The fighter class - What are your opinions

[ibrowniedefender]

from my experience and point of view(rogue), fighters totally survive better than rogues, im level 187 gnome, and i can hardly kill a heroic red dragon, even with levels taken at the health shrine, there goes your point about livability. (and yeah, back stab does need nerfed. like a 10 second cooloff, nothing big)

Anyway, to make fighters better, just take and raise the block % of shields when you have 100% in block, and give 2h weapons a chance to block as-well that way you have an opportunity to block even without a shield

[eggmceye]

proposed changes, generally speaking:
* nerf mani
* nerf machete a little, that with mani are 2 nerfs long time coming - I was definitely overly generous with these at the time
* add cooloff to backstab but don't go over the top - this isn't about nerfing the shit out of rogues
* make a berserker stance that increases attack speed with 2h weapons - so berserker+2h would be the fighter dps stance, shield+tank would be survive/tank stance
* shields possibly block magic (with high block skill)
* change tactics formula so that it improves passive damage mitigation
* possibly allow tactics to add passive mini flurries or small aoe
* fix thunderclap again

out of left field:
* possibly scrap the dex based walking speed thing, plus maybe armours slowing you down - personally I've always found it annoying.
* instead of nerfing mani completely ban dual classing of priest - or somehow discourage it - maybe require priest spells to have blessed weapon equipped - now IMAGINE THE BACKLASH

[Akyla]

Well, everyone who has posted so far concerning priest dual classing agrees it is OP...

The dex walking thing is more annoying for newer players than anything. Gotta play a week just to be able to walk at a decent rate

Zerk stance - would it give more damage at the cost of taking more damage? (opposite of tank stance) Not so sure about that because using 2h weapons and PVE yer level and you really get hurt. Possibly just speed increase at the cost of... defense?

Thunderclap - Make it a STR based vog?

[MoonGoat]

Thunderclap - Make it a STR based vog?

Like Bloodbolt?

[Akyla]

Oops I meant bloodbolt... : x

Just doesn't seem bloodbolt and thunderclap do very well at all.

[Akyla]

* change tactics formula so that it improves passive damage mitigation

English for morons please.

[Dudle]

*WARNING : SARCASM FOLLOWS*

I know - just nerf any kind of class mix that I use, like when I was a mage/fighter and had to lose all those fighter skills after the last class nerf, in order to regain priest skills/spells. Now that I have a mage/priest, it would be logical to separate these as well, forcing me to retrain again. I don't know why there is any class mixing if you simply intend to separate them when they are deemed too powerful.

*END OF SARCASM*

Sorry but I take this as a way to basically make me stop playing at all (I barely play now as it is).

[Severian]

I'm posting from Guangzhou airport ... in transit .. for another 4 hours ... argh

anyway, the focus here should have been on fighters, but everyone some people just decided that nerfing other classes would help balance fighters. The problem with this is that nerfing will almost always upset people.

Makes me want to convert to a mage really .. but i'll wait and see what the outcome of all this is XD

[Severian]

proposed changes, generally speaking:
* nerf mani
* nerf machete a little, that with mani are 2 nerfs long time coming - I was definitely overly generous with these at the time
* add cooloff to backstab but don't go over the top - this isn't about nerfing the shit out of rogues
* make a berserker stance that increases attack speed with 2h weapons - so berserker+2h would be the fighter dps stance, shield+tank would be survive/tank stance
* shields possibly block magic (with high block skill)
* change tactics formula so that it improves passive damage mitigation
* possibly allow tactics to add passive mini flurries or small aoe
* fix thunderclap again

I like these proposed changes

out of left field:
* possibly scrap the dex based walking speed thing, plus maybe armours slowing you down - personally I've always found that annoying.
* instead of nerfing mani completely ban dual classing of priest - or somehow discourage it - maybe require priest spells to have blessed weapon equipped - now IMAGINE THE BACKLASH

what would dex do then? just add 1mr for every 3 points? removing movement speed penalties would be convenient but would just mean everyone would switch to heavy armor and you'd see mages in plate and such ... though rogues would still be restricted to hide?

well ... if you did decide to ban priest dual classing, you should probably just ban dual-classing in general ... not sure what you'd do about humans though ... maybe just remove humans too XD

[Onyxt]

anyway, the focus here should have been on fighters, but everyone some people just decided that nerfing other classes would help balance fighters. The problem with this is that nerfing will almost always upset people.

Well machetes needed a balancing since they were put in; I've been saying that since day one. So don't feel too bad about that

[Broden]

anyway, the focus here should have been on fighters, but everyone some people just decided that nerfing other classes would help balance fighters. The problem with this is that nerfing will almost always upset people.

Good luck with this. I tried to present this exact logic a year or two ago

[Akyla]

2 nerfs long time coming - I was definitely overly generous with these at the time

While fighters getting a cool thing is nice, fixing these long overdue OP is well... long overdue!

Sticking on the subject of fighters isn't as easy as it sounds. What do you have to compare them to? What exactly is the median? I think the proposed changes are great and will add some new flavor, not just pressing F1 to spam heal (lame no skill OP). Imagine if the new fighter changes were in PLUS mani spam. God mode fighter anyone? It is better to look at the complete circle of things in the game when considering a change, in case it turns out to be a mega cheese!

I would not mind to give up a bit survivability for more dps - I even think it would make hunting more interesting since It would be more tactical.

+1

[Akyla]

* possibly scrap the dex based walking speed thing, plus maybe armours slowing you down - personally I've always found it annoying.

what would dex do then? just add 1mr for every 3 points? removing movement speed penalties would be convenient but would just mean everyone would switch to heavy armor and you'd see mages in plate and such ... though rogues would still be restricted to hide?

Now that I think about it what would be the purpose of mounts also?

[eggmceye]

I can't imagine actually doing anything drastic like ganking multi classing or making all walking speeds equal - I might make base walking speed faster and non humans even more attractive and interesting again

[WbBann]

If you remove the walk speed with armour thingy then half-orcs will be useless. Perhaps there damage or wep speed increases like I originally thought? Then dwarfs won't be a primary class to use. (if you are insistent on nerfing mani). Or perhaps buff the other races?

Yes, 1h and shield to me is more useful than 2h as I have higher mr and my damage is nice.

I believe rogues have the same problem as fighters except they have piss poor survivability.

[eggmceye]

re berserker stance: how does +25% attack speed increase for 2H weapons sound? I could make it higher plus add an increased damage taken compsensator - this is simpler

re thunderclap: if it stunned instead of confused it might be OP - any other ideas? maybe aoe dmg + chance to stun?

also going to add a shield bash that stuns (para) a target for tanking stance only

ps: how is anyone else other than fighters tanking? Doesn't it require fighter weapon equipped?

[Severian]

re berserker stance: how does +25% attack speed increase for 2H weapons sound? I could make it higher plus add an increased damage taken compsensator - this is simpler

re thunderclap: if it stunned instead of confused it might be OP - any other ideas? maybe aoe dmg + chance to stun?

also going to add a shield bash that stuns (para) a target for tanking stance only

ps: how is anyone else other than fighters tanking? Doesn't it require fighter weapon equipped?

Ultimately the question that should be asked is this: given that all classes should be equal, would the ability to tank be considered equal to both (1) the added utility rogues and mages get from their abilities (i.e., hiding/traps/locks for rogues ... and a ton of spells for mages), and (2) a higher dps rate, a better ability to deal massage damage or AoE, and (3) the ability CC mobs (via gouge, sleep, etc - that has no conditional like your proposing shieldbash should have). Fighters essentially have nothing else going for them besides having that added survivability and a few specials that cost 100 rage.

I think a 25% speed increase for 2h weapons without any penalty would be pretty nice i suppose. I'm not sure the dps would come close to that of a mage or that of a rogue (when coupled with backstab) though.

And I'm not sure about thunderclap.

However, I think there is a slight misunderstanding about the perceived utility of the tanking stance and the proposed idea of adding shieldbash with the condition that someone be in tanking stance.

I will try to elaborate.

At the moment, tanking in EUO (as i've observed it) essentially falls to a high-level, well-geared player with high enough MR, good regenerative ability (either via healing spells, leeching and/or potions - or some combination of those), and some ability to CC (for example a rogue using gouge and AEP lock with his/her enchanted weapon, or something like a monk using mirror images).

Most parties prefer if the "tank" proceeds carefully, using bottle necks at doors and such to limit the number of mobs faced, and then quickly dispatching them one by one.

The tank stance is rarely used. It is better to proceed cautiously using full dps (not half dps) to clear mobs in limited numbers then to have a dedicated tank tackle a large group of mobs.

In a heroic instance, a fighter in tanking stance would require a dedicated healer (typically himself/herself if they are a fighter/priest) in order to survive a group of say 4 heroic red dragons anyway (unless he or she somehow manages to get 3k MR to resist them - which is very very unlikely). It is simply better to face say 2 red dragons at a time, have one CC-locked, and then killing them more quickly with everyone doing full dps.

So the real issue here is that the tank stance just isn't that useful most of the time, unless someone screws up.

Reiterating, as a fighter, the default mode is to walk around in normal stance, be prudent about pulling mobs and making sure only 1 or 2 are pulled, or making sure there is a safe bottleneck that can be created so that the rest of the pulls are behind doors and only 2 are faced at any given time, and CC-locking and killing the few mobs pulled asap.

[Severian]

I propose these changes instead:

- have all fighter weapon type use a 80% str to 20% dex ratio

- balance all the weapons do that no one weapon type is superior to another (for example, the way polearms are better than everything else at the moment)

- change the tanking stance so that it gives -25% damage taken but has no damage reduction penalty ... and make sure it only works when a shield and fighter weapon are equipped ... or else tanking stance just becomes a panic button that will almost never be used if the party is experienced and organised. This change would essentially mean that all fighters using a 1h weapon and shield would be in tanking stance.

- add berserker stance that increases weapon speed by 25% (as you proposed) but requires a 2h weapon or two 1h weapons (for trolls) to be equipped to be used (please ensure ppl can't enter this stance and then change weapons and retain the stance - akin to monk stances prior to being fixed). This would essentially mean that all fighters using a 2h weapon (or dual-wielding 1h weapons) would always be in berserker stance.

- add shieldbash, that requires a 1h fighter weapon and shield to be equipped, and 100% in block to be used. it applies AEP when successful and costs 50 rage.

- add whirlwind, that requires a 2h fighter weapon to be equipped and 100% in all the fighter weapon skills. it is a move that is sort of a combination of flurry and cleave. when used, it will hit random targets adjacent to the fighter (similar to what flurry does) 3 times, with each hit being a cleave hit. it will cost 100 rage to use.

- change tactics so that it now increases DEF, AS and MR by a %. perhaps at 100 tactics, it might give: +20% defense. +15% AS and +10% MR. I'm sure you can decide on what numbers would be right.

[Inkfoo]

- change the tanking stance so that it gives -25% damage taken but has no damage reduction penalty ... and make sure it only works when a shield and fighter weapon are equipped ... or else tanking stance just becomes a panic button that will almost never be used if the party is experienced and organised. This change would essentially mean that all fighters using a 1h weapon and shield would be in tanking stance.

This is sucks to be frank , if tanking stance requires a shield to the useable then fighters would be required to use a shield to solo some places and that kinda sucks (look at the number of people playing this game , and then look att the less popular servers like PD) since it's not always possible to find a party to hunt with. I've always used 2h weps on my fighter and almost never even had a shield equiped but I used to have tanking stance on 24/7 when grinding dragons and balrons at lvl 200 simply becouse it's the only way to survive unless you have a shield.

2H weps can't block and removing tank stance from 2h users is just ..i dunno..evil! But maybe if did this happen and tanking stance would require a shield 2h weps could be given a chance to parry hits insted of blocking them ofcourse the parry rate would have be lower then the chacne of blocking with a shield , maybe something simple like 100 block with a 2h wep equiped would be equal to 50 block with a shield and 1h ? Maybe based on str/dex/tact I dunno.

[Severian]

- change the tanking stance so that it gives -25% damage taken but has no damage reduction penalty ... and make sure it only works when a shield and fighter weapon are equipped ... or else tanking stance just becomes a panic button that will almost never be used if the party is experienced and organised. This change would essentially mean that all fighters using a 1h weapon and shield would be in tanking stance.

This is sucks to be frank , if tanking stance requires a shield to the useable then fighters would be required to use a shield to solo some places and that kinda sucks (look at the number of people playing this game , and then look att the less popular servers like PD) since it's not always possible to find a party to hunt with. I've always used 2h weps on my fighter and almost never even had a shield equiped but I used to have tanking stance on 24/7 when grinding dragons and balrons at lvl 200 simply becouse it's the only way to survive unless you have a shield.

2H weps can't block and removing tank stance from 2h users is just ..i dunno..evil! But maybe if did this happen and tanking stance would require a shield 2h weps could be given a chance to parry hits insted of blocking them ofcourse the parry rate would have be lower then the chacne of blocking with a shield , maybe something simple like 100 block with a 2h wep equiped would be equal to 50 block with a shield and 1h ? Maybe based on str/dex/tact I dunno.

I'm not sure about PD, but if you need tanking stance to handle dragons at level L200, your doing something really wrong. Balrons are another matter though, but unless your taking on more than one, you should be able to handle it without tanking stance.

What us your char's name? I want to look it up.