Is Shaman the BEST all-around class in the game?

[loramin]

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

so enchanters were charming in SG in 2001

time for an enchanter, loramin

cmon buddy you can do it

The fact that Enchanters were charming (including doing serious stuff, eg. SG) has been a key part of my "thesis". It's like I keep saying: live players absolutely were using their spell list, and not just in the stupid ways that people here keep imagining.

But also ... in spite of the fact they clearly could solo ... Enchanters predominantly grouped. (Unlike Necros/Mages/Druids/etc., who also joined groups, but were known for predominantly soloing.)

Maybe you all have different memories of live, but I recall the expectation that every group would have a tank, a Cleric, and an Enchanter. You settled for another healer if you had to, and you settled for a Shaman if you had to, but an Enchanter was the standard. As a Shaman I distinctly remember being turned down for a Chanter many times (as I couldn't mez) ... does this not sound familiar to anyone?

If all the Enchanters (who again, clearly had the option of soloing) weren't choosing to group ... then where were all these grouping Enchanters coming from?

[shovelquest]

The only rason any of you have an enchanter is because of youtube.

That's the keystone to unlocking the knowledge of how to charm.

Nobody who is playing an enchanter today hasn't watched a video about every camp they ever did.

As if Im going to hear that charm is powerful, then go use it successfully. No way. Im going back to grouping after 1 death.

By I'm, I mean 99.9% of players.

[Toxigen]

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

The only rason any of you have an enchanter is because of youtube.

That's the keystone to unlocking the knowledge of how to charm.

Nobody who is playing an enchanter today hasn't watched a video about every camp they ever did.

As if Im going to hear that charm is powerful, then go use it successfully. No way. Im going back to grouping after 1 death.

By I'm, I mean 99.9% of players.

naw that aint true

I had never played EQ before p99 and I learned the hard way.

Then Nybras showed me the end game ropes.

[shovelquest]

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

naw that aint true

I had never played EQ before p99 and I learned the hard way.

Then Nybras showed me the end game ropes.

Are you the average though?

or are you in the .1% of players.

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

I think the reality is somewhere in the middle: charming was more difficult on live, mostly due to a combination of more frequent charm breaks and less effective channeling skill. But there were players successfully utilizing charm back then. It was just much riskier than on P1999 (especially with worse hardware and internet) and therefore wasn't nearly as common as it is here, and that isn't just due to the knowledge gap. Charming here already requires a lot of attention and care, and on the live servers it probably felt like walking on a knife's edge the whole time, with very frequent charm breaks that were difficult to recover from, making the process dangerous and inefficient unless you were very skilled and attentive. That being the case, it would be far easier and preferable for most Enchanters to just group for XP, which most of them obviously did as we all remember.

Yeah this pretty much is what i think. I mean lets not forget I and many were playing full screen UI, my PC was not a gaming pc, so framerate was always an issue in fullscreen.

I aint gonna be stunning and charming anything, my gear was trash too and I thought I was pretty good at eq [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Troxx]

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

Are you the average though?

or are you in the .1% of players.

Not a dig at anyone in particular but …

… 49% of people are below average
… most people are, in actuality, not smart or gifted

math statistics be math statistics and bell curves exist

[Duik]

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

Not a dig at anyone in particular but …

… 49% of people are below average
… most people are, in actuality, not smart or gifted

math statistics be math statistics and bell curves exist

This game is relatively simplistic so you dont need to be "ahead of the (bell) curve" to be successful. Sure, excelling at difficult things like actual math and being civil to each other requires higher levels.

But ya right. Most of us are just dumbarses. And I for one am happily ignorant of my stupidity.

[Snaggles]

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

naw that aint true

I had never played EQ before p99 and I learned the hard way.

Then Nybras showed me the end game ropes.

Agreed. I got my ench into the low 50’s without a YouTube video.

[Vexenu]

I think the reality is somewhere in the middle: charming was more difficult on live, mostly due to a combination of more frequent charm breaks and less effective channeling skill. But there were players successfully utilizing charm back then. It was just much riskier than on P1999 (especially with worse hardware and internet) and therefore wasn't nearly as common as it is here, and that isn't just due to the knowledge gap. Charming here already requires a lot of attention and care, and on the live servers it probably felt like walking on a knife's edge the whole time, with very frequent charm breaks that were difficult to recover from, making the process dangerous and inefficient unless you were very skilled and attentive. That being the case, it would be far easier and preferable for most Enchanters to just group for XP, which most of them obviously did as we all remember.

[shovelquest]

Check out these posts! (also maybe screenshots are best for the wiki for these, because wayback links cadn be unreliable IMO, I can supply both though! But ill add screenshots for relevant posts).

But here's some great stuff:

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[loramin]

I think it's safe to say that, on live or here, everyone was looking for the fastest way to level. Death was scary on both servers, but that didn't stop people from trying new techniques.

As a simple example, I had a Bard friend (IRL) and I remember watching him learn this crazy "swarm kiting" thing that he discovered on the Bard forum. I remember him dying plenty, at first ... but that was not enough to scare him off. He and plenty of other Bards (with good Internet connections) all picked up the technique, because it promised the one thing we all wanted: levels (and AAs soon after).

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

I think the reality is somewhere in the middle

100%. Look, I'm arguing that Charm should be harder, which puts me in the extreme 0.001% of P99 players [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]. But at the same time, I don't want to "nerf Charm into oblivion": it should be viable on P99! If Enchanters weren't charming on P99 (in greater numbers than on live, due to greater knowledge) the emulator would also fail my "Street Fighter" test.

I'm not arguing for the end of charming or anything close ... I'm just saying, we have an emulator based on a game that we don't know the exact numbers for. Based on the "Street Fighter test", it seems we got those numbers wrong somehow ... not a lot, but enough that something clearly "smells" wrong.

We just need to adjust those numbers a bit to have an emulator that more closely matches live.