If knights had defensive, would there be any reason to have warriors?

[long.liam]

If knights got all the same Disciplines that warriors got, would there be any reason for warriors to exist?

[Keebz]

They'd still have higher HP and better mitigation, so would be more forgiving and require less mana over a long fight.

[long.liam]

Originally Posted by Keebz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

They'd still have higher HP and better mitigation, so would be more forgiving and require less mana over a long fight.

The difference between Warrior and Knight HP and AC is pretty small. In BIS gear they may even almost same amount of HP and AC.

[Videri]

I don’t think so, no.

Knights get 5.2 hp per stamina, whereas warriors get 6 hp per sta. 6*255 - 5.2*255 = 204, a significant chunk. (And there is no softcap on stamina.)

But the snap aggro is significantly better than relying on swings and procs.

I think it’s a really cool game balance choice that the class with the very best hp and mitigation has slightly limited aggro generation, whereas the classes with on-demand aggro have slightly less hp and mitigation (and much less damage output). The end result is that all 3 classes are needed, and there are many ways to play.

[Toxigen]

Warriors will still pump out more threat on long fights.

Have fun casting FoL on AoW.

Would it help on quakes / speed clearing? Sure. You're still not main tanking anything hard though, hope this helps.

[pasi]

I think if there was any era for it, this would probably be it. Mid-late Velious where knights have their upgraded skill caps, but prior to 1) AAs and 2) Discipline System Revamp (group-timers)

AAs may widen the HP+mitigation/avoidance gap, but the main thing differentiating the two is AE taunt. Knights could get 1200 threat a cast, but they lacked anything like AE taunt - i.e a 100% success rate taunt (the AE part of it being icing on the cake). A single ability which guarantees the person goes to the top of the aggro list. So, you can seamless transition from WS ranger or prior defensive warrior to the next.

The other key ability that knights lack is an instant burst avoidance ability for getting a CHeal chain switched over -i.e. furious, fortitude, weaponshield, etc. The discipline system revamp put these abilities on separate timers than defensive.

Those are the main two abilities knights lacked to raid tank well. Obviously, warriors also have a natural advantage in terms of HP and AC softcap returns. Knights do eventually get a defensive-type ability something like 10 years later, but iirc it's capped (at least initially) at some number of damage mitigated.

Knights are the red-headed step child of early EQ. In an ideal world, you'd want 1 Paladin to buff DS and 0 SKs. Later on, there's occasionally a mob that fears where they offer some advantage, occasionally a mob like Arch Lich that can be cheesed via Knight, a random DA hammer for rolling the dice with rampages, and the occasional useless AA ability that could crash the zone to respawn PoFire. But that's pretty much it.

[Keebz]

Originally Posted by pasi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Knights are the red-headed step child of early EQ.

Well in classic they are just straight up better than warriors at tanking. Kunark is where the pure melees get severely overcompensated.

[pasi]

Originally Posted by Keebz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well in classic they are just straight up better than warriors at tanking. Kunark is where the pure melees get severely overcompensated.

I'd mostly agree with this.

A warrior with a mallet is optimal for the handful of raid bosses - most of which are PoSky. Since most of the level 50 raid content is clearing trash, I'd agree with giving SK/Paladin the nod over warriors. Sub-optimal and slightly insane, but Ogre Shaman aren't that far behind the knights at 50 either. There's very few 50 mobs that are tankable by War/SK/Paladin that couldn't be tanked by an ogre shaman.

Though the nice part about playing a warrior in classic is that half the server is mages/necro/enchanters (assuming you have coerced them to group). You don't need to be the top threat to hold aggro. You just need to be the highest threat PC in melee range awhile everyone else is below the mage, necro, and/or enchanter pets. If a pet is top of the hate of list and you're the highest threat person in melee range, you are "holding aggro."

As far as fixing knights, I see no problem with giving knights a defensive-type ability that either has a lower duration or lower mitigation (say 35% versus 50%). They would still be a trash-tier raid class.

[Vivitron]

Originally Posted by pasi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You don't need to be the top threat to hold aggro. You just need to be the highest threat PC in melee range awhile everyone else is below the mage, necro, and/or enchanter pets. If a pet is top of the hate of list and you're the highest threat person in melee range, you are "holding aggro."

It probably should work like that, but it doesn't.

If you have one pet and one player melee in melee range and aggro is pet > caster > melee, the mob will chase the caster.

This is usually an edge case that is hard to notice, but can be an annoyance in a low man monk/enchanter setup. Suppose the enchanter tags off the flop and puts some slows into the mob before the monk returns to melee. The mob will chase towards the enchanter just far enough to get out of the monks melee range, then it will return to hitting the pet.

If you have multiple other things in melee range other than the high aggro pet, the npc can skip to other things in melee range instead of the caster or the tank. I don't know the full rules on what the npc chooses to hit but sometimes this will cause it to hit a pet even though players are in melee range. Other times an early slow will make it look like a rogue over aggroed.

[Raj]

Originally Posted by Keebz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well in classic they are just straight up better than warriors at tanking. Kunark is where the pure melees get severely overcompensated.