How do we feel about the tank changes?

My only concern now is how to stay in second place on enmity list as an off tank. I'm pretty bad at it right now even with enmity rotations. If enmity is now tied to the stance with no specific enmity rotation, this might be even more difficult for me.

You don't NEED to be in second place for enmity, you just naturally are because other jobs, if they aren't retarded, are using Lucid, Diversion, Elusive Jump, etc... on cooldown, so since you can't drop your threat outside of shirk, naturally, you should be second on threat.

But you don't NEED to. Just voke, and yo'ure on top. With the new changes, you just turn on tank stance, voke, the other guy drops his tank stance, and you continue on. Voke and shirk are still there. Enmity is non existent now, and thank god.

Provoke and Shirk are still around (both were moused over when they were showing off GUN) so enmity shouldn't be changing drastically. If you really feel the need you could just pop on your own tank stance to get your own up and then turn it back off.

Ah, ok, will have to see.

And if you've really got to be second in the enmity list for a mechanic, wait for the mt to have generated enmity and when the boss start casting something, provoke then immediatly shirk the mt. You'll be just behind them.
Or after the the 5.0 just give the MT a head start then turn on your tank stance since there won't be any penality for it and turn it off if you feel you're catching the up to the MT enmity.

My problem with this situation, and the way SE chooses to handle the pre-release info, is that I don't know what is being changed.
The changes to stances are good, but what about my actual jobs? I've seen those flashy new animations in the trailer, but how do those skills interact with the rest of me kit, and what about that kit has been changed to facilitate the new stuff?

I really wish SE would just give us a break-down of how the jobs work now, with proper tooltips and everything >.<

Think this will work assuming there are no ability change with the stance and the MT has equal gear as the OT?

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Originally Posted by Barraind

OT has no real reason to turn them off either, just holds out on turning them on until after the opener.

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Originally Posted by Big-Isaac

My problem with this situation, and the way SE chooses to handle the pre-release info, is that I don't know what is being changed.
The changes to stances are good, but what about my actual jobs? I've seen those flashy new animations in the trailer, but how do those skills interact with the rest of me kit, and what about that kit has been changed to facilitate the new stuff?

I really wish SE would just give us a break-down of how the jobs work now, with proper tooltips and everything >.<

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I think they're letting the media reveal more info next week, plus there is more live letter after E3, and then there is the job guide that will be posted.

bring me dark arts or gimme the dark flames and for the love of sound bringers get rid of that rid stank line. Dont need to spam dark arts but it was such a cool power boost animation and now its like our shadow is cooler than we all. cool skills though

For what I could see I really like the tank changes, GNB looked a little be lacking on the flashiness but it's okay.

My fear is they gave up on making the tank role fun and engaging the play and made the choice to make the jobs themselves fun to play instead of trying to strike a balance between the two on them. As it stands I do enjoy how tanks currently playing since for me they were close to hitting that balance, I was hoping that moving forward they would put a tad more emphasis on the tanking aspect while still making the dps aspect important. Though it seems like they gave up on that and have made tanking to a degree passive so to speak.

I like the changes. Tanking has been trivialized for a while now and we've been avoiding enmity combos and tanking stance in raids as much as we could since late ARR/early HW. Since then, SE kept giving us more and more DPS-focused abilities but the tanks' DPS rotations were still really basic and easy because they had to have 3 slots dedicated to enmity combos on top of multiple slots taken by defensive CDs. It makes more sense to just do away with the stance system and enmity combos and go balls-deep on DPS rotations and cool job mechanics with all the freed-up space. It's also great because now our enmity generation will directly be tied to our DPS. Since we won't have any enmity generating combo anymore, we can't just get a gigantic lead in the first 3 GCDs and just be bad or sit down for the rest of the fight and still keep agro. We'll have to turn the tank stance on and deal good damage in order to keep a constant enmity lead over our hot-headed DPS friends for the whole fight. Rewarding good DPS with more "tanking power" (which are aggro and survivability) is the right way to go.

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Originally Posted by Maneesha

snip.

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Did we even watch the same job actions trailer? GNB's abilities were pretty flashy. As for the whole "stance dancing" argument. There is no stance dancing in this game. Outside of the initial snap aggro pull, you're literally in dps stance for the entire fight unless you use tank stance to soak a tank buster. I think it's a bit early to be jumping on the "hemogenization" bandwagon when it comes to the jobs, there simply isn't enough information to go on yet.

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Originally Posted by Selova

I think it's a bit early to be jumping on the "hemogenization" bandwagon when it comes to the jobs, there simply isn't enough information to go on yet.

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This was acknowledged already... most of the people here are conceding to that point. Rather, we're saying it's leaning toward that. An overwhelming amount of posters have stated that they'll have to wait see how the classes play out before reaching any conclusions. While you're correct in stating that there isn't enough information yet, given the evidence, it's looking like homogenization isn't far off the mark.

Might as well leave tank stance off and just say "I'm DPS that happens to be in the tank role"

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Originally Posted by Novak_04

This was acknowledged already... most of the people here are conceding to that point. Rather, we're saying it's leaning toward that. An overwhelming amount of posters have stated that they'll have to wait see how the classes play out before reaching any conclusions. While you're correct in stating that there isn't enough information yet, given the evidence, it's looking like homogenization isn't far off the mark.

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It's all overreaction. "Oh no, all tanks get a set of 3 abilities that will make sure they have what they need in their kit to be effective as either MT or OT. They're all just homogenized now!!!!!"

It's a ridiculous claim by people knee-jerk reacting. All jobs of all the roles need some basic skills that do essentially the same thing so they have a basic kit for what their role is. But just because they have those skills doesn't mean "oh no doom, the sky is falling homogenization!"

Now, if the majority of tank skills were all just the same skill with different animation "skins", then sure, people could say they homogenized the tanks. But that clearly isn't the case.

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

Might as well leave tank stance off and just say "I'm DPS that happens to be in the tank role"

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i really hope this will be not the case.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

It's all overreaction. "Oh no, all tanks get a set of 3 abilities that will make sure they have what they need in their kit to be effective as either MT or OT. They're all just homogenized now!!!!!"

It's a ridiculous claim by people knee-jerk reacting. All jobs of all the roles need some basic skills that do essentially the same thing so they have a basic kit for what their role is. But just because they have those skills doesn't mean "oh no doom, the sky is falling homogenization!"

Now, if the majority of tank skills were all just the same skill with different animation "skins", then sure, people could say they homogenized the tanks. But that clearly isn't the case.

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Please show me where I said anything of the sort. You speak of over-reacting and knee-jerk reactions.... the irony of your response here is incredible.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

Now, if the majority of tank skills were all just the same skill with different animation "skins", then sure, people could say they homogenized the tanks. But that clearly isn't the case.

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Uh, set of 3?

Speaking just now, a majority of the Tank kits are copy pasta.

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Originally Posted by Novak_04

Please show me where I said anything of the sort. You speak of over-reacting and knee-jerk reactions.... the irony of your response here is incredible.

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I didn't say you said it. I was talking in general about ridiculous people claiming over-homogenziation.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Uh, set of 3?

Speaking just now, a majority of the Tank kits are copy pasta.

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Yeah, set of three.
1) Defense skill that can be applied to all party members
2) A skill for OT to support MT
3) Personal Mitigation buffs

Those are the three types of skills that are homogeneous among all tanks. Other than that, there's very little homogenization from what we have seen from the LL. And it's completely false to claim a majority of Tank skills are "copy pasta". That's beyond ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

I didn't say you said it. I was talking in general about ridiculous people claiming over-homogenziation.




Yeah, set of three.
1) Defense skill that can be applied to all party members
2) A skill for OT to support MT
3) Personal Mitigation buffs

Those are the three types of skills that are homogeneous among all tanks. Other than that, there's very little homogenization from what we have seen from the LL. And it's completely false to claim a majority of Tank skills are "copy pasta". That's beyond ridiculous.

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Gapcloser. Down to CD and effective potency.
Paladin and Warrior are still likely to have the same combat progression. (Alternate maintenance and spam, ogcd booster, spam highest potency move after)
The peek we had of Gunbreaker's invuln is just weaker Hallowed Ground.

The combo lines are mostly just to generate resource, so the effective difference between them is nil.
Even the "Tank stances" lost any differentiation between them, becoming just a trait they all share and a toggle at 10 for threat.

And this is just what we saw in the live letter.

In terms of current iteration (IE Stormblood) they are significantly worse.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Gapcloser. Down to CD and effective potency.
Paladin and Warrior are still likely to have the same combat progression. (Alternate maintenance and spam, ogcd booster, spam highest potency move after)
The peek we had of Gunbreaker's invuln is just weaker Hallowed Ground.

The combo lines are mostly just to generate resource, so the effective difference between them is nil.
Even the "Tank stances" lost any differentiation between them, becoming just a trait they all share and a toggle at 10 for threat.

And this is just what we saw in the live letter.

In terms of current iteration (IE Stormblood) they are significantly worse.

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OMG! All tanks have a gapcloser! And they all have an effective invuln skill! They're all exactly the same job now! The sky is falling, we're all doomed!

Seriously, that's what you sound like here. And your examples are so generalized that all you're doing is committing the reduction to absurdity fallacy.

I wanted tank stance gone entirely for all of them which they didn't do, however this change is the next best thing to that so I'll take it.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

I wanted tank stance gone entirely for all of them which they didn't do, however this change is the next best thing to that so I'll take it.

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Tank stance as a concept is gone. What they are calling "tank stance" is just an enmity toggle.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

OMG! All tanks have a gapcloser! And they all have an effective invuln skill! They're all exactly the same job now! The sky is falling, we're all doomed!

Seriously, that's what you sound like here. And your examples are so generalized that all you're doing is committing the reduction to absurdity fallacy.

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While I understand that we're making the same point, I have yet to see anyone take the "The sky is falling, we're all doomed" stance; it's a gross exaggeration and disappointing interpretation of what you're reading. You're looking for demons where there are none. People are exchanging thoughts and ideas about what they saw and where SE could and could not be heading. That's par for the course after any announcement regarding future projects. You're making this hyperbolic spectacle about people's reaction when, in fact, they're simply stating their thoughts on the matter. As mentioned before, the irony is that you're the only one here being over-dramatic about anything. The gender-lock thread is that way (->) if you're wanting to find someone to vilify. Otherwise, quit with the hyperbole. It's embarrassing for all of us.

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Originally Posted by Giubba

i really hope this will be not the case.

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It won't. DPS will deal bigger damage (assuming equivalent skill) but with less defense and cooldowns.

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Originally Posted by linay

It won't. DPS will deal bigger damage (assuming equivalent skill) but with less defense and cooldowns.

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Maybe. At the moment I really cannot imagine how the gameplay will shift considering the broad changes that they will come

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

Tank stance as a concept is gone. What they are calling "tank stance" is just an enmity toggle.

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You misunderstand, I wanted that gone as well. I wanted the enmity baked in to the classes with a rework on how provoke works to make it more in line with other mmo’s so that tank swapping could still be done and set with a voke and a shirk.

Rather they free up two hotbar slots instead of one.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

You misunderstand, I wanted that gone as well. I wanted the enmity baked in to the classes with a rework on how provoke works to make it more in line with other mmo’s so that tank swapping could still be done and set with a voke and a shirk.

Rather they free up two hotbar slots instead of one.

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What happens when there are 3 tanks like in 24 man? Do we let them fight over aggro with no way to control it?

Uhm you sure can, ask him to stop it or else just let him die?

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Uhm you sure can, ask him to stop it or else just let him die?

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Ask him to stop what? Doing anything at all and just AFK?

It does sound like that is what she's saying.

"No, stop attacking you other tanks! You are generating enmity! Go AFK!"

Total chaos.


...Oh dear, RIP low level paladins.
No combo at all until 60, just Fast Blade Riot Blade spam the whole way.
Yay...

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Originally Posted by Novak_04

Otherwise, quit with the hyperbole.

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I'm not hyperbolizing at all. The poster I was responding to quite literally claimed the majority of the tank skills are the same, which is complete and utter bullshit.

Mixed bag. I don't mind the homogeneity in the tank's capacity, but I do mind the homogeneity in their playflow that's likely to occur now.

I like that they'll all likely have significant and balanced AoE. I don't like that every job has a two-stage AoE combo plus a gauge-spender AoE.

I mostly like that they can all work equally from MT or OT positions. I don't like that this seems provided by simply each having a point-support and (close proximity) raid-support skill.

It's fine for them to put out nearly the same throughputs and capacities. It's not fine for them to feel the same in the way they do so.

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Originally Posted by Mixt

...Oh dear, RIP low level paladins.
No combo at all until 60, just Fast Blade Riot Blade spam the whole way.
Yay...

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Rage of Halone has not been removed, judging by datamining. You'll have the same 1-50 combo experience. It's quite possible it will upgrade into Royal Authority later on, though.

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

What happens when there are 3 tanks like in 24 man? Do we let them fight over aggro with no way to control it?

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It’s why I mentioned changing provoke and shirk and adjusting the way aggro works. All they would have to do is make voke function like it does in swtor and it’s a non-issue.

For the uninformed, the way provoke works in swtor is:

1. The cooldown is around 12-15 seconds.

2. It puts you at 30% ahead of whoever is at the top of threat list. But here’s the genius of it, that also includes yourself. So every provoke puts your threat 30% above where it was. It lets you spike your threat exponentially and if you have to swap, the other tank uses their provoke. Makes aggro a non-issue.

3. The idea that you wouldn’t be able to control aggro in a 24man? I’m skeptical about that. But I’m also perfectly ok with the community either adapting or dying. I know it’s easy to be cynical about it but I think it could be done.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Rage of Halone has not been removed, judging by datamining. You'll have the same 1-50 combo experience. It's quite possible it will upgrade into Royal Authority later on, though.

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Even if it was removed they most likely would move atleast one of the other combos into earlier content, say getting Goring Blade at 26 instead of 54 as an example.

The biggest thing that I took away from this Live Letter is that the dev team seem to at least be processing community feedback. Most of the changes seemed to come out of things that were discussed at length by the community. Even little suggestions, like giving jobs like MCH more of a FF feel through classic abilities (Bio Blaster, Drill) seems to have not gone unnoticed. So well done for that.

The removal of 100% uptime buffs (Slashing, Piercing) was both necessary and very much wanted. The decision to adjust LB generation to account for Shake it off and Divine Veil cheese was also smartly done. More broadly, I think that shielding was starting to get out of control, and I'm interested to see how both the new shield meters as well as the adjustments to healers (especially SCH) are going to impact this.

The tank stance changes are welcome. I'm a bit concerned that toggling off these new "enmity stances" is going to run into the age-old problem of "stance sticking" unless the implementation of stances itself has been adjusted. But we'll have to see.

The charge system is interesting. While it seems like it might alleviate the potency penalty for holding on to a gap closer until a more useful moment, I don't think that it necessarily solves this problem. As long as gap closers benefit from buff windows, you're probably going to want to hold your charges (without capping) until your next potion or buff comes up.

That being said, given that Arm's Length seems like it might also be a tank role action (based on the Gunbreaker hotbars), I think we'll see a definite improvement in the situation.

Overall, what they've presented so far seems pretty good. I'm still reserving my judgement, but I'm looking forward to seeing what they've done.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Overall, what they've presented so far seems pretty good. I'm still reserving my judgement, but I'm looking forward to seeing what they've done.

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Now see, I had been under the assumption that SE assumes the tank currently getting beat in the face by the boss is in old Tank Stance, which is now guaranteed via the trait for -20% damage taken.

Do you think they will adjust damage up to factor this in, or will they keep the damage the same? That's a 25% increase in EHP that the players have by and large ignored that they now get for free, plus whatever scalar is applied based on item level (it says Str/Vit, but that goes up with Item level since you can't meld it now)

Needing TBN to break, to proc the "Dark Arts effect" in order to use "X of darkness" moves, so you can extend the timer on darkside, still feels like all the stuff i hated they added to DRK in SB, while only getting rid of the clunkiness of pressing dark arts.

I just want HW DRK back. (Even if it was clunky. id rather clunky HW DRK, than unfun, but smooth SH DRK.)
We only needed QoL stuff, not all this other BS.

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Originally Posted by MaraD_

Needing TBN to break, to proc the "Dark Arts effect" in order to use "X of darkness" moves, so you can extend the timer on darkside, still feels like all the stuff i hated they added to DRK in SB, while only getting rid of the clunkiness of pressing dark arts.

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What is your source for that please ? If it's really the case I'm pretty sure that breaking TBN is only going to be ONE option to proc "Dark Arts". Because in the job trailer the DRK isn't getting a TBN broken at all and he's still able to use the "Darkside extender" move. I doubt that they just had him have Dark Arts from the start because the video lasts way more than 10sec. You're either spreading some misinformation that even the leaks didn't talk about, or your source is incomplete and we're going to have another option. I highly doubt that they'll make DRK THAT clunky again after all the feedback on all the previous states the job has gone through.

Please wait for the full job skill list to be available for us to see before jumping on any kind of conclusion.