Let's talk CLASS BALANCE

[Zuranthium]

I have much to say about class balance. While I love classic EQ, there is no doubt that the game was highly imbalanced in many ways, especially from Level 50+ and after the more powerful equipment entered the game. To understand more about my history with EQ, I suggest reading this - http://www.fippydarkpaw.com/forums/v...p=11640#p11640 - before reading the rest of my post here (but it's not required to understand what I'm going to be talking about).

My main points of interest regarding class balance:

1.) Are Clerics absolutely REQUIRED for groups at the later levels? It used to be that you HAD to have a Cleric or else you literally couldn't group. Non-Cleric heals were far too inefficient. In my opinion, Clerics should only be a requirement for bosses and possibly a select amount of other game content. Druids should be able to function perfectly fine as the main healer for a party outside of those limited exceptions. Looking at the p1999 Wiki skill list, it appears that Druids are far behind.

Druids were roundly considered one of the most useless classes once the expansions came along. They were called upon for teleports to certain areas to save time and that's it. They weren't able to do ANYTHING else of value and were completely outclassed by Shaman, who had the same level of healing + excellent self energy regen + the most powerful slow debuff in the game + they could do MORE damage (and for less energy expended) because of having a worthwhile Pet and good haste spells and comparable DoT's/DD's + they got other buffs/debuffs that were a bit better (+Attribute buffs of every kind and the Malaise debuffs) and they even got SoW!!!

Having teleports does not balance out getting a Pet, the best slow debuff in the game, other buffs/debuffs that are superior in general, and excellent self energy regen to power all of those abilities even further and more efficiently! In my mind, these classes would only be balanced if:

*Druids could heal significantly better than Shaman...even with heals that were closer to Clerics, the Druid would still not actually be as efficient of a "defensive" character as the Shaman, considering how the latter class gets the best slow in the game and self energy regen to power their heals/debuffs.

*Shaman did not get pets...this is extra free damage that is a slap in the face to the INT casters, as it makes the Shaman capable of doing more damage over time than those classes. Very imbalanced how a powerful defensive class is additionally capable of producing more damage over time than a class entirely dedicated to offense!

2.) Is spellcaster damage (for the spellcasters who should actually be able to do great damage - Magicians, Wizards, and Necromancer) complete shit at the later levels in comparison to melee damage? After Kunark came out, these spellcasting classes took massive hit. Their spell progression became weak in comparison to earlier levels and melee classes got incredible new skills and equipment. Melee classes were doing something like 3x as much damage in comparison to a Magician (unless they had the epic pet, which is hardly a fair consideration and even then it was significantly lower) - a class that had the LEAST amount of utility out of all the casters and was dedicated to DPS! Being able to summon mod rods or perform the occasional Call of the Hero hardly makes a class equally viable.

Wizards had a more specific purpose of at least being able to provide burst damage against very difficult opponents but such a thing was only needed very occasionally. Their DPS over time was embarrassingly weak in comparison to a melee...about 1/5th of what a melee could do.

***In general I would say that part of the problem was mana regen. It's a problem when it starts taking more than 5 minutes to go from out-of-mana back up to a full bar. As characters went up more in level, the spells kept getting more expensive and more and more casts kept being needed to keep up DPS, but innate mana regen didn't rise to compensate. 5 minutes, without any mana buffs, is the absolute maximum space of time it should take to recover a full bar of mana. Any more than that simply becomes a useless grind and, in the case of the pure INT damage dealers, it drastically lowers their capabilities and makes them useless in comparison to melee characters.

The magical RESIST rates of monsters also became ridiculous and that further made magic-based DPS complete garbage. Both of those things (regen and resist) would need to be changed from what they were in original Kunark and Velious in order for the INT damage dealers to actually worthwhile team members. And for Wizards the efficiency of their nukes should really be improved somewhat across the board because I really do not think that their teleports and very occasional need for burst DPS puts them on equal ground with the sustained damage Magicians and Necromancers can do in comparison.

I would also say that the CASTING TIME of spells should be looked into as well. The HP of monsters in relation to player level becomes a wider and wider gap as the levels go up, and yet some of the spells take longer and longer to cast. This further makes INT casters less effective at doing what they are supposed to be good at and the long casting times are simply annoying in general. The spells start becoming ridiculously laborious; it's as if the caster has to take a cigarette break before they can even complete certain spells. This is completely understandable with spells like Complete Heal or Call of the Hero, but not for most everything else.

[Rais]

Wizards should quad kite to 60.

[Akim]

Clerics are not useless. you need one or a pally.

Druids and wizards.. a pitty. I've played a wizard anyway.
Shaman was a clear choice on druid for me, but I like the earlier levels as a druid snare dotting.

Are these actual suggestions to change the current system? That would be wrong to, for instance, take pets away from shaman; like you say.

[Akim]

The harder discussion would be on the melee classes.

[Cfred0-]

tldr this is EQ not wow, classes arent balanced get over it.

[randal.flagg]

Wizards get a HUGE boost in kunark. I rolled a wizard for lures / bane nukes. Pretty incomparable raw DPS, even if it is just burst. Additionally, the mana regen issue is conquered with the wizard epic / manastone or manarobe.

[randal.flagg]

Originally Posted by Cfred0- [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

tldr this is EQ not wow, classes arent balanced get over it.

Its a discussion, get over it. I don't know why people flame so much... its so pointless and just distracts from a genuinely interesting conversation.

[ojamajoe]

I'm not sure that the original designers were interested in class balance, in the way people usually think of it. They seem to have instead tried to create a variety of possible experiences, many appealing to very different player types and personalities.

They also had a (much-maligned) "vision", which called for (among other things) rarity for certain race/class combinations; and it appears they utilized the game mechanics to attempt to make that happen.

Although balanced classes are the expectation on entering a modern MMO, Everquest was my first MMORPG and I had no such expectations when I started playing it.

I miss the RPG part...

[Swish]

1. In my experience up to LoY/LDoN as a shaman, I found that I COULD heal quite effectively and the downtime wasn't too significant with canni and a mount as long as people (with exception of the tank) weren't wanting a full suit of buffs.

As a shaman solo healer at low levels you cannot replace a cleric as a main healer, you can substitute in one's absence but a well twinked tank is going to be a hard time to keep at full health without oom'ing on inefficient heals.

Clerics should be and are the best healers in the game. Druids obviously enjoy the kiting BS that made me never want to play one, and shammies get to kite if they really want to or root-rot. Clerics don't quite have the luxury, and are much more group dependent - which should and does give them the edge over other healers.

If I could pick a healer class to heal my tank, it would have to be a cleric hands down.

a) For the fact that they have the better/more mana efficient heals.
b) Too many uninterested druids/shamans out there who don't WANT to heal or aren't used to doing it, and do a half baked job of it.

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

[Zuranthium]

Obviously the take-pets-away-from-Shaman thing is not going to be a popular suggestion. But I believe it is necessary to achieve balance given everything else the class is already capable of. If you read about my own experience with playing Everquest all the way back in 1999, you'll see that my first character was a Barbarian Shaman and I became addicted to the game on that character. However, I eventually decided that it wasn't the role (buffing/debuffing/healing) I wanted to play in the game.

I specifically became a Magician because I wanted to do damage, as a caster. If Shaman had pets starting at Level 9 or 14, I would have never switched to a Magician and fallen in love with the class. I would have been perfectly happy on Shaman because I would have been doing a lot of damage in addition to all of my other capabilities. Shamans with pets are overpowered. Considering they don't even get pets until 34, it seems like a rather half-assed addition to the class that the original creators put in the game and didn't think about long enough in terms of class balance.

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

I'm not sure that the original designers were interested in class balance, in the way people usually think of it. They seem to have instead tried to create a variety of possible experiences, many appealing to very different player types and personalities.

They also had a (much-maligned) "vision", which called for (among other things) rarity for certain race/class combinations; and it appears they utilized the game mechanics to attempt to make that happen.

Although balanced classes are the expectation on entering a modern MMO, Everquest was my first MMORPG and I had no such expectations when I started playing it.

I miss the RPG part...

I understand what you're saying and I'm SO with you on the RPG side of the game. I will totally roleplay when I start with p1999.

However, I certainly believe the original designers were interested in class balance (to some degree at least). If they weren't, then they wouldn't have given Rogues the "Evade" ability after people complained about how completely useless Rogues were because trying to utilize the "Backstab" ability generated enormous aggro and usually only ever result in the Rogue getting smashed. They wouldn't have buffed the poison abilities that Rogues have. They wouldn't have buffed all of the hybrid classes - Paladin/Shadowknight/Ranger - in response to how completely inferior those classes become in comparison to Warriors after Kunark was released.