Captain tanking needs a nerf!

[Ethrildar]

You've swapped to ad hominem attacks now huh.

I have no issues whatsoever calling you out on the trash you continually spout, call that a personal attack or anything else you like. If you talk BS, I'm going to call "BS." If it bothers you, apply some critical thinking.

You're right on one front and that's the fact that I haven't played champ in years...

Or any other class, that much is painfully obvious at this point, you've as much as beaten us half to death with it by now.

May I recommend you two try a few other games. Why don't you both give WoW a shot?

No, thanks, I'm good. I play plenty of games from shooters to multiple other MMOs but their class design choices are completely and utterly irrelevant to this game. If you want to play WoW, go ahead and play WoW? If you want LotRO to be a clone of WoW, again, why are you even here?

Heph might learn some basics about proactive healing

Of every player to post in this thread (and many, many other forum threads) I don't see many that post more coherent, well thought-out advice and information than Heph, he has a very deep understanding of the mechanics of the game, and individual class dynamics, as well as a really solid knowledge on all of trait trees he's claimed to know, backed up specifically with verifiable information in each post, quite the opposite of yourself, interestingly enough; your posts continually hinge on derailing the topic at hand with hyperbole and hearsay, never once being backed up by any actual facts or figures or real world (in game speaking), repeatable and viable scenarios.

You both seem way too wrapped up in the current meta of LOTRO and I think you need the perspective.

I commend your efforts Eth and Heph. The absolute tripe that’s been written is unreal.

Glad it's not just us that have noticed it.

Oh no, I'm recommending buffing healers and nerfing one tank who happens to have too much support.

So you've gone from "SSG don't have the capabilities to buff 5 tank classes so we should just nerf one" To "I want a fundamental redesign from the ground up on how every healing class in the game functions and a complete re-work on group content dynamics nearly a decade and a half into the game!"

Uh... You know SSG are basically a skeleton crew, right? How do you think the player-base will even react to "Hey we've decided to ditch every single other project so that our three-man dev team can spend a year re-designing how the entire game works, oh and if you play a healer or a tank, good news, we're totally changing how your class plays which you may or may not like, but WoW does it this way so we've decided that is now how we're going to do it regardless of what you think!"?

[Hephburz-2]

Of every player to post in this thread (and many, many other forum threads) I don't see many that post more coherent, well thought-out advice and information than Heph, he has a very deep understanding of the mechanics of the game, and individual class dynamics, as well as a really solid knowledge on all of trait trees he's claimed to know, backed up specifically with verifiable information in each post, quite the opposite of yourself, interestingly enough; your posts continually hinge on derailing the topic at hand with hyperbole and hearsay, never once being backed up by any actual facts or figures or real world (in game speaking), repeatable and viable scenarios.

Aw, love you too Eth

Uh... You know SSG are basically a skeleton crew, right? How do you think the player-base will even react to "Hey we've decided to ditch every single other project so that our three-man dev team can spend a year re-designing how the entire game works, oh and if you play a healer or a tank, good news, we're totally changing how your class plays which you may or may not like, but WoW does it this way so we've decided that is now how we're going to do it regardless of what you think!"?

Hit the nail on the head with this one

[Joedangod]

They weren't forgotten, they were omitted

When talking about incoming damage a -30% incoming damage buff with ~50% uptime is relevant. For Champ you're omitting a what, 150k morale bubble? No honest person would have omitted those things. You omitted them, on purpose. Not a great look.

All tanks in this game offer varying levels of "support", that is something you cannot dispute, however hard you might try.

They offer minimal support and that support is primarily in the form of a mitigation debuff to bump damage a bit. They aren't even well implemented debuffs, they basically just force representation as certain classes find themselves being brought for that one debuff first, their own personal DPS/Healing/Tanking/Whateverr second. At best these other tanks dip their toe into performing a secondary role, yellow captain outright takes over group defensives from healers by having the best group defensive by a long shot, it rezzes more targets than 2/4 healers, it has a better tool to save another player than healers do and it passively makes everyone 10% more durable (which on most healers that level of boosted defence would require cooldown usage). No other game puts these things on the tank and technically LOTRO doesn't either, it only puts it on Yellow Captain. Hence the debate here.

Equating Yellow Captain support with the support other tanks bring is a joke. Honestly, you're trolling with that.

I have perspective. You on the other hand need to recognise what game it is you're playing and become a realist.

You're not realist. You're a pessimist.

[Arabani]

Joedangod is absolutely right in his vision of a working game system. Unfortunately some people still cling to the outdated point of view. The worst thing is the developers are also stuck somewhere in the past when rpg systems did thier first steps.

You may disagree with me, but it does not change the awful state of balance and terrible class interaction in the game. Every class shall be viable in every role it has, in every type of content. There is no such thing as a solo spec either.

Saying that, I'm against nerfing classes to balance them in general. Buff others instead. But in rare cases nerfing is needed. SoD and IHW have no place in the tank kit and shall be in the Blue line. Last Stand shall be avaible to every captain, regardles of the spec.

[Hephburz-2]

When talking about incoming damage a -30% incoming damage buff with ~50% uptime is relevant. For Champ you're omitting a what, 150k morale bubble? No honest person would have omitted those things. You omitted them, on purpose. Not a great look.

They were omitted because they aren't relevant to the point I was making (given I wasn't even talking about incoming damage when talking about Champ), and they still aren't, but feel free to keep talking about them.

They offer minimal support and that support is primarily in the form of a mitigation debuff to bump damage a bit. They aren't even well implemented debuffs, they basically just force representation as certain classes find themselves being brought for that one debuff first, their own personal DPS/Healing/Tanking/Whateverr second. At best these other tanks dip their toe into performing a secondary role, yellow captain outright takes over group defensives from healers by having the best group defensive by a long shot, it rezzes more targets than 2/4 healers, it has a better tool to save another player than healers do and it passively makes everyone 10% more durable (which on most healers that level of boosted defence would require cooldown usage). No other game puts these things on the tank and technically LOTRO doesn't either, it only puts it on Yellow Captain. Hence the debate here.

Yawn. "I don't like the game the way it is so I will post endlessly in the hope they will make LOTRO like WoW! Wah!"

Equating Yellow Captain support with the support other tanks bring is a joke. Honestly, you're trolling with that.

I never "equated" Yellow Captain to the support other tanks/classes bring, as is evident by the fact I said "One of the 5 offers more support than the rest of them" still failing to read what other people have actually written though, nice. The point still stands, all classes and at least 25 of the 30 specialisations in the game bring group-wide support with them, it is not for you to decide that we should suddenly cut out support entirely from a certain role, because you don't like it.

You're not realist. You're a pessimist.

You can call it pessimism if you like, in which case 90-95% of the people who posted in this thread (and others) are pessimists because all have come to the same conclusion, that with SSG as the development team behind this game, it's not going to happen.

[zaboch]

I would just like to point out that the person you're calling names has a Gothmog OC title on the worst class at the time (Beorning).

That is all.

[Hephburz-2]

I would just like to point out that the person you're calling names has a Gothmog OC title on the worst class at the time (Beorning).

That is all.

Oooh, OC title, scary.

[Joedangod]

Of every player to post in this thread (and many, many other forum threads) I don't see many that post more coherent, well thought-out advice and information than Heph, he has a very deep understanding of the mechanics of the game, and individual class dynamics, as well as a really solid knowledge on all of trait trees he's claimed to know, backed up specifically with verifiable information in each post, quite the opposite of yourself, interestingly enough; your posts continually hinge on derailing the topic at hand with hyperbole and hearsay, never once being backed up by any actual facts or figures or real world (in game speaking), repeatable and viable scenarios.

I err...wrote the most in-depth list of all tank spec abilities including calculations of damage intake that can be found on the forums. You like Heph because he spouts things that you can happily nod along to.

Glad it's not just us that have noticed it.

Ok, guess I need to explain. You're so caught up in the current LOTRO meta where Yellow Captains are usurping healing responsibilities that you think such a meta is totally fine. The advice for you was to get you to look at other games and realise that they keep a clear delineation between the healing and tanking role for a reason that does in fact improve their individual games. LOTRO is blurring the line with Yellow Captain and it's not a line that should be blurred.

So you've gone from "SSG don't have the capabilities to buff 5 tank classes so we should just nerf one" To "I want a fundamental redesign from the ground up on how every healing class in the game functions and a complete re-work on group content dynamics nearly a decade and a half into the game!"

Uh... You know SSG are basically a skeleton crew, right? How do you think the player-base will even react to "Hey we've decided to ditch every single other project so that our three-man dev team can spend a year re-designing how the entire game works, oh and if you play a healer or a tank, good news, we're totally changing how your class plays which you may or may not like, but WoW does it this way so we've decided that is now how we're going to do it regardless of what you think!"?

You don't have any knowledge of the internal workings of SSG. Had you been asked 3 months ago "Will SSG make another class?" you would almost certainly have said "No."

As far as reworking goes? I don't see anywhere I've suggested that a big healing revamp needs to happen. Giving the healers that are missing externals some externals and rebalancing some group wide defensives is fairly minor work that honestly could be done by a single guy in under a month. It's mostly a tuning thing, not a revamp. In a 2-3 year timeframe I would expect to see some larger changes happen but I don't expect them to happen instantly...as referenced by the whole "2-3 year timeframe" bit.

[Joedangod]

They were omitted because they aren't relevant to the point I was making (given I wasn't even talking about incoming damage when talking about Champ), and they still aren't, but feel free to keep talking about them.

The redirect bit was omitted on a discussion about damage taken...the champ bubble was omitted on a discussion about self sustain, is a 150k damage absorb supposed to be harmful to self sustain or...?

Yawn. "I don't like the game the way it is so I will post endlessly in the hope they will make LOTRO like WoW! Wah!"

*Not like WoW, I will post in the hopes of making lotro better. It might end up with some more WoW similarities than it already has but if you tried to improve a restaurant that serves rat poison you'd probably start by taking a leaf from other restaurants and stop serving rat poison.

I never "equated" Yellow Captain to the support other tanks/classes bring, as is evident by the fact I said "One of the 5 offers more support than the rest of them" still failing to read what other people have actually written though, nice. The point still stands, all classes and at least 25 of the 30 specialisations in the game bring group-wide support with them, it is not for you to decide that we should suddenly cut out support entirely from a certain role, because you don't like it.

You stated that they all bring support. You cannot lump a % mit debuff in with double rez, 10% bonus health groupwide, strongest groupwide defensive cooldown and strongest external cooldown. They just aren't the same category. I'm not even saying remove support entirely, half a dozen times on this thread I've suggested giving Yellow Captains targeted buffs for threat siphons and the like (you know, address issues the spec actually has). My problem with Captain is not the fact that it has some support abilities, it's the fact that those support abilities are stronger than the ones found on support classes.

You can call it pessimism if you like, in which case 90-95% of the people who posted in this thread (and others) are pessimists because all have come to the same conclusion, that with SSG as the development team behind this game, it's not going to happen.

You're very self-defeating.

[zaboch]

Oooh, OC title, scary.

Well, no, not really. It just shows that they've managed to complete genuinely hard content, first, before a farming meta developed.
That should genuinely put them a cut above the rest of forum spammers these days.

I don't agree with them on a lot of things, but instead of piledriving nonsense in replies, I just stop responding and move on. Nobody is winning in this thread anymore, regardless of how you yourself perceive it. It's gotten a bit sad, really.
Move on, I think.

[Hephburz-2]

The redirect bit was omitted on a discussion about damage taken...the champ bubble was omitted on a discussion about self sustain, is a 150k damage absorb supposed to be harmful to self sustain or...?

It was in reference to the amount of damage taken on paper. As in buffs that are up 100% of the time and can be considered to always impact incoming damage. Redirect is a cooldown skill with a theoretical uptime of 40-50%, but if you are pressing this off cooldown, you are playing Guardian wrong. So yes, it was omitted.

The champ bubble was left out in a talk about HPS, whether you include Bubble or not in their overall HPS (A Champs will still be 1/3 or less of a Yellow Guardins), a Chank CANNOT survive/self-heal/sustain themselves through Harrowing or Roost T5 without a healer/off-healer, it is NOT possible to do so. A YGuardian on the other hand, CAN.

So, tell me again, how either of your points are relevant?

*Not like WoW, I will post in the hopes of making lotro better.

*So like WoW.

It might end up with some more WoW similarities than it already has but if you tried to improve a restaurant that serves rat poison you'd probably start by taking a leaf from other restaurants and stop serving rat poison.

Because that's the right analogy for this situation.

You stated that they all bring support. You cannot lump a % mit debuff in with double rez, 10% bonus health groupwide, strongest groupwide defensive cooldown and strongest external cooldown.

I can, and I will, because regardless of the strength of said support - it is still support.

They just aren't the same category.

Support is support.

My problem with Captain is not the fact that it has some support abilities, it's the fact that those support abilities are stronger than the ones found on support classes.

A Healer is a healer, not a support class.

You're very self-defeating.

Again, it's called Realism.

[Joedangod]

It was in reference to the amount of damage taken on paper. As in buffs that are up 100% of the time and can be considered to always impact incoming damage. Redirect is a cooldown skill with a theoretical uptime of 40-50%, but if you are pressing this off cooldown, you are playing Guardian wrong. So yes, it was omitted.

And why would pressing it off cooldown be wrong? Ah yes, because you might miss a particularly large hit if you're not timing it properly. Which means if you're playing properly...you're using it to mitigate the big hits and provide a notable reduction in damage. Which makes it important to include....in a discussion about damage reductions.

The champ bubble was left out in a talk about HPS, whether you include Bubble or not in their overall HPS (A Champs will still be 1/3 or less of a Yellow Guardins), a Chank CANNOT survive/self-heal/sustain themselves through Harrowing or Roost T5 without a healer/off-healer, it is NOT possible to do so. A YGuardian on the other hand, CAN.

Oh, the conversation wasn't about "HPS" at all, if it was that'd be an awful metric, not gonna count mitigation into things? Still, you based it on self-healing and large damage absorbs are proactive healing. I mean you're the one who picked the situation in the first place, wanna keep the goalposts still or are they gonna move to Canada next?

*So like WoW.

Well now you're saying WoW is better. What a fun circle.

I can, and I will, because regardless of the strength of said support - it is still support.

Your classifications are exceptionally messed up at this point. The word support can apparently mean "a % mit debuff" or it could mean "2 rezzes, groupwide defensive cooldown, external defensive, passive buff aura and minor AoE damage reductions + healing". Really feels like those aren't the same category.

A Healer is a healer, not a support class.

And a tank is a tank. Leave the healing abilities to healers and stop piling them on tanks and calling them "support".

[1Asy1]

Well, no, not really. It just shows that they've managed to complete genuinely hard content, first, before a farming meta developed.
That should genuinely put them a cut above the rest of forum spammers these days.

I don't agree with them on a lot of things, but instead of piledriving nonsense in replies, I just stop responding and move on. Nobody is winning in this thread anymore, regardless of how you yourself perceive it. It's gotten a bit sad, really.
Move on, I think.

The only problem with this bit is Joe made reference to this in another thread regarding Anvil/Abyss where he was making his continued argument against the yellow cpt when he never actually stepping foot into either raid and was getting his information from a "friend".

Whilst OC is a nice achievement, i'd rather an opinion from a seasoned player who has done every raid on level throughout all the class changes.

Unrelated, to above, Paladin interesting class in WOW, has an invincible bubble, can heal and do enormous dmg in tanking spec, odd that. Must be those magical wings. If you know you know.

[Hephburz-2]

And why would pressing it off cooldown be wrong? Ah yes, because you might miss a particularly large hit if you're not timing it properly. Which means if you're playing properly...you're using it to mitigate the big hits and provide a notable reduction in damage. Which makes it important to include....in a discussion about damage reductions.

Not when you're talking about the face value of damage taken as opposed to a cooldown skill that you MIGHT use on X encounter as opposed to a different cooldown skill that would achieve the same result.

Oh, the conversation wasn't about "HPS" at all, if it was that'd be an awful metric, not gonna count mitigation into things? Still, you based it on self-healing and large damage absorbs are proactive healing. I mean you're the one who picked the situation in the first place, wanna keep the goalposts still or are they gonna move to Canada next?

How is any of this comparable to the amount of healing a Yellow Guardian is capable of, which can reach sustained levels of 15k+ HPS? Please. Explain.

It was, but ok.

And you are STILL (I don't know how), willfully missing/ignoring the point.

A Chank CANNOT survive/self-heal/sustain themselves through Harrowing or Roost T5 without a healer/off-healer, it is NOT possible to do so. A YGuardian on the other hand, CAN.

Well now you're saying WoW is better. What a fun circle.

Nope, just pointing out what you're really saying.

Your classifications are exceptionally messed up at this point. The word support can apparently mean "a % mit debuff" or it could mean "2 rezzes, groupwide defensive cooldown, external defensive, passive buff aura and minor AoE damage reductions + healing". Really feels like those aren't the same category.

Support is classified as anything that either offensively or defensively helps your group in the form of a buff/debuff. Putting a mitigation debuff on the target so that your group does more damage, is OFFENSIVE SUPPORT - redirecting 50% of the fellowships taken damage to yourself, is DEFENSIVE SUPPORT. No, one may not equal the other, but it is still ALL support.

And a tank is a tank. Leave the healing abilities to healers and stop piling them on tanks and calling them "support".

It's defensive support that makes perfect sense on a tanking class whose main function, is, wait for it, defence.

[Hephburz-2]

Unrelated, to above, Paladin interesting class in WOW, has an invincible bubble, can heal and do enormous dmg in tanking spec, odd that. Must be those magical wings. If you know you know.

In Rift (not during Rift, in the game RIFT);

Almost every single tank can rez, every single tank can heal (or can spec into tank-heal if they choose to), every single tank can dps-tank if they choose to, every single tank has more cooldown defensive abilities (including external defensives) than their healer counterparts (most healers have one external defensive, if they even have one), every single tank can self-heal themselves and their group through all non-raid content.

And strangely, healers, you know, are there to heal?

But. Yeah. Odd that.

[Joedangod]

Not when you're talking about the face value of damage taken as opposed to a cooldown skill that you MIGHT use on X encounter as opposed to a different cooldown skill that would achieve the same result.

That's not the situation though is it. "Guardians take the least tactical damage" was the line and that line remains true. You can't omit redirect when considering Guardian damage reductions, it would be highly biased for you to do so.

It was, but ok.

And you are STILL (I don't know how), willfully missing/ignoring the point.

A Chank CANNOT survive/self-heal/sustain themselves through Harrowing or Roost T5 without a healer/off-healer, it is NOT possible to do so. A YGuardian on the other hand, CAN.

Healing =/= HPS. Damage absorbs such as bubbles factor into healing. You gonna insist that RK bubbles aren't heals? Besides, this all kicked off from my note that "yellow guardian is the weaker tank", you can't just go halfway through your goalpost moving shenanigans and say "Ah this was definitely the situation".

Either way your entire metric is faulty. You're basing it off of a hypothetical T5 Harrowing/Roost where we've apparently banned healers (because group content should totally do away with those, right?) and we're assuming that somehow, a spec with:
a 10% chance to restore 5% morale per skill
a ~35% morale heal every 43s
a full heal + 50% bonus morale on a 2min cooldown

is notably stronger than a spec with

a 20% chance to restore 5% on two low cd skills
a 20k heal on 30s cd, a 30% heal on a 3m cd
a 150k+ bubble on a 25s cd
a 25% heal when they go under 30% (90s cd)

? Oh and you're only comparing it on healing because forget damage mitigations or outgoing DPS or anything else that might factor into overall effectiveness of tanks.

Nope, just pointing out what you're really saying.

That WoW has better class balance? What a revelation.

Support is classified as anything that either offensively or defensively helps your group in the form of a buff/debuff. Putting a mitigation debuff on the target so that your group does more damage, is OFFENSIVE SUPPORT - redirecting 50% of the fellowships taken damage to yourself, is DEFENSIVE SUPPORT. No, one may not equal the other, but it is still ALL support.

But it ain't within the same realm or we have to count Wardens as healers for they have a group heal and if you've got one small aspect of a role by golly you must be that role!

It's defensive support that makes perfect sense on a tanking class whose main function, is, wait for it, defence.

Defensive support is the world of healers, that's why the word support is attached to it, it's an external thing that someone else provides to others. An AoE bubble is defensive support, a heal is defensive support, an external cooldown is defensive support, a rez is defensive support. Defence is the world of tanks. Defence and mob management. They keep the mobs from attacking their allies and they maintain their own defence to ensure they don't just immediately die. When they dabble outside of those two conditions it's typically a class flavour thing.

Whilst OC is a nice achievement, i'd rather an opinion from a seasoned player who has done every raid on level throughout all the class changes.

And if they disagreed with you, you'd probably find some other reason to discount them. Besides, requiring on level experience of all raids throughout all class changes likely narrows down the number of people you are willing to hear from to....I dunno, 100 people across the whole world?

Unrelated, to above, Paladin interesting class in WOW, has an invincible bubble, can heal and do enormous dmg in tanking spec, odd that. Must be those magical wings. If you know you know.

Yeah, 5 minute cooldown, 8s duration that dumps all threat unless talented is pretty well balanced. Some quick ST burst heals that will rapidly OOM you or go on CD (and thus cut into your ability to heal yourself) are also pretty good with their balance. As for DPS...all tanks in WoW DPS, tends to be pretty equitable until niche things like spell reflect in a 28 SotS pop up. Give the BDK's superstrain in a few weeks and watch them melt some faces.

Captain/Paladin similarity is minor at best.

[Hephburz-2]

That's not the situation though is it. "Guardians take the least tactical damage" was the line and that line remains true. You can't omit redirect when considering Guardian damage reductions, it would be highly biased for you to do so.

Blue Guard takes an effective 30% tactical damage, accounting for mitigation only, if you use redirect off cooldown (which you aren't anyway, but for the purpose of these calculations, let's assume you are), this will add 11.67% damage reduction given its 33% uptime, meaning Blue Guard, accounting for redirect, takes 26.33% tactical damage, as opposed to a Blue Wardens 30% (with 100% uptime on all buffs).

Now. If you enter an encounter, or a boss fight, or whatever it happens to be, and as a Blue Guard, you did not use redirect, either because you did not need it or because you used another cooldown instead, what was your effective tactical taken damage? 30%. What was the Wardens effective taken damage for the same encounter? 30%.

Do you see yet why it omitted?

Besides, this all kicked off from my note that "yellow guardian is the weaker tank", you can't just go halfway through your goalpost moving shenanigans and say "Ah this was definitely the situation". Either way your entire metric is faulty. You're basing it off of a hypothetical T5 Harrowing/Roost where we've apparently banned healers (because group content should totally do away with those, right?).

Its not faulty. I am using it as a baseline to demonstrate that regardless of the fact that Champion may take less damage on paper than a Yellow Guardian, this BY NO MEANS, means that they are the stronger tank. Furthermore, "hypothetical T5 Harrowing/Roost where we've apparently banned healers", Every single tank (bar Chanks) was tanking this without a healer the day it went live, so, please stop.

and we're assuming that somehow, a spec with:

a 10% chance to restore 5% morale per skill
a ~35% morale heal every 43s
a full heal + 50% bonus morale on a 2min cooldown

is notably stronger than a spec with

a 20% chance to restore 5% on two low cd skills
a 20k heal on 30s cd, a 30% heal on a 3m cd
a 150k+ bubble on a 25s cd
a 25% heal when they go under 30% (90s cd)

? Oh and you're only comparing it on healing because forget damage mitigations or outgoing DPS or anything else that might factor into overall effectiveness of tanks.

A Chank CANNOT survive/self-heal/sustain themselves through Harrowing or Roost T5 without a healer/off-healer, it is NOT possible to do so. A YGuardian on the other hand, CAN.

That WoW has better class balance? What a revelation.

Cool, and?

But it ain't within the same realm or we have to count Wardens as healers for they have a group heal and if you've got one small aspect of a role by golly you must be that role!

It is within the same realm, they are both support abilities. You are the one so hell-bent on labelling everything, a tank that brings support abilities to the table isn't suddenly a support-tank, nor is a DPS that brings support abilities to the table a support-DPS, they are Tanks and DPS, respectively, they just also have support-based abilities, which they are allowed to have. So good job going to absolute ridiculousness.

Defensive support is the world of healers, that's why the word support is attached to it, it's an external thing that someone else provides to others.

No it isn't, it's what YOU would like it to be, LOTRO disagrees.

a heal is defensive support

A heal is defensive support? LOL what? A heal is a heal. I can't even take you seriously anymore.

[Ethrildar]

I err...wrote the most in-depth list of all tank spec abilities..

In your opinion* yes. You wrote an out of context list of abilities as an attempt to get nerfs that fit your own personal class design, and you also had page after page of people responding to you explaining how half of your "findings" were incorrect.

You like Heph because he spouts things that you can happily nod along to.

He and I have agreed and disagreed equally so on many forum threads over the years, despite that I have a fair respect for his knowledge and he's very grounded. It's pretty plain to see that he is aware of what sort of changes are viable versus those that clearly are not. We're not living in a pipe-dream here.

Yellow Captains are usurping healing responsibilities....

The advice for you was to get you to look at other games and realise that they keep a clear delineation between the healing and tanking role

No they aren't. I do 100% think that Yellow Captain should have its passive group healing reduced in that each line's mark should be limited only to that line, as this makes up 75% of a Captain's group healing and is faceroll passive, this would be sufficient enough to reduce it.

Aside from that, since the dawn of time, raids have required two healers and they still do, Captain or not, so you have literally no case whatsoever there. Three-man content and faceroll six-man content has always been doable without healers and often even without tanks, again, Captains are not meaningfully impacting this at all.

This "line" between roles is some whack opinion you have, though. I don't really care if other games want a super defined line drawn between classes, I am playing LotRO and the roles each class currently performs are roles I enjoy. If I want other class designs I'll go to another game. There is no "universal law" of video games that says TANKS MUST ONLY BE AGGRO-BOTS AND HEALERS MUST HEAL AND PROTECT FROM DAMAGE. This is something you have made up and are arguing like it's mandatory, using a couple of other games that have taken this route and pretending it's gospel.

Personally, I wildly disagree, I think all "damage mitigation" and "protection" of the group should be solely the responsibility of the tank, post-damage recuperation i.e. healing is the job of the healers, and that is sufficient, they should be healing.

You don't have any knowledge of the internal workings of SSG. Had you been asked 3 months ago "Will SSG make another class?" you would almost certainly have said "No."

I'd absolutely not have said "No". It's been fairly apparent for a long while that when major class revamps are required they're pretty happy to shirk that and go the new class route (see: Beorning, see: New housing areas instead of fixing classes left unplayed for years), experience would've at best led me to say "They probably will" or at worst "Yes, I bet they will."

That said, I do not know SSG. I have only my experience to go on, and of that I have a great deal. 13 years of playing this game and 13 years of seeing their failures at balancing, nerfs, project prioritisation and bug fixes. I know they're working with a minimal team, they've broadcasted and demonstrated that. It's pretty easy to get a basic gauge of theire capabilities at this point without having shaken each of their hands during a tour of their offices.

And strangely, healers, you know, are there to heal?

But. Yeah. Odd that.

Wild.

I really don't understand his obsession that tanks having cooldowns is OP and these skills must belong to healers because that's how a few other games have it? It blows my mind.

[Joedangod]

Blue Guard takes an effective 30% tactical damage, accounting for mitigation only, if you use redirect off cooldown (which you aren't anyway, but for the purpose of these calculations, let's assume you are), this will add 11.67% damage reduction given its 33% uptime, meaning Blue Guard, accounting for redirect, takes 26.33% tactical damage, as opposed to a Blue Wardens 30% (with 100% uptime on all buffs).

*~50% uptime if used off cooldown.

Now. If you enter an encounter, or a boss fight, or whatever it happens to be, and as a Blue Guard, you did not use redirect, either because you did not need it or because you used another cooldown instead, what was your effective tactical taken damage? 30%. What was the Wardens effective taken damage for the same encounter? 30%.

Oh, we're doing worst case scenario Guardian vs best case scenario Warden? Weird measure. You'd think you'd go average case...or worst/worst...or best/best....

Its not faulty. I am using it as a baseline to demonstrate that regardless of the fact that Champion may take less damage on paper than a Yellow Guardian, this BY NO MEANS, means that they are the stronger tank. Furthermore, "hypothetical T5 Harrowing/Roost where we've apparently banned healers", Every single tank (bar Chanks) was tanking this without a healer the day it went live, so, please stop.

You're using a metric where you've eliminated healers...whilst comparing tanks. Healers should not be eliminated from the equation.

A Chank CANNOT survive/self-heal/sustain themselves through Harrowing or Roost T5 without a healer/off-healer, it is NOT possible to do so. A YGuardian on the other hand, CAN.

They have very little difference in self sustain...if you can do one you can likely do the other.

It is within the same realm, they are both support abilities. You are the one so hell-bent on labelling everything, a tank that brings support abilities to the table isn't suddenly a support-tank, nor is a DPS that brings support abilities to the table a support-DPS, they are Tanks and DPS, respectively, they just also have support-based abilities, which they are allowed to do. So good job going to absolute ridiculousness.

Redirect is basically the same as upshot then I guess. I mean both are skills.

You're essentially being that reductive when it comes to "support" abilities. They aren't even close to being similar and you really can't use one to justify the other.

No it isn't, it's what YOU would like it to be, LOTRO disagrees.
A heal is defensive support? LOL what? A heal is a heal. I can't even take you seriously anymore.

5 tanks don't have those abilities, one does. It's clearly not a tank thing, it's a yellow cappy thing. Every other tank is concerned about either reducing incoming damage to themselves or increasing their own outgoing damage (ostensibly for aggro purposes). A few rare cases of group DPS buffing. Throwing out heals to allies or offering support in a defensive fashion is not done by the majority of tank specs, it is done by one.

[Joedangod]

In your opinion* yes. You wrote an out of context list of abilities as an attempt to get nerfs that fit your own personal class design, and you also had page after page of people responding to you explaining how half of your "findings" were incorrect.

Which is funny since that list was updated off of any feedback received and the OP itself isn't based on opinion at all. Very few posts actually highlight inaccuracies, most are Captains insisting that BPE fixes solve the problem....somehow?

He and I have agreed and disagreed equally so on many forum threads over the years, despite that I have a fair respect for his knowledge and he's very grounded. It's pretty plain to see that he is aware of what sort of changes are viable versus those that clearly are not. We're not living in a pipe-dream here.

No they aren't. I do 100% think that Yellow Captain should have its passive group healing reduced in that each line's mark should be limited only to that line, as this makes up 75% of a Captain's group healing and is faceroll passive, this would be sufficient enough to reduce it.

Shield-bro inspire shouldn't be doing song-bro inspire healing though.

Aside from that, since the dawn of time, raids have required two healers and they still do, Captain or not, so you have literally no case whatsoever there. Three-man content and faceroll six-man content has always been doable without healers and often even without tanks, again, Captains are not meaningfully impacting this at all.

This "line" between roles is some whack opinion you have, though. I don't really care if other games want a super defined line drawn between classes, I am playing LotRO and the roles each class currently performs are roles I enjoy. If I want other class designs I'll go to another game. There is no "universal law" of video games that says TANKS MUST ONLY BE AGGRO-BOTS AND HEALERS MUST HEAL AND PROTECT FROM DAMAGE. This is something you have made up and are arguing like it's mandatory, using a couple of other games that have taken this route and pretending it's gospel.

Personally, I wildly disagree, I think all "damage mitigation" and "protection" of the group should be solely the responsibility of the tank, post-damage recuperation i.e. healing is the job of the healers, and that is sufficient, they should be healing.

So tanks get personal defence, aggro management and groupwide damage mitigation and external defensives. Healers can just be happy with green buttons alone? Bit of an unfair division of labour but you're entitled to your opinion.

That said, I do not know SSG.

Yep, you can leave it there.

I really don't understand his obsession that tanks having cooldowns is OP and these skills must belong to healers because that's how a few other games have it? It blows my mind.

Because that's not what I've said. I've said certain cooldowns are overpowered as they effectively make you invincible for an extended period of time i.e. last stand. I've suggested migrating some to healers so all tanks can benefit equally from their existence whilst ensuring that healers have a button that lets them stop tanks from circling the drain or in the case of tank death...something they can put on whomever picks up aggro to stall until the rez goes out. I would probably recommend some slight magnitude adjustments (nerf shield to 40% and remove the unimbued legacy) but overall a system where healers have externals is a world where proactive healing can once again thrive.

It makes sense for healers to have some of the externals and tanks to have fewer (not none) because right now there are scenarios where tanks can happily complete content without healers by chaining defensive cooldown after defensive cooldown. You insist that LOTRO has always had tanks managing groupwide defensives and externals but that's not true, only post-HD yellow captain has these powers and they weren't really a competent tank prior to that rework.

[Hephburz-2]

Oh, we're doing worst case scenario Guardian vs best case scenario Warden? Weird measure. You'd think you'd go average case...or worst/worst...or best/best....

A warden will never not have those buffs up (given most of the defensive gambits can be put up pre-fight anyway), that's not best-case scenario Warden, that's guaranteed case warden, VS guaranteed case Guardian.

You're using a metric where you've eliminated healers...whilst comparing tanks. Healers should not be eliminated from the equation.

Because this is looking SOLELY at the strength of the tank, taken damage IS NOT the only variable that defines the STRENGTH/WEAKNESS of a tank, self-sustain and cooldown abilities impact this factor.

They have very little difference in self sustain...if you can do one you can likely do the other.

They have MILES different self-sustain jesus. It is NOT possible to solo-tank Harrowing OR Roost T5 as a Blue Champion, WHAT PART OF THIS DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? Please, for the love of god, go and try to do this yourself. You will fail.

Redirect is basically the same as upshot then I guess. I mean both are skills. You're essentially being that reductive when it comes to "support" abilities. They aren't even close to being similar and you really can't use one to justify the other.

You are just getting more and more ridiculous and making yourself look incredibly silly, you know that?

A few rare cases of group DPS buffing.

Warden: Marked + Diminished Target.
Beorning: Armour Crush + Bee Swarm Mitigation debuff - of which make up two of the best (notice how I said OF the best and NOT the best) dps buffing abilities in the game.
Guardian: Break Ranks

But yes, this is "rare".
Yes I am aware, I have omitted YCaptain, but this isn't a comparison of their DPS buffing abilites, it's pointing out it's NOT "rare".

Throwing out heals to allies or offering support in a defensive fashion is not done by the majority of tank specs, it is done by one.

Guardian: Shield Wall, Fortification buff, Litany of Defiance.
Beorning: Sacrifice, Hearten, Nature's Mend.
Warden: For the free peoples mitigation buff, Conviction.

But yes, defensive support & healing is done by one tank. Are we playing the same game? (I also love now how you've decided to differentiate healing from offering defensive support, a few posts ago you were stating the two were the same, can't quite make up your mind can you?).
Yes, I am aware, I have omitted YCaptain, but again, this isn't a comparison of their healing and defensive support capabilities, it is to point out that it is NOT done by only one tank.

[Hephburz-2]

So tanks get personal defence, aggro management and groupwide damage mitigation and external defensives. Healers can just be happy with green buttons alone? Bit of an unfair division of labour but you're entitled to your opinion.

==

All healers get offensive support (even RK, albiet not very well), point 1.

==

Minstrels:
Anthems of War, Prowess and Of the Third Age (Yellow).
Call of Earendil light mitigation debuff (great buff for wardens).

Beorning:
Bee Swarm Mitigation debuff.
Armour Crush.

RK:
Flurry of Words.

Captain:
To Arms.
Rousing Words.
Ability to get Banner of War depending on traits.
Ability to get Penetrating Cry depending on traits.
Ability to get Telling Mark depending on traits.
Tactics Buff: Focus (-5% attack duration).
Herald of War +2% damage.

==

All healers get defensive support, point 2.

==

Minstrels:
Coda -10% incoming damage, +5% incoming healing.
Inspire Fellows -4% incoming damage.
Soliloquy of Spirit +3% mitigation.
AoE Bubble.
ST bubble.
Piercing Cry 15% reflect.
Anthems of Prowess, Composure & Of the Third Age (Yellow).
(Dam this list is getting long).

Beornings:
Sacrifice.
Piercing Roar.
ST bubble (Shake Free).
Ability to break your Marked Target out of CC (Shake Free).

RKs:
Frost armour -10% incoming damage.
AoE bubble.
ST bubble.
Essay + Word of Exaltation -10% incoming damage +10% incoming healing.
Glorious Foreshadowing +15% incoming healing.
Fates Entwined -20% incoming damage.
(Dam, this list is long too!).

Captain:
To arms.
Ability to get Yellow Banner depending on traits.
In Harms Way depending on traits.
Tactics Buff: Focus (+5% incoming healing, +2% tactical mitigation).
Herald of Hope +3% mitigation.

==

But, no, tell me more about how Healers should be satisfied with green buttons alone?

[Joedangod]

A warden will never not have those buffs up (given most of the defensive gambits can be put up pre-fight anyway), that's not best-case scenario Warden, that's guaranteed case warden, VS guaranteed case Guardian.

No, that's minimum case Guardian. Wanna calculate Yellow Captain inc damage without factoring in To-Arms next?

Because this is looking SOLELY at the strength of the tank, taken damage IS NOT the only variable that defines the STRENGTH/WEAKNESS of a tank, self-sustain and cooldown abilities impact this factor.

They have MILES different self-sustain jesus. It is NOT possible to solo-tank Harrowing OR Roost T5 as a Blue Champion, WHAT PART OF THIS DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? Please, for the love of god, go and try to do this yourself. You will fail.

Numerically we can observe that they are similar defensively, one has mildly better self healing and the other has mildly better damage reductions. The difference between them is not enough for one to struggle where the other happily succeeds.

You are just getting more and more ridiculous and making yourself look incredibly silly, you know that?

Hrm, so you'll accept defensive skill =/= damage skill but still won't acknowledge that singular mit debuffs =/= 2 rezzes, passive buff aura, multiple aoe heals, groupwide defensive and external defensive. Bit of a 1=5 situation you've got going on there.

Warden: Marked + Diminished Target.
Beorning: Armour Crush + Bee Swarm Mitigation debuff - of which make up two of the best (notice how I said OF the best and NOT the best) dps buffing abilities in the game.
Guardian: Break Ranks

But yes, this is "rare".

I mean yeah, that's 5 abilities across 5 tank specs. DPS support related abilities would be an area where tanks have very few skills. As I said, dipping their toe in the territory of another role not becoming a lead player in the role itself.

Guardian: Shield Wall, Fortification buff, Litany of Defiance.
Beorning: Sacrifice, Hearten, Nature's Mend.
Warden: For the free peoples mitigation buff, Conviction.

But yes, defensive support & healing is done by one tank. Are we playing the same game?

The bulk of it yeah. My bad for dealing in absolutes. But worth noting that those are all weaker than similar healer based abilities, even the ones that are shared with the same classes heal specs are weaker. Now crack out that list of Captain defensive support abilities you probably pondered making before realising that the list wouldn't look great in comparison.

(I also love now how you've decided to differentiate healing from offering defensive support, a few posts ago you were stating the two were the same, can't quite make up your mind can you?).

It's really more of a "I'm tired of pointing out that proactive healing is still healing" kind of thing. Damage absorbs/reductions fit under the defensive support bracket and they are a form of healing.

[Joedangod]

All healers get defensive support, point 2.

So you...err...you went and proved the point that defensive support is most definitely a healer thing...can we go back to them being the ones with the main defensive support cooldowns now? It being their thing and all.

[Hephburz-2]

No, that's minimum case Guardian. Wanna calculate Yellow Captain inc damage without factoring in To-Arms next?

Whether or not it may be the "minimum" case, it is still the Guaranteed case Guardian Vs the Guaranteed case Warden however you want to look at it, you can continue to split hairs if you like, it's like for like.

Numerically we can observe that they are similar defensively, one has mildly better self healing and the other has mildly better damage reductions. The difference between them is not enough for one to struggle where the other happily succeeds.

DO. IT. YOURSELF.

You have absolutely no evidence to back up what you are posting other than the fact that you "believe" they should be able to do it. I am telling you, as a Blue Champion who exceeds at pushing the Role in what it is capable of doing, they CANNOT do this without an off-healer/healer of some kind.

Hrm, so you'll accept defensive skill =/= damage skill but still won't acknowledge that singular mit debuffs =/= 2 rezzes, passive buff aura, multiple aoe heals, groupwide defensive and external defensive. Bit of a 1=5 situation you've got going on there.

Marked + Diminished Target are support skills.
Motivation/IDOME + In Harms Way are support skills.

They are just different in nature and potency, this does not change the FACT they are STILL ALL support skills. Your comparison of Upshot Vs Redirect is an attempt at ridiculousness to derail the argument because you know you're wrong and now just arguing for the sake of it.

I mean yeah, that's 5 abilities across 5 tank specs. DPS support related abilities would be an area where tanks have very few skills. As I said, dipping their toe in the territory of another role not becoming a lead player in the role itself.

It doesn't matter how many skills is it is (And I think you'll find it's 5 skills over 4 (technically 3, because BChamp doesn't have any) specs, because I omitted YCaptain). No one ever said they were a lead player in the role, Yellow Captain certainly is not a lead player in the role either, the point is, Tanks have offensive support.

Now crack out that list of Captain defensive support abilities you probably pondered making before realising that the list wouldn't look great in comparison.

Which is why the bulk of my own and others arguments in this thread has been to buff the effectiveness of other tanks by asking for a buff to their support, which is directly in relation to the REAL issue here put forth by Lob;

Let’s not forget this is specific to Remmo as we all know, Threshold has now been completed by GRDs, Bears and even WRDs main tanking, I know this because my kin is doing it and the underlining reason for it, because the CONTENT caters for it. Imagine.

The content ALLOWS these tanks to be able to do it, which further points out that there are fundamental design flaws within Remmorchant, you are probably the ONLY person on the forums to disagree with that fact. Secondly, IF the content can be survived by the tank, how might we better improve their standing against another tank who always seems to be taken, what does that one tank offer that the others do not? Support. Offensive, defensive, it doesn't matter the type of support, the point is, it offers support. How might we improve this situation? Give the other tanks MORE support.

However, this flies in direct contradiction to your own PERSONAL OPINION, which has been so eloquently put by Ethrildar;

There is no "universal law" of video games that says TANKS MUST ONLY BE AGGRO-BOTS AND HEALERS MUST HEAL AND PROTECT FROM DAMAGE. This is something you have made up and are arguing like it's mandatory, using a couple of other games that have taken this route and pretending it's gospel.

==

So you...err...you went and proved the point that defensive support is most definitely a healer thing...can we go back to them being the ones with the main defensive support cooldowns now? It being their thing and all.

The point is, it's not THEIR thing, it is just as much THEIR thing as it is just as a much a TANKS thing. Much to your personal dismay BOTH tanks and healers have it and are both responsible for it. It is not for you to decide that ONLY Healers should offer defensive support where a tank offers none, that is your opinion of what you think should happen.