Let's talk CLASS BALANCE

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by NickN8N [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Druid and Magician are the easiest classes in the game to level, there has to be a penalty of some sort for having it so easy.

Geez, why did you skip over necro. As long as you're careful where you go (lot of people hate you) then it's a breeze and also very convenient since you can FD at any moment to go afk and be safe.

[Shadey]

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

Geez, why did you skip over necro. As long as you're careful where you go (lot of people hate you) then it's a breeze and also very convenient since you can FD at any moment to go afk and be safe.

Now I have to agree and disagree with you here. Yes Necro's are kings of soloing. But to play a Necro well isn't a breeze. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The same could be said about all classes. But we all know there are really good players at their class and really bad ones (and some in the middle too). If it was a breeze for each of us then everyone would be exactly the same on their char.

[Orruar]

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

Shaman were the only class that could solo the roaming dragons in Velious. The pet may be weaker than the Magician/Necro pets but it still provides a considerable amount of extra damage for the Shaman (more than having a whole extra DoT line) at little extra expense and when soloing against mobs where it can hold aggro/survive, that means the Shaman also doesn't have to spend energy on root or engage in melee themselves.

...

But, back to your last question, the Cannibalize becomes more and more powerful for a Shaman as they go up in level. Each cannibalize skill becomes more efficient and the heals the Shaman has to heal themself from the health lost from cannibalize keep getting more efficient as well. ...

Quit while you're ahead, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

- My pet costs 750 mana to summon. With a 4 level range, I try to get one of the top 2 pets to use. This means on average, I spent 1500 mana to summon this pet. I don't want him to die, so I have to buff him with Kragg (375 mana), regrowth (300 mana every 18 minutes), and then buff him with str every hour and haste every 11 minutes so that he'll do 30 dps instead of 20. Then I need to slow anything I'm going to kill, so there's another 250 mana per mob. Hardly "little extra expense".

- Did you seriously suggest that shaman pets can hold agro? I can give my pet 2 stun whips, and I'll still pull agro by sneezing. If I want my pet to hold agro, I'd have to wait about 90 seconds before slowing, and I better not even consider dotting.

-No intelligent shaman heals themselves so that they can canni more. Unless you're talking torpor, doing that is rather pointless. Our direct heals are barely more mana efficient than canni, and when you factor in lost mana due to missing med ticks, you actually lose mana from that deal. Even if you work your ass off and only canni/heal between med ticks, all this extra work leads to extra mana regen of around 3 per tick.

[Dynaguy]

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

Most players like to have some flexibility. I still believe my having picked a ranger as my first class in 1999 was the reason I enjoyed everquest. Another reason is I never achieved a high level so never got to experience hell levels or long corpse runs. But anyway, I think that most players want to be able to do a little bit of everything, they just don't know it yet. There might be a few players who like to specialize, but the problem is that once you've done it your only alternative is to reroll. I think that a better solution would be to have a more flexible and changeable class system. Perhaps even a skill-based system. We have to admit these many yeasr later that maybe people just don't enjoy playing a group-dependent character that's stripped of diversity.

Where's the interest in a class that always does the same thing?

Being flexible just means having choices. More things to do means not getting bored.

I agree that flexibility is nice. A ranger or bard is a perfect example. But they aren't best in what they do. Flexibility does not imply balance. They are not good at group healing, nor are they the ultimate damage dealer. Yet still, they are incredibly fun to play because they are more diverse than other classes. You have that option if you prefer diversity.

The other option is picking a char who is very good at one or two things, and has a very specific role. And if you're tired of that role, you can play an alt with an entirely different role, or pick a more diverse class.

I think it's cool that classic EQ catered to people with all kinds of different tastes.

[Dr4z3r]

We cannot deliberately change anything away from classic, for one blindingly obvious reason.

What Verant/Sony did is an objective standard.

Everything else is not.

[Zuranthium]

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

You're right, you pretty much can't solo heal a group (or possibly a bad group) - you need to adapt. Throw another priest class in, or grab an enchanter - a decent one which will control your groups pace. (and double your MP regen) This game was designed with trade-offs in mind. If you have any kind of advantage over another class, you usually pay for it. The druid IS the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none, and that's just how it is, paid for in full.

1.) "Throw another priest class in"?? This statement doesn't make sense. A Shaman and a Druid together simply can not heal through most of the higher level content. If you "throw a Cleric in" then that speaks to the exact problem I was talking about - you NEED a Cleric to simply play the game at higher levels (and not just the very top end content). This is wrong. And once you have the Cleric in your party, a Shaman (or any melee class) is going to be at the front of the line for another other spot in the party before Druids are.

2.) Druids are not even a true jack-of-all-trades, Bards are, and there was almost never a case at higher levels where a group would take a Druid over a Bard. Just speaking from personal experience here. Jack-of-all-Trades means you can perform almost any given role in a pinch. Druids can not mesmerize. Druids can not provide huge amounts of party wide regen. Druids can not slow mobs. Druids generate far less damage than a Bard who wants to be offensive. Quite simply, Druids have teleports. And that's it. Not something a party actually needs. Maybe when they are done fighting, as you've sat LFG watching them for hours, they will give you some money to teleport them to the nearest city. Gee, that sure does sound like a fun role to play.

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

It's all about the play style you're looking for - if you want an extremely mobile priest class that can solo incredibly well (esp with ES vambraces & the AoE lightning staff), cast big nukes and evac you don't really have a lot of choices. Things are even better outdoors.

Druids don't cast big nukes. The Wizard is the only class capable of nuking at higher levels. Nukes from any other class are simply minor amounts of extra DPS. The amount of HP mobs have and the resist rates they have make nukes continually worse as you go up in level, to the point where non-Wizard nukes are complete trash.

I'm not sure what value the moniker of "priest class" is even supposed to have, given that Druids can NOT act as the defensive glue of the team. Again, Clerics become absolutely necessary. In the times where they aren't absolutely necessary, a Shaman is still the only other viable Priest class if you don't have an Enchanter. As I've said, the Shaman's vastly superior mana regeneration and their best-in-game slow spell allows them to prevent a MASSIVE amount more damage over time than a Druid. A Shaman on their own is literally as effective of a defensive character as 4 Druids put together. That is the power of their slow. If you have an Enchanter around to provide the slow, then MAYBE a Druid can possibly act as Priest for certain areas, but it's still a vastly inferior setup to having a Shaman because the Shaman's slow is better than the Enchanter's and they have more energy to utilize.

So, going back to the "what you're looking for", Druids can quad-kite and they can travel extremely well. And....yeah. That's it. That is not a complete class. What does it matter if you can quickly travel anywhere if nobody wants to group with you? You certainly can not quad-kite in the majority of the areas of the game either. Quad kiting in fact limits you to only fighting in a handful of areas in the game, if that is supposedly what a Druid is "meant to do" (and it's NOT - the game designers specifically said they never intended for Druids and Wizards to be doing that), which pretty much goes against the whole awesome mobility thing Druids had going for them.

[Zuranthium]

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

Lack of class balance is one of the biggest charms of this classic server. I like to feel special in the role I've chosen, knowing that I can do things that other classes just can't do, or can't do as effectively.

Look at WoW, where everyone gets their panties in a bunch when a patch has nerfed the shaman to heal for 1% less HPS than a druid, or a rogue does 1% less DPS than a hunter. It's a nightmare for every game designer to make every DPS spec do exactly the same DPS, and every heal spec heals the same HPS. And what have they gained? A bunch of generic classes that can basically all do the same, just with a different name.

Balance is boring.

I agree with this, but what you speak of is not what I'm envisioning. I simply believe every class should be viable. The classes I've spoken of are not viable for a group that's trying to tackle difficult content at higher levels. It is possible for all of the classes to have a unique feel and still be worthwhile. The balance I speak of is not trying to balance everything so that every class is "perfectly" level, but rather balancing the classes so that when you go to form a group it's not a case of "Hey, we NEED a Warrior. Hey, we NEED a Cleric. Hey, we NEED an Enchanter". Certainly you should need certain classes for certain areas of the game, but for the large majority of the content no specific class should be required.

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

A 54 mage gets to choose from a level 46 water pet, air pet or earth pet, but probably will just chain cast his level 42 fire pet of facerape with built-in DS for 200 mana a pop.

Perhaps something is different in this version of the game but chain-casting the fire pet didn't work when I played. The fire pet would often not cast his damage shield as soon as you summon him and he wouldn't cast it when engaged in battle (which is right when you summon him if you're chain casting). Chain-casting pets was a rather worthless endeavor unless you were specifically trying to solo something where your pet can't live long enough before you nuked the mob down, and in those cases you would chain-cast the Earth pet and have to spend mana on casting your own damage shield each time as well.

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

Of course a druid doesn't need to worry about a pet because they just quad for 3 minutes and then turn into a tree and go do the dishes for 6 minutes. I'm not even sure why you would want a pet for quadding. And though I've never parsed it, I would bet that a druid's DS adds more DPS to a group than a wimpy shaman pet.

6 minutes? Go higher. It's more like 12 minutes to regen your mana, given how it takes casters longer and longer to natural-regen from OOM to full bar as they go up in level. Every single cast of Lightning Blast takes a full minute for a Druid to regen, plus they have to spend mana on the snare, plus they have to pick off the mobs at the end because mobs never die evenly when you're Quad Kiting. Druids "turning into a tree" doesn't increase their mana regen until the Level 59 tree spell and even then it's not a great downtime reliever.

As for a Druid's DS, that is one of the more useful things they offer to a group and it is admittedly more damage than the Shaman's pet IF you aren't just fighting low/mid blue-cons. However, the Druid is still going to be doing less damage with DoT's as compared to the Shaman DoT. And Shaman get haste. And Shaman get the best slow in the game. And Shaman get incredible self mana regeneration.

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

Did you seriously suggest that shaman pets can hold agro? I can give my pet 2 stun whips, and I'll still pull agro by sneezing. If I want my pet to hold agro, I'd have to wait about 90 seconds before slowing, and I better not even consider dotting.

If you're farming very low blues, the pet will hold aggro (as far as I remember), if slow is not used and you wait a little bit before applying the Poison DoT.

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

My pet costs 750 mana to summon. With a 4 level range, I try to get one of the top 2 pets to use. This means on average, I spent 1500 mana to summon this pet. I don't want him to die, so I have to buff him with Kragg (375 mana), regrowth (300 mana every 18 minutes), and then buff him with str every hour and haste every 11 minutes so that he'll do 30 dps instead of 20. Then I need to slow anything I'm going to kill, so there's another 250 mana per mob. Hardly "little extra expense".

The cost to summon is negligible. That is simply part of the set-up time when you log in and then you have the pet for the remainder. Kragg doesn't need to be cast at all. Why would you waste mana on that? That would only be needed if you're trying to camp a specific monster solo who is particularly difficult. You do cast Shroud of the Spirits, along with Deliriously Nimble and Stength, though. Altogether that is 400 mana per hour. Hardly anything at all. Alacrity only costs 100 mana every 12-14 minutes (it lasts 11 minutes and doesn't need to be active when the pet isn't actively in combat). Regrowth is more expensive, costing 260-some mana every 18 minutes, and you often need to spend 220-ish on the slow once per monster, but that's not too bad considering this next part I'm about going to talk about (plus, IN A GROUP you don't need to give the pet defensive buffs and you're going to be slowing anyway - which results in the pet being quite a bit of "free" damage):

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

No intelligent shaman heals themselves so that they can canni more. Unless you're talking torpor, doing that is rather pointless. Our direct heals are barely more mana efficient than canni, and when you factor in lost mana due to missing med ticks, you actually lose mana from that deal. Even if you work your ass off and only canni/heal between med ticks, all this extra work leads to extra mana regen of around 3 per tick.

The extra mana regen is far more than 3 per tick. LOL!!! Only at the lower levels of cannibalize and healing efficiency is a Shaman going to get that little of a benefit from the skill. At the higher levels, with Chloroblast and being Alt specialized, it certainly is worthwhile to constantly canni inbetween med ticks and then start Chloroblasting yourself between med ticks when you get low on health. Cannibalize III is a 1.85 health-to-mana rate. Chloroblast is something like a 2.85 health-to-mana rate. You of course have Torpor (Regrowth in this case, the lower-level version that is not as powerful, since I'm not even talking about a Level 60 Shaman where Cannibalize IV and Torpor make things even MORE eficient) and natural health regen on top of that.

All in all, you can Cannibalize 8 times for every single cast of Chloroblast you need to do. Which means over the course of 9 ticks, you are gaining about 160 extra mana when also subtracting the little bit you need to expend on casting Regrowth every 20 minutes. The natural mana regen a caster has at this level is 21 per tick. With the Cannibalize system going, the Shaman is gaining an extra 17 mana per tick - This is an 80% increase in mana regen a Shaman has over another caster working off of natural regen. That is a freaking HUGE difference.

[Hamahakki]

Zuranthium is clearly an old school EQ player with some good ideas but this thread misses the point.

The intent of Project 1999 is to recreate EQ as it was during the first couple of years following its launch. This means replicating the original game as closely as possible, not creating some custom content which is different but attempts to recapture the "spirit" or "feeling" of the original game.

Adding or removing class abilities, globally tuning mob strength or cast times, and increasing or reducing the damage and healing capabilities of classes are all off the table. Whether or not they would be an improvement is immaterial.

[Fryhole]

The class is meant to fill a role when another 'pure' class isn't available. Sorry it's not what you wanted - pick something else then. Not gonna bother quoting your responses and countering them because it's clear you didn't take the time to do the research either. /thread

[Zuranthium]

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

The class is meant to fill a role when another 'pure' class isn't available.

And it completely fails at doing so. I agree that should be what the class is capable of doing and I believe that IS what the game designers wanted the class to be capable of, but with the way the game is currently programmed that simply isn't what the class is capable of doing at the higher levels. The Druid absolutely can not fill in as the healer. The druid absolutely can not fill in as a separate form of defense (ie - debuffs to monsters, especially the very import slow mechanic, or some other significant form of damage prevention). The Druid absolutely can not fill in as DPS. The Druid absolutely can not serve as crowd control (in most cases).

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

Not gonna bother quoting your responses and countering them because it's clear you didn't take the time to do the research either.

Research? I lived Everquest from its earliest (non-beta) days and my mind is perfectly capable of recollection. And FYI, before posting my thoughts, there are some details that I have in fact still gone back to check anyway.