[wycca]

Thanks for the response.

So the 1k ae on the cold wurms is removed or is staying in until some later patch classic patch (say summer 2001 era patch)? Wasn't 100% sure from reading your post. It makes sense that it was in place then removed - your spelldat and that post do seem to confirm this. A 1k AE makes these white wurms harder than Trak in some ways IMO - they must've definitely had some weird concept of what is a balanced AE back then. I wasn't in HoT until Luclin myself, so I only got to see the final version first hand, and it appears most of these guides and the other posts are starting sometime around August 2001 (which is about the time the chatty masses hit ToV I'd imagine).

As far as the resists, I just think that p99's resist system doesn't scale quite right in checking mob lvl vs. pc lvl. Where do I think it should be? I'm not sure if we can get a 255 classic cap, but based on reading all the posts linked above, and the ones from the Kland thread, as well as Vulnerio's links about the different dragon fears, here is what I'd expect (using wurms as an example given their level/ae's) - Lvl 55 with good resists (ie 200 buffed) should probably be taking dmg about like a lvl 60 does right now with 200-250ish buffed. A lvl 60 with 200-250ish buffed should be taking less than they do, and a lvl 60 with a bard should probably be able to shrug off the lower check AE and get decent resists (I'm pulling 50-60% resists out of my arse) on the -100/150 check since having 300-400ish resists is not classic.

In the ac thread, where you talk about the difficulty of Velious mobs for our guilds (who have 3+ years of Kunark, much more lvl 60's, resist gear, epics, clickies, etc than any guild, even an uber, on live had), and how we can't even beat Kland (despite having readily available strats and bodies), along with a bunch of other mobs....I think the culprit has alot to do with the resist system. Yes, we all have some really bad raid habits from so much Kunark, and we will gel/tweak, but there seems to be a huge gulf here. I mean, we can walk up and kill Doz 1st attempt with 37 (and we can prolly do him with under 30). But these are all AE mobs for the most part that we are having so much trouble with. It's less obvious on indoor mobs that there is a resist problem because much of the strategy on these mobs is to wall the AE - but the problem is still there. The warders in ST for example, that acid/FR AE (also used by nex in VP? - whom rumor has it nobody bothers to put resists on for due to the insane difficulty in resisting it) - we just can't resist it at all hardly. It's somewhat masked when it doesnt hit the whole raid, but that AE just melted face even with bards in group. Velious was known as the bard expansion and blue diamond/diamond gear sets were mandatory with a resist cap of 255 - I'm just saying I see a pattern when it comes to resists. A pattern that fits even with some of our kunark mobs - ie my own experiences resisting Trak's ae (hes a red con, albiet lvl 63), and what I've heard of that acid/FR VP ae. I have absolutely no idea what the % of resists should be, but I know that our guild, and some of the members in IB and TMO that I've talked to, think that resists in general are off - too difficult to resist AE's as NPC level vs. pc level scales up.

Sorry I'm harping on this, but I'm guessing its easier to tweak the resist system than it is to individually balance Velious mobs to be beatable (ie like lowering Kland's level to 66 from lvl 70 - which did help with fear when you have 350-400ish MR, but he's still very problematic obviously, being able to land slow may help with this, but still).

PS - Can't tell you how much I appreciate all the time you put into this and how insane it must be to dig all this classic stuff up, try to figure out what is legit and what isn't, compare patch times/dates, etc.....and then sit here and discuss/argue it with us here.