(WoW) thoughts on hate generation

[Aohd]

Ok take this with a grain of salt, because I have not played the game yet.

One of the things, in on paper at least, that I like about wow so far is that the classes seem to not only stack (to a great extent) but also fulfill different roles.

It seems like we have three classes that can fill the healer role (druid shaman priest) four that can provide dps (mage warlock rogue hunter) and for a tank we have… warriors and supposedly paladins and druids in bear form. But really when you look at the classes and want a tank you really only see one class that has the chops for it and that is the warrior.

This is good, warriors need to be tanks, and they need to have all the tools necessary to tank. At its most basic tanking requires two things, the ability to absorb damage better then the rest of your group and the ability to maintain hate. Now from just reading the various abilities it seems that paladins have one side of this and not the other. I.e. they have no direct way of gaining hate. Some of the info I have seen, and I know that that have not been implemented on beta yet, but form what I have read the druid has a rage bar (like a warrior does) when they are in bear form. This would seem to indicate that they have access to at least some of the warriors abilities the most ubiquitous of these being taunt. This has yet to be seen.

Now I know that one can generate hate indirectly with heals, but this seems artificial, like your tricking the system in to letting you tank. Paladins in ffxi sort of had this problem, in that though they where the main tank in ffll the had to sub warrior to get any sort of direct hate increaser.

I saw in furor’s write up (on the main page) that paladins at one time had a spell called seal of fury this was probably one of the biggest things that made me want to play a paladin (though I would have played them anyway) from what I have heard they scraped it at least for now. So for those that are playing a paladin in the beta is it still there? If not did they give a reason that it was removed? (or do they not give reasons for anything which would be understandable)

Like damage and heals there are really two kinds of hate. Burst hate (snap agro) and hate over time. I think it is clear from the beta posts that the warriors are good at both dishing good damage for hate over time and using taunt and if I am not mistaken other abilities to gather direct hate, taunt being the most relevant one of these. My suggestions would be to keep warriors on top of the food chain in terms of snap agro but give paladins the tool to tank when there is no warrior around and to complement the warrior tanking if there is.

Lets use an arbitrary number, lets say that one use of the warriors taunt skill nets him 300 agro. This is direct agro and quite effective from what I have read. Now then what I would suggest is that the paladin seal of fury be a hate over time spell. Basically whatever mob you are currently fighting gets several mini taunts in lets say a five second duration. Say 50 points a sec for 5 sec for a total of 250. now then this would have to have a cool down rate that was comparable to taunt. The goal of this ability is to give the paladin the tools to obtain agro when he is the tank and to supplement the hate generation of the warrior when a paladin and a warrior group together (because it like the rest of the seals are targetable.) also because this skill is tied to mana and not a rage bar it has grater down time.

For seeable problems include: It could be used to fuck up a group, meaning that if I target the mage or the priest with a seal of fury then they could get killed. Then again what spell or lack of the use of a spell can’t get some one killed.

It could make hate generation trivial but then again seals do not stack so you would only have to balance encounters off one paladin hate one warrior hate and not one warrior hate 10 paladin hate

Just a suggestion, I was wondering your opinion on because this seems to be the only forum that has some intelligence behind its discussions of mmorpgs (well for the most part)

[Hardcore Cracka]

Originally posted by Aohd
blah blah I have not played the game yet. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Sorry, but you really have no idea what you are talking about.

[Immy]

It's already been said that blizzard plans on Paladins to be more than adequate tanks even in raid situations...just leave it as that while they do balancing. If it isn't there now it will be when they're done.

[Urraca]

Paladins make great tanks. My rogue is only 20 atm, but there has never been a mob I can not tank that is an even con (unless its an elite). And even then, I can still hold my ground long enough.

Warriors also make a good enough DPS class, same with Paladins.

Rogues also have the ability to 'feint' which decreases hate. As far as speculating on druids tanking with bear form etc, they aren't even in game yet.

My suggestion is stop thinking about EQ, and realize you know nothing about WoW.

[Algol Devilstar]

Originally posted by Urraca

My suggestion is stop thinking about EQ, and realize you know nothing about WoW.

My suggestion is to stop acting like a know-it-all ass. Fair enough?

[Parum]

Originally posted by Algol Devilstar
My suggestion is to stop acting like a know-it-all ass. Fair enough?

Take a deep breath, son, and calm down. He's just pointing out that the origional poster doesn't play, and therefore can't know anything about the finer workings of the nature of the game. The origional poster is more spewing crap about EQ than anything else. While well intentioned, it's unfounded speculation.

p.s. I speculate you wear women's underwear. Oh snap.

[Khrath]

Originally posted by Algol Devilstar
My suggestion is to stop acting like a know-it-all ass. Fair enough?

I in fact do know it all, and agree with Urraca.

It makes me sad when I see people trying to put a game under a microscope before they have even seen it. It's just proof that the entire gaming community went from care free and happy go lucky, to untrusting and expecting the worst from the game designers.

Shell shocked because of EQ and Verant, what a shame.

[elrich]

holy shit, its Khrath.

long time no see

[The Bog]

JUDGE NOT THE GAME YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED.
Otherwise I'll start giving Lineage marks based upon how the first 10mbs downloaded before I got bored.

[Grimmlokk]

Yes well all these uppity shithead replies aside, paladins currently could use *some* form of better snap agro. No earthshaking changes needed, but it would be nice for someone other than a warrior to be able to hold agro off me.

[Mere_Lynothing]

Just my opinion, but there are plenty of ways for a Pali to gain hate. While I am sure Blizzard is going to implement new ways. From my experiences Blizzard isn't a company who will just abnegate on their fan base.

The whole point of playing a game is to understand the game and finding ways to "cheat" it. In EQ with my baby warrior, you could always get added attention from sitting down, and then doing a taunt. Pre-SoL I would sometimes be the tank in the group with my Shaman (Given he was 60 and had all his spells and nice gear).

The point Im trying to make is, don't worry about a game that is still in heavy development. There are always ways to get un/desired agro.

That one dude,
Mere Lynothing

[Brutul Tarew Marr]

This is fucking awesome. A warrior vs. Paladin balance thread 6 months before the game even comes out.

[Aohd]

Eh, I am not trying to pretend that I know any thing about the game so get off my nuts about that.

This is just how I would balance it if i was making a game. hate over time vs direct hate.

Maybe I was unclear about that. The only thing i can do in this type of discussion is make educated assumptions based on info i get from friends that i know that play the game and stuff I have read.

This is not a balance thread, I don’t pretend to know if paladins are unbalanced. But what i do know is that i hate playing characters that don’t have to tools to do there job and so have to use stupid trick to generate hate (or fulfill what ever role that they are met to) like paladins in ff11, they had to heal themselves to keep agro and that was gay imo.

This was met to be a theoretical discussion about agro in wow based on what I have read/seen, but if all you want to do is play elitist bullshit games forget it.

[Algol Devilstar]

Originally posted by Parum

p.s. I speculate you wear women's underwear. Oh snap.

And if I do? WTF does that have to do with anything? Oh snap, thats right, nothing.

[Takrolimus]

sorry algol but that dude parum owned you rofl.