Paladin Aggro (all fixed now, right?)

donfolstar3

donfolstar3

Dalayan Master
For most of the summer this lengthy thread filled with a general consensus on Paladin lacking and a dozen good, and a hundred not-good, ideas on how to fix it was active and even had a few posts by staff which may have been a paladin "whining" thread first. The thread apparently got someones attention and after years of trying
donfolstar3 said:
Give
up
already
silly
Paladins
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something was done to make Paladins less bad. An aggro event was held, people beat up dummies, debuffs were modified in some way, and there was even a post on the mainpage about it declaring Paladins the quizzical Kings of Debuffs (blinds: -5 atk all day everyday, sucka). It was not the fix anyone in the thread was asking for, but it was something!
So my questions are: does staff consider the Paladin aggro issue laid to rest or are more changes being considered? How satisfied are Paladins at the low/mid/high tier with the change? Have non-Paladins noticed a marked change in groups/raids with a Paladin tank? What changes, if any, suggested in the last thread (Post #13, #35, and #129 were memorable) or novel, would bring Paladins more inline with the other tanks if Paladins are not already fixed?
 
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donfolstar3 said:
For most of the summer this lengthy thread filled with a general consensus on Paladin lacking and a dozen good, and a hundred not-good, ideas on how to fix it was active and even had a few posts by staff which may have been a paladin "whining" thread first. The thread apparently got someones attention and after years of trying

something was done to make Paladins less bad. An aggro event was held, people beat up dummies, debuffs were modified in some way, and there was even a post on the mainpage about it declaring Paladins the quizzical Kings of Debuffs (blinds: -5 atk all day everyday, sucka). It was not the fix anyone in the thread was asking for, but it was something!
So my questions are: does staff consider the Paladin aggro issue laid to rest or are more changes being considered? How satisfied are Paladins at the low/mid/high tier with the change? Have non-Paladins noticed a marked change in groups/raids with a Paladin tank? What changes, if any, suggested in the last thread (Post #13, #35, and #129 were memorable) or novel, would bring Paladins more inline with the other tanks if Paladins are not already fixed?
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Since the change, I haven't had time to do to much xping/raiding, but I have played enough that I can comment on something specific:

I will say that I still view there to still be a problem with low/mid tier paladin grouping with higher tier dps on XP mobs. I am not sure how SKs and Warriors do in this scenario. Maybe this is intended, but it sucks to not be able to preform your primary role when you happen to be grouped with t10+ DPS as a low/mid tier Paladin.

Daffie is currently about T6ish (with a t9-10 2hs), max AA, and working on tomes. No runic2. My only chance to secure agro during XP with high tier players is to use the refuge rain spell. This is not intended for single pulls, and uses to much mana to be sustainable. Additionally, it wont always allow me to keep agro. Monks/wizards seem to be the worst offenders of the DPS I group with, but I rarely group with high tier necros/mages/rangers so I can't comment on them.

Daffie (t6ish) vs. Gegen (t10ish monk) I fight hard for agro when combos are not in use and have no chance to hold agro through a fight when the DPS combo is used. If I do any self healing and/or use an on tier 1hs/shield, I have no shot at holding agro. Daffie does take hits much better than Gegen, so I do want him to hold agro... (This specific example could be a product of the h2h, combo issues, and FD xp loss issues, but the facts about agro remains the same.) I am 100% sure that we could play Gegen less effectively and allow Daffie to keep agro.

I haven't removed my heal spells to replace them with stuns, but that is next on my list of things to try. The idea of losing my heal spells kind of gives me a sad face... I'm feeling like this discourages grouping and certainly makes things not as fun for either the DPS or paladin.

Current spell line up:
DD heal
Self Heal
AE Blind
ST Blind
Flame of Light
AE Stun
Rain
Group HoT

*This is not a complaint/whine, but just an observational response to your inquiry.


EDIT - We 4 manned the Dreadfang boss girl the other night for Daffie's port key and wiped several times because of the agro issues between Gegen/Daffie. Admittedly, we could have dialed Gegen's dps way down and had no problem.
 
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Daffie said:
EDIT - We 4 manned the Dreadfang boss girl the other night for Daffie's port key and wiped several times because of the agro issues between Gegen/Daffie. Admittedly, we could have dialed Gegen's dps way down and had no problem.
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or fd the monk more often because why the hell would you want to keep wasting time wiping to save a small amount of exp?
 
Most of the original problem with paladin aggro was that lazy damage classes would rather call you a shitty tank, or chalk it up to 'blinds being bad', than lower their enormous and veiny dps output to cast jolts or feign death.
 
fxattack said:
Most of the original problem with paladin aggro was that lazy damage classes would rather call you a shitty tank, or chalk it up to 'blinds being bad', than lower their enormous and veiny dps output to cast jolts or feign death.
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Yeah this is wrong, at least when it comes to high tier monks. I expect to have to feign once or twice per exp mob with a tank of similar gear/tomes, with pallies I'd have to feign every time it was up because landing a dps combo and not feigning would still get me aggro even when the mob was under half health and I'd feigned 2-3 times already.
 
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What Lleoc said.

Spent a lot of time grouping with pallies before and after the agro change. I have noticed in regular xp groups I hardly, if ever need to jolt if I'm not whipping out my flute. (pending the pally knows how to press buttons, obv)
 
I know it's an issue across the boards, dps scales better than tanks and monks are the worst. I think they generate more aggro than Any other class.
 
Lleoc said:
or fd the monk more often because why the hell would you want to keep wasting time wiping to save a small amount of exp?
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We had a guy playing Gegen that wasn't use to playing a monk. First try he didn't FD enough, second try mez hit daffie and to much FDing got the healers agro, the third try the monk's instance had a key lock and auto attacked pulled agro, and the 4th try was a win. Bad run of luck, but try 3 is indicative of the tiering issue I wrote about.

Side note about monks - If there was a firm ryhme or reason to xp loss using FD it would not suck so much to use during xp runs. Sometimes there is xp loss sometimes there isn't. No one wants xp loss when they are out XPing!


EDIT - This example wasn't really the point of the post. The post was that related to mid tier paladin trying to group with higher tier dps. It hurts socialization because game mechanics don't allow each class to preform their rolls effectively. Because of this, someone's fun suffers. Again, I'm not complaining about it, but it is the facts based on observation. Maybe other mid tier paladin can chime in with their experiences of raiding/xping.
 
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I went into BQ boxing Luas/Sauga last thursday night.

We mostly goofed around but eventually went a little deeper to knock out something. What I noticed is, that I have to focus a lot more on keeping aggro off others. It was ok, especially if you consider, that I was retardedly tired and boxing Luas. Occasionally Sinti would pull aggro off me but it wasn't too bad at all. When I went into HK basement with Beld a week before the change went life it was terrible - and those were undeads, where a pally can usually hold aggro asleep.

So in summary something is better now. Is it good? Debatable to be honest. I don't expect Sauga (paladins) to be /afkaggro but the fact that it requires so much work to keep aggro with ontier groupmates strikes me a little, especially since it seems that other classes (esp. DPS-heavy classes like Mnk/Bst/Rng) apparently have little trouble peel aggro off me and then keeping it. While I understand, that paladins are more of a utility and less of a real tank I still do think, that they should be able to keep aggro a little better.

What can be done about it? Idk - maybe give the AA-Stun a little +aggro component (it got mentioned several times there is no aggro about it. Any word about the actual state of this matter?). Put a little aggro back onto Pallygheals and put them all on the same recast (IE cast 1 Gheal, and all others blank out) to prevent stacking?

I'm really not quite sure about what could be done to even this out because it seems to be almost okish - just not quite on par with everything else.


Disclaimer: I know that you can just have people press buttons better (Jolt/FD/whateverelse it takes to lose aggro) but that only seems to be a part of this problem.
 
Most of the original problem with paladin aggro was that lazy damage classes would rather call you a shitty tank, or chalk it up to 'blinds being bad', than lower their enormous and veiny dps output to cast jolts or feign death.
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Quoted for truth.

It all depends on who is behind the keyboard. Sometimes as a bst, i can take off my weapons, and some ferocity gear, just autoattack (no slows) and steal aggro from the tank.

At other times I have to maximize my aggro and use whatever is at my disposal to see if I even can take aggro (this is when grouping with Kraizik.... see paladin).

People that complain about paladin aggro are bad at paladins and/or pushing buttons.

Also, dps needs to learn the tanks ability better, and what is/isn't acceptable. t13 dps grouped w/ a t4-5 tank? Yeah, tone that dps down and jolt/FD/concuss/KEEP CUNNING ON more. Don't go balls out before tank has even hit the mob (unless ur tank can laugh at your puny attempts to steal aggro).

Strat leaks = the paladin stuns overwrite each other *hint hint: timing cycles*
 
Have to agree with Daenar, pally agro is pretty good atm. So if your still having trouble holding agro either you or your groupmates aren't pressing the right buttons.
 
I really like when people say something along the lines of, "I don't have to worry about jolt/concuss/FD when I'm with a warrior or SK, therefore paladins suck. I shouldn't have to use these abilities."

If you "shouldn't" have to use those abilities, you wouldn't be given them in the first place.

Like saying that I've never been in a car accident, so I shouldn't have to use my seatbelt... or something like that.
 
daenar_sod said:
I really like when people say something along the lines of, "I don't have to worry about jolt/concuss/FD when I'm with a warrior or SK, therefore paladins suck. I shouldn't have to use these abilities."

If you "shouldn't" have to use those abilities, you wouldn't be given them in the first place.

Like saying that I've never been in a car accident, so I shouldn't have to use my seatbelt... or something like that.
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Where has anyone been saying that?
 
I've seen it a ton in ooc over the course of the years.

It's used to argue as to why Paladins are horrible tanks. Instead of being able to deepthroat a mob with... how did lindstrom put it? "their enormous and veiny dps" deepsers are having to dial it back, sacrificing "much needed dps" in order to use these -aggro abilities to keep aggro manageable.
 
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daenar_sod said:
I've seen it a ton in ooc over the course of the years.

It's used to argue as to why Paladins are horrible tanks. Instead of being able to deepthroat a mob with... how did lindstrom put it? "their enormous and veiny dps" deepsers are having to dial it back, sacrificing "much needed dps" in order to use these -aggro abilities to keep aggro manageable.
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Yes, I believe whatever measures to boost paladin aggro were put in so that direct damage classes could (more closely anyway) play the way they do when a shadow knight is tanking. Its not efficient and certainly not fun to wait around for a tank to cast the same overwriting spell three times before you can safely join the fray, whereas both other tanks have snap aggro. Such is the system of a very old game with about a million developers coming in and out though I think. At any rate, the problem seems more or less fixed, as long as paladins who play right now and the people they group with believe that it is.
 
I have not played a lot recently to test aggro on my paladin, maybe I will one day, then again with all the nerfs maybe I won't... aggro is changing week to week.
 
I have but a low tier Paladin who I rarely play but here are my recent group experiences:

Elds Group with 60 to 65- people:
Everything went relatively smooth. The only negative was when heals fell behind and I had to really self/group heal aggro got a bit iffy.

TMaps E-VD:
I was keeping all the other baddies busy while the Warrior and DPS working through mobs. On digs where several golems (MR mobs) popped I was a sad panda.

Cmal3 trash with better caster dps and way better healer:
Everything was hunky dory.

Cmal3 nameds with uber tank and same healer:
I was dead weight. Not a huge surprise, but it was kind of sad. I am hard pressed to think of any class being more useless in that, or any other, group.

Overall not bad experiences, though it would be cool if we had another tool for tanking MR mobs (Divine Stun or Fury of Light retooled?) and our heals had some kind of utility (extend the nuke reduction down the line? veil effect?) or functionality (go into druid runic slot so not overwritten by everything? self heal was somehow useful when not tanking- like overheal was runed or vimed or something with mana or something?).
 
donfolstar3 said:
I have but a low tier Paladin who I rarely play but here are my recent group experiences:

Elds Group with 60 to 65- people:
Everything went relatively smooth. The only negative was when heals fell behind and I had to really self/group heal aggro got a bit iffy.

TMaps E-VD:
I was keeping all the other baddies busy while the Warrior and DPS working through mobs. On digs where several golems (MR mobs) popped I was a sad panda.

Cmal3 trash with better caster dps and way better healer:
Everything was hunky dory.

Cmal3 nameds with uber tank and same healer:
I was dead weight. Not a huge surprise, but it was kind of sad. I am hard pressed to think of any class being more useless in that, or any other, group.

Overall not bad experiences, though it would be cool if we had another tool for tanking MR mobs (Divine Stun or Fury of Light retooled?) and our heals had some kind of utility (extend the nuke reduction down the line? veil effect?) or functionality (go into druid runic slot so not overwritten by everything? self heal was somehow useful when not tanking- like overheal was runed or vimed or something with mana or something?).
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Do you have the MR glyph done? I just finished mine, but I haven't really had much play time to notice if it was helpful on mobs with high MR.
 
I went into NDHK the other night for fun with a pug mixed with under tiered to above tier players. I MTed basically the whole time, and agro seems pretty good.. (I did get a lot of use out of the refuge spell even on single targets...)

-I stick by what I said previously about grouping with higher tier DPS as a mid tier tank. (If I have time, I'll try dropping heal spells for stuns and see how it goes grouping with some upper tier dps...)
-Also, resisted spells are still going to be problematic. I have the -MR Glyph done, and one of the named (I don't remember which) was giving me some resist fits causing agro to bounce a little. I think SK/War are still going to be highly preferred for high MR mobs.

Overall agro wise, this was probably the best experience I have had raiding. (This was one of the first real raids I have done since I got the refuge spell.)
 
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