Interesting Class Changes

[Daldaen]

You can look at all the casters and see many flaws.

Mana regen - Necros get Lich, Shamans get Canni, Enchanter get C/ToT, Wizards get Harvest/Manaskin/Epic, Mages get mod rods, Druids get Mask (at level 60)... Clerics get... ???

Eventually this balances out when wizards get familiars and another harvest in Luclin/PoP. Mages get pet canni, druids get mana regen on their HP buff and clerics get mana regen on their self HP buff and Yaulp.

Efficient Healing - Clerics get CH and HoTs (CE/CH), Shamans get Torpor, Druids get... ???

Eventually it balances out in Luclin when Druids get Tunare's Renewal.

Etc etc etc

Tl;dr - Luclin/PoP worked to bring the game to the most balanced state it ever was, with the best content there ever was.

[Grizzled]

When druids and shamans got rez, I became disgusted with live eq. Original eq was designed for class roles, and weaknesses. Players quickly overcame most of the weaknesses. But yet the classes were not for the most part identical like in a famous blizzard game.

[Basenji]

A lot of that was probably intentional, too. I mean, clerics get a 10% bonus to every heal they cast, right? And that's in addition to having more efficient base spells at earlier levels. Clerics don't have a self mana regen spell because they don't need one.

That said I do agree with a lot of the idea. Sometimes I wish I could have classic EQ as the designers wanted before the problems with network, server power, and profit margins forced them to ship what we got. For example, Druids have a track skill cap of 50 on P1999 right now because that's what it was on live. But the reason for that was due to a client limitation that doesn't currently exist on P1999. So which is more classic? The actual server state or the developer's intent?

Originally Posted by Patch message from March 6, 2001

-- The tracking skill cap for Druids has been raised to 125. It was the intent for druids to be better at tracking than they were, however before the scroll bar, smaller skill numbers were often considered better. With the tracking improvements from the last patch, this increase was appropriate.

I really did like the WoW concept of CC, even if it was never really useful. Almost every class had the ability to CC one or two mobs at most, and they were limited to certain types. Then they put mixed types in dungeons and a good group would have had to work together to contain the pulls - which were agro linked. But after playing with WoW players, I'm very happy that the mobs were so easy that CC wasn't really necessary. It would have been a nightmare.

[Erydan Ouragan]

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

When druids and shamans got rez, I became disgusted with live eq. Original eq was designed for class roles, and weaknesses. Players quickly overcame most of the weaknesses. But yet the classes were not for the most part identical like in a famous blizzard game.

You mean starcraft 2 right??

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

Luclin/PoP worked to bring the game to the most balanced state it ever was, with the best content there ever was.

Yes, that era was amazing. Every class was useful and had something to bring. Hell, even wizards were doing fine in regular xp groups, that says something.

The content was the best too, very balanced. I remember grouping in PoEarth with guildies for AAs, even with a tank in raid gear the healer had to pay attention and we had to be on point with CC. Definitely didn't feel too easy. Oh and paladin tanks with slay undead in Crypt of Decay.. damn.

Every class was powerful and had fun abilities and spells without all the bloat on live. You didn't need 5 hotbars full of AAs and macros during PoP.

I know a lot of people bitch about Luclin, but it's one of my favorite expansions. The zones were awesome in a weird and a creepy way, i spent an unhealthy amount of time in akheva ruins, easily my favorite zone in the game. There was so much to do. Grinding AAs, shard groups, man i wish i could go back to 2002-2004 =/

[Itap]

Luclin was a great expansion, it's the new character models that made me cringe

[Basenji]

It was never the models for me. It was the animations that came with them.

The biggest complaint I have about a lot of the balance from those expansions is that they were clearly implemented to fix problems in the older expansions. And instead of fixing them, they added them to the box on Luclin and charged $50 for it. Bard overhaste? That should have been a patch to the Ervaj line from Velious instead of a new line in Luclin. Endless quiver? That should have just been given to rangers at 60.

[Rayzor84]

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

You can look at all the casters and see many flaws.

Mana regen - Necros get Lich, Shamans get Canni, Enchanter get C/ToT, Wizards get Harvest/Manaskin/Epic, Mages get mod rods, Druids get Mask (at level 60)... Clerics get... ???

Eventually this balances out when wizards get familiars and another harvest in Luclin/PoP. Mages get pet canni, druids get mana regen on their HP buff and clerics get mana regen on their self HP buff and Yaulp.

Efficient Healing - Clerics get CH and HoTs (CE/CH), Shamans get Torpor, Druids get... ???

Eventually it balances out in Luclin when Druids get Tunare's Renewal.

Etc etc etc

Tl;dr - Luclin/PoP worked to bring the game to the most balanced state it ever was, with the best content there ever was.

Except that when every class does everything well, all distinctions are lost. Playing a shaman over a druid becomes negligible, making classes less valuable and unique.

[Daldaen]

Originally Posted by Rayzor84 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Except that when every class does everything well, all distinctions are lost. Playing a shaman over a druid becomes negligible, making classes less valuable and unique.

False.

Clerics retained Rez, CH efficiency, Reverse DS, Symbol
Druids retained ATK debuffs, skin buff, SoE/FoE, 2nd tier nukes and heals
Shamans retained Slow, Malo, Avatar, Canni, Melee stat buffs, Focus

Having a shaman as a group healer and a druid as a group healer in Luclin or PoP was very different. Shamans healed through Slows mitigating damage, Torpor/Quiessence healing over time, and crappy single heals. Druids healed through inefficient CHs, ATK Debuffs reducing DPS (this was never as effective as it should've been IMO for grouping), and solid patch heals. Clerics had CH remaining awesome as well as solid HoTs and patch/fast heals, and reverse DS.

Every guild wanted multiples of each class and every group could fit in each class somewhere, Clerics were almost required in some of the harder camps, which was unfortunate but if you had a solid group otherwise you could make do with a Shaman/Druid combo or an Enchanter/Druid combo.

Clerics were terrible at DPS and preventing damage.
Shamans were terrible solo healers and DPS
Druids were mediocre solo healers (bad without slows) and mediocre DPS.

[Halius]

Yeah I guess I'm kind of arguing both sides now. I mean it would be cool for mages to have CC but I also want class separation. I don't want everyone to be able to do everything, it makes the game more fun relying on others for a balance.

I had no problem with the Luclin/PoP expansions either. I thought AAs we a nice addition that helped you progress without increasing the level cap. I always pop into live every couple months just to see my old warrior and cleric. I see all the fierce heraldic gear I spent so much time trying to get, only to be dwarfed by the damn defiant gear now. I mean the level requirement for Fierce Heraldic was level 45 and now level 10 defiant gear has better stats, that's just dumb.

Anyways back on topic.

[Swish]

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

Yeah I guess I'm kind of arguing both sides now. I mean it would be cool for mages to have CC but I also want class separation. I don't want everyone to be able to do everything, it makes the game more fun relying on others for a balance.

I had no problem with the Luclin/PoP expansions either. I thought AAs we a nice addition that helped you progress without increasing the level cap. I always pop into live every couple months just to see my old warrior and cleric. I see all the fierce heraldic gear I spent so much time trying to get, only to be dwarfed by the damn defiant gear now. I mean the level requirement for Fierce Heraldic was level 45 and now level 10 defiant gear has better stats, that's just dumb.

Anyways back on topic.

They really screwed up live. With a bunch of staff changes and just snowballing stats for the sake of "its a new expansion"... same thing happened to WoW. Used to shoot arrows for 200-300, now its literally 20,000 or 50,000 or whatever. Numbers don't mean anything if they're continually scaled up like that.