Casual TLP

[socialist]

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

Are they not the same thing on P99, just without all the poopsocking, lawyering and griefing? Sounds like heaven to me.

It is heaven if you care more about enjoying the content and progressing your character than you care about being the one who wins the server and out-poopsocks everyone else. Unfortunately, TLPs have certain non-classic mechanics that make it a little less satisfying to actually do the raids. For one thing, DPS is so absurdly high that a lot of fights are over in moments. It's really not until Plane of Time that there's any serious challenge in it, unless you're in a casual guild that can't field a full raid.

Notable mechanical differences:

- Monk DPS is retardedly high. They get post-era fist ratios, which means that monk fists are something like 23 dmg / 26 dly from Kunark and onwards. They outdamage everyone by a significant amount until the end of PoP or thereabouts. I have no idea why they don't just implement classic fist ratios for the first eras, it's not as if the correct values aren't known. The developers have never given an answer to this.

- There's a mechanic called Might of the Mighty that significantly reduces pet damage on bosses and makes them ignore pet aggro, although they will still build threat. This means that on any permarooted raid boss, a magician can send in a pet and let it build threat for however long you want, with the boss not attacking the pet, and then the tank can just run in after five minutes and taunt and gain a million threat. Aggro effectively doesn't exist as a mechanic on any permarooted boss.

- Post-classic spell values are in effect from the start of a TLP, meaning that such things as healing spells and, in particular, poison/disease DoTs have vastly inflated numbers. On P99, e-bolt ticks for 146. On a TLP, it ticks for like 350, and there are focus items from the start so you can add like 20% on top. Shamans are actually competitive DPS on bosses that aren't immune to poison/disease. Necros too. You can also KS very effectively with these DoTs as they count as having done their full damage upon landing, for the purposes of determining who gets the kill on a mob. See someone fighting frenzied ghoul? Cast e-bolt + plague on it and you get the kill credit, even if it was at 30% when you arrived. Also makes early grouping super easy as light healing heals for like 65, so a paladin can server as the main healer.

- There are some out-of-era AAs in the game. Prior to Luclin, melee DPS classes automatically gain points in some generic AA that increases their attack, so melee classes have way higher attack rating than they should. Starting in Luclin (or maybe PoP, I forget), you can buy 'glyphs' for AA points which are consumables that give buffs that are very powerful and stack with everything. Can't remember the specifics of these glyphs, but I seem to recall that there's one that reduces spell damage taken by 25%. Imagine how that affects encounters with large amounts of spell damage on the tank. But they do cost like 20 AAs and are gone after one use, so it's definitely an AA sink.

But all in all, TLPs do generally feel like Everquest. It's just unfortunate that Daybreak won't make a PvP one, or one that has a more classic-like expansion pacing. When each expansion lasts like three months, it's hard to find the time to just enjoy yourself and smell the roses. Before you know it, the next expansion is out, and then the next, and then it's PoP and everyone quits near the end of that one.