You don't want to nerf knights?

[Draganetti]

To avoid a knight nerf, you're going to need such a boost to warrior power that it would trivialize alot of content at all levels of the game. That is why many people feel that either a nerf for knights is required, or perhaps a total revamp of that which is combat. This is not a new concept, as it has been expressed by several people to those that bothered to read.

For a moment, let us dismiss defensive/evasive. (They should really be replaced by short duration/short recycle discs like monk stonestance.)

Then, we have knights and warriors at approximately the same "tanking" level. Approximately the same hp, ac, mitigation, avoidance. . .yes, some differences, but essentially equal at various stages of the game.

Then, paladins for instance get nearly infinately increased aggro control, in exp and raid situations via stuns and group heals (read AE taunt). They can heal efficiently with elixers and quickly with fast usable heals and group heal. (I would say with proper equipment and mana regen, a paladin would have no problem putting a cleric out of work healing a normal risk LDoN adventure for instance.) They can use stuns not only for aggro, but to help mitigate damage upon them and others. They can use stuns as a way to help build and transfer aggro to others. They can serve as the best "speed bumps" known to Norrath on inc mobs. Invis to undead and undead damage can have great advantages. Lay on hands anyone? Nearly free fast horse transportation? I forget how many hitpoints a paladin can buff themselves for. . .1805ish i think and lots of AC. . .that must be nice. As a warrior I wouldn't know much about buffing my own hps whenever I liked. Pacify pulling must be nice in some situations rather than launching an arrow and saying "train inc" to your group. So many utilties. . .resist spells, dispell, cures, remove curse.

Oh yeah, resurrect.

So, barring giving warriors all of the above (and whatever I forgot), thus making us paladins, what can we give warriors that is the equal to it? That is a damn lot of stuff if you ask me. What is all of that worth? Is all of that worth defensive/evasive? (I'm more familiar with paladins than SK's, but someone else is welcome to make up a similar comparison.)

You really want SoE to try to make warriors 20% better tanks beyond what paladins are now? Giving fully equipped/buffed warriors 10% more hps and mitigation (so they actually receive 10% less damage from each and every blow) would be pretty significant to say the least. . .but then that's not even addressing the taunt/aggro issue.

Here is another way of looking at it. . .paladins are supposed to be at 80% of a warrior's tanking/melee ability apparently. Do you know how much 20% is? I am a level 65 warrior, so should paladins not be tanking like a level 50 warrior? You'd prefer level 78 warriors? Of course in practice, the game and level scaling doesn't work like that, but it shows the rediculousness of the current situation.

Personally, i think getting rid of defensive/evasive (substituting a stonestance type disc) and giving 15% mitigation on each and every melee hit a warrior receives would be a good start. I think nerfing knight aggro capabilities is somewhat essential. Either reduce the value of their hate spells or the frequency at which they can cast them or perhaps the reliablilty. I would also recommend giving warriors 252 taunt skill at LEAST innately at 65 if you do nothing else to change the way the skill works.

[Valeris]

Taunt would need to be redesigned. It maxes at 230 so we're told and any points beyond that have no effect. oh and if (very big if) aggro was nerfed i would give knights equal taunt.

Itemization is one of our biggest problems. I understand that if they put us back to the greater tanks (as we should be) and give us snap agro like a knight, it trivializes higher content. The biggest problem is that hps don't matter as much when you're on a CH rot, 1k hps isn't gonna matter all that much when the mob hits for more than that. So, who should a guild give the best gear to? The one that will hold the best agro.

i.e. this:
Warrior
or should we go with : Paladin

Now, notice that there is a 1k (give or take) hp difference between the two toons.......however, also notice that they are wearing the pretty much the same gear. Different weapons and different BPs......that's it, they are wearing the same stuff other than that. Now, how does that define us as a whole? We all know that, for the most part, a warrior is his gear, but if a Paladin can wear the same gear, doesn't that make him better?

Either increase mitigation to a noticable degree, or add WARRIOR ONLY items to the game that give him some sort of boost. 1khps isn't gonna matter to a boss mob. 1khps at this level sure as hell isn't gonna change effectiveness in an xp grind. And that 1k is the only advantage the warrior has....we don't use /defensive in xp groups unless the fecal material has struck the rotating blades....which is when a Pally will LoH himself to stay alive, trust me, we do it about that often.

So, the warriors advantage means dick at raids......and it means less than dick in xp groups.

And I don't want to hear the "but that's just at the extreme high end....blah...blah...blah." Want me to make these toon pre elemental? It'll show you the exact same thing. I am pre-elemental, I know.


edit:sorry, inputed wrong magelo link on one of those.....

[Antaran]

Taunt would need to be redesigned. It maxes at 230 so we're told and any points beyond that have no effect. oh and if (very big if) aggro was nerfed i would give knights equal taunt.

So whats the point in items that give a plus taunt % modifier?
Are they designed for knights?

[Bunnie Burner]

Taunt has nothing to do with the rebalancing.....

If enchanters feel they're underpowered and they offer way too little to the groups and raids...
are you going to fix their Blurr line of spells?

We need a big Overhaul.

There are two possibilities I see coming from SOE,

°they already had a fix planned for months.. and it's a huge overhaul,
BUT, why implement it now? There is no direct rivality to EQ.
They will wait till the next big MMORPG comes out, and implement that change only then... which is, the best plan.
Even warriors who have SOE in horror and are completely disgusted by EQ... will want to give the new melee system a shot..

°they don't care, they got EQ2 coming, they got thousands and thousands of casters still hooked on EQ,
they rather spend the maximum resources in milking out money and luring in new victims, then addressing a problem that requires attention.
They will bring in a small upgrade or other crap, and hope it will shut up the melees for some time.


Hard to tell which of these two will happen.

[Mvreena]

Some of my very first posts to TSW called for the nerf of knights. I've said it once, and I'll keep on saying it, if knights wanted to be MT so damn badly, they should have rolled as a warrior. As it is they get their spells, and get to be a warrior too. There are no trade offs.

When you get a druid to heal over a cleric you know you're not going to have a rez if you need it. Conversely, if you get a cleric you can't evac out of a bad situation. When you get an enchanter to slow over a shaman you're not getting the buffs and patch healing that a shaman brings to a group. Conversely, if you get a shaman to slow over an enchanter, you don't have CC.

Why then when warriors say they want to be the undisputed and preferred MT do knights start to howl so? It doesn't mean that they can't tank. It just means there should be a trade off for picking them over a warrior to tank. The group should know that by picking a warrior to tank, they are getting the best damn tank to keep them alive out there. Conversely, if they pick a paladin to tank, they would know they are getting stuns, group heals, Brells, pacify, and need I mention a rez in a pinch?

I'm sick and tired of hearing this crap about being equals. I don't want to be an equal to a knight. I am a WARRIOR. I don't require the intervention of my God to know I can vanquish my foes. All I need is my sword and skill alone. I am a WARRIOR. I do not care if the fight is a just one or not, only that I emerge victorious drenched in the blood of my foes. I am a WARRIOR. My group members should feel confident in the knowledge that I stand before them and our foes. I am a WARRIOR. My foes should begin to tremble in fear the instant I enter the battle field, because they know I am going to tear them limb from limb and rip off their head, and the only thing that is going to stop me is if they kill me first. I am a WARRIOR. That fear alone should inspire such attention to me, that some caster slowing it is a brief inconveince. I am a WARRIOR....

[Partha]

/salute Mvreena

/beer

[Yrigan]

Originally posted by Draganetti
To avoid a knight nerf, you're going to need such a boost to warrior power that it would trivialize alot of content at all levels of the game.

The trivialization of this game has already occured, and it is the power that has been given to casters that has caused it. I'm perfectly willing at this point to say "screw it" and have warriors join in on that trend.

[Ender]

Its fine if you want to nerf knights to fix the problem, just make sure you nerf every other non warrior class at the same time, especially beastlords and rangers. You cut knights power down at all and those 2 classes will be the new MT of choice and warriors still won't get groups because of their aggro issues. The entire game is broken from a damage taking standpoint, from the warrior all the way down to the magician the ability to take dmg has steadily grown closer and closer.

I've been playing since beta, I feel cheated, don't we all remember the paladins being 3/4 warriors, 1/4 holy men. Same with SK's, 3/4 warrior, not as good, not on par. To hell with equality in the tank scheme.

Frankly I've lost my patience with it every time I log in. NO groups give a damn whether or not the warrior has 600 more hit points when he can't do jack to present himself as the tank, but wait you have higher dodge tables. Yeah and we all know how well AGI works too, what makes you think that will matter so much when we wear the same armor and tout the same AC as the knight.

Everyday I log in, the fire that started grows larger, I'm still wanted to tank the AoW's etc but no one cares about that when you go to xp. Also I'm soooo sick of the double knock we get, 100 hps for us 100 hps and 100 mana for them. How do they honestly think that doing didn't offset the table.

For the record I was against hybrids skill caps being raised to 252 in the first place. Hybrids we're utility tanks, that was the risk you took for playing one.

I'm so closed to cancelling all my accounts right now it isn't funny.

[Draganetti]

As an aside, i just wanted to respond that a 10% mod on a warrior's 230 taunt skill does have a very significant impact. Visibly on average, i'd say it makes taunt succeed 10 to 30% more often on mobs of level equal to or less than the warrior. . .one of these days i'll be bored enough to do two hour-long comparisons (i don't want to figure out game pad crap).

I do agree that itemization is horribly fooked. . .the ldon vendor armors are a laughable display at the policy or ignorance whichever. However, as a warrior in an elemental-level guild, I can't say that things are as skewed nearly as badly as the higher end PoTime people report. How many warriors in elemental and lower guilds find themselves being replaced by a pally/sk as a MT on raids? I remember once about two years ago we made a ranger tank vindi, that was funny. The only target we ever use a pally on is TZ of the RZ cycle. Frankly, I think it's a good idea to design maybe 5 to 10% of raid encounters to be best tanked by knights. Give them something important to contribute. That isn't the current situation though, obviously.

[Doggabone]

arf arf

I've been wondering about that ...

If previous commentary from devs still holds water (taunt effectively soft caps at 230), then I wonder how the modifier is being applied. I had assumed that the modifier was applied to the Taunt skill, but it could also be applied directly to the chance of success, after all the numbers have been calculated.

In other words, if you plug the Taunt ability into a formula and come out with x% chance of success maybe they apply the modifer to the x value, and not the Taunt value, resulting in (x + mod)% or (x + (x*mod))%. Maybe. A boost of 10 - 30% implies that the modifier is added to the end of the chain, and not the raw Taunt skill. If I knew that, I would load my dice a little the next time I see one of those belts ... in a way, it's a pity that policy is too keep information like this hidden.

Has anyone ever had the chance to parse results from one of these items?