Balance the Classes by Moving Existing Abilities

[Kich867]

Originally Posted by Knuckle [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Warriors not having snap aggro while supporting the highest mitigation is a very everquest thing that should stay in game as is.

If anything, Knights should be better at mitigation than they are. Warriors, baseline, cannot do their job. I'm not talking about the current understanding of the game, we all know how to get around it, I don't care about that.

If a group of new players decided to spin up a few characters, and someone picks a Warrior thinking they'll be the tank, they're in for a bad time. The threat mechanics in the game are completely asinine and it is inexcusable that Warriors can't actually tank in the overwhelming majority of the game's content at a baseline.

[Tewaz]

Originally Posted by Kich867 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If a group of new players decided to spin up a few characters, and someone picks a Warrior thinking they'll be the tank, they're in for a bad time. The threat mechanics in the game are completely asinine and it is inexcusable that Warriors can't actually tank in the overwhelming majority of the game's content at a baseline.

This.

Explaining to new players that Warriors can't hold aggro and the high level ones have bags filled with items that gain them aggro even though that wasn't the original point of these items.

Also, I think the game would be so much better if the raid healing mechanic wasn't CH chain ONLY.

[Kich867]

Originally Posted by Tewaz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This.

Explaining to new players that Warriors can't hold aggro and the high level ones have bags filled with items that gain them aggro even though that wasn't the original point of these items.

Also, I think the game would be so much better if the raid healing mechanic wasn't CH chain ONLY.

Agreed, even the devs noted that Complete Heal was an atrocious design. It completely boxes in their design space for raid bosses. Every single raid boss has to contend with the fact that the tank can be fully healed over and over and over again in an extremely mana efficient manner. This gave them basically one knob to turn. Complete Heal is _probably_ the worst game design choice they made to be honest.

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by ezigrelnos [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

so why not just give them clarity instead of only enchanters having it?

wizards are more convenience than optimization, they delete mobs faster than any other class, CC with aggro clicky/root/stun plus evacs/ports so why not let them have an extremely convenient group buff to round it out?

at the very least the stigma of wizards being useless in groups would go away when everyone is begging for crack.

also my idea is to give Rangers Feign Death so they can be competitive with SKs and Monks

Wizards are all about personal power and overwhelming show of force, not tricks of the mind. The nukes, pbaoes and aoe snares are a good start, and I think any other spells should play to that rather than buffing friends (which is what clarity does). They don't subtly manipulate - they beat physics into submission.

Going with the original post's theme, I'd suggest moving the shaman's PBAoE slow to wizard. Maybe even make it into a rain - to give the feel that the wizard has chosen a point of the battlefield and overwhelmed time itself to make all enemies in that area attack more slowly.

I think stopping time was what their 8 second duration stuns were meant to convey - but of course player stun durations got nerfed early to cap at 4 seconds on due to Whirl til you Hurl abuse, making the wizard stuns completely unmentionable. At least NPC wizards can still stun properly!!

Originally Posted by Kich867 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Agreed, even the devs noted that Complete Heal was an atrocious design. It completely boxes in their design space for raid bosses. Every single raid boss has to contend with the fact that the tank can be fully healed over and over and over again in an extremely mana efficient manner. This gave them basically one knob to turn. Complete Heal is _probably_ the worst game design choice they made to be honest.

Well, in the context of when cheal was made (level 50 cap, max hp very limited, naggy/vox/kedge not itemised yet and planes not added) it was fine... just when you got tanks buffing over 5.5k hp with easily attainable gear, and far higher with top gear (some bosses giving 900 hp worth of gear to a character (cough vulak)) CH just got ridiculously op. It's a nightmare on the flipside too for NPC giants/dragons with over 10k hp casting it again and again too because they can't be stun interrupted.

My suggestion to fix it is limit the spell being cast in certain (unexpansioned) locations, like manastone's manaconvert spell.

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Wizards are all about personal power and overwhelming show of force, not tricks of the mind. The nukes, pbaoes and aoe snares are a good start, and I think any other spells should play to that rather than buffing friends (which is what clarity does). They don't subtly manipulate

Wizards are described as seekers of knowledge in EQ. I think mana buffing and tapping can fit into that.

A big problem with Wizard in the design of EQ at higher levels is they can't kill things super fast like they could at lower levels. Spamming their best damage spell on recharge, it's still going to take quite some time against all these 10k+ HP MOBs. Even if they were to have amazing personal mana regen, they'd basically just be like a Rogue in group play. A better design for the class is being able to do huge bursts of damage with a bit of downtime, so not the best sustained DPS, but being able to make meaningful plays. Crowd control being so crazy strong in the game is also somewhat of an impediment to "Burst DPS" being more meaningful. And of course, the Play Nice Policy sterilizing the game world.

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I mean I wouldn't take FD away from monks for it though - monks across the real world mythologically can do all sorts of things to appear dead - slowing pulse, going cold, etc.

Playing dead does seem like a rogueish trick too. I surely can see rogues deserving something like that too

Slowing pulse and stuff is totally different than Feign Death in EQ. That ability is definitely much more in line with Rogues, a trickery and stealth mechanism.

Originally Posted by Keebz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

OP took FD from monks and called them "slightly nerfed" lol

They are in the "moderately nerfed" category. Velious era Monk has amazing stats, they don't need FD. Their mitigation and DPS is enough, particularly with Rogues losing their offensive Disciplines it would put Monks in a great spot still, they would be the top DPS for Kunark raid fights.

Originally Posted by Knuckle [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Fun change for warrior - Allow equipping 2h weapon + shield.

I'd rather see Bash improved, to make 1 hand weapon + shield a more worthwhile thing.

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Mages: Give them root (or snare) and make their epic piece drop off every Magi spawn.

I swear, just a level 4 spell and a drop rate change and you would see a ton more people playing Magician.

Mage epic is ridiculous and should definitely be more obtainable, but I highly disagree with giving them Root, too many classes already have it, there needs to be some differentiation. I also wish the Epic was a mega focus item, so they could keep using the different pet types as the situation calls for.

Originally Posted by Kich867 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

even the devs noted that Complete Heal was an atrocious design.

Cleric should be soooo much more interesting of a class to play.

[Dural_Levant]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'd rather see Bash improved, to make 1 hand weapon + shield a more worthwhile thing.

Agree with this so much. I would go as far as to increase the damage that Bash does significantly, make it interrupt spell casting %100 of the time and add a significant chance to stun for like 3 seconds.

In addition, perhaps add a discipline called something along the lines of "Shield Stance" that offers a MASSIVE boost to AC for like 10 seconds or so.

[Kich867]

Originally Posted by Dural_Levant [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Agree with this so much. I would go as far as to increase the damage that Bash does significantly, make it interrupt spell casting %100 of the time and add a significant chance to stun for like 3 seconds.

In addition, perhaps add a discipline called something along the lines of "Shield Stance" that offers a MASSIVE boost to AC for like 10 seconds or so.

It hurts pretty bad to use Bash to interrupt something only to have them instantly start re-casting, unless their spell is like an 8 second cast interrupting it just doesn't matter. And agreed, idk if its actually true, but supposedly Bash was meant to generate a lot of threat and wasn't fixed for years.

IDK if that's true though, that'd be insane negligence to overlook that for years without ever realizing it wasn't working. My gut says that they just never thought about it, never thought much about how warriors had no reasonable way to generate threat, never really thought about any of this shit. I think balance was never a concept in their mind outside of really stand-out things like their obviously huge fear that Archery would be way too strong and kept it completely shit, they just built class fantasies.

[Danth]

Originally Posted by Kich867 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

that'd be insane negligence to overlook that for years without ever realizing it wasn't working.

It's true. It was worse than mere negligence, it was Verant staff thinking they knew everything, assuming the players were a bunch of idiots, and hence they ignored the reports. Same thing happened with alchemy at first 'cept they happened to notice that one a little sooner. They did finally notice it before they ever fixed it, just by the time they noticed it they also noticed players were making do anyway and actually liked dual-wielding warriors so they let it be.

[Allishia]

Originally Posted by Kich867 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If anything, Knights should be better at mitigation than they are. Warriors, baseline, cannot do their job. I'm not talking about the current understanding of the game, we all know how to get around it, I don't care about that.

If a group of new players decided to spin up a few characters, and someone picks a Warrior thinking they'll be the tank, they're in for a bad time. The threat mechanics in the game are completely asinine and it is inexcusable that Warriors can't actually tank in the overwhelming majority of the game's content at a baseline.

Just root everything and war is fine /nod