Fighter Class RevampFollow

I checked out the test server notes, and I like alot of the changes that I saw. I have yet to actually test the changes, but I plan on doing that sometime today or tomorrow (over the weekend at the latest). Hopefully they got it balanced nicely, but my initial reaction is that it looks good.

well, did some research earlier today.

Let's put it this way. Plate tanks: Stances will be important now, more than ever before. Offensive stances: taunts become detaunts. Defensive stances: Taunts increase in power. avoidance tanks (brawlers): same for your primary offensive and defensive stances, however, the "combo" stance (combination of offensive and defensive) provides no bonus or penalty to your taunts.

There is now a new bar above the mobs. You still have the Health bar, and the power bar right below that, but now, right below the power bar is an "aggro" bar that can help you track how much aggro you have. Now, granted, I did this on my plate tanks (my main and main alt, both copied from the live server a while back), and I was forced to do this solo, but when in the defensive stance, the bar was present because I was constantly building aggro. when I was in the offensive stance, the bar disappeared quickly because I constantly "de-taunting".

This, combined with the actual hate/threat messages, will, I'm quite sure, add one more thing for the parsers to go ga-ga over and try to prove who is better and who is not. However, this is also a good thing and can help groups form up that can now get away from "we have a tank, we don't need any other fighters" mindset, since other fighters will be able to go offensive and not have to worry about grabbing aggro from the MT, or switch to defensive (or just shut off the stances) to grab adds if the off-tank.

ok, now to get to the second major changes to the fighter classes. I, honestly, don't know how they are judging how to set up the quality of the spells that remain (go off that base ability/spell, or take the highest quality from all the abilities/spells combined into that one), but it does clear up alot of hotbar space, and reduces the amount of time to rebuff. This does have some added benefit for classes like the guardian which has alot of "ally buffs" and temporary buffs which require hot bar slots, so any free slots available are always a good thing.

Do I think that all these changes are a good thing? I really can't say right now since getting a group on the test server is nigh-on impossible. From what I have seen, though, alot of thought was put into these changes, in an attempt to make sure that nothing was out of whack, over-powered, or weakened too much. I do have some screenshots of the "hate/threat" messages when I was on my guardian (one in offensive stance, one in defensive stance), so if anyone is interested in seeing something like that, just let me know and I will see what I can do.

ok, there's my 2cp, based on what I have seen on the test server. take it or leave it, that's your choice now.

Doesn't seem all that much of a change, but I suppose things like this have to be experienced firsthand to really see a difference. Just seems that monks will keep aggro easier now. Which is handy.

Less aggro when offtanking should create some problems though, going to have to switch rapidly and a lot between stances in some cases.

Chimp, have you tested us in Offstance? Is Offstance tanking still feasible? For solo'ing/small grouping is Offstance still efficient and overall how does our Offstance DPS compare post-change to our Defstance DPS now?

Edit - Or anyone who happens to be on Test

Edited, Jan 17th 2009 9:12am by Stugein

Detaunting is fine. I don't mind so much. More worried about solo'ing. I usually solo in defstance. Let's me take ^'s and the occasional ^^ without worry. Hoping that doesn't totally go out the window in offstance now

ok, Stu, you wanted some hard numbers, here you go. level 71 SK against level 68 Drolvarg Scavengers (all had the same look, so guessing same archtype script). HP were a little different with each on, but that's a given, so not EXACTLY the same, but close.

No Stance - DPS = 496, threat increase of 11406.

Off. Stance - DPS = 521, threat decrese of 10691

Def. Stance - DPS = 432, threat increase of 29809

So, there you go. Off. Stance DPS is about 25pts higher/sec than no stance, but you wind up sacrificing almost as much hate as you would have gained with no stance. Def. Stance is a little over 60 pts less/sec than no stance, but you more than double, almost triple your threat. mind you, all three encounters took about 30 sec (no stance and off stance), with the def. stance being a little longer (about 35 sec.), but you can start to see the over all progression.

To answer your questions, with the given data, yes, you will do quite a bit lower DPS in Def. Stance compared to No stance or Off. Stance. so if soloing, I would say Off. Stance or no stance. if duo or trio, take your pick of the three.

Now, I'm not an expert on small groups like that, as most of the groups I get in are full, or mostly full, groups, or I solo. Therefore, I cannot, with any sort of real insight, offer suggestions for the best course of action to take regarding Duos and Trios, I'm just here to provide the hard data (at least from my personal prospective, given the tools available to me (spell qualities, level of my character, etc.) and the luck of the RNG). Others might have a different experience, so do not take this as "gospel truth". someone asked for some numbers to consider, so I provided.

Offensive stance turns all your taunts into de-taunts. So, for example, lets use the generic "taunt" ability. This ability increases your threat by x-y amount (yes, that's a range there). if you were in the offensive stance it would read that using that ability will REDUCE your threat by x-y amount.

I can't explain the full reasons why SOE did this, because, in all honesty, if I'm tanking a group, I'm usually in defensive stance anyway, and if I'm not tanking, I'm in offensive. that's just the way that I play. I'm willing to bet that the reason is somewhere within that right there, but I'm not certain at all. but this is the way it is going down.

no stance - no change to your taunts
Defensive stance - increases the threats generated by taunts, kicks, and anything else that directly effects threat
Offensive stance - turns your taunts into de-taunts, generating negative threat when using your taunts, kicks, and anything else that directly effects threat.

I still can not believe this is correct. Basic question - How can 'taunt' reduce aggro? Maybe they have a different dictionary than I. How will this effect my berserker? My damage output holds hate fairly easy. I'm in no way saying that you have incorrect information, its just this 'system' is unbelievable. With the dps reduction it said fighters were getting, and now forced to group in def-stance - why would we then even need off-stance. I still dont understand the earlier part. In off-stance i do more damage, but i lose aggro. So given that, any other group member would lose hate with their damage. I'm at a loss. Maybe when it is in effect I will see it better in a new light.

If you hadn't seen it, Aeralik posted a good explanation of the Hate changes here: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?&topic_id=441439

No point in getting hung up on stuff like what the mechanic is called.

But yeah. In a group or raid as MT, OffStance would be a bad idea. Solo or duo or in a DPS role in a group or backup tank role, it would do just fine. It'll take some doing but eventually everyone will noodle out the particulars. I envision a lot more stance dancing than goes on now.

Personally I feel my stomach churning. As a zerker I really enjoyed offensive stance tanking, and found taunts were still important for grabbing and holding aggro. Mind you I'd go defensive for tougher stuff. But merging my defense-like buffs into a defense stance I fear will make me like paper and especially will do no good when I'm duo-ing, which is what I do most. We want to be able to kill stuff fast but if my taunts becomes detaunts (wtf!!) how am I supposed to protect my squishy friend. The reverse also holds true. Merging the buffs into stances is just a huge mistake.

One of the thing I liked about fighters were that they were so diverse... now I feel they will be cookie cutouts, all the same.

If they wanted to make it more interactive or whatever it is they claim, why not tweak it so that buffs from dps classes give less hate to the tank or tweak the way the dps of a tank gains aggro, eg the new CA of a tank gains less hate then the current CA of a brig.

If they wanted to do something productive, why not do something about stuff like Magi's Shielding for wizards, that has no upgrades, no way to gain a better version of it as you do with stuff that has apps/adepts etc, and make it into a passive spell that's always on and not wasting a hotbar slot and time casting it after death.