"Warriors who choose defense automatically receive a buff when entering the dungeon. This is a temporary buff that will be gradually reduced with each patch until we update the planned improvements to tanking skills for the warrior.
30 percent decrease in damage received.
40 percent increase in aggro acquired.
70 percent increase in endurance."
This is their way of saying sorry, we should of added the ability for the warrior to wear heavy armor. What genius thought that medium armor would be great for tanking? Just give us the ability to use heavy armor already EME, were getting block soon, and there wont be alot of jumping around with that. Its just silly warriors cant wear heavy armor.
As a warrior, I would like to say "please don't do this" to the OP's suggestion.
EDIT: And to spectral's comment. I also do not know why some berserkers think it's such a good idea to have two tanks with the exact same avoidance mechanic in the game.
As a warrior, I would like to say "please don't do this" to the OP's suggestion.
EDIT: And to spectral's comment. I also do not know why some berserkers think it's such a good idea to have two tanks with the exact same avoidance mechanic in the game.
several things would have happened.
1. Lancers would not be kicking zerkers and zerkers would not be seen as the ugly child in the room
2. Warriors would not now be getting more love than any class in the game and be the most flexible class due to people wanting to DPS as a warrior as well. Hence they receive two stances.
3. Queue times would be shorter as there would have been 2 tanks from the beginning
4. People would be a lot happier, with less class hate as it would be easier to balance the two classes.
5. Warriors would not be getting lancers kicked out of parties creating a community that has more class hate than any I've seen.
As, blocking is pretty standard, and, they could have added some type of parry mechanic to zerkers as well. Since their attacks are slow, parry the enemy attack giving time to land a massive strike. Evasion dodge tanking was always just a gimmick envisioned as an innovation due to the nature of the combat system that they've had to try very hard to make work. It's like saying Mystics shouldn't get lock-on heals because that's way too similar to a priest. Instead they have to be a bard class that plays aoe song heals just for the community to accept the class as not another copy cat.
As a warrior, I would like to say "please don't do this" to the OP's suggestion.
EDIT: And to spectral's comment. I also do not know why some berserkers think it's such a good idea to have two tanks with the exact same avoidance mechanic in the game.
several things would have happened.
1. Lancers would not be kicking zerkers and zerkers would not be seen as the ugly child in the room
2. Warriors would not now be getting more love than any class in the game and be the most flexible class due to people wanting to DPS as a warrior as well. Hence they receive two stances.
3. Queue times would be shorter as there would have been 2 tanks from the beginning
4. People would be a lot happier, with less class hate as it would be easier to balance the two classes.
5. Warriors would not be getting lancers kicked out of parties creating a community that has more class hate than any I've seen.
As, blocking is pretty standard, and, they could have added some type of parry mechanic to zerkers as well. Since their attacks are slow, parry the enemy attack giving time to land a massive strike. Evasion dodge tanking was always just a gimmick envisioned as an innovation due to the nature of the combat system that they've had to try very hard to make work. It's like saying Mystics shouldn't get lock-on heals because that's way too similar to a priest. Instead they have to be a bard class that plays aoe song heals just for the community to accept the class as not another copy cat.
It would have been nearly the exact same class. Why not just role a lancer?
First off, these buffs are temporary, and I don't know why but the 70% endurance does not work. 30% reduced damage is what I see from the damage I normally tank and the stat is not added onto our character information.
Next, you seem to think that a Warrior couldn't tank everything in this game, currently. That is simply plain wrong, and evasion tanking works well. The problem lies in how they made certain bosses and BAMS.
I agree with you that Warriors shouldn't get a block, I would have thought (and so did others) that they would get a skill that parries an attack and stuns the target (100% chance). The reason? To stop those bosses that simply attack to many times, or ones with multiple slow moves that even DFA can't evade all.
Block was just an easy way out, and I don't like it either.
On a side note, making encounters actually view the person with the highest aggro as tank would vastly improve many fights, most notable in BT.
1. Lancers would not be kicking zerkers and zerkers would not be seen as the ugly child in the room
This is fixed by warrior tanking and fixing berserker DPS mechanics.
Spectral on 07/05/2012, 09:44 AM
2. Warriors would not now be getting more love than any class in the game and be the most flexible class due to people wanting to DPS as a warrior as well. Hence they receive two stances.
Let's just note this argument as you supporting berserkers being tank-only. I will be referencing this later on as necessary.
Also, QoA is also a balancing patch. i've already heard discussions of re-balancing warrior damage taken and stuns in PvP (can't verify the authenticity of this, but if it's true then it's a significant nerf to warrior PvP abilities in exchange for the "warrior love"), while a berserker is getting buffs to charge time and UA with no nerfs in sight. For all that matters, lancers are getting buffed too, so I don't quite know about this "more love" thing - especially if it's on a later patch that we have very little information about.
Spectral on 07/05/2012, 09:44 AM
3. Queue times would be shorter as there would have been 2 tanks from the beginning
You're right. Having two very easy tank-exclusive (because clearly, given your argument against warrior DPS before, you want berserkers to be Tank-only) classes that are basically the same class with different weapons will solve everything.
Fortunately though, the queue problem seems to be solved, so I guess this is no longer a complaint as-is, right =p?
Spectral on 07/05/2012, 09:44 AM
4. People would be a lot happier, with less class hate as it would be easier to balance the two classes.
...what? Also, by balancing the classes, do you mean making them the same =p? There are quite a bit of bias either against priests (statics) or mystics (pugs) even right now.
Spectral on 07/05/2012, 09:44 AM
5. Warriors would not be getting lancers kicked out of parties creating a community that has more class hate than any I've seen.
What the heck is this and how is it resolved by having berserkers as tank?
Spectral on 07/05/2012, 09:44 AM
As, blocking is pretty standard, and, they could have added some type of parry mechanic to zerkers as well. Since their attacks are slow, parry the enemy attack giving time to land a massive strike. Evasion dodge tanking was always just a gimmick envisioned as an innovation due to the nature of the combat system that they've had to try very hard to make work. It's like saying Mystics shouldn't get lock-on heals because that's way too similar to a priest. Instead they have to be a bard class that plays aoe song heals just for the community to accept the class as not another copy cat.
The entire argument sounds pretty much like "I don't like evasion tanking, therefore it is not valid and should be replaced." There's nothing in-game that supports the "very hard to make work" argument other than warriors actually requiring skill to pull off, so I don't know why you're calling it a gimmick.
A single lock-on heal means nothing - the fundamentals of the priest any mystic classes are very much different. A good priest spends a lot of time debuffing her enemies, uses the circle heal very often, and reserves her lock-ons for emergencies. A mystic spends a lot of time organizing skittles in well-organized formations, relies on the lock-on heal a lot more, and looks for opportunities to catch party members together within a 22-second or so window for titanic wrath. Both of them having a lock-on heal changes very little because of how different their class plays even at their primary jobs. Even if we talk just about healing, a good priest uses her circles and rarely relies on the lock-on, while a mystic uses both the lock-on and the skittles regularly.
Blocking is THE main mechanic of tanking. Having that exact same mechanic shared by lancers and berserkers basically mean that as far as tanking is concerned, berserkers are basically lancers that maybe need to pop a vampiric blow every so often. Both of them stay in one place; both hold block when an attack is coming. Berserkers use charged attacks, yes, but giving that charge attacks are terrible for tanking, they would have to change all of the berserker's mechanics to instant as well if they don't want a flood of a thousand zerks complaining about a charge aggro skill in BT. Net result: berserkers are more-or-less the same class as lancers.
Giving berserkers the ability to DPS, of course, puts them at the same position as warriors now, which I understand that you are quite vehemently against. (And yes, I do agree that warriors should not have gotten a block, but meh).
You also seem to think that if they made warriors DPS and berserkers tanks, then they would magically get everything right on the first try. This is also not guaranteed to be the case, either.
I have proposed ways they could make berserkers tanks while keeping the "variety in classes" approach that BHS has been upholding for all this time. It involves something along the lines of restructuring the entire class in a much more significant way than warriors, including:
1. The removal of ALL charge abilities. You are not going to use them in tanking, so they are DPS only. Rather, berserkers will need at least an entire set of tanking aggro skills that do low damage and are instant cast. They'll also need
2. Modification of the berserker mana mechanic. Gaining mana on block is OP as a tank since it means permablocking. Mana drain is a terrible feature for tanks. Berserkers will need the warrior/lancer mana regen system with an actual costly block.
3. If you keep berserker DPS (I understand you're against this, so I'm only mentioning this as a side note), then berserker AoEs will need to be heavily nerfed. In particular, cyclone needs a major nerfing, as warriors currently do not have the aoe potential that should be reserved for DPS classes.
4. Block honestly needs to go. It violates the unique classes that BHS has been going for. I've suggested a parrying system that requires a 0.5 second precision (based off of sword Lanns in vindictus) and knocks the berserker in a designated direction on stronger hits (so a side-swipe would knock a berserker to the other side), forcing constant repositioning. This will be a low-cooldown defense so it can be spammed, but block will no longer be available.
And even then, you now face a new set of problems:
1. Heavy armor is now tank-only. As there is only one tank in the party at all times, heavy armor now has no competition whatsoever whereas all of the armor types will meet stiff competitions at all times.
2. Going off on your berserkers as only tanks ideal, everyone attracted to the berserker's mechanic now will no longer play the zerk since, well, it's now a tank-only class. This will not solve the queue problem as the people that were playing lancer is now playing lancer/zerk, while the people that used to play and enjoy zerk (as a dps, mind you) will now be playing . It's even worse if you leave blocking as the main mechanic, in fact.
3. Berserkers will still be inferior tanks than lancers.
It would have been nearly the exact same class. Why not just role a lancer?
Just because the classes would share the block mechanic doesn't mean they can't have enough individuality and uniqueness that would set them apart as different classes.
Next, you seem to think that a Warrior couldn't tank everything in this game, currently. That is simply plain wrong, and evasion tanking works well. The problem lies in how they made certain bosses and BAMS.
It's evident by how much work they've had to do with warriors that it's not such an easy mechanic to balance out. It's been over a year and the warrior's core mechanics are still changing. Will the end result in totality eventually be better than if they had just created zerkers as a tanking class? That's just what I was wondering.
I agree with you that Warriors shouldn't get a block, I would have thought (and so did others) that they would get a skill that parries an attack and stuns the target (100% chance). The reason? To stop those bosses that simply attack to many times, or ones with multiple slow moves that even DFA can't evade all.
Warriors were given too much love when they had two stances, something no other class in the game has. This was simply due to people complaining and wanting the warrior to be DPS and not tank. So now it has this warped identity compared to the other classes.. especially now with block in place, it can only be defined as ? to me.