most underpowered class in game?

[DJTucker]

Discussion on the most OP or the most under OP class has always been under discussion. Everquest was not designed for individuals to solo play. Each class brings their own skill set to a group, which makes groups the OP entity of the game.
Thankyou Project 99 for keeping the game as close to original as possible.

[Zuranthium]

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

An example is not a fallacy. I never claimed it was a realistic example.

You literally said "it's rarely the case in real life application that DPS matters." So indeed you are claiming that your idiotic example is something like the norm. When it isn't. That is a fallacy.

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

Again, your assumption of perfect conditions is just silly, and it blinds you to understanding that a high DPS group can kill less than a lower DPS group.

Nobody assumed "perfect conditions". Nowhere close to perfect conditions is needed to do exp/faction/item grinding in a way that utilizes most/all of the DPS in a team.

The majority of places in the game where people want to grind, the MOBs are just sitting there like a fucking buffet. It is incredibly easy to control them with Root alone, and the decider on how much you will kill simply comes down to a basic mathematical question of how much damage you are capable of doing and if your group has a sufficient amount of defense to sustain the pace. Being able to potentially kill X amount of MOBs in a given timeframe will result in them doing Y amount of damage, does the team have the heals/slows/regen to match?

And if you aren't in a situation where there are essentially unlimited things to pull, then you still want as much DPS as possible. Higher DPS = faster kills = faster respawn = more progression.

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

Mages are the most underpowered class on P99, I am sorry.

Two things are apparent from what you write:

1.) You've never been a high ranked player in any competitive game.

2.) Your understanding of EQ is lagging far behind and/or a Mage killed your family.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

You literally said "it's rarely the case in real life application that DPS matters." So indeed you are claiming that your idiotic example is something like the norm. When it isn't. That is a fallacy.



Nobody assumed "perfect conditions". Nowhere close to perfect conditions is needed to do exp/faction/item grinding in a way that utilizes most/all of the DPS in a team.

The majority of places in the game where people want to grind, the MOBs are just sitting there like a fucking buffet. It is incredibly easy to control them with Root alone, and the decider on how much you will kill simply comes down to a basic mathematical question of how much damage you are capable of doing and if your group has a sufficient amount of defense to sustain the pace. Being able to potentially kill X amount of MOBs in a given timeframe will result in them doing Y amount of damage, does the team have the heals/slows/regen to match?

And if you aren't in a situation where there are essentially unlimited things to pull, then you still want as much DPS as possible. Higher DPS = faster kills = faster respawn = more progression.



Two things are apparent from what you write:

1.) You've never been a high ranked player in any competitive game.

2.) Your understanding of EQ is lagging far behind and/or a Mage killed your family.

No. I love mages. Underpowered does not mean bad, or you shouldn't play them. You are simply overvaluing them because of your misconceptions of DPS, and I assume you play one yourself. You are letting your emotions get the better of you.

What you fail to realize is most mobs have such low HP to begin with you don't need amazing DPS to clear content quickly. Average geared players can do it just fine, and at a fast rate. Just because you have a high expectation of xp per hour doesn't mean your xp rate is normal, or what everybody is aiming for. That has been my point, and anybody who plays this game would know that.

[Zuranthium]

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

What you fail to realize is most mobs have such low HP to begin with you don't need amazing DPS to clear content quickly.

An incorrect statement, especially with Velious content. But also going back to your statement about Mino axes being enough DPS at the mid levels. Trying doing Splitpaw with just melee geared with Mino axe's. It will be very slow, and boring.

Your entire line of thinking is a fallacy anyway though. It doesn't matter if you personally consider a certain slower xp rate to be "fast". That is not the objective most powerful way to play the game. If you are discussing the power level of classes, then you must look at what they bring to the game when people try to maximize their ability. Which doesn't mean only looking at their ability in a perfect scenario, like a Druid when charming, but rather the approximate average of what they contribute in a variety of scenarios (which for EQ can include various group compositions), when playing the game near-optimally in those scenarios.

The way you try to talk, it's like arguing that some Tier 3 deck in a Magic the Gathering meta is perfectly competitive because of the winrate you're getting with it at whatever mid-rank you happen to be. That doesn't mean the deck is actually one of the most powerful. The most powerful decks are defined by winrate in high ranked play.

Which is exactly why ad populum arguments are often terrible. In order for opinions to be equally valid on a subject, the must have roughly equal levels of expertise. Most people never become a Chess Grandmaster. The 95% of people who play an inferior line in chess are not correct just because they hold a 95% majority. They are simply not at the same level.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

The problem is you think I am using an ad populum argument. The reality is I am talking about game balance. Everquest monster HP isn't balanced around players having high teir gear. Its balanced around low to mid tier gear. This is why you don't need highly geared (high DPS) players to clear content quickly.

I have no idea why you think Everquest is comparable to Chess lol. You have a strange idea that you need to powergame a 20 year old elf sim basically balanced to easy mode. Remember that the game balance was designed around expansions coming out quickly, so they can't expect players to be decked out with raid gear when a new expansion releases.

[PatChapp]

For real,years of velious farming really trivializes

[Zuranthium]

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

Everquest monster HP isn't balanced around players having high teir gear. Its balanced around low to mid tier gear. This is why you don't need highly geared (high DPS) players to clear content quickly.

You absolutely do need high DPS to clear content "quickly". Do you want to spend 6 hours trying to fight through Plane of Fear, or 3? Is that extra 3 hours of your life not valuable? How about getting to Level 60, want to spend 800 hours or 400? 400 hours of life not worthwhile either?

Everything is measured in time. The faster you can do things in EQ, the more powerful you are. Ultimately the entire game and metric of what is "powerful" simply comes down to how efficiently something can be done. The game can be "beaten" no matter what, if you simply spend enough time and throw enough characters at something. A raid of 500 people doesn't need Clerics to "clear" the content. You can just hack down the Dragon eventually while taking tons of deaths. But obviously it's much more efficient to use Clerics, hence why they are powerful.

Imagine if raids were capped at 30 people. What is most powerful would inherently be whittled down first to what 30-character composition is even capable of killing the boss MOB, and then what group composition can kill it the quickest and/or kill it with less than 30 people. The less people you need to do something, the less the loot needs to be shared. And the faster you can do something, the more time you have to move onto the next thing.

In EQ, those factors of how to do something most efficiently (least amount of characters needed and/or fastest) revolves around whatever allows you to do the most DPS while not dying, or at least not dying too much. Unless you are exploiting the duel or drowning mechanics from certain periods of EQ, wherein you could constantly refill your mana bar by dying. In which case, die frequently, it's quicker than medding. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Crede]

I’d take a well played mage over pretty much any other dps in a 4-6 man group setting besides an enchanter. The good ones who are actually playing their class correctly(max pet, Keeping DS on the tank, debuffing, mod rodding) bring a lot to the table assuming you have a tank, cc, and healer. So I see them as more of a 4-6 addition, and raiding.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Loraen%...election_Guide

Loraens guide has a nice class breakdown looking at all aspects of the game rating each one. I’d change a few things but overall I think it’s pretty accurate I put mages somewhere in the middle. Worst classes are Ranger/pally for sure and the numbers you see online reflect that

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

You absolutely do need high DPS to clear content "quickly". Do you want to spend 6 hours trying to fight through Plane of Fear, or 3? Is that extra 3 hours of your life not valuable? How about getting to Level 60, want to spend 800 hours or 400? 400 hours of life not worthwhile either?

Everything is measured in time. The faster you can do things in EQ, the more powerful you are. Ultimately the entire game and metric of what is "powerful" simply comes down to how efficiently something can be done. The game can be "beaten" no matter what, if you simply spend enough time and throw enough characters at something. A raid of 500 people doesn't need Clerics to "clear" the content. You can just hack down the Dragon eventually while taking tons of deaths. But obviously it's much more efficient to use Clerics, hence why they are powerful.

Imagine if raids were capped at 30 people. What is most powerful would inherently be whittled down first to what 30-character composition is even capable of killing the boss MOB, and then what group composition can kill it the quickest and/or kill it with less than 30 people. The less people you need to do something, the less the loot needs to be shared. And the faster you can do something, the more time you have to move onto the next thing.

In EQ, those factors of how to do something most efficiently (least amount of characters needed and/or fastest) revolves around whatever allows you to do the most DPS while not dying, or at least not dying too much. Unless you are exploiting the duel or drowning mechanics from certain periods of EQ, wherein you could constantly refill your mana bar by dying. In which case, die frequently, it's quicker than medding. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Thank you for responding in a calm manner. I really appreciate it.

I also apologize for not being 100% clear. When I try to type in shorter sentences (as requested by users on these forums), there ends up being misunderstandings (not your fault). This is one reason why I normally type more, because it reduces this problem. When I say "DPS not that important", I am not saying DPS is never useful, shouldn't be sought after, or cannot improve your gameplay. I will explain more below.

In raiding I have already said (and agree) that DPS is more important. You want to clear Fear as fast as possible because another competing guild could try and take your raid mobs.

In soloing DPS is also a bit more important. You can only improve your kill speeds via more utility (HP/Mana regen, clickies, etc.), or more DPS. I myself am tooling my SK to have higher DPS in soloing, because he is already tanky enough. Adding more HP or defensive stats will not help his chances of survival, so I can focus on improving clear speeds.

Grouping is where DPS tends not to matter as much. The reason for this is because in my experience the biggest DPS boost you get in grouping is simply having other group members. This is assuming a reasonable group composition, the players at least know how to play their class, and they aren't AFKing a lot. I have been in groups where we have had highly geared players (high DPS on paper), and had poor clear speeds. Conversely, I have had groups with average geared players that have had high clear speeds.

The reason for this is simple: Everquest monster stats are generally balanced around low to average geared players. This is because the rate at which expansions were released (and the difficulty in obtaining gear) meant the developers couldn't expect most players to be geared to the teeth. If this wasn't the case, soloing for XP wouldn't really be a thing. Monsters would just take so long to kill that soloing would only really be worth it when you were camping items of value.

The true challenge of Everquest came from people not knowing a lot about the game. On P99, where everybody basically knows everything, a lot of the challenge is removed. It gets stripped down to mostly monster stats, which again are actually not that high for the most part. This is why you can get away with having great clear speeds with groups that don't have high DPS on paper.

I understand you like to play efficiently, so you probably play in groups that are even more optimized, both in composition and DPS. This means your standard for XP gains is simply higher than normal. This is not a problem, but I believe it skews your idea a bit of what an acceptable XP rate is for the game when it comes to the game's balance. I am not saying most players would not enjoy your standard of XP rates. I am saying that most players are not hyper optimizing their XP groups via gear checks, running static groups, being really strict about classes and levels, etc. Not that I have seen anyway. Usually class and general level range are the things that get checked in groups, and even then it is more class type (healer, puller, etc.) rather than the absolute best class for the situation.

The reason why I say a Mage's extra DPS doesn't really save the class on P99 is because of their lack of CC. Not having CC means you are still more limited on what you can solo, even with the increase in DPS. In a group their extra DPS is nice, but as I said before, extra DPS isn't always going to increase your group's kill speed. Typically speaking it's better to get a class that has both good DPS and good utility (like a Necromancer), to get the most bang for your buck. In a raid Mages are obviously amazing, but not for their DPS hehe, it's for their utility.

The thing about Mages is their toolkit REALLY shines when players know little about the game. This is because their ability to summon items is very important when players don't know where all the merchants are to buy food/drink/bandages for their respective faction levels. When everybody was new to the game, summoned weapons were also actually pretty good. Since most people were running around with Fine Steel weapons, Summoned weapons were better than what they had. On P99, this isn't the case. Everybody knows where the merchants are, or can quickly change their factions. They also have better weapons, so summoned weapons aren't very useful, except for a few situations.

This is why I think Mages are the most underpowered when looking at all aspects of the game. Again, this doesn't mean I hate them, they are bad, or you shouldn't play them. In solo situations they are gimped by lack of CC, in group situations they aren't really that special, and in raids they are only used for a few spells. In all situations pet AI can gimp them. Under the assumption an average player will not be heavily raiding, this means their huge advantage in raids isn't worth as much consideration. We mostly need to look at their solo/group capabilities. Again, this isn't to say Mages are bad, they just unfortunately aren't designed for people playing Everquest when they know everything. This is why the class got a bunch of changes in later expansions to try and address these issue.

Now to play devils advocate, you could say Rogues are even worse than Mages, because they have a similar problem. Not great when soloing, but much better in groups and raids. Don't misunderstand the "not great" part for soloing with Mages. I am not saying Mages can't solo quickly. They are simply more limited than a lot of other classes due to lack of CC. What they can solo they solo very well. Also casters usually have a leg up over non-casters. The only reason why I disagree with this is because rogues are designed to work this way. Their kit isn't gimped by P99 knowledge, but improved by it. They also have higher DPS than a Mage, which is the main consideration for Rogue vs. Mage when in a group situation. While Rogues obviously lose out in solo situations, my assumption is most rogue players understand they should be heavily grouping anyway, so for Rogues specifically you shouldn't be weighing solo capabilities as much to begin with.

[Crede]

I tried to see your mage opinion, but the more you talk about it I'm convinced that you're actually just making things up now to support your mage claim, lol. Which isn't surprising, we all know you like to spin your opinions as facts, and will defend them to the death. I can respect that in certain scenarios, but I'm not really sure who are you trying to convince here, other than yourself.

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

The thing about Mages is their toolkit REALLY shines when players know little about the game. This is because their ability to summon items is very important when players don't know where all the merchants are to buy food/drink/bandages for their respective faction levels. When everybody was new to the game, summoned weapons were also actually pretty good. Since most people were running around with Fine Steel weapons, Summoned weapons were better than what they had. On P99, this isn't the case. Everybody knows where the merchants are, or can quickly change their factions. They also have better weapons, so summoned weapons aren't very useful, except for a few situations.

This entire paragraph is completely inaccurate, lol. Mages have a toolkit that actually shines the more you know about the game. Getting a max pet & positioning it, Cothing a puller to clear aggro when needed, keeping DS on the tank, providing muzzles to increase dps, debuffing to help charmers maintain charm for more dps/safety, mod rods to assist the healer in getting more mana. A well played mage is really a nice thing to see in the group scene. Nobody cares about their summoned weapons, lol, nor should that be a factor in considering their overall utility.

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

The reason why I say a Mage's extra DPS doesn't really save the class on P99 is because of their lack of CC. Not having CC means you are still more limited on what you can solo, even with the increase in DPS. In a group their extra DPS is nice, but as I said before, extra DPS isn't always going to increase your group's kill speed. Typically speaking it's better to get a class that has both good DPS and good utility (like a Necromancer), to get the most bang for your buck. In a raid Mages are obviously amazing, but not for their DPS hehe, it's for their utility.

As others have mentioned, you are putting way too much value on utility/CC when it comes to solo/grouping. You don't need all that to get to lvl 60 quickly solo. You need to just know the right camps, and be efficient at killing quickly. Mages can do this very efficiently, unlike a rogue. Utility comes into play more for experiencing different camps & solo artist stuff, which is really niche and outside the scope of this discussion. And as for grouping, Necros are an amazing class, but honestly nobody really cares about their utility when forming a group. Other classes will cover that utility. They would take a mage 99% of the times for superior DPS. Necros are kinda like paladins in the group atmosphere, they can make up for a lot of deficiencies, but overall not really needed. The formula for forming groups is pretty simple here on p99: get a tank, healer, cc, and fill the rest with the best dps you can find.

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

The only reason why I disagree with this is because rogues are designed to work this way. Their kit isn't gimped by P99 knowledge, but improved by it. They also have higher DPS than a Mage, which is the main consideration for Rogue vs. Mage when in a group situation. While Rogues obviously lose out in solo situations, my assumption is most rogue players understand they should be heavily grouping anyway, so for Rogues specifically you shouldn't be weighing solo capabilities as much to begin with.

This whole section is a stretch and I think you're just making up things to support your mage claim at this point [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]. You are claiming that the Rogue toolkit isn't gimped by p99 knowledge, but improved by it. This makes no sense. Rogue's have no toolkit, everyone knows how to /attack and backstab. Sneak/hide & pick lock have extremely limited use in the group setting. Being a knowledgeable rogue doesn't really make a group better, you might just annoy the tank/healer slightly less when you start using your evade hotkey. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Mage's are certainly not the most underpowered class in the game when looking at all aspects of it. It's more like a close tie between Rangers, Paladins, and Wizards, with Rogues not too far behind that. Ranger's are a perfect example of how worthless utility can be. It doesn't make them good soloers, nor does does it really make them well liked in groups, despite the fact that they can also dps. Same with Wizards, they have a ton of utility, but I have no doubt I could out level one on a mage as knowledge/efficiency/minimizing downtime is the most important thing when leveling up solo. Wizards also are despised in groups, despite having a ton of useful tools.