Okay I'm trying to understand who actually benefits from the agility buff.
I'm interested in whether or not it does anything for Heavy Armor users, spellcaster, etc? Does it offset the -8 given by using a shield? Does that even matter?
Only evasion classes. Even then, it has been nerfed to hell and back.
There is no need to "offset" the -8 from a shield (and it doesn't), because even without the shield, as long as you don't have both high DEX and passive boosts to evasion, you simply won't be dodging much.
Back in prelude dagger users could tank using the Evasion buff without ever taking damage. All the tanks complained, as you can imagine, so it was nerfed to hell, now its next to useless.
I used to think that as an AW my life depended on evasion. which is for the most part true. but evasion doesnt seem good enough to make up for my light armor and no shield. unless im fighting mobs 20 or more lvl's under me because im bored and got nothing better to do. they dont hit as much. UE is nice but only last 30 seconds. so in pvp make that 30 seconds count or your dead. agility..evasion..probably not as good as it should be. maybe just a slight boost and it would be a great thing to depend on while your tryin to lvl in light armor. but thats just my opinion. I prefer solo lvling most the time. so I recently switched to Elven knight so i could stand to take more hits.this isnt really an explanation to your question. just my personal experience with evasion.
Agility is also always worth casting on a tank. The tank gets attacked a lot, so even a small increase is helpful. Tyrants can be called an evasion class only with puma totem. However, even with puma, its still pretty pathetic.
In most groups, I cast shield buffs on anyone with a shield, and agility on the rest. Honestly though, mystic's evasion with a shield is so low they will never, ever dodge against anything harder than dark, dark blue mobs.
As far as I can remember, Agility buff was never nerfed, it give +4 evasion, and has always been that way. What was nerfed was song of water that gave +10 evasion, now it only give +3, that was the factor that made evasion tanks so good.
I think the issue you describe WRT evasion tanking pretty much comes up in all fantasy based MMO's.
In L2 they went for a nerf to re-adjust PvE, in other games they re-tweaked the balance between the amount of damage a mob dished out and the level of damage mitigation available to tanks, so that it became less efficient to keep up an evasion tank as compared to a mitigation tank.
Because the endgame in L2 is PvP slanted, the devs need to ensure that offense is stronger than defense, beyond arguable logic IOT prevent stalemate.
Perhaps there may be better ways of dealing with damage mitigation vs damage avoidance. However a PvE solution will tend to have serious consequences for PvP.
In time and more playtesting from the community L2 may no doubt arrive at the appropriate equation. Regrettably as for most of the previous MMO's I've played the changes ammounted to too little too late.
Lets hope the NCSoft devs do a better job ;). There is already evidence that the devs are stretching the p.def difference between Light and Heavy armour. These are steps in the right direction as far as this issue is concerned.
Regards,
Ellyrion Fiallathandriel
7X Knight of Eva
Kain
Just wanted to add, with the Song of water nerf, they also nerfed accuracy toggle from +10 to +3.
VR is always efficient! A decent DD can go without heals on the right mobs, forever. With BD+SWS in a cata or similar place, almost no heals are needed, especially on evasion-classes if the mob is around the same level, or if it's green, then no heals are needed, ever.
Everyone without Heavy Armour or a Shield normally asks for Agility from me in groups. If they have a shield, they get Bless Shield instead. No point giving Agility to a tank, that just takes up a valuable buff slot for something better suited to them.