function is not going to help our class. It will make us even more boring to play than we already are. Where it currently takes some attention and dare I say it, "skill" to perform the tanking function, adding the ability to taunt more will only let us sleepwalk through another 200 AA points."

Eh, XPing is pretty boring function to begin with.

It's fun in the early game, because it's nowhere near as monotonous as it is at the higher levels of the game.

But by 65, and AA 100+, really, increasing taunt won't make XPing any more boring than it already is ... at least imo.

But I'm only 61 with 10 AAs. So, eh, what do I know. :P

Anyways, is that what you're worried about mostly? That getting better taunt will make actual gameplay more boring?

Or was there some underlying point I was missing? (And no, I'm not being confrontational ... I'm asking this in all seriousness. It's 3 a.m. here, so maybe I am missing the point).

Also, another question ... if boosting taunt won't make the warrior class any more fun ... what solution is there to both help the warrior and improve gameplay?

Got any cool ideas?

EmiliaEQ

05-30-2003, 02:36 AM

What ainmer said (and i totally agree) is that the average warrior
does indeed need a small "push" or fix.

I am in aimner case (Bow + Elemental) and similar equipped Paladins
Are 100 times better than me in xp groups.

Just be reasonable with what we ask. Not only will it :
- Bring some results.
- Make our future claims actually worth reading.
- Get the "whiner" & "greedy" tag off warriors

Dont ask to be agro gods, or anything crazy. Ask for a normal easy to make fix.
Something that dev's will actyally consider and say
"Mmm that seems reasonable, we could look into it"

I asked for 2 things :
- Raise the success rate on taut for blue con mobs.
- Add a 50-70 hate points per taunt (keeping the top of agro if successfull)
(like a mini EB every 6 sec, and adds up to 1 EB per minute).

EmiliaEQ

05-30-2003, 02:44 AM

As for the fun....
Well i'm the only 7K1+ tank in my guild, others are at 6k3-6k7 with mediocre AA/AC.

I'm the only one that can tank efficiently in xp groups without slower.
And let me tell you, its FUN to see people fighting over me when i pop.

Caus Emilia + Cleric + 4 = phat XP group
While War01 + Cleric + SLOWER + 3 other = Good XP group
And slowers are a myth in my guild.

Not having fun can be the product of 2 reasons :
A) Not getting groups , thats a class balance issue
B) Not enjoying groups, not my fault people hang out with retards.

We have asked for some help, since A is turning into a nightmare for the average warrior.

As for B, well its entirely your fault. EQ is a social game.
A reputation as a good tank, and a great person does miracles when LFG.
Now if you hang out with retards, theres nothing either the Devs
or anyone else can do to help you.

gulug

05-30-2003, 03:02 AM

Whilst I agree we could use a fix, i dont think we are handicapped past the point of no return. Ive never once been told when forming an exp group "oh your not a pally /sk so not interested".

I dont have a problem finding pick up groups or guild groups either. That isnt to say that there arent tanks on my server who go LFG for hours on end, but thats something i never understand - ill just grab the first few classes lfg and even if theres no sham/ench theres always a ranger around with their 50% slow procs or a beastlord.

Back on the issue though, i can see something about what the first poster has said - to be honest if i could guarantee 100 pct aggro like pallys can, id probably be quite bored. Mob inc- hit my uber taunt button, go afk.

I like things the way they are... will taunt work, will my weapons proc before slow lands, is shield up in case sham/ench gets aggro, shall i use AE taunt etc It keeps me on my toes and it keeps the rest of the group on their toes and to me, thats whats fun. If someone wants to get a pally so they dont have to worry about aggro, well thats the way they want to play.

Also, by and large, i find that exp groups can get by prety well with warriors as tanks. Sure you may get the occassional death in a few hours of exping, but so what? Most clerics have clickies these days and the downtime is pretty minimal. Also with PoP exp 1 kill and ur back on track.

I dont have uber equipment by any stretch of the imagination and certainly not any EB weapons and i personally dont think that im handicapped to the extent that some people make us out to be.

Thankfully most of the people i know or who are in my guild or whom i meet in pick up groups are happy to live on the edge a little.

Even if the day comes when i ask someone to join a group and they give me the reply that they are not interested because im not a pally, well, even then i dont think ill hit that delete button, cos that would be the first person in hundreds.

If sony ever decides to fix us, well that will be good. If they don't, i dont lose any sleep about it.

Numzz

05-30-2003, 03:06 AM

this thread is pretty sensless huh ? lol
give it a rest this shit is so dead, you dont need no f* boc or sod get a good 2hander with a semi proc and ur set, taunt button works fine on 98% of the mobs in game, there is nada to fix, tell your rogues to press evade, tell monks to make a mock fd button, tell ppl to play smart. Anyone can take argo off f a bow if they want to, there is no such thing as unshakeable argo, want to know why hi end wars get shit load of argo they know when to press taunt, they got mad offensive aa to keep their dps up there for taunt. If you not having fun play a war then play another class.

Numzz

Rumblingdeth

05-30-2003, 03:06 AM

"Slowers are a myth in my guild", could that be because Shaman can effectively solo and don't need to group? I want taunt fixed, I won't EVER get a BoW, and that is the AVERAGE warrior predicament, so I will take option "B" take my money to WoW. I suggest all the "average" warrior do the same.

kriegartorv

05-30-2003, 06:31 AM

first off you dont need a blade of war to hold aggro... it just makes it an incredibly easy task (ie. i play 2 wizards when i exp along with my warriors and basically after the first eb proc, or about 10 seconds i chain cast draught of ro with no concussions till the mob is dead with out fear of losing aggro) i cant claim to be an "average warrior" but there are plenty of warriors better geared than me...

the point i think ainmer is trying to make is gaining exp or grouping is only one aspect of the game, and this aspect of the game doesnt last forever... even for the average warrior... if they made warriors "god of agro" starting at level 1 no other class could peel agro from us, and we got exp groups with out a problem everytime we logged in, after about 250 aa's that aspect of the game ends... regardless of your gear/eb weapons, there just isnt much point in exping anymore

as for "fixing" warrior agro and making it equivalent to what sk's and knights currently have that would totally destroy another aspect of the game, advancemnt through gear...

advancing your character is all part of the fun of playing everquest for most people... if it wasnt then why level at all? not very many players try to be the "average warrior"...

from what i can tell, there are 3 ways to advance your character gear wise...

1. join the "ub4r raiding" guild on your server and get gear

2. join an average guild on your server and strive to be the "ub4r raiding" guild by getting gear

3. farm 10000000000 crushbone belts and buy your uber gear...

having been part of these strugging guilds i can tell you that the first AoW kill, or even your first your first Trakanon was way more exciting than getting my 300'th aa point...

different people play everquest for different reasons... struggling and working hard for your character advancement may be fun for some while just having the best stuff in the game may be fun for others... everyone has thier own reasons for playing...

and if your already looking at worlds of warcraft... everquest probably isnt fun for you anymore anyways, and even with a "fix" u'd probably go play WoW anyways...

sure it would be nice if sony implemented some of the idea's brought up on these boards, such as "slider perm defensive" or boosted our hps up a bit farther from knights...

i can say for a fact, its much easier now for the "average warrior" than ever before...

-kriegar

ps. numzz brings up a lot of valid points he just is stating them bluntly... =D

Lorre

05-30-2003, 08:00 AM

Originally posted by Numzz
there is nada to fix, tell your rogues to press evade, tell monks to make a mock fd button, tell ppl to play smart.
Numzz

Why do rogues and monk HAVE to do that for us Warriors, while they dont have to do that for knights?

Originally posted by Numzz
there is no such thing as unshakeable argo,

Numzz

Um yeah there is. Its called the stun line of Paly's and DoTs for SK's. Over the corse of a 4 hour exp grind with paly tanking, shamen got hit 2-3 times TOTAL. Isnt that a lil too powerful? Btw, paladin was using a freaking shield. (He couldve been holding a book primary)

Tasso

05-30-2003, 08:30 AM

for the love of god people. Stop bitching over and over and over how broken taunt is for warriors... its not... its broken for any class that can have instant 100% relaiable taunt in a moments notice. hence fix the fact that pallys and sk's can get aggro without trying and make this game a challenge again.

with the shitty epic i have 0 issues holding taunt . as long as people wait a sec. if they dont and your bitchin about how a pally can grab aggro better then point the finger in the right place. Pallys/sk's trivialize the game. they breed people that cause raids to wipe out because they dont know a fing thing about aggro control.

fix the fact that they can get taunt 100% of the time without thinking about it and then you will see some balance.

and if you think im calling for a pally/sk nerf.. no not the same. im asking to fix a broken toon that is trivializing the game

the only time taunt is broken is below 60th lvl. its hard as hell to keep aggro. increast the skill a little in the lower levels and have it max out by 55th

other than that theres nothing wrong with it

Ainmer

05-30-2003, 08:34 AM

Lorre -

My point is that if you did have rock solid aggro it wouldn't necessarily get you groups over a Paladin or SK. It would make your current job in a group much easier and much more boring in a group. If I were building a group I would still take a Paladin or an SK due to all the other things they add to a group. Aggro generation is not the only reason a group chooses a tank.

The reason you, monks, rogues, wizards and mages suffer getting groups while shamans, bards, knights, rangers, etc get groups when they throw LFG up is because those classes all bring a lot of good functionality to the group.

SoE has stated this as an issue in the "Upcoming Updates" section and I believe they were speaking specifically of the three pure melee classes, as well as possibly wizards and mages. Our class needs to be able to bring more to a group or the group issues will remain.

Frodlin7th

05-30-2003, 08:37 AM

I wish that people had the ability to understand what people are talking about.

Here we have a fascinating topic, which is "Don't put all your eggs in one basket, as you might get what you want only later to find out that it's not what you'd hoped for".

This tends to mean "Be judicious when proposing certain improvements, because any day you may get what you ask for and if you haven't carefully considered what you're asking for, then you may not realize the full ramifications, or be limited in what you can credibly ask for beyond that if given"

Now, already one genius misread that to mean

"OMFG YEAH WARrIORs dOnT NeED 2 B FiXED"

Which isnt' at ALL what Ainmer talked about

Then comes the responses to such misreading, and all of a sudden we have another thread derailment.

Ainmer did NOT say "Warriors are fine", or that "Aggro balance between warriros and knights is balanced". He said "Think out what you want before asking for it"

Dakkin

05-30-2003, 08:38 AM

The average warrior will never be able to compete for the limited amount of high end gear available which will let him hold aggro safely in a PoP group.

The average knight locks down solid aggro with spells freely obtainable from vendors, so his group can nuke, dot and melee at full blast.

The more elitist warriors love this situation.

The average warrior hates it.

Sony doesn't care since they periodically like to make dramatic adjustments to class balance, and being fair to customers is secondary to them assuming they even accept it's an issue.

(Let's be reasonable, if they wanted classes balanced they'd have adjusted it months ago. It's not THAT hard for them.)

Lorre

05-30-2003, 08:40 AM

Originally posted by Tasso

the only time taunt is broken is below 60th lvl. its hard as hell to keep aggro. increast the skill a little in the lower levels and have it max out by 55th

other than that theres nothing wrong with it

Eh, Maybe thats why a lot of folks have this certain view on taunt. Im lvl 58 and havent had the exp of getting lvl 60 taunt yet. So for me, taunt is broken right?

I hope they come up with something clever for the melee upgrades. I think clerics, shammy's, and ench's are the most sought out for their "roles" in an exp group. They usally need one good tank then the rest is up in the air. I dont have that much trouble finding a group really, its just annoying to see how easy others do our job.

Surlok

05-30-2003, 09:27 AM

Before the taunt changes a little before PoP shipped I had some issues with taunt,Around this time my xp consited mainly in Umbral Plains where at the time my lvl put most of the mobs at least white to me,and the majority of which were yellow or red.

Taunting was of course impossible on any mob higher level than me.Grouping was frustrating and stressful,but at the same time demanded my maximum attention and required I believe some amount of skill,not only from me but from the rest of the group.

Taunt was of course changed ,where warriors below lvl 60 could taunt mobs higher than them,as well /sheild was added.

This made things WAY easier,Grouping while still fairly boring due to the repetetive nature of it,Was alot more enjoyable for me,I still lost aggro but now could actually depend on one of my abilities to get it back where as before I could not,should taunt fail I had /shield to use and I did,and still do.

I suppose I am in the minority in that I am happy right now with taunt.

In groups I rarely have any problems with aggro,and when I do it is generally because of laziness from other classes,I do not require that a high end Monk/Rogue continuasly evade or FD.Simply moving themselves out a bit and being conscious of what other people are doing in a group keeps mobs on me,I use a 2 hander that is not spectacular but it works,I only taunt when I do not have agro and it works,If I lose aggro I taunt,if it fails I shield till taunt refreshes and taunt again,where 99% of the time I have aggro back and all is well.

Sometimes everyhting fails and people need to step it up to get aggro back on me,In a good group this actually EXCITES people.A little change a little danger once every couple of hours is /gasp fun.

Honestly,when I guild group with a knight as a tank I am bored fuckin silly,Nothing happens,mobs gets pulled Knight tanks we kill it,no change,no danger sure the xp flows but the time just crawls the grop is quiet I dunno just seems so boring to me.

The problem right now with warriors in my opinion is not enough people get off on a dynamic group,You want the safe boring xp crawl grab a Knight.You want the thrill of mobs being angry at everyone in the group like it should be and the warrior going balls to the wall to keep aggro on himself and everything depending on everyone paying 100 % attention ,Warriors are where it is at.That is what makes my class fun,and when people in a pick up group see you working your ass off and compliment you on it it feels good.

Whats a knight get ? great job hitting that stun hotkey man you fuckin OWN ~

Having some utility to offer to the group is the right answer,bringing a dynamic that knights do not,Some say hey we do the big damage that knights cannot,but others will counter with well where knights fail in damage they make up for allowing the group to do more damage,that may be so but it doesn't make things more fun.

I don't need anyhting to make my class more fun as joe shmoe warrior I have fun plenty now,What would help us right now most is making us more fun for joe shmoe Shammy or cleric or whatever.

lovax

05-30-2003, 09:49 AM

make warrior more fun for clerics and shaman? make it so when grouped with a warrior you get a special (more fun) version of gems, maybe if you did really well you could win a special no drop peridot or emerald (for symbol or avatar :P).

What sort of extra functionality would you want to add to warrior to make them appealing in a way that would be widly accepted, and not "break the game" or whatever?

I would be a fan of "special moves." Maybe one is a snare same percentage as the first darkness spell and that clicky snare necklace that innoruuk shaman/necro can get (Shin Kick), one is a tiny slow (20 - 30% maybe, Incapacitate), another could AC and/or ATK debuff (Sand in the Eyes), could have a stun (Hilt Bash)... whatever. if they added animations to them it would make watching a warrior slightly more neat also =P. It wouldn't be adding anything that multiple other classes couldn't do better, but if a warrior could add a little slow before the shaman/chanter/BL/bard did theirs it might make us more appealing, or if we could snare w/o a proc (although anklesmasher procs so much I can proform snare duty pretty well anyway in a pinch).

I also wouldn't be opposed to being something of a hybrid with bard-esk songs, though I would only want combat oriented ones, manaless, short cast time, no twisting... but we know this idea is not popular (singing = ghey :p ).

Maybe the idea where a warrior automatically adds 10-20% midigation to the group... though this could unbalance raid situations, especially if multiple warriors could stack this effect together (alright, 6 warrior group, go tank it we'll have a cleric bot heal you when you need). This one I think Sony would view as unbalancing.

Maybe if just grouping with a warrior added a couple points of HP/mana regen, some small amount of ATK/AC, something... even then if a group wanted a knight to tank anyway we'd still be adding something, and if it was a passive ability then we wouldn't need to start pushing all kinds of other buttons (for the people who that would piss off)... then again, I could see Sony thinking this was unbalancing if they added any significant amount (aka - a noticable amount that would be necessary to make the warrior desireable anyway). Also, what effect would this have on raids? *shrugs*.

I'm having a real hard time coming up with any sort of idea that couldn't be construed as unbalancing in some way, wouldn't piss off large segments of the warrior community, and wouldn't require a lot of work to implement. Maybe the special moves, but I can see people complaining about needing to use even more hot keys *shrugs*. I don't think anything I listed here is really origonal, but they are ideas I was sort of fond of.

Lovax
EDIT: How about this?
Aura of the <appropriate class title here>
-Increase Mana by 1-5 per tick
-Increase Hitpoints by 1-5 per tick
-Increase ATK by 10-50
-Increase AC by 10-50
You get a button that is instant cast (or short cast time) and puts this buff on your group, lasts for a minute, stack with everything.

The first one would be Aura of the Warrior, 1 mana, 1 HP, 10atk, 10ac. That lasts until you get your 2nd class title (scaling up by 1 hp/mana, 10atk/ac per class title), all the way up to Aura of the Overlord.

There are 5 class titles: Warrior, Champion, Myrmidon, Warlord, Overlord. So, eventually it would scale to the full 5hp/mana a tick and 50ac/atk.

This would add *something* to the warrior class, not make us unbalanced, and merely mimck some of the auras that you can get from items. Thoughts?

Edit 2 - added paragraphs to first edit.

Tharak

05-30-2003, 10:18 AM

I would say that no one should have the ability to hold 100% aggro ever, it trivializes encounters. That said i think the average warrior could use a slight boost now.

If that makes your job as a warrior boring, then they could add other things into our class to make up for it. Maybe some special warrior attacks with a reasonable timer (ie 5 minutes instead of 60minutes which makes most of our disciplines a waste of time). I'd also be in favor of having more disciplines being added to the 61+ game. Heck all the hybrids got spells for leveling what did we get . . . . maybe a couple extra hitpoints . . .oh yeah

There are a lot of things they could do to put some more umph back into our class. I really think 100% aggro hold should be eliminated, i had more fun back in velious era when everyone had to work together to win. Now it's just lock 100% aggro and wizzies burn the mob to the ground without any aggro issues at all.

Tasso

05-30-2003, 10:35 AM

First some people are right the spirit of this thread is not about taunt being broken but be carfull that we become a one trick pony.

we are warriors. we take a good beating, we are the ones that can tank 2-3 63rd lvl mobs (slowed of course) while tanking a 64th lvl mob. Lets see a pally do that...

granted thats the times when you dont have an enchanter and root parking is not an option.

but its better than succoring out of there. Simply put each class has somthing to offer. I still stand by my taunt is ok view. I added that becasue this was becoming a taunt is broken thread again. So to help derail it some more...

- Raise the success rate on taut for blue con mobs.

At 65 a blue con mob for me will work at least 90% of the time if not more... actually im shocked as hell when it does not work..

yea and at 58th taunt might as well be like hitting forage.. wont do anything for ya.

at 60... wow huge diffrence. Donno why but it was noticable

landrain

05-30-2003, 10:57 AM

Well lets look at this.

Combat Skills...

Warriors get Kick, Slam, Bash, Taunt, Disarm....

Kick,Slam,Bash all on same timer.

Taunt, all melee classes have.

Disarm utterly useless except to litter ground with finesteel weapons.

=======================

Beastlords, get all of above combat skills, along with special moves from monks, pets and spells...

Monks, all of above combat skills,plus FD, plus fear, and special moves...

Rogues all of above combat skills,, plus evade, BS, fear...

Rangers all of above combat skills,, plus spells, double damage from bows, etc..

Paladins, all of above combat skills,, plus LOH, plus spells

SK's, all of above combat skills,, plus FD, HT, plus spells, pluss pet

=========================

What is the benefit of a warrior? We get more HP's. At 65 with 70+ AA i get about 7hp per stamina up to 305. A paladin gets like 5hp per stamina. so that is 600hp's? hmm one swing from a BoT mob? 99% of gear available to warriors is also knight/bard/pal so there is no discernable hp advantage.

What I think would help warriors is giving us some more combat skills. Give us special moves. give us the ability to do double damage to mobs that are stationary in melee not rooted similar to rangers. give us an instill doubt that slows a mob above and beyond a spell slow. give us special moves that stun. seperate timers for kick and slam. seperate timers for disciplines. reduce the timer for our offensive disciplines, these things can make a warrior more usefull and fun, without changing other classes.

Look at the lists above, it seems that warriors are due new abilities.

Casai

05-30-2003, 11:21 AM

no auras or songs please. I think Surlok has very good point instead imporving warriors per say make people want to group and not only because xp is uber! Make it much much more fun exciting and chlenging to group! I trully do belive if they made warrior any easier to play and will come down to hitting autoattack once I'd be pissed. Get those chanters bards druids necros in groups! Get everyone motivated to go explore zones to not just sit in one friggin spot and xp and reward that.

The way to do it is add boss mobs that up all the time and that maybe dont always drop something nice but they can and evac groups back to zone after encounter is over or make them evac by doing nasty AEs or whatever. So no more pharming. I hate sitting in one spot and xping instead of dungeon crawling.

Remf da Troll

05-30-2003, 11:36 AM

Hola-

First of all:
Warrior's have NO hp advantage because paladins have MANA and can HEAL and HP buff, not only themselves but others in their parties. Do the math and see how many HP a pally can buff + heal, vs. a warrior using bind wound... and the pally can do it during melee.

Second:
The only real benefit warriors have over pallys with tanking is in the base skill department; i.e. avoidance. Given enough multi class uber gear, a paladin will have maxed out mitigation as well as a warrior would. A dedicated pally could actually make up for the base skill delta with %dodge parry riposte items for that matter.

Third:
There's a LOT more pal/sk weapons floating around than there are war only ones, and they are very high dps output weapons to boot. If not being able to dual wield was supposed to balance pal/sk melee, why has SoE put in so many weapons that basically match dual wield dps output for them?

Finally:
Pally's get a divine stun AA; how about something like that for warriors, except as a pure taunt effect? (we already have slam/bash/kick for stuns). Call it "dire taunt" or something silly like that, have it be a SINGLE target unresistable taunt, with a short re-use timer like DS has. Could also have a short aggro dot and/or small EB effect for that matter.

Anyway, NONE of this is new, it's only gotten worse late luclin/pop (I don't count SoY, got my charm and now I'm never going back there). While I hate advocating nerfs for other classes, in my honest opinion pallys are significantly overbalanced at the moment, the way monks were when they were melee.gods FOR EXP GROUPS. I'd personally like to see them better balanced vs. warriors, or alternately warriors better balanced vs. them, without affecting their raid contributions.

RdT.

landrain

05-30-2003, 12:22 PM

first off...

BSS..
LOH rotations...
off-tanking trash on encounters like Bert..

vs the 1 or 2 warriors needed with defensive. honestly if your encounter lasts 6+ minutes in PoP, you probably have wiped out...

Nope, Paladins have no raid use at all..

the agro debate is not where we should be focusing.

it needs to be focussed on the INTENDED design of the class, not the way that it has been perverted by sloppy game rules/effects.

Paladins can be a very cool class and should be fun to play as paladins, not as tanks with a spell.

As to the stun spells...

lets see stun 15 mana, 2.0 refresh... Paladin is ONLY wearing one item, available at any bazaar, and is on his horse, since he wont be doing melee anyways....

One item of earing of solstice 85 mana... Pally naked, has MC3, KEI, A Horse... chain cats spell... before he can cast stun a second time, he has regenned to full mana... that is why Stun Spells are Broken. Its called an INFINIT loop...

lovax

05-30-2003, 12:30 PM

no auras or songs please

would the aura idea be good if implemented as an "under the hood" thing, where it just happens when grouped with a warrior(sort of like how when you equip an AoB item it just happens)? no extra button, or fooling around with turning it on, etc. Would make us more wanted for groups w/o unbalancing, yes?

Or am I failing to see how it would be a reasonable upgrade to the class to encourage groups to take warrior more w/o fooling with taunt, or itemisation, being fairly easy to implement (I would imagine, since we have auras on items).

reason I thought of it was from all I can tell warrior class is supposed to be more the "general" sort rather then just the "insanely good fighter" sort (warlord, overlord, etc, titles of someone who leads people) so the idea was something of trying to put into in game terms the idea of a morale boost/increased proformance for being in the presence of a "commander" of sorts *shrugs*.

i think I like the "special moves on seperate timer from kick/bash" idea though... as long as they were good w/o being rediclous.

Ainmer

05-30-2003, 12:42 PM

A weaker version on AE taunt would be very cool. Imagine having an AE taunt key on the same timer as Taunt, but having the same chance to succeed/fail as regular taunt. That would be very cool and fun indeed.

Beornegar

05-30-2003, 12:55 PM

I like the idea of special moves that in some way disable an opponent, snare/slow/debuff/dot type stuff. (If I hit you in the leg with a 2handed axe, it's gonna slow you down). Also, if the "aura" described above were a passive ability that didnt require a hotkey and didn't take up a buff slot, I'd be all for that too. Either of these ideas would make our class more interesting and maybe even <gasp> give us a little utility, which EVERY class in the game except for ours has at least to some degree. And, for the sake of CHRIST unhook the /disc timers.

Beo

Furor

05-30-2003, 01:04 PM

As has always been a trend with SoE, they will begin to 'borrow' the warrior ideas from WoW once they see how cool those are and how well they work in the gameworld.

I've ranted and raved about Taunt for far too long. There are several variations of fixes that could go in that wouldn't make taunt trivial but would also give warriors an arsenal of different taunt abilities that were 'FUNCTIONAL.'

Actually, I'm of the school of thought that I don't really care if Taunt is trivial. There have to be some perks for being a warrior and these days, those seem to be too few and far between. It's easy to get gear like mine and totally lose focus on how absolutely craptastic it is to be the other 99% of the warrior population. Then you are brought back to reality when you do an encounter like The Rathe Council pre-final-dps nerf on the offtankables, and throw your hands up in frustration as to how stupid taunt really is... especially when you are a guild with no active paladins and 2 active SKs.

Ideas I've proposed before:

1) Taunt being a 'dot' type effect that allows a warrior to 'lock' their focus on one target and keep said target locked down with intense concentration.
2) Taunt guaranteeing a certain amount of hate even on a failure, allowing warriors to carefully coordinate aggro amongst each other (and knights to a lesser degree).
3) AE Taunt being normal taunt with a 10-30 second reuse.
4) 'Arc' based attacks with built in taunt modifiers.
5) Weapon specialization with built in taunt modifiers.

etc... etc... etc...

The problem is, nobody at SoE has played a warrior in any real capacity for YEARS. I'm not joking.

Lorre

05-30-2003, 01:07 PM

OK, got into another exp group today with a paly buddy. He had so much aggro control that I was actually starting to fall asleep. I guess you guys are right about the boring part etc etc . . .

How bout give us a nice improved Riposite? PoP mobs riposite a lot and if ure duel wielding, could get hurt. If we Riposite'd a lot more, then that means more hits for us and better aggro. And it'll only work if we get hit, thus making us wanted in groups doing the thing were supposed to do.

Binnamar

05-30-2003, 01:07 PM

Further pigeonholing us into a SINGLE function is not going to help our class

Something stuck me when I read the quote above. and I thought you myself why I made a warrior. I made a warrior to TANK. I didn't make him for DPS, or healing or whatever. We, as warriors, chose to tank when we hit the make character screen (well unless you didn't know what you where doing at all).

If I wanted to do good DPS, I would have made a rouge or a ranger or a beastlord or something. Same goes for healing.

What else should we be capable of? Increased DPS? SoE can't give us another job to do, we are the tanks of EQ and that isn't going to change.

They can upgrade us, but they cannot change what we do.

Kaesorn

05-30-2003, 01:33 PM

I agree wholeheartedly with Ainmer. Although agro control is a problem for a good amount of warriors (and not all of them suck), it looks to be the tip of the iceberg, IMHO.

Many of you warriors created your character to tank...to be the best tank. Others created to be a master of combat...but warriors are mostly tanks, it seems. What does a warrior do when no one needs a tank? How many people do you know of that, not knowing you, will willingly choose you, the warrior, over any other offensive class for DPS?

Clerics had a similar predicament (in fact, they mostly still do). The cleric's job is to heal, they are the best at straight healing, bar none as you know. However they don't have many other utility than healing. They became pigeon-holed into their healing role. (Ask any cleric, they have what they need to heal now, they don't need any more upgrades in straight healing.) When the other two healing classes recieved sufficient heals for XP groups, yet had much higher utility, it could have killed them xp-group-wise. It didn't, but it still hurts them.

Now we have paladins and shadowknights who, for the most part and with their defensive AAs, can sufficiently take the place of warriors AND then some. It isn't the same situation in my eyes as with the clerics, as the clerics were still the BEST, no question. They just had people doing sufficient healing + more utility (slows, snares, dots). Tanking isn't just taking hits, it's keeping the mob on you so you ARE the one taking hits. Warriors have tanks competing that can do near the tanking ability of them + more control AND utility than them. Clerics had little utility...warriors have practically none...Paladins and Shadowknights have a LOT of utility, enough to make them more desireable than a warrior on equal footing tanking/agro-wise. It isn't just one problem, the whole thing is (as others have said) a design and balance problem.

Ainmer's right, warriors need to reach a consensus that's thought out and reasonable and exactly what warriors could use, at least as close to one as possible. I'm just wondering myself, do you really want to be pigeon-holed into doing nothing but taking hits?

landrain

05-30-2003, 01:59 PM

But are we not ALREADY pigeonholed?

UberRaidLeader_01 "umm, What you dont have defensive? Thats the only reason we got you!"

I get so sick of hearing people use the 'But YOU have defensive!' as an exccuse as to why the status qou should remain. How often does a warrior need to use defensive? In todays limitless manapools, very rarely.

On Eci we have one of, IMHO the best 'public' raid systems... We farm tier 3 bosses, are ready to break into the Elementals. So except for RZ and Above we have fought and killed virtually every mob in the game. Of those mobs, How many does a warrior need to use defensive on? I mean really use defensive? LMM, RD, Bert... pretty much only the 2k+ mobs. the rest of the time we are no more mana efficient than a pal/sk in the healing department

Remf da Troll

05-30-2003, 02:15 PM

Hrm.

Here's a thought; how about making blue or white mobs NOT rampage (regular, not AE) or flurry when in melee w/ a warrior? In codespeak: if the target of the attack is a warrior, skip/fail check for rampage/flurry. Could also reduce mob's chances to double/triple/quad I suppose.

Shouldn't impact boss mob fights (as they shouldn't be blue/white con) but would make warriors more desirable for exp grinds. Simply improves the warrior's core ability, tanking, by reducing damage taken when they are the mob's target.

A bit more interesting change might be adjusting the proximity factor in mob aggro for warriors as a class. Since many types of mob aggro have a strong proximity effect, increasing the offset/multiplier for warriors could have the impact of making them more "inviting" targets w/o changing anything else w/ them or other classes. Implementation might be slightly problematic, but should be do-able.

A full out nerf fix might be to reduce/remove any taunt from spells that the mob resists or is immune to... that would take some careful consideration tho.

Will think about it a bit more... would really be nice to figure some balancing changes that ONLY address the (preceived) problem, i.e. warrior vs. knight desirability in EXP groups, without shifting or upsetting the balance elsewhere (i.e. raids).

RdT.

Furor

05-30-2003, 02:44 PM

Originally posted by Remf da Troll
Hrm.

Here's a thought; how about making blue or white mobs NOT rampage (regular, not AE) or flurry when in melee w/ a warrior? In codespeak: if the target of the attack is a warrior, skip/fail check for rampage/flurry. Could also reduce mob's chances to double/triple/quad I suppose.

Shouldn't impact boss mob fights (as they shouldn't be blue/white con) but would make warriors more desirable for exp grinds. Simply improves the warrior's core ability, tanking, by reducing damage taken when they are the mob's target.

A bit more interesting change might be adjusting the proximity factor in mob aggro for warriors as a class. Since many types of mob aggro have a strong proximity effect, increasing the offset/multiplier for warriors could have the impact of making them more "inviting" targets w/o changing anything else w/ them or other classes. Implementation might be slightly problematic, but should be do-able.

A full out nerf fix might be to reduce/remove any taunt from spells that the mob resists or is immune to... that would take some careful consideration tho.

Will think about it a bit more... would really be nice to figure some balancing changes that ONLY address the (preceived) problem, i.e. warrior vs. knight desirability in EXP groups, without shifting or upsetting the balance elsewhere (i.e. raids).

RdT.

Nah, that seems excessive to a point and irrelevant to another...

The bottom line is that Everquest is played OUT. It's a dinosaur. The classes all sorta overlap each other with a 'six-degrees-of-seperation' quality but more like one degree between any class at a max. Without going in and seriously, SERIOUSLY, revamping all the classes, no change will make any single faction or group of people happy without pissing off another group/faction.

If I were to redesign, assuming I got paid some serious $$$, I'd put in an additional 10 levels of specialization for every class that also breaks up into 3-6 classes of sub-specs, allowing players to mold themselves any way they chose but revolving around a fundamental character core.

Just off the top of my head, I'd allow warriors to be:

Blade/Blunt/Shield/Pierce/2handed/Armored etc... etc..

Wizard:

Ice/Fire//Magic/Arcane etc...

A warrior could then sub spec Blade to 3, Blunt to 4, Shield to 3, or they could choose to just spec Armored to 10. Each obviously having an impact on that players style and abilities but using a base 65 war as the core of said player.

Yes, these type of systems have problems (funneling/protoypicals), which is why they require massive attention to detail when being created (by the designers) but also net out unrivaled character identity - not to mention they are fucking fun to play...

Anyways, I'm basically babbling. The warrior class in EQ is a one trick pony with 1/2 a trick.

Remf da Troll

05-30-2003, 06:35 PM

Hrm.

Interesting, but I think my "solutions" were a bit simpler, and also something that could be implemented in a 4+ year old game w/o TOO much pain and suffering...

Basically, any fixes at this point will almost by definition have to be fairly subtle (re: easy to implement), and fairly focused (re: no fundamental gameplay changes). And consistent with the game engine. The major beef at the moment seems to be warriors WRT exp groups, and the solutions suggested above are all fairly straight forward algorithmically, and dont' take content/development to implement. KISS'ed, as it were.

Skill "trees" *are* pretty nifty, and do allow a huge amount of customization and identity- at the costs you mentioned. I'm not sure the DIKU-like engine EQ started out with could have handled it tho. EQ's "best solution" to this, barring massive changes to the engine and game world- would have been to make those "specializations" equipment based.

The real downfall of the game, the bit that fundamentally screwed the concept of real class balance and differentiation, was the gear that had multiple stats AND resists AND AC and now focus effects. Think about it- if the designers had had any direction (or "vision" ;) ) from the beginning, they could have set down unbreakable rules about item creation that would have forced "specialization", similar to what a skill tree would have done, by gear selection alone.

The current selection of top-end gear and items basically means that you don't have to make ANY tradeoffs- you can have yer holy cake, and your resists and stats on it too. I'm not talking about clicky effects either- they totally rock btw, and I'm totally biased about it so don't bother pointing it out ;)

And granted, the cat's out of the bag and there's nothing they can do about it now, but it's something I hope new/upcoming MMORPGs keep in mind. Using gear to provide specialization, instead of or in addition to "skills", also provides the flexibility, identity, and "chase factor" that players/gamers really seem to dig. Addition of class-based skills to enhance them could have provided even more differentiation, plus fed the folks that prefer character improvement vs. pure gear collection.

Anyway, hope they figure something out. Track record isn't so good tho, so I'm not holding my breath.

RdT.

Surlok

05-30-2003, 06:39 PM

There is also an issue ,in that all other melee Classes pure or hybrid are based off warriors.

Give it to wars and it goes to the others by default because of code.Yes they can code in new abilities restricted to one single class,but any time they tweak existing aspects of wars they are likely going to trickle down to the other melee and further imbalance things.

I am willing to bet that many things they may have wanted to implement would have resulted in this and ths were scrapped.

Remf da Troll

05-30-2003, 06:43 PM

Actually, there's always been code in the game that differentiates by class; i.e. NPC guildmasters will only deal with their own. Also the "custom" combat tables they use. So class specific changes/checks like the ones I mentioned probably could be implemented, assuming the overhead wasn't too high...

Purely empirical observations btw, I haven't looked at real MUD/muse code for almost a decade now. I reserve the right to be totally wrong. ;)

RdT.

Karthunk

05-30-2003, 06:52 PM

People really need to stop tossing around the word "average". No one knows where the "average" warriors stands because it's subjective with no numbers to back it up.

Glatius2

05-30-2003, 07:23 PM

People really need to stop tossing around the word "average". No one knows where the "average" warriors stands because it's subjective with no numbers to back it up.

Reasonably true. But I'm willing to be that the average 60+ Warrior has closer to 5k buffed HP than 10K buffed HP. He also has closer to 1250 AC than 1500 or more AC. That he uses something more along the lines of a willsapper, wavecrasher, epic, frost bringer, over a BoW or any number of other EB weapons you care to name.

In fact we can probably, in very broad strokes, define an average Warrior pretty well, just simply based on how difficult to obtain is the gear. Would you say that an average Warrior is more likely to be wearing cultural or a combination of thurgadin/Skyshrine armor over NToV/Emp drops? I would. Is he likely to have primal? Probably not. And so forth.