EZ Server

PLEASE READ THIS THROUGH BEFORE VOTING! I UNDERSTAND THIS IS GOING TO BE UNPOPULAR AND WILL GET HEATED!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be constructive and cite specific examples. Posts considered trolling will be completely ignored. *plead*
If you dislike any of the options, explain why you dislike them. It is only through useful discussion that good ideas come about!

EDIT: THESE ARE NOT GOING LIVE NOR ARE THEY EVEN PLANNED! STOP EMAILING ME!

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1) Lower the Warrior Stonewall by somewhat. Still higher than SK or Paladin, but not quite so extreme.

2) Bump up the Paladin and SK Stonewalls a bit more.

3) Bump up Paladin Stonewall, convert SK into super high HP (little/no Stonewall) tap-tank

4) Leave it be, it's "working as intended"

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I am slightly concerned with the tanks and tankage. I would like to see something change, but I want to get outside opinions and (maybe) Hunter's thoughts on this. My reasons for this is the sheer number of mobs being pulled, the reliance on a warrior, and the future of content. Maybe the knights were never intended as tanks, which means that maybe we should consider removal of tanking abilities and possibly allow a charm trade in a few months for some of us to move to THE tank class (if it is intended to be the solo tanking class).


I have made 5 suggestions above, I will attempt briefly explain them all:

1) I believe that the warrior stonewall is too high (both in comparison to the knights and in terms of planning content). As it stands right now, I am seeing lots of one rounding of any non-tank in T5 and T6. Mind you, not every character I have is UC'ed, but surely having an add pop and instagib one of my goobers is unintentional. At the rate it is now, T7 (or maybe higher) it will become 100% one round on anything that isn't a tank. I would not like to see the game become this way, but maybe it's just a personal preference. I would guesstimate the lowering amount to be somewhere between 8-10%

2) This will work if warrior Stonewall is desired at such a high value. I am suggesting another 5-10% to Paladin and 10-20% (matching the Stonewalls for SK and Paladin). This would bring the knights into slightly less jittery and slightly more AFK state (similar to warriors). This makes the knights stronger, but still doesn't address the issue of the NPC damage simply being higher than any non-tank being able to withstand (i.e. surviving 1 hit).

3) I have suggested this before, but got very mixed answers. Paladins would still see 5-10% Stonewall raise, Shadowknights would lose their Stonewall, and Shadowknights HP on Tier'ed items and epics would increase heavily. Paladins would be above Shadowknights in effective health, but below in literal health. This makes SKs vulnerable to spike damage, but makes them ideal for purely magic bosses (which should start reappearing).

4) Simply put, everything is fine, leave it be. I do NOT agree with this options.

5) If there is something else to be put or explained, please select option 5 and post your suggestion.

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This has come up in numerous other threads in bits and pieces. This is not a rip/hate on warriors, just trying to clear up some of the confusion. If warriors are THE intended tank (as in required to progress), let's set a date, remove knights' threat generation, and allow tradable charms for ~48h on that date so we can all move the charms off to the true tank. If the knights were intended to be tanking alternative to warriors, great...but I would say a small amount of adjustment should be considered.


Seriously, thank you for making it this far in reading. <3


-Hate

Toons that don't have a UC in T5 and T6 should be instagib'd if they catch wild agro or happen on the wrong side of the mob. The more you prepare for a zone the more reliable your group should be. Trying to balance content where people who don't have the UC would make things extremely trivial for those who do.

I have tanked in T6 with a UC'd paladin with a lvl 59 ring and T5 gear. Granted it is touch and go but it can be done. Can I pull like a warrior? No, and I shouldn't be able to. Is my warrior going to heal the group? Absolutely not. And he shouldn't be able to. I've seen SK's tank in T5 and T6 in comparable gear to my paladin with about the same effectiveness, (maybe a little bit more reliably).

Knight classes are still viable tanks, they are good in the off tank capacity that I think they were designed for. Without warriors being a good leap ahead like they are then there is absolutely no point in using a warrior to tank. Before warriors got bumped up, when T6 first came out I tanked T6 with my paladin because I could fit more dps and get the same tankability without my warrior.

I am 100% against washing the warrior class down by blending in knight classes by either lowering warrior SW, raising knight SW or raising SK hp and tap. I do not think that we should just take away hate generation and other tank qualities of the night classes just because they can't tank like a warrior. They are still viable tanks like they are. You could very well go entirely through all content without ever having a warrior in your group. You just won't be able to pull like a warrior. You could definitely go through content without a warrior much much much easier than you could go through without a paladin.

I 100 % agree with Xiggie. Knights tank just fine. Adding a agro reduction to the paladin epic in my opinion is dumb as shit and the SK just as well as paladins do because of their taps/clicks and I do not think they need more HP on their gear.

I also agree that people need to prep for the zone they are going into. UC was not intended for T1-4 as a must have item and you can do those tiers with out it but it pretty much became required on your tanks for T5+ and most players in T6 have UC'd every goon they have. A lot of current T5 people have as well.

If anything you should look at AC. Hunter set AC per tier to a set level and it never changed because back in the day it hit a cap and did nothing. That has not been the case for some time and if you want to bump something you should consider AC.

Lowering warrior stonewall based on a handful of people having "the clickies" is bad idea as well. Just because the top 2% of the server can reach near invicible status stacking stonewall effects does not mean its broken because the other 98% are not at that level.
By T9, assuming we get a new tier per year, that might change to be more like 15-30% reach those levels.

Balancing content is hard and sucks but to balance based on the minority of the server is the best way to ruin a fun place.

Also we have shield of the ages and ROA500 to work on. Getting shield to 30 is pretty easy for anyone to do, just farm the mold,SLS and essences required. 31-40 is harder and paced good. Thanks to the change to how ROA works there is no reason no one can not obtain a decent level on that item for *ALL* of their goons. Plus it looks like raid exp modifier got boosted so you can go raid your content to gear up and actually get some AA. Not great aa but shit its better then before by a long shot.

FYI I generally (98%) approve of your changes and ideas but some times you leave me scratching my head asking what your smoking and where can i get some.

Ok, so T5+ the UC should be considered a requirement on all characters. I am running without a paladin or warrior, but I am merely curious. I..as much as I will loathe it...likely have to start a warrior to make sure my understanding is entirely correct. Although I joke about the warriors and occasionally destroy their gear in instanced zones, I do not actually despise the class. I just dislike the fact that it is significantly overplayed.

Another unpopular question is about the Stonewall on Halloween pets. My overall goal is to get the Stonewall total less.

I also need to clarify that I did not mean to lower the warrior's 100% uptime Stonewall into "on par" with SKs or paladins. With cleric temporary buffs, the "max possible" would be a bit closer. Without cleric temporary buffs, the 100% uptime would be much closer.

Either way, just thoughts/ideas. Thank you for the input Xiggie. Fugitive able to chime/troll in?

-Hate

Knights never were able to compete with warriors. Warriors without uc2, shield, and Halloween pets die quite a bit in t6 if they don't manage pulls and adds well. Nerfing will needlessly make things harder on newer players. I also don't see the point in buffing paladins as they have a defined role and are good at it. I could see doing something small to help sks....but everyone knew when they rolled an skin that they don't tank as well as warriors.  You using multiple healers hate? Most people are using 1 cleric and 2 paladins in their tank group @ t6 levels.

I have suggestions but will have to add later. Heading out.

We do not need to make charms tradable. We have known warriors are the true tanks for quite sometime...also....anyone T5 should know you need uc on every toon period to consistantly survive.
Warriors are the true tanks this is as it has always been in any mmo its the whole point of the class. Knights do make decent offtanks and should be decent offtanks, especially SKs since they cant heal the group.
Instead of nerfing warriors or knights lets simply keep these things in mind as we move into the next tier. It should not be geared to the top of the top gear. Halloween pets for example were a very limited time offer, shield 40 is a very hard to get item as is ucv2. Scepter 10 is certainly not had by everyone. T7 should not only be survivable by those with all of these things. Things will be easier for people with all of these toys and should be, they earned them with many, many....MANY hours of gameplay. Hundreds of hours poured into the game to be top form.
I do, however, feel that monks should be able to avoid damage better. They hit so fast as soon as they encounter a ds their tier they die, and they cant take hits well at all even with full ucv2 tier 6 6.0s in T6. Top gear and optional gear...still big pussies. Something is amiss there.
As for wizzies and rogues dying the moment they get aggro, this is pretty much as it should be. Rogues should take a hit or two like monks but wizzies should fall over dead the moment a mob even looks at them funny.
Not to hate on wizzies or nothing......

I choose up the sk/pally stonewall, if you choose the sk life tap an tank,  there needs to be an aoe lifetap added.  

I really hope you don't get rid of sk/pally tanks.  You need to allow people to play more than one class as a tank.  You have more than 1 type of healer right?  LOL

You misunderstand my intentions with this one. The problem here was that the paladin proc was generating HORRIFIC amounts of threat.

For example, let's say Holy Knight Strike 4.0 and Holy Knight Recourse 4.0 proc/trigger. It does 2500 dmg, then 4500-4800 healing. That's 2500 + (4500 * group members) = threat. Let's assume that we have 6 players and we'll assume "in the middle" proc value.
2500 + (4650 * 6) = 30400 possible threat per proc.
Now let's add in a UC, bringing proc to 10000 and healing to 31500 - 33600.
10000 + (32550 * 6) = 205300 possible threat per proc

Now this seems ungainly high, but keep in mind that the warrior epics add an aggro mod of 30-70% more threat generated.

Considering the bit above, threat roll overs should be noted and people healing with paladins experiencing "overthrows" in "on-par" situations.

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As for the balancing around those with Halloween pets, I'm trying not to do so. The problem is that the pets are too extreme to simply ignore. Unless a hardcap is set somewhere in the code (i.e. maximum Stonewall that will apply), then it is ALWAYS something to be mindful of in adding new toys.

Balthor, thank you for the post. :-)

-Hate

Warrior in tank mode

• Almost no DPS
• High tank status

Paladin in tank mode

• Decent Group heals (not nearly as good as 2hder pally)
• Around 350k DPS
• Medium tank status

Shadowknight in tank mode

• Extreme self heals
• A bit over 350k+ dps
• Medium to low tank status

Non-tanks getting squished in top tier content was fairly normal on Live .. I don't see why it should be much different on EZ.


As for EZ server though... its obviously different than live was. Here is how I see things...

Fresh team of T5 5.0s enters T6 ....

• Tank gets spanked like a girl
• Non-tanks are squish

That same Team progresses for awhile.... now fully geared in T6 gear

• Tank is very stable in HP / survivability
• Non-tanks CAN live through being hit

My crew is as progress as I can go currently.. and at first T6 gangbanged anything that wasn't a tank... which seemed "normal" too me.
Now that all my crew members have over 500,000 HP + ... I almost never see a non-tank get 1 shot.


I do not think the Warrior stonewall should go up anymore at all and if it is nerfed.. not so much that its pointless to bring a warrior and better off using the knights who already have more DPS / other utility.


It seems more and more that UC is required for T5++  -- even on non-tanks.

Heh if warriors are dying that hard, try SKs or Paladins.

I am using one healer, but my problem (SK with UCv2 and SoA XL) is simply one rounding. I take my entire health bar worth of damage in a bad round. This isn't to crucify warriors, this is to improve the disgusting amount of damage taken to account for the warrior's stonewall.



The DPS classes I am not worried about as much. I have built in many toys to help give all classes SOME form of mitigation or defense. I am just trying to get a feel for the environment. As stated above though, those with Halloween pets cannot be ignored as some of them are nigh invulnerable. Yes they worked hard for such toys, but is near (or might-as-well-be) invulnerable really acceptable?

-Hate

Paladins are 100% not needed .. clerics are GODS when it comes to healing. They are by far the best thing on EZ. Get your cleric an Ultimate Charm and it will make your life 100x better in T5-T6 content.


Cleric  > ALL!

Valid points and this is why I started the thread. I typo'ed a Kraken change and ever crapped brick houses. I am not touching this one anytime soon, but I wanted to get a feel from others on how they felt or how to approach this.

Warriors can keep 76% Stonewall all the time (assuming toys), 59% assuming no Halloween.
Paladins can keep 45% Stonewall all the time (assuming toys), 28% assuming no Halloween.
Shadowknights can keep 35% Stonewall all the time (assuming toys), 18% assuming no Halloween.


Maybe the issue here is the Halloween pets being too strong?
Maybe there should be a hardcap of 75-80% Stonewall (meaning after this point, it assumes 75% or 80% and ignores values over it)?

-Hate

Wait? What the hell is 1 rounding a UCv2 SoA XL tank?  

If you pull with ranged item (bow or throwing) you can mostly solo pull all of T6.  I've seen lesser geared SKs with the new stonewall able to tank just nicely in T6 when they go slow.

I dissagree that they are near invulnerable at their level. Top tier with all optional toys yes they tank really well and all current content should be easy...that means they are very well prepared for T7.  You seem to be looking at the most extreme cases as others have pointed out.

T6 will be made easier for middle of the road toons as has always been done once T7 is out.

On a side humor note....As for your cleric, first of all...it should be considered blashemy right off that you put that on a cleric. All toons should be nuked for 2 mil upon entering the zone just for that. Hard to believe a cleric with unreal shitty melee skills could die that fast with such gear.

Heh the bosses. To be fair, I could complain and throw in "it was the lag". I do seriously die in one round on some of the bosses. I have an enchanter mezzing EVERYTHING that pulls and downing things one at a time. I may not be running a warrior, but I'm not too stupid. :-)


-Hate

Ah I see why now.. heh.  When we first "broke" into T6 we used at least 2 tanks. 1 for boss and 1 to handle adds.. especially on the 5th boss!


5th boss will dispel your stonewall ... so hes a real bitch.. and spawns 4 adds unlike the other bosses that only spawn 2.


Once we got better gear obviously we started using 1 tank for a full clear.. but that took awhile.

I cleared up to Administrator Charial before instance broke (sadface). I had zero wipes up to that point. I came close a few times, but never wiped. He spawned tons of adds, had some AoE mess, and two of his adds had pops.

I finally said "FFS RAGEBOMB", activated Intensity of the Resolute x7, watched him melt. That was the end of my T6 incursion.

Btw, 1000th post wewt yeah.

-Hate

From a tank perspective -- the 3 bosses OMM / AMV / Administrator Charial  -- should really use at MINIMUM 2 tanks for players breaking into T6.

So trying to balance tanks around being able to break into T6 and solo tank everything.. would make things too easy for anyone using more than 1 tank heh

Maybe, but I'm not balancing or attempting or theorizing around it. I am talking big picture. :-)

-Hate

If you are worried about mobs one-shotting a knight and want to lower warrior stonewall in order to be able to lower mob dps then I think knights stonewalls should be lowered by a similar percent (both being lowered the chance of a 1 shot would go down on mights since the stonewall % would be lower to begin with). If tank changes are going to be made it really needs to be done in a way that isn't going to screw everyone over that has a warrior as a tank because if there is just a nerf to warriors its really going to look like the only reason this became a problem is because *YOUR* SK is having trouble in T6. I don't pretend to know Hunters intent but the original design for EQ (at least through PoP) had warriors being the top tank period. Knights were good for off tanking etc but your raid always wanted a warrior as the MT if possible.

I know T6 is doable with a non-warrior tank (it will probably get harder to do as the tiers get higher) but as with everything if you tone down the content to the lowest denominator (or in this case the lower tank) it will be trivial to those with the optimal setup (or if they are close enough then there will be no reason to run a warrior as they can't group or self heal).  There may be a balancing act that can be done between mob dps and stonewall effects while still letting the Halloween pets be strong maybe something along the lines of:

Warrior max stonewall 35% total, Paladin 25% less than a warrior (26%) SK 15% lower than a paladin (22%)

Currently (if my math is correct) lets say a a paladin/warrior/SK have 100hp. A mob would have to do 300 damage (420x.24=100.8), I multiplied by .24 because the warrior mitigates 76% or 319.2 out of 420, to one-shot a warrior, 182 damage (182*.55=101) to one-shot a paladin and 155 damage (155*.65=100.75) to one-shot a SK.

With a lower amount of overall mitigation the numbers get closer.  Warrior 35%= 155 damage to be oneshot, Paladin @ 25%=134 damage, SK @ 22%= 129 damage. As I said there is still a benefit for a warrior with this scenario but it would allow paladins and SK's a better chance at tanking.

I don't know if those numbers are anywhere near what they would need to be but with an appropriate decrease in mob dps, I'm sure the numbers could be worked out. I don't know how this would effect a lower tier person tanking a higher tier (aka would it be too easy for a t3 tank to tank t4 since the mobs DPS would be decreased, HP wouldn't need to be nearly as high to withstand tanking).

As for transferring UC's, if this is allowed it should be allowed for any character for the time frame. Its not really fair to allow those that picked a knight as a tank to transfer their UC to a warrior while saying "f-u" to those that spent the time to UC a warrior. I also don't know if there would be an easy way to ensure that UC's were not being "sold" but if there is then maybe we could allow the transfer of a UC once per year (christmas or summer time) in order to allow people to try out a new class without having to do yet another UC.

Hate,

I left EZ server for an extended break in January of this year. Almost no one played a warrior. I returned in August and now nearly everyone does. The Warrior's enormous drawbacks were finally countered by the ability to survive noticeably better than any other class. Warrior mitigation should remain where it is, relative to the other 'tank' classes, in my opinion.

Regarding toons dying to rampage, I can a.p.p.r.e.c.i.a.t.e. that frustration. >:( I went through T5 with WAR CLR PAL PAL BRD SHM, which is retardedly heavy on heals and I still managed to lose a goon to rampage every 3 or 4 corals. Despite the annoyance, I believe that is how it should be when moving into new content. Again, in T6 I lost dps classes with regularity (particularly my non-UC goons) to rampage, until I completed their gear sets.

Your concern over support goons dying to rampage is understandable. However, most of the people pushing the limits are already sporting Halloween pets on their core ensemble. Plus, many classes have their own mitigation abilities and spells. And I believe we all have you to thank (profusely!) for Song of the Wee (and future ranks??? ;)).

I respect the notion that people should play what makes them happy. What I have found is that most of the people who swim against the current get exceptionally frustrated and bitter while everyone else races past enjoying themselves. Try a warrior. You'll love the feeling of power.

Lower warriors by 10% or so and reduce mob max hits to compensate so they take roughly the same damage.

The only real issue is badly geared warriors being able to tank mobs that would one round a much better geared knight, and that issue is really only apparent when gearing up on tier bosses or breaking into T5.

Yeah warriors need more maintenence, but the random "lol you die" because something flurried and rampaged on the same round for more than your total health even with a UC, Shaman Buff, Shield 20+, and Crab is lame. For a SK at least, the whole idea is you watch your health and tap back when you take a big hit, which you just can't do when even with full T4, a 4.0, all hp augs, and a UC still leaves you with ~240k hp unbuffed.

Whats the point of being a warrior if they can be replaced by a higher dps tank class?

Ybik, I am not doing this due to my SK having issues. I am somewhat overgeared to be considered a fair break in. I understand that warriors were the "go to" tanks in live...but EZ isn't live. I am not trying to target warriors because they are better than my tank. I am trying to target warriors (and tanking as a whole) because the numbers are slightly too high. The physical damage is somewhat survivable once a non-tank outgears the current tier. This trend will not continue for long, as eventually the total HP will fall well below the damage dealt in another tier or two. The picture below is linked from one of Hunter's posts on the max theoretical Stonewalls.

(http://i47.tinypic.com/xaxdmp.png)

So I'm completely clear, I appreciate the input Ybik. It is crucial on issues like this.

Bobbin, I don't recall mentioning rampage anywhere. I am dying to explosive rounds of damage and sit fairly high on the gear totem pole. I can still obviously make do as I am too stubborn to simply quit. I don't want to try a warrior simply because it's easier. If the warrior is THE tank to be had on EZ, we should eventually ween knights out of tanking (imo!).

Griz, I have a small issue with warriors requiring more maintenance. On threat generation, maybe. Since warrior's Stonewall can be cast and then swapped over to a higher HP setup, that seems curious to me. I could not cast a huge mitigation on SK and then swap back to sword/board (I don't have any high end stonewall though). As for the SK "tap it back", that's why (if it gains enough footing) I would like to see the SK hp jump a bit. To tap tank, one needs enough HP to actually withstand damage. Just a note though.

Aggressive, maybe a damage increase should be considered. A trade off, so to speak. If changes were to occur, warriors would still be the best choice for tanking. Right now though, the Stonewalls have gotten completely out of hand. If we set a Stonewall cap, all stonewall past X% is useless (which could theoretically phase out warriors if this is easily met). If we lower Stonewalls on the warrior front, everyone stays a bit closer to the same threshold. If we lower the Stonewalls across the board, things should become more manageable.


Thanks for the input to all that contributed and thanks for not tossing out any trolling or garbage posts. Keep it coming. No changes are being made, this is mainly a theorycraft and discussion on how to handle this.

-Hate

...
/sigh

okay let me explain something Hate,

My warrior yes Fugitive while breaking into T5/T6 died almost every encounter with 3 Fucking healers and all have UCs...

My warrior yes Fugitive in tank mode has 28k DPS !

My warrior yes Fugitive still REQUIRES 1+ Healers to keep him up

My Pallys (x alot) and my 2 SKs which have mostly UCV2s and UC nothing less can sit there and solo End game period!


The problem is the amount of Damage the high end mobs hit for and Used to Riposte for .

Brokyn's Idea back in FEB12 about the 2hd Warrior Epic saved the class period (I drooled the T6 rezzing every encounter if there was a 2 mob Pull DEAD... Off Tanking was a must, Severs(FP) and Rage+Camric+Pimpn Gimped through T6 wiping wiping wiping.

I'm tired of everytime I fucking log on the forums I see a fucking Nerf this nerff that..

Warriors need another PC to keep them alive period.
Knights can sit there and solo (Above Average DPS + WAY to high Current Mitigation)

I still don't understand the reason for this post.

If you want to "Fix Shit" Start with Negotiation with the Boss man about the Vulgar output of the mobs. But then again I don't mind the single round deaths.. go back to Jan and look @ the posts about wipe after wipe.. with Rage and FP breaking in T6. The system in place MAKES the game fun just as the new spells/skills/clicks.

Lets AVOID NERF BATS PERIOD unless the scaling is across the board. I agree no more mitigation bumps upward period.

And "Your big picture just like the other thread that was heated your vision or whatever the fuck you call it. Doesn't MAKE THE GAME FUN FOR EVERYONE JUST YOU"

BTW your fucking condescending when others point out their views plainly then stating they don't see the bigger picture.

You can post or don't I'm not revising this topic again.


Lower Warrior Stonewall  - NO
Raise Paladin/SK Stonewall  - NO To high already Unless you delete all their group / Self Heals or lower them a lot
Raise Pally SW, Turn SK into Lifetap tank - ISN'T This in place already
Working As Intended - /shrug
Other...(explain in post) - NO
   

After the recent changes (spells/skills/clicks) THE GAME IS @ A STATE OF BEING FUN AS HELL TO LOG ON AND PLAY.


 

A non-tank taking damage =/= rampage?

I wasn't saying your SK was having issues. I said it will appear that way. I also understand this isn't live which is why I said I can't pretend to know Hunters mind. I'll say again nerfing just warriors won't accomplish your goal. If you are wanting to make damage more survivable for knights and non-tanks then you will have to reduce stonewall effects across the board while reducing mob damage and possibly player HP. I think something to the effect of a 60% reduction across the board for stonewall would probably put things where you want them. 24% total for SK, 28% for Paladin, 34% warrior. Like I was saying lets say 1 million HP each. (I know this doesn't take into account AC, runes etc but its an example.)

Pre-Reduction

With 1 million HP Warrior=7.14 million premitigation for one shot
With 1 million HP Paladin=3.33 million premitigation for one shot
With 1 million HP SK=2.5 million premitigation for one shot
With 1 million HP Random Caster= 1 million damage for one shot

Post-Reduction

Warrior=1.51 million premitigation for one shot
Paladin=1.39 million premitigation for one shot
SK=1.31 million premitigation for one shot
Random Caster= 1 million damage for one shot

These numbers would make it much more reasonable and easier to tweak damage to not one shot support characters but still have a decent enough difference to prefer a warrior over a knight. Or you could always give warriors something else and lower their stonewall even more. Maybe have the warrior epic stonewall affect the raid (minus paladins and sk) or something.

Fugitive, that is the reason for the adjustment. If the mitigation wasn't so outrageously high, the mobs wouldn't have to hit for 190325729873598256 damage per swing.

I was not aware responding to others with a countering view was being condescending.

Yes I would like to avoid nerf bats at all. I would like to scale things up, but that requires nearly every class.

Lastly,

Noted. I'll be completely sure to disregard any of your posts to add further insult to you and you alone. (That is being condescending btw.) To be completely clear, I apologized numerous times publicly for that failing and fixed it. I'm sure Hunter too has has some accidental numbers issues. The only difference is, when it comes to him, you don't explode on him because he'll ban you. Again.

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Bobbin, apologies. I was meaning that the output of the mobs is so obscene that anything other than a tank is pretty much a one shot. I run 1 melee outside my tank (I have a cleric...but he seldom melees as he dies too often as it is).

-Hate


EDIT: Nearly 50% goes to leave it as it is. That's still majority. Calm yo' ass down Fugitive (more joking condescending).

I misunderstood then. I am merely trying to get the physical mitigation to more reasonable amounts so mobs won't have to hit for 23572985692 damage. It's becoming difficult to scale and impossible in another 2(ish) tiers.

Thank you for correcting me politely. :-)

-Hate

I think what Hate is missing is a clear view on how a fully endgame geared  sk/pal/war performs

i know sk's that can pull and solo 10+ t6 mobs without breaking a sweat
i know paladins that can do the same
warriors cannot do that simply because of lacking the heals

it makes sense when you are breaking into new content that your tanks will get RNG'ed down very often, i can assure you this is the case for all 3 tanks. first time in t6 (ask paldail he was there) i was dying on my war on every third pull. There is no godmode with playing a war as a maintank. It is slightly easier with the instant aoe aggro and the "oh shit" discs. But their gimp dps and lack of heals kinda makes up for it

I cant really say game is broken at this moment as far as tanks go, in order to require any fixing. I have war/sk/pal in my group composition and have tested tanking with all 3 of them.

It kinda makes sense for non UC chars to get globaled every now and then (specially if its a girly wiz). However i wont say UC's on everything is  a requirement to beat t6. Does UC'ing all your chars help with survivability?...sure it does, i usually clear anguish with 0 deaths nowadays, BUT that's with 12 ucv2/uc/6.0 decked chars.  Will the lack of UC on chars halt your progress?... no it wont. It will make it slower dps wise and you will have to rez/rebuff every now and then, but that's about it. UC's make a great addition to ALL classes pretty much (well, for some even more) but its not a requirement except your maintank and maybe your healers in order to progress.

Would like to point out that most classes have some sort of damage reduction self buff that could get upped with further content (t7+) if its reaaaaally needed, but i dont really see a reason to change a perfectly good balance with mob output vs tank mitigation at this point.

Hate, we have discussed in game before the sk tanking case... i honestly think you are looking at the wrong direction if you thinking to remove stonewall and add more HP. The HP pool would have to be MASSIVE in order to lifetap tank and still in couple RNG cases that you wont dodge/parry or mob miss you will get globaled before you get that tap off.

would like to see though how the discussion goes before i place my vote

/Enosis

by the way Hate....dont you think it makes perfectly sense for a non UC cloth pewpew class to get 1 rounded by an endgame mob if the said class jumps in front of him?.... id say game would be broken if THAT didnt happen.

some of the numbers you guys throw out are way off...you are forgetting that dps classes also have access to SM/IG pets and also their own self mitigation buffs/runes etc

If you cant handle T5 its because you failed to grasp that you have to farm UC on at least the tank and healer. If your goons are dieing its because you either suck at agro management, fail at using /stick on coral or went in there with piss poor gear and thought you would walk over the zone.

If you cant handle T6 through all but the last boss as a solo player you just fail.
I only run 6 in the zone and I do just fine. My knights with only KHH stonewall tank like god damn champions. Oh wait maybe it has something to do with gearing up.

Magelo doesnt work atm so I cant look at your goons but you said you have good gear, I assume you have good gear, so wtf is your problem?

Leave the classes alone that work fine and continue to show love to the classes that are in need of it.

P.s: Its pretty much a standard to show parses if you think shits out of wack. At least thats what we use to do. So if you think that mitigation needs some change go get some parses and show why. 10 hours worth should be a good starting point.
Also, once again you point at the *MAX* mitigation for the classes. I dont come near that max and I do just fine.

I still love you tho.


## edit: post comes across more mean and bitchy then I intended but I'm not going to edit it. I will point out that I run about 35% less mitigation then max on my warrior and have only base spell for mitigation on my paladins. I pew pew shit just fine.
I expect T7 to one round the shit out of me when its released and I finish my flag. If I was able to wtfpwn the first name I came across while afk masturbating to my response to your forum threads I would tell Hunter to make his shit harder.

I know this thread is about stonewall/tankability, but some discussion on UC's was mentioned and I would like to throw in some cents as a player just scratching T5.

With the current state of the game allowing new players to stomp through content up to MPC in probably under a month causes a bad tasting change of pace once you enter T5. If I had to envision a pace that made sense and also consider the addition of T7 coming, I would orientate the focus of T5 towards the tank.

I hope I am safe to say that most noobs in my position are standing at the entrance of T5 with their core group in mostly T4 gear with a UC war and an oracle(complete) pally. The honest truth is that the group needs to leave and come back after 5 more completed UC's.

I have a suggestion that still requires work to compete with T5 difficulty but relieve the fear of needing to UC 5 toons asap. I think that T5 would be a good time to test your tank, require people to RoA 100+ their warrior/knight and have a shield in the upward ranks. The mobs would hit harder than they do now, but do single target dps. Lower their health a bit to compensate for the lack of UC's.

This would continue a decent pace for newer players, plus give them time to ensure they hit T6 with a core group of UC's.

I don't think this is introducing anything game breaking, or dumbing down the content. I just feel that UC's should be a part of progression rather than a sole purpose for an extended period of time.

If I way off base I apologize, don't murder me.

Well, they already can do over 300k in one round if lucky. The gear just doesn't exist at the T4 level to get a non warrior tank above that level of HP unless you buy charms to max a shield of ages and you grind out a RoA200 first.

I'd rather the aoe damage was shifted towards spells and away from rampage. Other than the various poisons, a lot of the AOE spells do really anemic damage. I'd be fine with T5 trash doing 100-150k AoE nukes as long as there was a bit of time to heal up between.

(http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w281/Xiggie/82974016.gif)

Me too. If it was greatly varied, stonewall would be less relevant as 90+ percent of the damage wouldn't be physical damage.


As for Xiggie's post? LoL <3


-Hate

And then what would be the point of having a warrior? Making stonewall irrelevant makes it not only pointless to have a warrior, but makes warriors a bad part of your group. Why would I have a 28k dps tank when I can have a 300k+ dps tank that will tank just as well and will heal itself or the group to boot. As it is right now the reason to have such shitty dps tanking for the group is because it can tank better than anyone else. I understand your pain but you have said yourself You are tanking with an off tank but your wanting it to work like a main tank. On top of that you don't even have a paladin in your group. If I went into T6 with my warrior and only 1 cleric and 1 paladin I would die a lot too, (assuming you do have a cleric in your group and using the paladin to make up for your sk tap heals).

You've said that it is hard to balance and not consider the halloween pets. I think this conversation was had on the forums not long ago. If content is balanced against items that can only be gained 1 week out of the year then the majority of the server is screwed. The majority of the server does not have the IG pet. Focusing on that is focusing on the few and not the server as a whole.

I can't see the logic behind suggesting that knight classes be weened away from tanking or lose any of the hate generation spells. I don't know if that is just a temper tantrum or what, but I can't see any rhyme or reason for that.

The picture was put up in jest though. Found it on ebaums and thought of this thread, lol.

I too think the game is fun as hell as it is and leave it alone as most others do. The issue then becomes future content and the numbers game (we are running out of room for further mitigation.) I have several Ideas on this that does not involve the nerf bat (again, almost never a good idea and certainly not wanted here):

1) We leave the mobs dps output the same but add caster dps to T7. This would make us rely more on hps/resists from now on instead of mitigation.

2) We  divide all dps and mitigation by a factor of 2 to simplify the number crunching and leave lots of room for further expansion (from T3 up for example).

Using smaller numbers would make all calculations easy to compute as well and maybe even help a bit with lag. This is most likely something we will HAVE to do eventually anyways. The numbers are just too freakin big.

We also probably would be better off if we could combine all 3 augs that we use now on weapons in a magic box (only requirement being that all would have to be on the same level) to produce a single augment that would be the combined dps of the three augs, and the new 7.0 could just use 1 aug slot to both reduce lag and make player dps more reliable. These recipies would take into account  that monks use 2x ice strikes and 1x ninja strike whereas ranger uses 2x NS, and pali uses 3x FS.

While we are at it we could halve player dps and hps on mobs. Basically clean up the system, allow for expansion and streamline the number crunching. This would take a bit of doing as it's not really quite as simple as simply halving everything, but this would be something I would love to help with.

Some good points.

Stonewall will probably stay where it is for now.

T7 has some new ideas not mentioned yet.

I'm not used to balancing mobs DPS based on spells, so would take some trial n error, maybe do that in T8.

We worked a bit on Divine Intervention but I need to check that out more, maybe make a ranked jewelry slot with higher and higher chance for being saved from death.

Been planning to reduce the augs for a while. I like the idea of combining 3 augs of the same type to get 1 aug of 3x power. This way we could have less procs without nerfing players that invested getting their aug strikes. As a last minute thing I just might add that for T7, and slowly start working backwards in the tiers to fix that as well. If I change a current epic with 3 aug slots down to 2 aug slots, then some players will have missing augs. Might only be safe to do that in T7+. Also going to use higher (white) damage values too.

Resist are going to start being a factor with Heroic stats increasing the cap over 1000 which is what would be needed to resist most NPC 'unresistable' spells.

For future and previous content I plan to make NPC's spells either single target and/or lower radius for AoE's. Also durations for stuff will probably reduce such as root, fear, charm, etc.

Seems PoFire had their mobs successfully 'leashed' without too much butt hurt. Next place to try that might be LDoN but with higher drop rates.

EZ Server is evolving for the better, esp with good feedback.

Thanks,

Hunter

Warriors are still tanks of choice live for heaviest hitters due to their superior mitigation, evasion, parry and dodge (no, dodge and evasion arent the same thing in EQ). I dont know if the base stats are the same here or not, but I know for a fact a warrior here without any discipline running will take less damage that an SK or pally. I also know that live a monk will take less damage w/o disc than an SK or pally, but that this isnt the case in EZ (perhaps the coding for monks here more resembles live pre monk "un-nerf").

Yeah, stonewall makes this gap between knight and warrior tanking larger. Honestly I dont see a problem with that. Yeah, any non "tank" class seems to eat it like a Klondike Bar when T5 mobs rampage. I dont think the answer is to make their tanking better. In fact I dont think Hunter needs to change much at all. I dont lose characters when fighting out of the water. No set of moveutils seems to be able to change this....any any I've tried just seem to make the issue worse, not better. I chalk it up to "underwater combat in EQ is f'd here, f'd live, has always been f'd and probably always will BE f'd". Dry side of T5 I dont lose players to rampage very often....and when I do its typically something I've done wrong. And yes, they are all 4.0 epic'd, not 4.5 or 5. And all in T4 armor (with a growing pile of T5). And so far nowhere near enough of them are UC'd.

Normally I am not a big proponent of offense in EQ....I tend to see the game as more of a smart defense being your best bet. But in T5....its all about the DPS. You wont be able to get a damned thing done without fast kills....and more chances of something fubaring the longer you dance with mobs that can smack ya for 90K and change. After spending my time in T5 I honestly believe that without proper positioning and right group makeup and the majority (if not all) of your characters at the VERY least with a lvl 50 in their primary charm, if not UC.....you're just jerking off. You need a solid dps crew to do T5.

As heretical as this sounds, can anyone give me a 10min parse for warrior with UC+, normal tank layout (Sword & board), Icestrike 5s (or better)?

Next, can anyone give me a 5 or 10 minute parse of being hit? I know this sounds odd, but can anyone go out and find a bunch of mobs to get hit? I am trying to get a handle on the average riposte rate.

I will need the parses too. Sorry to be so needy. If anyone have a warrior of similar gear level, would anyone mind allowing me access around 1am EST for about 30 minutes?

Lastly, the majority is still winning. The bossman even contributed saying he will likely keep things as they are. Poll has 5 more days, but it's looking like things will stay.

-Hate

And sorry, I only saw this page of the thread (long night at work). Sorry to rehash the same ground :D

Hate, regarding your post on pally agro. This wasnt an issue for me at all before nerd 4's were changed. At all. Its not much of an issue for me now, either, though.....if the warrior loses agro I hit the scepter a time or 2 and he's back on top. But then I changed my epic 1h I use with my uniweapon to hold 2 nerd 4's and a 5. I dont have an issue losing agro to a warrior. Or are you wanting pally agro to be less than SK agro?

I don't know how many more times I can state this... I am not trying to one up any single class. If you look at what I've done before and what I'm doing now, I am NOT trying to do so. Once one class becomes the top, everyone rushes to them (remember paladins?), then understandable adjustments were made by everyone, then everyone does the mass exodus.

For that matter, I don't run a paladin in my active group (and seldom at all, as I rarely even use group two). Healing is irrelevant to me as I'm either full HP, 80%, or dead. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground...ever.

The Nerds IV were changed 6 months ago (along with a VARIETY of other abilities) to account for the threat rollover. This occurred when a fight lasted too long. I'm glad that this didn't happen to most because their DPS was high enough to never hit it (I hit it once in a blue moon, but never enough to care). The sad reality is that it was hitting quite often on those not running a well played and/or well geared 5+ man team. It was also not rare enough to completely disregard. The threat reduction on the paladin proc is completely negated by Sorcerer 50 or Oracle 50. The only difference this would even make is that paladins are highly unlikely able to passively overthrow the MT except in EXTREME duration (7+ min) fights.


-Hate

You want a 10m parse of warrior dps and as good of a parse as can be obtained against a t6 named then?
I can afk my warrior which is about what you asked for, on the dummy for 10m x3 to generate 3 base parses and I can go throw War+Pal against some T6 trash and the first couple named to get some parses there as well.
Figure if its just war/pal the fights should last long enough to generate something worth catching with gamparse.

5.0 IS7/IS7/Nerd4 mainhand, SOTA XL offhand OR IS6/IS6/Nerd4 5.0 offhand.
No SM or IG pet, Dont use cleric click or buff (im lazy and shit doesnt last long enough for me to want to use it).

Let me know if that is what you want.
Can you get some parses of your SK for us when you get a chance Hate?
Just because I like to give you shit, doesnt mean I wont help with parses  ;D

If you want, I will be able to later tonight. This isn't actually thread related, but it might be useful in the way of future abilities/clickies.

>_>
<_<

-Hate

Something to keep in mind regarding knights.  Once a paladin or SK is beyond the one round scenario, the chance of dieing while tanking is between slim and none.  The ability to heal must be factored into any mitigation comparisons, imo.

Incidentally, my monk occasionally steals agro from my warrior and on a normal basis sits right behind him on the agro. In T6 on boss 5 I used to have to turn my attack off on my warrior occasionally. As soon as I turn it off, within just a few seconds my monk has agro. I don't believe my pally would be able to keep agro off of my monk unless I use the scepter clicky. If my warrior dies one of my monks gets agro and I have to spam the scepter over and over to take it with my pally. This is using 2 4's and 1 5.

If Paladin and SKs want to be main tanks so badly, we need to take away their dps. Plain and Simple.

Slightly off-topic, but not really.

Are people deleting their votes? We had 40, now 39.

Can anyone else confirm?


-Hate

Let me be clear... SKs in general did not ask to be main tanks.  One of them is starting a thread based on their own ideas and asking for input.

As for my input...  SK and Pally are perfectly aligned with Warriors in tanking ability as it stands now.  I believe that a wholesale drop in mitigation needs to happen across the board, to allow for lower mob dps in the future to make non-tanks a tad safer.  The only way it works is for the reduction to scale for all classes though.  It's a major overhaul, and definitely not something to be taken on while there are so many other changes in the works.

<3

Even if the majority said differently, this wasn't something for anytime soon. T7 soon and still feeling the effects of a source update that wholly revamped our loot system. Something this major requires across the board adjustments (mob damage, buffs numbers, etc etc). It would ALL have to be done at once or not at all.

Thank you Brokyn and thank those that have placed constructive input or criticism. This is why I started this cesspit instead of just writing up the changes, tossing to Hunter, then hoping for the best. These are too far reaching for me alone to make. The poll has ~5 days left. Although I feel the bulk of the intelligent input has already been placed (along with some less useful, more 'attack-like' input).

-Hate

And if there is to be a lessening across the board for mitigation and mob DPS, at what tiers will we see this reduction? Because honestly I dont think we should see any reduction earlier than T4....so would it be from the epic clicky that stonewall is reduced? Or would you reduce it on the other clickies (SOA, pets, etc) that it may be done across the board?

I'd rather not see the epic and dropped spell stonewalls dropped in strength. If anything, then the shield (mitigation boost plus shield block and all the extra hps ends up quite powerful) and the Halloween pets. I think dropping the core stonewall would make things quite rough for newer players advancing....and would especially make it harder to obtain the SOA.

Decided to vote and voted to leave things as they are..... one of my rules is : if it's not broken, dont fix it

No -- I don't want to feel safe at all in a new zone

Heh I shudder to think what might happen when you refuse to vaccinate your children because they aren't sick and refuse to fix your brakes until your car refuses to stop.

Despite the fact that the majority voted to leave it, the poll will still stay open because I'm still interested to see how things turn out. Due to this 'colorful' discussion, I've found a few interesting things. First, I have quite a few ideas for new clickies. Second, I have also broadened my understanding of tanking as a whole. Third, I learned more about a few people. :-P

Not all was lost from this. :-)

-Hate

As did we.

(http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/ss189/jdub1337/t6a_zps589f277f.jpg)



This seemed oddly appropriate.


But seriously T6 is just fine with Knight tanks lol  (and I'm sure knights will be fine in T7+)

Whats it matter? We're all gonna be dead Friday anyway :P

Overall dps is fine, I'd like to see stuff hit for less damage but faster/more accurately so I don't spend the first 70% of a fight at either 100% or 20% hp, and then randomly die.

All the classes current stonewall is around max of what I'm comfortable with, meaning we have no room for expanding on stonewall.

I'm fine with leaving stonewall values where they are, but that would mean no more increases to them. Would have to start focusing on other areas in higher tiers such as heals, death save, spell resist, extra HP, regen, etc.

Don't forget AC.

Yes, its on the list, AC too :)