Never Surrender (Part what.. Quatro?)

Let me address a few things:

1) Loss of HoTs debuff
How much healing are we talking about lost during 120 seconds? At about 300/pulse, the absolute most you could get is 40*300 = 12,000k morale. That's if you keep it up the entire fight. Assuming about 12k morale, you've already gotten a 9k morale heal from the initial heal. Would you rather have a 25% heal and no HoT penalty? Its the healer's job to keep you up and the Warden's job to keep aggro. Self-heals make a healers job easier, but they are not a requirement for a tank.

2) Loss of Masteries debuff
There are 2 main advantages to using masteries. The first is that you do not have to touch an enemy to build gambits. The second is to build gambits more quickly. By losing your masteries, you will have to confront the enemy toe-to-toe and you'll be firing gambits more slowly. But you'll also be doing more DPS while you build (masteries do no damage, builders do) and your power per second will be much lower.

A tank needs to do 2 main things:
1) Don't die
The basic rule is don't die. This skill delivers in spades. The other skills to prevent dying are avoidances and heals. You can still build enough gambits to keep all 3 avoidances up at all times. Your healer should be able to keep you up on heals. If there are lots of mobs around, spamming Resolution may actually yield a higher healing rate than Conviction or Exultation of battle (not sure about Restoration).
2) Keep aggro
If you lost aggro, you won't be using masteries. You'll be spamming precise blow and possibly conviction. You'll lose easy convictions with the debuff, but your precise blow should be just as quick and efficient as ever.

A tank may also be called to interrupt and remove corruptions. But these are duties that other members of the fellowship can help with.

All in all, it seems a realistic and appropriate debuff. You just survived a killing blow! You still live, you still have aggro, and you still can build threat. That's a good tanking skill no matter how you cut it. You can complain that the cost is too high, but no one can say the cost is higher than dying. So why the whining? You cheated death! You got a free life! You got a free rez! If you don't like the debuff, then die and come back.

--Harperella

Harperelle: Your numbers are a bit low. *Without* masteries, I parsed about 220 HPS in a full heal rotation. That means that during the 120s I'm without masteries and have only 1 heal tick (which means I won't be HoT-ing at all) I lose 26,400 health, if I were to focus on HoTs. Now, that was ideal, stacking Conviction + every Persevere-line HoT except Safeguard (due to time constraints; could fit it in with masteries), but still. Even if I have to drop Persevere, that's, what, 26 HPS? So we're still talking 23,280 healing lost. And I don't even have all the +healing Legacies, or terribly good inc healing.

Also, IIRC under current NS, EoB isn't nerfed, as it's a health steal, not a HoT. Also, it always does better overall healing-per-second and healing-per-power than Resolution (you get about 1 Resolution's worth of HP out of 2 ticks of EoB).

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Originally Posted by Regero

now: NS is so awesome! I LOVE this skill! Thank you devs! <3

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... Not quite.
Even now with its 120 seconds debuff duration. It may prevent death but it would make us hardly more efficient than a corpse. If new raids/instances are so easy we can manage to main-tank them with this debuff on, then it is likely we don't even need Never Surrender.

This is NOT a great skill or anything. TBH, these "cries of joy" make me sick. Please, look at other classes' dev diaries, THOSE are great improvements, without any nasty counterparts that would make them useless.

I want wardens to become able to compete with guardians in any raid boss fight. There's no reason why guardians should be the only competitive tank in hardest encounters. Wardens are picked "for fun", or "as a challenge". And this "improved" (*cough*) Never Surrender is still meaningless compared to, say, Guardian's Pledge.

I might as well undelete my champion to replace this warden. I feel like I wasted my time waiting for a decent buff to come.

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Originally Posted by Harperelle

Let me address a few things:

1) Loss of HoTs debuff

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I'm okay with losing heal pulses. Objectively, that is a good way to keep NS from being too OP. I'm not in favor of it, but I understand how the Devs could see the need for this and I understand why they did it.

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2) Loss of Masteries debuff

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You do MORE damage with masteries, this has been proved countless times. The builders provide insignificant damage, and being able to pump out our actual damaging gambits is what really counts. Doubling or tripling that speed increases damage, it does not lower it.

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A tank needs to do 2 main things:
1) Don't die

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NS helps with this, I'll give you that ;).

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2) Keep aggro
If you lost aggro, you won't be using masteries. You'll be spamming precise blow and possibly conviction. You'll lose easy convictions with the debuff, but your precise blow should be just as quick and efficient as ever.

A tank may also be called to interrupt and remove corruptions. But these are duties that other members of the fellowship can help with.

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I have a big problem with this. Why wouldn't I be using masteries if I lost aggro? Why shouldn't I use a Fist-Spear mastery for an instant Precise Blow? If I lost aggro, that extra second or two could be the difference. If I'm ever in danger of losing aggro, I will save masteries for that moment because it's so crucial. How am I doing Conviction with any amount of effectiveness without masteries?

In my experience, when there are corruptions up I help with them because it's so easy for us to spam it. While others can help us, why should our effective role diminish because we used a skill that saved our life?

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All in all, it seems a realistic and appropriate debuff. You just survived a killing blow! You still live, you still have aggro, and you still can build threat. That's a good tanking skill no matter how you cut it. You can complain that the cost is too high, but no one can say the cost is higher than dying. So why the whining? You cheated death! You got a free life! You got a free rez! If you don't like the debuff, then die and come back.

--Harperella

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We survived a killing blow, but now we are in an even worse position to survive another one. We cannot build gambits anywhere near as fast as we could, you know back when we almost died. Why are we now in a better position to survive another big hit if we're now fighting with one arm tied behind our back?

I don't mean to be confrontational. I completely agree with the post that says if we can beat content without issue WITHOUT masteries or heal pulses, why would we need NS for that content? When would something be killing us with full use of our heal pulses and masteries, but then we'd be fine without heal pulses or masteries?

I respectfully ask if you have main tanked all of the t2 bosses in OD? Or if anyone else who is fine with the penalties have done so? I don't mean to start a competition between Wardens, but I have tanked all of OD (and everything else in the game) and there are MANY cases where I could not see how I could do it without masteries not just in OD. There's just no way I'm swapping aggro with a Guardian if I can't use masteries. BG LT would be seriously daunting without masteries. I'm just trying to point out that locking out our masteries for anything more than a few seconds is a huge debuff.

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Originally Posted by Orion

Defeat will clear the debuff.

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Please, PLEASE tell me this isn't true in the moors.

Your all placing WAY too much value in masteries. Don't get me wrong, they are essential to tanking normally, but once you have a solid aggro lead and your group is established its primarily a matter of putting buffs up and then an occasional taunt or HoT. You can still function fine. The primary reason masteries are needed is during that "competitive" period at the start of a fight when you need to frantically out race DPS classes and the healer to make sure you get aggro. It IS a penalty, that's undeniable, but it is not nearly as big of an issue as people make it out to be, especially if you only need to do without them for 2 minutes.

As for HoT's, HoT's kick a$$ but in a raid they will not be our primary means of damage negation. Besides, whats your healer there for if not to heal?

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Originally Posted by Regero

Your all placing WAY too much value in masteries. Don't get me wrong, they are essential to tanking normally, but once you have a solid aggro lead and your group is established its primarily a matter of putting buffs up and then an occasional taunt or HoT. You can still function fine. The primary reason masteries are needed is during that "competitive" period at the start of a fight when you need to frantically out race DPS classes and the healer to make sure you get aggro. It IS a penalty, that's undeniable, but it is not nearly as big of an issue as people make it out to be, especially if you only need to do without them for 2 minutes.

As for HoT's, HoT's kick a$$ but in a raid they will not be our primary means of damage negation. Besides, whats your healer there for if not to heal?

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I happen to agree with this now. The 15 min CD combined with a 2 min debuff (compared to 30 min cd/ 5 min debuff) is workable. I personally will now make use of this skill once isen goes live.

I have not tanked every boss in the game and while I'd like to raid, I just haven't had the time to devote to it yet. That said, I have tanked 95% of the time I've played my warden in a group. The HoT penalties for NS I can understand. I disagree that they are needed but as some of you have pointed out, with any kind of decent healer we can probably survive for 2 minutes without those full HoTs. The loss of our masteries is what I see as the worst feature of this skill. Frankly, it always was. I've used NS exactly twice, both times to remove a dread effect while at a rez circle. Then I alt-tabbed out of LotRO for five minutes while I waited for the ridiculous debuff to wear off.

What if a hunter or LM or fire-traited RK had to use an "oh no!" skill and the penalty was that the length of all of their inductions were multiplied by 3 to 5 times? Scaling so that the more powerful skills had a greater multiplication to the length of their inductions. That's is what is being done to Wardens by taking away our double builders.

I seriously doubt I'll use this "new" NS much at all. I just don't come that close to dying that often. Why would I risk gimping myself when I can just "...don't die" like I do right now? As for the armor 5-set bonus, are you bleeping kidding? How about we get a buff to a gambit, or healing magnitude, or incoming healing, or something that will actually make me excited to have this armor.

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Originally Posted by thunderchickn

I respectfully ask if you have main tanked all of the t2 bosses in OD? Or if anyone else who is fine with the penalties have done so?

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A warden with no masteries is better than a dead warden. Perhaps there are some places in the game where that warden with no masteries will be guaranteed to wipe the raid. But the raid was already wiped when the warden went down. Never Surrender is a second chance. Maybe you died early from over confidence or sloppiness, but if you come back with Never Surrender you will pay -very- close attention and work -very- hard to stay alive. And there will be times in this game where never surrender can mean the difference between defeat and victory. So don't look a gift horse in the mouth. It is a useful, worthwhile skill, and arguably the most powerful self-heal in the game.

--Harperella

http://xa9.xanga.com/875b5a725463140.../z26012678.jpg
Inigo Montoya, the original Never Surrender warden found himself able to defeat his nemesis even after taking a dreadful wound. His artful swordplay was hampered by his wound, but his determination and single-mindedness brought him victory. A lesson to anyone who aspires to call themselves a warden...

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!

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Originally Posted by Regero

Your all placing WAY too much value in masteries. Don't get me wrong, they are essential to tanking normally, but once you have a solid aggro lead and your group is established its primarily a matter of putting buffs up and then an occasional taunt or HoT. You can still function fine. The primary reason masteries are needed is during that "competitive" period at the start of a fight when you need to frantically out race DPS classes and the healer to make sure you get aggro. It IS a penalty, that's undeniable, but it is not nearly as big of an issue as people make it out to be, especially if you only need to do without them for 2 minutes.

As for HoT's, HoT's kick a$$ but in a raid they will not be our primary means of damage negation. Besides, whats your healer there for if not to heal?

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I usually agree with everything you say Regero, it's actually interesting to me that we are on both ends of the spectrum on this one.

I believe that the situation you have outlined here (and a couple other times) is an absolutely ideal one. It's so ideal, that if we had a great threat lead, no problems with heal pulses, enough time to keep our buffs up, etc... why were we about to die? Why did we need to use NS if we're fine on aggro, don't need the heal pulses, and can use the single builders from buffs for the rest of the fight?

Aside from that, your situation only works for tank-and-spank fights. This will not work with tank swapping, any time you are responsible for corruptions/interrupts, any fight you spend any amount of time not in melee range, any time you lose aggro, or any type of DPS race.

I will point back to what ANewMachine said. Any time that the penalties on NS are not a problem is a time that we shouldn't need it in the first place. If we need the 75% heal with a bunch of power, we're also going to need our masteries.

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Originally Posted by Harperelle

A warden with no masteries is better than a dead warden. Perhaps there are some places in the game where that warden with no masteries will be guaranteed to wipe the raid. But the raid was already wiped when the warden went down. Never Surrender is a second chance. Maybe you died early from over confidence or sloppiness, but if you come back with Never Surrender you will pay -very- close attention and work -very- hard to stay alive. And there will be times in this game where never surrender can mean the difference between defeat and victory. So don't look a gift horse in the mouth. It is a useful, worthwhile skill, and arguably the most powerful self-heal in the game.

--Harperella

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I have no issue with what the skill gives us, not at all. I agree it is a very powerful heal. My problem is what it takes away from us. You just said yourself that there are some places where a Warden with no masteries will fail! Isn't that the point?

Of course a live tank is better than a dead tank. The problem is when the dead tank can pop back up, hit 1 skill, and be right back with maximum aggro; the live tank is sitting there like a deer in the headlights not able to keep up with aggro swaps, boss repositioning, kiting, or any other mechanics beyond just a simple tank and spank.

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Originally Posted by grinko.at

Well, the user can still die after burning TnG or pledge, those don't restore any morale and don't make the player invincible. A tactical attack or stun is all it needs. So those aren't really OP because they are not 100% bulletproof.

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Yeah, seriously....pledge is 15s every 5 minutes for extreme BPE...that's it...nothing at all for tactical damage, and bosses will kill you through it frequently. I understand that NS knocking you back to manual building gambits is tough, but pledge is pretty limited in raids tbh. In raids in the moors, pledge is next to useless, btw...not that we are measuring skills for pvp, but just saying.

To be fair, if we're going to say that Pledge and TnG aren't that great because they can be nullified, we have to say that NS isn't that good either because it only restores a set amount of morale. It's very common for both Pledge and TnG to avoid many multiples of the user's morale, not just 75% of it.

In the end, comparing ourselves to other classes won't get us anywhere. I think if there is any room for a last minute (or future) change to be made it's going to come from us making it known how absolutely necessary masteries are in any raid situation, and most 6 man situations.

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Originally Posted by MorliX

In raids in the moors, pledge is next to useless, btw...not that we are measuring skills for pvp, but just saying.

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Wait... what ?
Most of the incoming damage in the moors can be blocked/avoided. Pledge makes you almost invulnerable for 15 seconds (spiders, defilers and warleaders being a pretty low threat...).
Pledge is much better than a skill removing warden's masteries. If there's a place wardens absolutely need masteries, we're talking about the moors.

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the live tank is sitting there like a deer in the headlights not able to keep up with aggro swaps, boss repositioning, kiting, or any other mechanics beyond just a simple tank and spank.

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What do masteries have to do with any of those...?

People keep insisting on comparing NS to other classes' skills, but please show me the class that gets a +75% morale and +50% power heal every 10 (15) minutes? With the new gear that I've seen that looks like it will be in excess of 7.5k morale and 2k power for a good warden. That's sick. And we don't even have to time it, we just have to be in the ballpark with a 5 minute guess.

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Originally Posted by Orion

Defeat will clear the debuff.

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Maybe I'm just dumb, but when is that? I mean if you died and retreat you get the message that you were defeated. If you are revived, you never get that message. So in other words, does he "defeat" check happen at death, revival or retreat?

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Originally Posted by Orion

Champs need to be traited 4 deep in Martial Champion and they need to be running Glory to gain the effects of Exalted Combatant.

Never Surrender: 15 minute cooldown (triggered when activated), cannot be defeated while this is active, if you fall to 5% health or less (healers cannot keep up, taps cannot keep up), you are healed for 75% morale and 50% power and lose access to your mastery abilities and HoT ticks beyond the first for 5 minutes.

The 5-minute cooldown starting in conjunction with the initiation of the skill makes the contributing cooldown to 10 minutes. With a 5-minute negative - if triggered.

The 5-set bonus that many are bemoaning reduces the cooldown on the skill by 5 minutes.

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Just a quick question;

The tool tip description from Never surrender (coming from a Beta Screenshot) states:
"Wardens are difficult to defeat and the most well learned will not surrender even when they face the most vile of odds. You cannot be defeated. If you fall below 5% morale, you will recover 75% morale and 50% power.

You will also lose acces to masteries and HoT pulses for a short time.
Duration 5m
Cost: 5power
Cooldown: 15m"

Is this just one heal of 75% of morale, or is it a multitude of heals any time you fall below 5% morale?
Also if you use this skill as a panic button, but the effect does not fire, do you still lose the masteries after the 5 min duration?
(apologies for my ignorance but cant seem to take a simple yes/no answer from the posts in the thread)

The 120s de-buff to masteries is acceptable in my opinion! I see myself using this skill if a healer dies in the group, i have the aggro, and taking damage. This gives time for my healer to be rezzed by the another healer, instead of the other healer having to cross heal me. Gives a nice cushion to group make up, but 2 mins is not that much of a cool-down, in comparison to 5mins

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Originally Posted by Kirkdog

People keep insisting on comparing NS to other classes' skills, but please show me the class that gets a +75% morale and +50% power heal every 10 (15) minutes? With the new gear that I've seen that looks like it will be in excess of 7.5k morale and 2k power for a good warden. That's sick. And we don't even have to time it, we just have to be in the ballpark with a 5 minute guess.

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Please show me the class that gets a skill making it useless for 2 minutes ?
And what kind of warden has more than 4k power ? We're not minstrels.

If we can survive without our masteries and HoTs, we don't need Never Surrender, and if thing are bad enough to need Never Surrender, they're bad enough to take us down well before 2 minutes are up. I will take a 30 minute cooldown over these penalties any day.

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Originally Posted by Orion

Wardens use HoTs and lifetaps coupled with skills to boost their evasion and mitigation to control their enemies in a fight.

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Why are you taking away what is, by your own definition, the cornerstone of our tanking ability? Without HoTs and masteries were little more than a Hunter trying to do a Guardians job.

I've been following this thread and I must say I am finally at peace with NS. The last thing I want is for wardens (or any class) to become OP--this game is already easy enough--and NS is, potentially, a skill that can push us to OP. I, personally, would rather NS have a 45 minute CD (or a 1 day CD for that matter) with no debuffs, say, than gimp the fundamental way wardens work even for a few minutes as it currently does. My main worry now is what, exactly, is going to be difficult in this game that even requires skills like NS--the one new raid?? What, are we going to use our NS on the 300+ solo quests in RoI? Maybe hit NS when you go afk with a phone call and are in the middle of a big pull? Or (ha!) grinding S4M in school and library (where many of us have soloed the bosses on level already and rarely run with a healer in these)? Oh, wait, I know: NS will be useful when I get lazy grinding IoF and step on too many traps! Honestly, I'd be happier with RoI if every class got a nerf, but that is just me insofar as I'd prefer a game where 50% of the content was currently too hard for me than one where only a few raids or soloable mobs remained for me to kill. I digress...

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Originally Posted by thunderchickn

I usually agree with everything you say Regero, it's actually interesting to me that we are on both ends of the spectrum on this one.

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Huzzah! I haven't had anyone to debate with since Colred disappeared. I shall call you Colred2 and we shall debate ALL the things!!!!

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Originally Posted by thunderchickn

I believe that the situation you have outlined here (and a couple other times) is an absolutely ideal one. It's so ideal, that if we had a great threat lead, no problems with heal pulses, enough time to keep our buffs up, etc... why were we about to die? Why did we need to use NS if we're fine on aggro, don't need the heal pulses, and can use the single builders from buffs for the rest of the fight?

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Then give me a different scenario as to when you would use this skill.

When I tank raid bosses, things generally go fine if I'm in a good group. The problem is that, even with a good group, mistakes or emergencies arise. Against Durchest for example, everything goes fine. I keep buffs up, bounce aggro back and forth with the other tank, and throw on a few HoT's for good measure. But then, BOOM! 8k crit. If I was a guardian I could hit a button and live and the raid would be happy. As I am a warden I am entirely reliant on another class to save me, but there is not enough time and I die. NS addresses that issue, and lets say it's NS that saves me. I come back up, and just keep my buffs going and throwing out PB's. The fight continues, with me a little squishier for 2 minutes, and the raid lives.

As I said before, or maybe in another thread, wardens have historically not had CD skills because on a moment to moment basis we have more survivability than all the other classes with our HoT's and Buffs up. The new NS is not intended to be relied upon, it is intended to be literally a panic button so that we are not 100% reliant on the other classes to save us in the event of an emergency.

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Originally Posted by thunderchickn

Aside from that, your situation only works for tank-and-spank fights. This will not work with tank swapping, any time you are responsible for corruptions/interrupts, any fight you spend any amount of time not in melee range, any time you lose aggro, or any type of DPS race.

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Tank swapping may or may not be made easier by our new gambits, but if worst comes to worst we will just have a to rely on guardians yet again and there ability to bounce in and out of threat stance. Even still though we should still have time to get off one or two of those new gambits, they are only length 4.

Corruptions and interrupts can be handled effectively by almost every class at this point. A tanking warden really shouldn't have to worry excessively about that while also tanking.

What fight are you referring to that you spend significant time out of melee range? Even in that scenario though you do still generate some threat via javelin DPS, its not great but its better than guards and champs. And if your close enough you can mash the fist icon and throw out goads.

As to aggro loss, that's what this new skill is supposed to prevent. By not dying, you don't lose aggro. It is also possible to tank fine without masteries especially in a boss fight. PB is only length two after all, and with an occasional WC you should be able to maintain your lead. Masteries are only essential in tanking during the first minute or so of a fight when you have to directly compete against everyone to get aggro.

DPS races will not be significantly effected. Parses show that a warden without masteries does about 75% of the DPS as a warden with them and is about 50% more efficient on power to boot. and if it comes to simply having to maintain a lead over the DPS classes, spam PB.

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Originally Posted by thunderchickn

I will point back to what ANewMachine said. Any time that the penalties on NS are not a problem is a time that we shouldn't need it in the first place. If we need the 75% heal with a bunch of power, we're also going to need our masteries.

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But generally we don't need it. This skill is not something to rely upon or that we use often as guards do Pledge for example. This is a way we can adapt to, almost exclusively, times when we get critted or some other negative effect and where every other class could react via a CD, and the warden simply dies. If we needed that massive heal, it may or may not mean we need our masteries. Again, take Durchest as an example: everything goes fine until he crits you. In that situation the warden would die not because they had been struggling the entire fight, but because they had no ability to react to this sudden emergency.

As things now stand, Guardians have a lot more mitigation than Wardens (because of the heavier Guardian armor). Avoidances are roughly equal. Incoming Damage Reduction, or Defense or whatever it's being called now are also roughly equal. So Guardians have more mitigation, what do Wardens have? We have HoTs.

Something that keeps us alive momentarily but destroys our HoTs for five minutes? That destroys the edge we had and makes us an inferior tank compared to a Guardian.

Then there are masteries. I am so much better with masteries. It was a shock when I first got them as I had to relearn all of my gambits. Removing all access to them for five minutes? Do I really want to essentially be sent back to level 50 or something? Honestly, do you know how much slower gambits are when I don't have masteries?

Honestly, if I die then the situation was all screwed up. Gimping myself, seriously gimping myself, is not the solution. Sure, I'm alive, but I've just markedly increased the burden on the party healer (since I don't have HoTs) and I've markedly decreased my ability to respond and react to everything else that is going on (since all of my gambits are so much slower). In essence, in return for not dying, I'm a broken tank -- a hunter with a shield and jack all for damage. How is this useful?

I'm not going to waste a single copper on this piece of turkey dressing.

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Originally Posted by Regero

Again, take Durchest as an example: everything goes fine until he crits you. In that situation the warden would die not because they had been struggling the entire fight, but because they had no ability to react to this sudden emergency.

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And then the debuff procs, your incoming healing decreases because you can't heal yourself anymore, using Shield Mastery/WoS/DoW/removing corruptions takes more time, and Durchest can easily kill you anytime during these 2 minutes.
Thank you NS !

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Originally Posted by Regero

Huzzah! I haven't had anyone to debate with since Colred disappeared. I shall call you Colred2 and we shall debate ALL the things!!!!

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Lol, deal.

I can think of one example of what I'm worried about happening with NS... I'll choose a difficult example where there's a good chance something will go wrong, not just Durchest where even a huge crit really isn't that big of a deal at this point. I'm doing OD Fear wing. We're about halfway through the fight, healer gets knocked back and I take a big crit. I need NS or else he's going to kill me. So I use NS, and I live! Huzzah! But wait a moment... now I have no masteries or heal pulses. I can't keep Conviction ticking on my group. It will take me a significantly longer to take aggro back from the Guardian, I probably won't get it in time. Now I've failed my group because I can no longer keep a nice HoT on everyone to help top them off, and I cannot pull aggro back off the Guardian. I hope Aggression is the magical tool that will fix this but I'm hesitant about putting all my hope onto it. Aside from that, I can't hold the boss now and keep ALL of my buffs up that I can with masteries. I need to manually build everything, including my threat dump so I don't have time.

To sum it up, the group is missing out on my little HoT that wasn't saving anyone's life... but definitely making things a little bit more pleasant. I will struggle to get aggro back from the Guard in a timely manner, possibly leading to his death. I am now avoiding less, taking more damage. I just feel that there's a pretty good chance of wiping the group even after using NS. Maybe I rely too much on the masteries... but isn't that what they're for? I don't want to be in a raid situation where it takes me 5-6 seconds to get off a Gambit because I have no quick way to build it.

It's great not to die. I don't think it would be better to die, in most cases. However I don't think it's a good emergency skill either. We were at the brink of death WITH all of our HoTs and WITH all of our masteries, now we're expected to finish the fight that we almost just died in without them?

I also disagree that most raid fights can be done no problem without masteries. Masteries are essential in pretty much EVERY OD boss fight. Disease wing is easy, but lots of time spent running around using masteries. That fight would be SO much harder if I couldn't use my masteries both to heal myself quickly and to ensure I get all my lurkers. Poison wing has a lot of running around with the platforms and a decent amount of self healing involved, I also use masteries there so I can have Gambits ready. Not to mention quickly getting aggro back from whoever took it (unless it was a Champ force taunt which I don't like to rely on anyways). I've already given the example for Fear. Wound wouldn't be as bad, unless of course you're kiting the mammoths and then well you're screwed without masteries. If you're not kiting, you can't queue up a Gambit to use when adds pop, now you're gimped because you have to find one, target it, build Gambit, then fire it off instead of having it ready with masteries. I don't know if I could hold aggro on Ivar without masteries, that's really a huge DPS race and the DPS classes should not be holding back. There's a ton of running around in Gortheron, taking masteries away from that is a big bummer as well. Even BG... Durchest may not be that bad, but Twins would be very tough and you'd need a designated corruption removal class just for LT... that gimps the raid because we need someone for the job that I SHOULD be able to do myself. Most fights aren't a problem for someone else to grab corruptions I agree with you there... but this fight isn't one of those. It's a huge advantage for us to be able to do them ourselves.

Of the level cap raid bosses... the vast majority of them require us to have masteries to be on a level playing field with the other tank raid leaders can bring.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aeronth

And then the debuff procs, your incoming healing decreases because you can't heal yourself anymore, using Shield Mastery/WoS/DoW/removing corruptions takes more time, and Durchest can easily kill you anytime during these 2 minutes.
Thank you NS !

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Although Durchest isn't the best example because even a big crit isn't the end of that fight, this is how I feel. If I can survive through the heavy penalties of no HoTs and no masteries... then I can probably survive without NS. It would take an EASY fight to be able to manage the penalties incurred by NS, and why would I be dying in an easy fight?