New Warrior Changes, Xaices, Please Clarify

[Riggsen]

Warrior defensive stance is +5% block, not +15%. Yes, Warrior will have the best stances of the tank classes with these changes. You don't think there should be some sort of trade off for not having spells? And it's fine to say Warriors have an energy bar, but they don't have spell-like "hybrid" skills like someone mentioned, they have shouts and commands which last for a few seconds and with the exception of Roar of Rage and Strike Now (only available at 50), they are close to a waste of a mouse click. Warriors only really use energy on Power Attack, which in it's current incarnation, drains your entire energy bar in 10s flat.

Talking to a couple of the DKs in my guild, Shadow Meld definitely needs some attention (5% block at least), and Ebon Blade should probably have the 5% End penalty removed. But to say either is as bad as Warrior def stance is pretty misguided.

I've seen DKs solo 4-dot mobs in their equivalent of defensive stance, though talking to some about it on SV, it would be fair to say that's only certain mobs and with really nice gear. But it would also be fair to say that most DKs find blue 3-dot mobs fairly trivial, whereas they're well nigh impossible for a Warrior. Warriors were never meant to be a great solo class, and should *NOT* be able to solo as well as a DK, but my point is that even if we could always get a group, your lifetaps and debuffs would surely make it easier on a healer if we were both at the mitigation cap? Or are they a waste of time when you have a healer?

As far as aggro generation, even though I have superior gear, the DK in my guild I regularly group with takes aggro off me without trying, hence he's been MT for the guild since we were in our low 40s. Granted I also take aggro off him when I'm in offensive stance, but it's not as embarrassingly obvious as the other way around, principally because Warrior DPS in defensive stance is so utterly negligable (see my previous post). Getting rid of the 10% dps penalty on the Warrior def stance and adding a new finisher might level the playing field a little, enough that I might get to have a crack at being MT again. Warrior's offensive stance has always had reasonable DPS, so I've filled a nice offtank niche role in our static group, but it'd nice to have the *option* of going MT in the stance the Warrior was intended to tank with.

Removing the mitigation penalty from offensive might give us the option to solo 3-dots, but I didn't roll a warrior to solo (they've never been a viable solo class in any game I can think of). It's just something to make up for Paladin heals/buffs/auras/lull and DK lifetaps/debuffs, though personally I would have preferred a buff to commands, or as Venge said, the ability to open all of our chains from both stances rather than removing the penalties from them. But over at SV there was a lot of opposition to that concept. /shrug

Again, I'm curious that some of you guys seem upset about changes that haven't even gone live yet. Getting to 65% mit at level 50 is trivial with all 3 defensive fighters (EDIT: in their equivalent defensive stances), it's holding aggro that will count at the end of the day, and I can't see our defensive stance being all that great unless this new finisher is pretty uber. Time will tell I guess.

[Lynxal]

Originally Posted by Riggsen

You don't think there should be some sort of trade off for not having spells? And it's fine to say Warriors have an energy bar, but they don't have spell-like "hybrid" skills like someone mentioned, they have shouts and commands which last for a few seconds and with the exception of Roar of Rage and Strike Now (only available at 50), they are close to a waste of a mouse click. Warriors only really use energy on Power Attack, which in it's current incarnation, drains your entire energy bar in 10s flat.

You have "spells". I am not sure how you can't see that your abilities are performing the same functions as spells in a traditional sense. They came up with ways to justify it as shouts etc., but the end result is the exact same thing. You are using your energy bar to boost damage or generate hate. However, you have the added bonus of your "spells" not being negatively penalized for having subpar INT. INT max is not adjusted for a class so with our crappy INT comes crappy damage through our spells.

However if Warriors would like to continue to believe they don't have "spells" so they can make this "hybrid" argument about pallys and DKs then hopefully Sigil removes any ability you have that uses energy or moves them to drain your enudrance along with all your other abilities.

As far as waiting for the abilities to go live......these aren't test server notes like other games. They are prelude notes for a patch to come 2-3 days later which Sigil doesn't test in any way shape or form or there would be zero excuse for how many of these changes are implemented with bugs. These are going live.

[Blackfaith]

Sigil obviously wants Warriors to be the preffered tank, we get that and i have accepted it. Our class is getting weaker by the day. Why would anyone want a Dk as their tank over a warrior? Cause we can life tap a bit? You dont need that when you have a healer for crying out loud. Congrats all of you that took a Lesser Giant and chose a war. You WILL be the main tank in all guilds.

Every person i know takes a warrior over a DK anyday for tanking and would rather have a pally for their Lull. What can we do? shadowstep behind a mob? Big friggin deal, that only screwes your placement of mobs anyway.

I got 50 Last night and trained Bane. If i could i would delete it from my spellbook, thats gotta be the most useless spell i have EVER seen in any MMO/Game.

I already forsee myself standing on the sideline when we start raiding and having all the warriors tank everything.

Anyway maybe ill just start mining rather then playing the actual game cause its lame when you know your the weakest link in the tank group.

[Riggsen]

You have "spells". I am not sure how you can't see that your abilities are performing the same functions as spells in a traditional sense. They came up with ways to justify it as shouts etc., but the end result is the exact same thing. You are using your energy bar to boost damage or generate hate.

I'm not going to argue semantics with you mate. You can call 'em spells if you like. Whatever floats your boat. The fact of the matter is they don't stack up against what DKs and Paladins call spells, the proof of the pudding being that quite a number of Warriors I've known from EQ and EQ2 have re-rolled as DKs or Paladins, where I don't see anyone queuing up to be the class that can't hit for more than 800 with a heroic weapon at level 50 in defensive stance and has to run for their life if they get an add while soloing 2-dots. A guy with good perspective is Mortezzah, look up posts by him on SV, he's got all 3 defensive fighter classes up to level 40ish. His conclusion is that Pal > DK slightly, and Warrior is left in the dust. But hey, what would he know. :roll:

However, you have the added bonus of your "spells" not being negatively penalized for having subpar INT. INT max is not adjusted for a class so with our crappy INT comes crappy damage through our spells.

I'm fairly confident that Warriors would take a crappy INT lifetap and spells / abilties that enable DKs to hold aggro properly or solo 4-dots. But hey, it's not too late to re-roll a Warrior, seeing as you're convinced the grass is greener on the other side. Yes, DKs have broken abilties, Warriors have a broken class - big difference there.

However if Warriors would like to continue to believe they don't have "spells" so they can make this "hybrid" argument about pallys and DKs then hopefully Sigil removes any ability you have that uses energy or moves them to drain your enudrance along with all your other abilities.

Or maybe we can just wait and see how the patch pans out and stop trying to nuke fixes for other classes we know nothing about?

As far as waiting for the abilities to go live......these aren't test server notes like other games. They are prelude notes for a patch to come 2-3 days later which Sigil doesn't test in any way shape or form or there would be zero excuse for how many of these changes are implemented with bugs. These are going live.

Agreed on the bugs. They should be tested for longer. But have you seen these changes in action? What level is your Warrior again? Or have you developed your omniscience from just reading patch notes?

[Venge]

Actually, I've tested every last one of the warrior changes. I know what's right and what's not. It'll get fixed before live. Things of this magnitude don't go without some form of testing.

[Warhead]

Haha Warrior class is broken because they cant solo? Like Blackfaith said, you will be tanking all the dam mobs in game, so you have to group to 50.. big deal. Did you ever play a warrior in EQ1? Were they broken then? Once you hit 50 you will not give a dam about our stupid ass life taps. Little does Sigil know, I hold the trump card. The second I get a sniff that DKs are second class tanks, subcription is canceled.

[Riggsen]

Sigil obviously wants Warriors to be the preffered tank, we get that and i have accepted it. Our class is getting weaker by the day. Why would anyone want a Dk as their tank over a warrior? Cause we can life tap a bit? You dont need that when you have a healer for crying out loud. Congrats all of you that took a Lesser Giant and chose a war. You WILL be the main tank in all guilds.

Don't know how you came to that conclusion. My guild has plenty of experienced folks from the EQ Kunark era, and the MT in our guild is a Qaliathari Human DK. Lesser Giant definitely has the edge racially because STR>all, I don't dispute that. I chose a dwarf Warrior and have +3con +1wis for my racial levelling allocation. ops:

But as for Warrior being the preferred tank? I know of only one guild on my server (Targonor) where a warrior is MT, and that's because he's level 50, and his compatriots are not. The MT of choice at the moment is actually the Paladin, which isn't all that surprising since they're the most "finished" class. Warriors are the least preferred, since they're the least finished class. Again, not surprising. The next patch may actually allow Warriors to hold aggro in defensive stance effectively, where at the moment it's extremely difficult because our DPS is less than 1/3 (yes, less than 1/3) of what it is in offensive stance, and our hate generation abilities scale well with DPS classes 30 levels below us. Case in point, Taunt 1 at level 10 scales well at 96 hate with DPS classes hitting for 200-300, Taunt 5 at level 50 does nothing at 276 hate with DPS classes hitting for 3-4k.

This is not, I might add, a problem that is exclusive to the Warrior class. Hate generation abilities need a buff across all three defensive fighter classes. But the fact is, it's most glaringly obvious on the Warrior, who doesn't have the DPS to contribute to his hate in defensive stance, largely because of broken finishers. The fact of the matter is that aggro generation on DK and Paladin stomp on Warrior unless the Warrior is in offensive stance, where while he has the best DPS of all three tank classes (as he should with the least utility), he also has hands down the worst mitigation of all three tank classes, even wearing a shield.

Every person i know takes a warrior over a DK anyday for tanking.

Does telling blatant lies make you feel better about yourself? In the end game, all tank classes reach the mitigation cap of 65% relatively easily. It's aggro and utility that make all the difference. You're level 50 yourself, you should know that? DK and Paladin can hold aggro a lot easier than Warriors because they actually have viable finisher chains in their respective defensive stances, where the Warrior has 2 on 30s cooldowns, one of which is bugged and can actually subtract mitigation, the other adding a pitiful amount of hate.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the way the game has been designed, DPS is a huge part of aggro generation. And while Warriors may have more DPS in offensive stance than the Paladin or DK, our defensive stance (the one we're supposed to tank with) has probably less than half of your DPS. Find a warrior with an equivalent DPS weapon to you, and compare the numbers. He'll beat you for DPS in offensive stance (vs your Ebon Blade), but you'll thrash him senseless if he's in defensive (in any of your stances). I know there's plenty of idiots over on SV, but some of our idiots have done these tests - and if the site was up now, I'd link them for you. :evil:

What does a Warrior who can't hold aggro at level 45-50 bring to a group over a DK who can, with the exact same mitigation? Enlighten me.

I got 50 Last night and trained Bane. If i could i would delete it from my spellbook, thats gotta be the most useless spell i have EVER seen in any MMO/Game.

Oh no, you have a useless skill! It's the end of the world! Every class has useless skills mate. It's part and parcel of a game that was released prematurely. All Warriors are asking is that you push for your useless skills to be buffed rather than whining about changes to our class, which clearly you know nothing about.

[Riggsen]

Haha Warrior class is broken because they cant solo? Like Blackfaith said, you will be tanking all the dam mobs in game, so you have to group to 50.. big deal. Did you ever play a warrior in EQ1? Were they broken then? Once you hit 50 you will not give a dam about our stupid ass life taps.

Warriors were the superior tank in EQ1.... no one's arguing that. But in EQ1 the reason Warriors were the best tank was because they were on a different mitigation table. In VG, they're on the same mitigation table. Granted stances will modify that, but as discussed, it's pretty trivial for all 3 defensive fighter classes to hit the cap at level 50. Aggro generation and utility will be the deciding factor of who is the "best" tank. And I honestly hope there is no "best" tank.

Little does Sigil know, I hold the trump card. The second I get a sniff that DKs are second class tanks, subcription is canceled.

Wow, that's some trump card. I'm sure the guys at Sigil are shaking in their collective boots. :roll:

[Lynxal]

Originally Posted by Riggsen

I'm fairly confident that Warriors would take a crappy INT lifetap and spells / abilties that enable DKs to hold aggro properly or solo 4-dots. But hey, it's not too late to re-roll a Warrior, seeing as you're convinced the grass is greener on the other side. Yes, DKs have broken abilties, Warriors have a broken class - big difference there.

I can't solo a 4-dot because of lifetaps. If I can straight up tank a 4-dot then the 4-dot is trivial and a waste of my time. The only way I can take a solo 4-dot is if it's a melee not a caster and can't stun or snare me. We can solo them because of snare and fear though largely because of snare.

I never said anything about the grass being greener, nor even implied. I have no desire to play a warrior, it's not my preference. I do have a desire to re-roll as a lesser giant after they completely changed stats and had I been able to play during the double exp weekends I would have taken advantage and re-rolled. Had I known they would allow Vulmane to STILL be broken this long after live and prevent me from raising str and dex more than 3 points a level I would have started over as well.

My point was simple. Every class in this game is a "hybrid." Every class is balanced around using endurance and energy. Even casters are required to manage their endurance. This argument I see constantly about spells and utility is a cop out and that is what I have a problem with. It's an old non-specific argument being brought to a game where it doesn't belong. What specific utility ability does the DK bring to every group that is so game changing no one wants a warrior?

[Azgod]

I sense something is amiss when the amount of warrior posts compete with the number of DK posts :shock: . I pretty much concurr with Meld he is a :idea: .

P.S. for Rigg, A warrior without a BoC or SoD was ipso facto offtanking if grouped with a Paly or DK. I played a warrior in EQ and chose DK for VG, why? I spent hundreds of hours LFG being unable to solo while getting passed over by lesser geared hybrids.

Warrior shouts are spells. Semantics shemantics

Is DK utility > warrior utility, I think so, but the price should not be mitigation. The key to tanking is #1 hate generation #2 mitigation; utility is a far distant 3rd. With these stance changes only a class partisan would argue that DK's are not at a clear disadvantage compared to warriors and palies in one of the "key" requirements for a tank.