#1 requirement for Warriors in a new game setting?

[Racci]

Based almost exclusively on EQ1 knowledge, the most important charactoristic of the player behind the toon (warriors) at low levels of a new game when everyone is still learning how to play thier classes will be "Stubborness". All the other tank classes will at least appear to be better in everyway. Finding groups will be a pain consistantly. When someone dies in the group it will be you. A warrior needs to rely constantly on other players for everything from heals, buffs and travel.
I will play a warrior when Vanguard goes live and the only reason I can come up with for it is I am just too stubborn to play a pally.
Anyone that is about to play thier first MMORPG I highly recommend a different path. For a 1st timer I would suggest a Rog, monk or wizard. Not to say that these classes are easy to play properly but they are definately easier then the warriors and far more forgiving when learning.

and my Question of the day:
Will there be Race/Class bonuses and penalties not just stat wise but in exp gained etc?

See you all in game soon!

Racci
Lvl 0 Warrior
Server not yet determined

[XeroKill]

Suggesting first timers to play Rogues or other high DPS classes will cause more trouble for us than it will for them. If you think about it, you are not likely to group with other Tanks since the standard group tends to be Tank / Healer / DPS. So a person that has never played and starts a tank is not likely to ever cause you a problem, but a DPSer that has no clue about restraint is going to cause you no end of grief as they constantly take agro, die, and complain.

I for one think most newbies should start as tanks, that way I am not as likely to encounter them.

:twisted:

[BadYeti]

A good post and I'm looking forward to reading more of your thoughts when the game goes live.

But I'm not sure that I agree with some of this advice, at least as it relates to Vanguard. Specific comments follow:

Originally Posted by Racci

All the other tank classes will at least appear to be better in everyway.

There were plenty of times in beta where the other tanks had even more trouble holding aggro than Warriors. It's hard to speculate where the balance will fall come release (since Sigil is changing so many things so rapidly), but Warriors weren't really looked down upon during beta. At least not that I ever saw.

Finding groups will be a pain consistantly.

Groups were generally somewhat hard to find during beta since the game is so solo-friendly, at least into the 30's. Additionally, the LFG/LFM features are somewhat lacking.

That said, tanks were the second-easiest archetype to find groups, following healers. The tank classes in Vanguard, at least for the first half of the game, frustrated a lot of casual would-be tanks and their numbers past the early levels were very limited. Of all the groups I was in while playing my warrior, I think only a couple of times was I in a group with more than one tank. And when playing my healer, most of my groups had to go without a tank.

When someone dies in the group it will be you.

I actually didn't find this to be true. At least from my experience most of the times when people died were due to getting more adds than the group's CC capacity. Deaths came when the tank was unable to hold aggro over more than one mob, since at least up to mid-level they had no multi-target attacks or taunts and only one four-second rescue on a twelve-second timer. In these cases usually it was a Bloodmage or DPSer who died, while the tank was doing his best, but failing, to grab aggro over the add.

Again, this could easily change as Sigil tweaks the relative damage and hate generation of all the classes.

A warrior needs to rely constantly on other players for everything from heals, buffs and travel.

I completely agree. The warrior was, by far, the most group dependent character I played in beta. Their soloability is absolutely dwarfed by most of the other classes.

For a 1st timer I would suggest a Rog, monk or wizard.

Rogues are actually not very solid classes at the moment, especially not for first-time players.

Rangers, disciples, shaman and cleric are probably the most self-sufficient and "easiest" classes to play for a new player to get their feet wet and learn the game in relative safety. They are also some of the best solo classes, which could be handy for new players trying to ease into the game.

Will there be Race/Class bonuses and penalties not just stat wise but in exp gained etc?

Nope. All races and classes gain XP at the same rate.

[XeroKill]

I actually didn't find this to be true. At least from my experience most of the times when people died were due to getting more adds than the group's CC capacity. Deaths came when the tank was unable to hold aggro over more than one mob, since at least up to mid-level they had no multi-target attacks or taunts and only one four-second rescue on a twelve-second timer. In these cases usually it was a Bloodmage or DPSer who died, while the tank was doing his best, but failing, to grab aggro over the add.

Again, this could easily change as Sigil tweaks the relative damage and hate generation of all the class

This is one of the things that bothered me at the early levels and made me want to solo more. Before we get any kind of AE control over the battle field it can be quite difficult to be effective in the lower level dungeon areas. Since they are designed around grouping and all, most of the encounters come with 2 or 3 adds. Since the tanks can't do anything to actually taunt or other wise aggravate a large crowd, the healers find themselves in trouble a lot. This tends to leave a bad taste in some peoples mouths and they will inevitably blame the tank for it. Whether they blame us out loud or make a mental note, it will only serve to ultimately diminish us.

Early level grouping can be fraught with problems all based on agro control over large groups. I feel this needs to be resolved and soon. Is there anything wrong with giving us an AE taunt at like level 10 or so? Would that really be so upsetting?

The funny thing is, I can remember in EQ1 it all seemed so easy without having AE taunts. Having played a SK for 6 years, I never really thought about everything that went into grouping. Of course, there it was easy to pull singles, so at most you only ever had to deal with a couple adds. Here they intentionally position them close together, and make it nearly impossible to split them up using conventional means.

[BadYeti]

I've got to say I actually like the current aggro management balance in the game. We got some nice boosts since I wrote that prior comment, and I like where we're at, at least up to the low 20s. I can't comment on current balance beyond that.

I actually hope they keep it fairly challenging, and requiring group coordination/effort rather than allowing for overly convenient AoE aggro control.

Even pre-20, you have one command that can drop your healer from the hate list and usually pops you to the top, one shout that can force a mob's attention on you, one rescue that does the same, one hate over time finisher, an energy based aggro builder, and a couple of decent endurance based ones. Throw in kick, and your abilities that allow you to force finishers and counterattacks, and you've got some challenging and tactical gameplay.

[dancingbear]

I have a totally different experience about group encouter. I found them to be the funnest part of tanking. If it's too much for the group as a whole, death will occur, but hardly anyone would blame it on warrior really.