[Toomuch]

People seem to have really super biased memories... I guess including me. I seem to recall full resists on nukes more frequently than the minimum chance to resist. If a skilled melee had resist gear like a boss, and could manage to stay on their target, pure casters ran from them, straight up (with the exception of lures/taps if they had the skill and mana to take 'em down). Mages, for 1, didn't stand a whole lot of chance, unless they got some absurdly lucky shots in, which I do remember happening to me as well, more often than I would have liked, but probably just as much as is/was fair. Key words to note there "whole lot of chance".... there was still that chance of landing a big blast. My point here: As far as nukes go, I don't recall ANYTHING being guaranteed if you were at, above, or below a certain X number of resists, it was more random than that. Resists obviously helped a TON, but there was always a dice-roll at play when a nuke was going off. This system was often brutal for either the caster or the castee, but that's how EQ was, wasn't it? I think our system should be a little more like that - Nothing Guaranteed. Again, this is just how I remember it, I could be wrong (both on how it was and how it should be).

In short, I remember there seemed to be more chance of a broader range, including a chance for full dmg, and full resists. Damage was spikey and not 100% predictable. Resists obviously helped immensely, but didn't guarantee anything. That's what made nukers the threat they were, because if you weren't geared with resists, you were hosed. If you were geared, you sometimes still got hosed, because that's how the dice landed.

This becomes tricky, and I don't want to be biased on either side, because I want to play both a melee and a caster on this server. Melee seems pretty good (good as in functioning correctly) right now, in my opinion. If damage is increased for casters though, I think matching those damage percentage increases to the % reduction of landing CC spells Would be in order, otherwise casters will just wtfpwn pure melees, because CC spells are landing, even with very high resists. Even factoring in the reduced duration of CC spells, any 1 landed CC spell strips SoW. People counter with "Duh, use sow pots". I won't be able to afford that many sow pots, nor will I have the bag space for 7 bajillion of them I'd need for any time I encounter anyone with any snare or root, that would just be ridiculous. Pure melees can count on being kited by sowed casters/hybrids if CC (albeit short) lands this much. Make it land a little bit longer (not TOO much, the reduced duration was a good change) if that seems in order, just not so friggin' much!

SUMMARY: I like what has been done with our system, a lot of real thought and hard work has gone into it. I suggest a few small tweaks, and see how it balances out:

1. Slightly increase the % chance for full damage nukes somehow, as well as slightly increase the chance for full resists. I recall this seemingly scaling with resist gear, although the chance was always low. At any rate, the point of these changes would be to make the damage a little more "spikey", which is how I remember it, and how it is and was a difference maker. Spike damage is what lands kills and changes momentum. Linear/avg damage is not where it's at, and it's not Classic EQ in my opinion.

2. Very slightly increase the minimum damage for non-resisted nukes. This might not be needed if the above is done correctly, because spike damage = kill damage.

3. CC's seem to land just a wee bit too often, but are also a wee bit too short. It's too streamlined, too average. IMO, reduce the both amount they land just a little bit, and increase their duration or possible duration, both of these by just a little bit, and see how it stacks up for the different match-ups of melee vs casters, melee vs hybrids, hybrids vs casters, hybrids vs hybrids, casters vs casters.

4. If CC is going to continue to land this easily, I feel it should not strip SoW. That's a huge role for dispellers (where chanters and bards get a chance to shine) that's just simply pushed aside by anyone casting a root/snare.