A Hill Worth Dying On

I do play a tank build and I do build a lot of taunt generation, but that doesn't require me to focus heavily on specific abilities to taunt, as I detailed previously. I believe you are mistaken here. Unarmed increase the taunt of ALL my abilities by 160%, so I don't understand why you keep saying I need to focus on specific abilities to generate aggro: I do not.


I dont understand how my build sounds like a DPS build when my modifications are designed to hold aggro and replenish health. I mean, I have to use the damage mods on knee kick and bodyslam because my unarmed is limited in that I also use a sword, but for the most part I completely foresake high damage skills, including decapitate and precision pierce. So again, when in a group I am the one receiving damage and maintaining aggro (even in Gaz/FR), which obviously qualifies me as DPS?


I literally tested this about 20 minutes ago and the curse did not affect my ability to hold aggro at all. I intentionally wiped my group without telling them (sorry guys!) so I could test this theory. I will say this though, it totally fucked up the rage loop (if you keep using rage control abilities they never get to use rage attacks, even if the rage control is only -1) on the droaches. So, that is definitely something that I would be losing if evasion was implemented, and I am willing to sacrifice.

edit: double post

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Originally Posted by Roekai

I do play a tank build and I do build a lot of taunt generation, but that doesn't require me to focus heavily on specific abilities to taunt, as I detailed previously. I believe you are mistaken here. Unarmed increase the taunt of ALL my abilities by 160%, so I don't understand why you keep saying I need to focus on specific abilities to generate aggro: I do not.


I dont understand how my build sounds like a DPS build when my modifications are designed to hold aggro and replenish health. I mean, I have to use the damage mods on knee kick and bodyslam because my unarmed is limited in that I also use a sword, but for the most part I completely foresake high damage skills, including decapitate and precision pierce. So again, when in a group I am the one receiving damage and maintaining aggro (even in Gaz/FR), which obviously qualifies me as DPS?


I literally tested this about 20 minutes ago and the curse did not affect my ability to hold aggro at all. I intentionally wiped my group without telling them (sorry guys!) so I could test this theory. I will say this though, it totally fucked up the rage loop (if you keep using rage control abilities they never get to use rage attacks, even if the rage control is only -1) on the droaches. So, that is definitely something that I would be losing if evasion was implemented, and I am willing to sacrifice.

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I'm sorry to say, but the more I hear about your build the less sense it makes to me.

In my personal experience, when I tank I have to compete with people who start with 5k+ damage nukes constantly, if not more. The idea that you're keeping up with moves that simply hit for 800-1200 without any sort of taunt that doesn't ignore mitigation makes no sense. If you're pulling as a tank, your 800-1200 damage moves shouldn't even hurt the target very much if they have full armor, and if damage is the only way you're taunting then I can't understand how you're keeping up aggro mathematically unless if the rest of your team is heavily under-geared and cannot out damage a player who has not only built a skill combination that doesn't have very high damage potential, but has also spent mod slots on cantrips.

Furthermore, you use Gazluk and Fae Realm as your examples for tanking. Sword has some elemental resistance from finishing blow, but that elemental resists only lasts for a few seconds, while unarmed gives you zero defense against elemental enemies, and elemental resistance is fairly important in Gazluk and incredibly important in the Fae Realm. The only way I could see you lasting that long with your low damage party is if you had incredibly decked out healers/supports yet no well geared DPS to end the fight quickly and inevitably take aggro away from you.

Not only that, but the idea that you tested the Lord Sedgewick curse so quickly AND can claim it didn't affect your ability to hold aggro is incredibly bizarre, as it should at the very least cause 1/5 of your initial pulls and attacks to fail. This accuracy loss also can't be mitigated so it's not like you can make up for it with accuracy boosts, and for many people 20% accuracy loss is INCREDIBLY noticeable. I mean, the start of this thread even started with us mentioning how a large amount of the player base found just 10% evasion incredibly annoying, never mind 20%!
To say that a 20% accuracy loss "Did not affect your ability at all" is extreme to say the least. It was already ridiculous that your party members could not out-aggro a character who only hits for around 1000 per attack, but are you also saying that you were somehow able to keep aggro with not only those low numbers but even with a 20% chance to miss every attack? Even ignoring the high chance where your character completely misses multiple times in succession which guarantees you aren't building aggro, an average 20% DPS reduction to your already low damage should have made everyone easily beat out the extremely low taunt you were already doing.

I'm sorry, but honestly at this point I can't believe what you're saying, as it makes no sense from a mathematical stand point, as well as from my own experience. Either you are stretching the truth out and giving inaccurate/misleading information in order to try and make your argument sound better, or you're outright lying.

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Originally Posted by Roekai

Evasion and Hardcore need to be mandatory.

All creatures and all players should have a 10% (Honestly I'd like something closer to 25% but I realize that is entirely unrealistic) evasion percentage. And, every time you die, you should lose one piece of armor (My preference would be ALL armor) until you recover your tombstone.

Evasion extends combat, putting more of an emphasis of sustainability and the trinity rather than DPS. I consider myself a tank, yet the damage modifications on my gear are mandatory, as I would be gimping myself otherwise. I would like to live in a world where forsaking damage modifications would be a viable construct, a world with evasion. No matter what build you run, one must select the +40% damage mods, and have at least 1 or 2 heavy hitting skills to be viable (to hold aggro as a tank, etc). Evasion ends this trend, or at least mitigates it, by devaluing high damage high cost skills.

Furthermore, there needs to be a more significant penalty to death. If you wipe in a dungeon, there should be incentive to have to fight back, instead of going to Serbule to transmute. Now, nobody wants 1999 Norrath levels of difficulty (except maybe me), but what is the point of hardcore if there are no bonuses? Make it mandatory or give a flat 10% armor, hp, and endo to harcore players, so I have an incentive to fuck myself.

Let the hate begin.

Edit: I love this game, and have been playing since 2016. I love this game, and will play regardless. But this is my only, and has been consistent, criticism.

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I'm gonna go no with the hardcore on an eh? with the evasion one. I prefer choices for different gameplay styles. Not everyone being forced to do the same thing. PG is a prime example of allowing players to play their own way. I like PG because it's one of the few games like it that doesn't have an overly punishing death. I'd like it A LOT less if hardcore was forced on everyone. The evasion one would just be a nuisance but I wouldn't quit over it.

My moral philosophy is do whatever you want as long as it isn't negatively impacting others. Your perma hardcore for all would negatively impact me and others who don't want a frustrating experience. Trust me the game can be frustrating enough without hardcore.

I'm with Yaffy on tanking /evasion as my playing experience matches his position . Note: I use level 80 max crafted gold with augments and fully modded gear. I also build Accuracy into my spec.
I currently run with UA /Psy, Fire /Druid and Hammer /Druid.

As Yaffy states, running with well geared players is problematic if a taunt is missed. During a group fight (2 to 6 players) against FR elites, I usually get 3 or 4 attacks in before the elite dies.
A 'tank' needs to handle from me (I'll use a Hammer /Druid in level 70 max crafted gold gear as an example) a damage profile of:

Mob enrage (all hammer attacks) = 184%

Attack 1 Leaping Smash 884 damage
Attack 2 Latent Charge 1563 direct + 18% from damage mods + 1003 electricity DOT
Attack 3 Rib Shatter 1991 + 56% from damage mods
Attack 4 Seismic Impact 1667 + 118% from damage mods

If the mob is still alive and the 'tank' loses aggro on attack 3 or 4 than I usually get to die from a instant-kill rage attack.
If I survive the initial rage attacks then I often need to cast 2 healing spells to survive.

If I use Pound to Slag then a c. 3.5k hit impacts all mobs within 5 meters.

Using Fire specs is even more problematic .

My experience suggests that most 'tanks' are unable to handle the above.

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Originally Posted by Roekai

YAFFY:

I was there when evasion was implemented, and subsequently removed because of all the bitching. But obviously, I still think it was a bad idea to listen to the negative feedback. Of course, the people that were already playing the game sans-evasion were going to bitch (because they had min-maxed into 2 button mash builds which are still, unfortunately, popular today), but anybody that started playing with evasion as a baseline mechanic would have nothing to complain about. The devs put evasion in for a reason, to address a problem, and it worked. If they just stuck to their guns, they might have lost a few subs initially but the overall quality of the game would have improved.

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I think it's a bit arrogant of you to claim that only people that had 2-button builds complained about evasion. And that new players would have nothing to complain about. In fact, I made new character back then, and global evasion was more noticeable on it, simply because I had less tools to deal with it.

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To address your second point, what is wrong with a slight variance in combat? How does implementing randomness encourage people to play boring and samey builds? As it stands today, everyone plays boring and samey builds (DPS). NOBODY doesn't have all the powerful DPS mods. Boring and samey. By adding variance to combat it would increase the value of low power low damage moves, and non-damage modifications. Also, it wouldn't be hard to code so that even with a miss the combo chain can be completed, as long as you use the skills in the proper order.

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Again, a bit arrogant of you to claim that. Not everyone has the same build, I myself have 3 different variations of the same skill combination (wolf/unarmed), and most of my builds aim for balanced distribution of mods. And even if someone wants to have build around one, or two skills, why not? I have no problem if someone can achieve insane damage on single skills, as long as they have to sacrifice a lot to achieve it, and/or its effect of combining several skills. Global evasion hurts these people the most.

Problem with evasion is that it has a much higher impact on bursty type builds than on sutaine dones.

Beside that, as I mentioned in my first post, if evasion is high then everyone is forced to build around it, then we are back to the same situation where everyone is would migrate towards build that have best tools to deal with evasion, or, what would be even worse, to rebalance every skill to be able to deal with evasion, leading to less variety between skills.

And, of course, that would require time from developers, tiem that could be spent doing more important things.

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And I completely disagree with your point that evasion would negatively affect tanks more than DPS; that, to me, is preposterous. If a DPS build misses on one of its 2 button mashes, it severely decreases output. If a tank with a more balanced skillset (no dominant damage skills) misses, it does not.

Player A has 2 very high damage (2000) skills and 3 low damage (500) skills = 5,500dmg total
Player B has a balanced 5 skill set (1000dmg) = 5000dmg total

Player Hoever, ifA misses a 2000dmg skill, it lowers output to 3,500
Player B misses a 1000dmg skill, it lowers output to 4,000

Even if Player A misses a low damage skill and is @ 5,000
Player B is still @ 4,000 with a miss, but has 170% taunt from damage, so still has a higher aggro/DPS as far as the NPC is concerned.

Basically, mathematically, evasion as a matter of fact negatively impacts people with higher DPS and cost skills, because a miss means a much higher percentage of mods wasted (balanced builds don't stack mods as much), as well as endurance wasted (and they usually have longer cool-downs). So I don't understand your argument.

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The more I read your arguments, the more I'm convinced you simply hate one particular playstyle, and want it removed from the game for some reason. You keep saying that dps builds only use 2 skills, which is simply not true. Many builds use multiple skills, and while yes, there are few specific builds that reach insane bursts with just one or two skills, they often require some setup, and/or sacrifice a lot of survivability to achieve it.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Alos, in your example, you ignore a few important things.

1)Not every skill has the same tools. Some are designed about being more burst-oriented, having long cd's on they damaging skills (like BC), or having little to no defensive tools forcing them to focus on killing mobs quickly, rather than trying to outlast them (warden, wolf)

2)Not every ability has the same impact. Missing Basic attack when you really need this combat refresh and/or armor set proc can make the difference between life and death. Missing a regular basic attack in most cases is nothing important.

Missing your only Aoe skill when you are fighting multiple mobs and are low on hp usually means death. Same as missing cc when the mob you fight will call some friends.

Missing 1,2, or even 5 out of 8-10 damagining skills I usually use on my most used dps build(wolf/unarmed) wouldn't affect me too much Some would cost me more dps loss than others, but ultimately, it wouldn't matter too much, aside from some specific situations.

Missing Taunt on tank build could make the difference between keeping aggro, and losing it.

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CR00CY:

You didn't really state anything other than your opinions of what people would think. So here is my opinion of what people would think. People still play EQ to this day; there's a 3 hour long waiting list for the Aradune server, so I think plenty of people are okay with a corpse run.

And, you claim that evasion is frustrating because if you miss 2-3 times, you die; you literally just identified the problem that I am trying to fix. I have a balanced build, and I barely noticed evasion at all. I could miss probably 5-7 times in a row before it became a problem, and the chances of that happening are statistically insignificant. Basically, what I am trying to say is if that missing twice in a row causes you to die that is a flaw in your character design (2-button mash) rather than a flaw in the game.

And this is not my opinion, it is the opinion of the developers. You can look up the old threads if you want – the whole reason evasion was implemented in the first place is because the devs didn't like 2 button mash builds and wanted to extend combat. So this is not just something I identified as a problem, the developers also did, and tried (successfully I might add) to address it.

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Ok, I agree that if someone would die just because they missed one or two hits, then they either need to change their build, or upgrade their gear. And I'm fully aware that devs want to extend the duration of combat - notion I fully agree with, as I stated in my first post.

I simply don't think evasion is the best way to do it. At least not in its current form, as total damage mitigation.

One way to implement it, for it to be a much healthier mechanic, is to make it reduce damage, by say 50%. Then we could add another monster tag, or 'quirk' as I called it in my 1st post ('Nimble' or something like that). Mobs with this tag would avoid all damage when their evasion triggered.

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Originally Posted by Roekai

I'm having a hard time understanding your argument.

You said that "tank players do not have uniform damage/taunt among their skills" but I do. I can only speak about Sword/Unarmed because those are the only skills I've ever used

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Ok, this statement makes any argument you make about balance of combat very hard to take seriously. I'll give you a benefit of the doubt, and assume you meant you never played any other skills in high-level zones, but even then - if your experience is so limited, how can you possibly know what other people build. Only 2-button builds I can recall being used recently are sulk+crushing attack, and I think there was something with Druid and cosmic strike. There was something with dangerous enchantments too, I recall a post describing someone achieving some crazy damage on Hammer epic attack, but it required lengthy setup.

And all those builds got nerfed.

Nowadays, I don't think there is a single dps build that can get away with using only 2 abilities.

I played many skills - Wolf, Unarmed, Warden, Shield, BC, AH to name only those I use regularly, but I played enough of other skills to at least have a vague idea of how they work.

And from my experience, I can safely say that evasion affects some builds much more than others. It would make life much harder for skills that have long cooldowns, or high power costs.

TL; DR

I'm all for extending the duration of combat, but not global evasion(in its current form) is a bad way to do it.

It would hurt some builds much more than others, and force everyone to build around it.

Mandatory Hardcore is just bad idea, there is absolutely zero reason to do it.

Yaffy,

First let me open by apologizing for being abrasive AF. We are definitely getting hostile and I can recognize its my fault. My bad, fella.

As far as tanking in Gaz/Fae goes, I usually organize pugs (since my guild died after I left a few years back), so yes, most of the time people are not doing nearly as much damage as some of your high end guild mates probably do, which inevitably makes it easier for me to hold aggro. There is no way I could hold aggro with people popping off 5k dmg nukes. But thats kind of a dick move though, isn't it? In most games if not all games I've played part of being a DPS class is managing your DPS so that you don't intentionally steal aggro from the tank. So, there is no way I could hold aggro with top level DPS unleashing full tilt, but in my opinion that is the fault of the DPS not the tank. You wait until the creature is at low health to finish it off, not opening combat...or atleast thats how I learned to play DPS as a Wizard in EQ.

And yes, I tested the lord segewick curse last night, and no it didnt affect my ability to tank. You can believe me or not, it doesnt really matter to me. Again, however, I was much better equipped than the majority of my group, which, you are right, plays a huge factor. And I body pull, tellling my group to wait until I get a few hits in to start attacking to establish aggro, much the same way I learned to do in EQ as a warrior.

But you are right, if I grouped with you and your friends and you tried to steal aggro, you certainly would. I just dont have that issue normally, of people actively trying to steal aggro.

What doesn't make sense mathematically, by the by. I love mathematical arguments because there is no room for opinion – if you can prove me wrong mathematically I'll happily eat a crow pie knowing that I grew as a person and learned something new.

Vela,

I have no problem with the rejection of hardcore by non-hardcore players; I get it. I dont like it, but I get it. Would you object to giving hardcore players some type of experience advantage, or speed boost, or some incentive to play hardcore? I think that is a fair way to meet in the middle, no?

Poulter,

Basically the same thing as Yaffy. In most games DPS can easily steal aggro from the tank if they aren't careful.

If I'm in a situation where a glass cannon is pulling aggro, ill just simply ask that they lay off a bit. Like you said, a FR elite usually dies in 4 or 5 cycles, so whats another 1 or 2 cycles really its not a lot of time espcially considering we arent going to die.

But yes, you are right. If a dps build wants to steal aggro they can.

Cr00ky,

basically I think we disagree ideologically; I think that evasion would create more diversity among builds, you think it would create a new meta. You dont have a problem with burst damage, I obviously do (in the sense that only mages or rogues or whatever should be doing it, not tanks and cc and everyone else too).
Your response was so extensive and coherent it would take me a while to unpack and reply to it so I'll do that later. But yeah you guys all bring up going points and yes I am an asshole.

I just want combat to be extended and roles to be more defined. Maybe people don't even want that. The more I think I know the more I apparently dont.

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Cr00cy:

Okay, I wasn't being nearly specific enough by what I meant when I said 2-button builds, and the miscommunication is my fault obviously because you can only read what I write not my intentions. What I mean by 2-button build is people who invest all of their modification into a few damaging skills. I said 2-button because each skill usually has 2 (or 3) skills that do high amounts of damage (i.e. decapitate, finishing blow, bodyslam, knee kick, in my case).

Everybody has to invest in damage modifications to some degree. Who is not going to take a 40% flat increase in damage over Heart Pierce healing you for 40hp? Even I use the mods; I would be severely negatively impacting my ability to tank if I didn't, because it would drastically decrease my ability to hold aggro (by 40%, lol).

But combat obviously needs to be extended (all sides I think agree on this, most importantly the developers) and so I am ideologically at odds with people who max/min into glass cannons, and yes, want people who use high damage high cost skills to be punished with evasion.

Would you guys be more receptive to a straight up Nerf of damage across all classes, by eliminating most of the damage mods on the high damage skills, rather than evasion? I think evasion is more fair because it still allows for high bursts of damage, whereas a Nerf is, to me, a more significant gimp to DPS.

Do you even agree with me on the fact that there should be more defined roles, in addition to the extension of combat? Or are we fundamentally at odds?

As far as what you wrote about a new character and global evasion, you missed my point. What I mean is that you played and started a character when there was no evasion, so obviously starting a new toon with evasion is going to be harder than your original baseline. Someone who has no original baseline will have nothing to object to, because there will be literally, in their mind, nothing to object to.
I applaud the fact that you have build diversity; I only have 2 (Group and Solo) so I tip my hat to you sir. But I disagree with you that evasion would create a new meta; by devaluing the skills like decapitate and finishing blow that almost every swordsman uses under the current rules, there would be more diversity among builds. That is just my opinion though, and I can provide no statistical evidence to back it up.

I like your idea to reduce evasion to 50% mitigation. I like that you are willing to compromise, and I am not infallable. Maybe your idea would be the best of both worlds. I don't know, but I would like to see something. And even if there is nothing, I thoroughly enjoy the game the way it is. So I guess whatever.

like in a group people don't even ask if there is a healer or what anyone even does half the time is just mish mash half-hazard smashing through mobs like a wrecking ball. again though, maybe that's only cause I run pugs mostly.

I don't want everyone to be in hard core mode but I wouldn't mind some sort of weakness after being killed. I mean a little incentive to not die a lot is all. However if it doesn't happen I can deal. lol

Roekai

Yes, i think we have to agree to disagree on the subject of evasion. In my opinion, global evasion would just create new meta - peopel will just start stackign accuracy over burst damage. Thats why I prefer current system, where only certain mobs have evasion, and would prefer it expanded. That way people who want to hunt those mobs will need to adjust they build, but said build might be not optimal to hunt other kind of mobs.

Also, I don't want to 'remove' any builds. If someon want to build they swordsma for burst, let them. If tehy wnat to build it for dps, let them. If they want to puild it for tanking/rage control, or any other way - let them.

As long as any single build isn't cleary superior choice, I'll have no problem with it.