Test Update 12/06/2013

so..to prevent mages beaming in evantil and PoS you make everything summon..and yet a 4-5 man SK team can swarm those in sequence far far faster than mage can..(riposte..fd..next person..repeat) yeah..good job making sk's the kiting plvler class of choice..

you want to fix beam? why not fix pet tanking so warriors have a purpose, lets go ahead and fix those pesky clerics too, they heal too well..unfair to druids and such. lets go ahead and give deathtouch to any enemy that cons yellow or red because merc tanks can plvl you to 60 np on those and thats a glitch!

honestly i wonder if you devs intentionally try and make your best players quit. only people beaming? dedicated players (more than likely with more than one account) and thats the one you're screwing. good work...yes..very good work..nothing says "i'm a good employee" like making your company less money.

Can you not use a tank merc and kill things? Your class can actually heal, so you would be a smaller part of this nerf which is kind of funny that you would be complaining as a class that can heal and DPS. So you only can exp in 7 zones? Seems like that would be more of a reason to adjust mobs then any ability, I for one would be upset as a developer if only 7 total zones were being used to exp in. You could go to different zones and kite, it would require some scouting though.

I didn't say this was perfect, I said this is what more adjustments should be like.

Tank merc is so terrible its sad panda.

I can heal a tank merc, but they are so bad that I can't stop to DPS much at all. I can use Remote to nuke/heal every 24 seconds (it SHOULD be twice every 24, but they still haven't fixed the recast linking on Remote Moonfire!).

In almost every case, a druid is better off tanking themself + nuking, and using a cleric merc to heal as they tank.

"dons tinfoil hat" you know they only doing all these nerfs to push us to quit and play eqnext and landmark there I said what was afraid to be said

Tank merc? hahahahahahahahahahaha. /catches a breath. hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Sorry, that was a joke right? Or were you serious? No healer will use a tank merc to molo with for worthwhile xp, because it is impossible to get worthwhile xp with a tank merc due to them plain out being horrible. It is often hard enough to use a tank merc in a full group with slowers and pullers. Now I am expected to use one by myself?

Once again, why should multiple classes that rely on kiting and root rotting..why should they be hampered because someone complained about another class? Why is hurting all those other classes the better route for the dev's to take rather than doing something that only effected Mage massive beam kiting?

Why is you being able to keep your abilities a better route than multiple classes being able to adequately use theirs?

How about this. Why did preincarnation get changed? Shouldn't they have merely changed content rather than change the abilities?

First off, well played.

Second, if I'm understanding the new way this will work, you never have to zone into a second instance anymore? This is nice, but the loot dropping named from this mission was in the Kithicor instance. Has Javrik K`Than been moved to the Old Commonlands instance? (Small sacrifice for the convenience, true, but something that shouldn't be overlooked.)

Not to kick a gift horse in the mouth or anything because I did think knifeplay needed something a little more. But the nerf on pr3inc is fine but I think that it should be 60 percent. Also the beam pulling while I agree that being able to knock down a whole zone is pretty cool for you and your fellow adventurers. It wasn't the mobs that should of been nerfed or unimaginatively buffed as the spell itself "Beam of Brimstone" should of definitely had a limit to targets.
You are taking away the fact that a veteran players as I am dating back to phase three beta. Kiting was a part of the game and a large part of it. The ability to knock down mobs like that running around in banded gear and well balanced rapiers from the vendor from commonlands tunnel was about as likely as you winning the lottery. As a metaphor. But instill doubt(fear kiting as a rogue) was huge for gnolls and aviaks back in the day and then running from a mob till it came back up.
It was a fight against the " AI "(artificial intelligence) of the npc. Not a fight about whether it is a lazy developer does when they design a mob with a summoning ability. You are taking away from the game play , the imaginative immersion you get when you "advance to the rear". So I say. But please...Please don't limit our imagination...This obviously doesn't reflect just on those players who are able to do that. But to any commonality in the future.

Definitely agree that a Druid solo with a tank merc is close to useless. Tank merc AA, merc gear, raid foci- doesn't matter. It's very sad. Like you said, if you try and DPS, it's near impossible. On a side note, if I recall correctly, Aristo stated the linked timer on the two Remote spells was intentional. It was only supposed to provide an "alternative" if resists were an issue Everything Druid COTF-related was a joke though. I think they should be unlinked as well, but hey, I'm just so happy they got a combo 6h buff Rk 2 downgrade that I just don't care!

The summoning change directly affects Mages, Wizards, Druids, Necros, Enchanters, Rangers, and I'm too tired to think of the rest. The point- a ton of classes capable of soloing without lagging zones or abusing two spells (Hint: they both start with B) are hurt by a fix that would have taken a fraction of the time to implement (target limit). Even moreso, whoever mentioned it was only 7 zones- that's 7 more zones than needed to be individually tweaked.

This entire patch demonstrates that resources were used almost exclusively to adjust (very) old content. Am I crazy for thinking it would be more logical to offer an alternative method in recent past expansions to obtain J5 mercs rather than revamp all of SOD which people only use one zone in (for mercs)? (Perhaps a slight exaggeration as it's good for the level but yeah...)

Much like the whole round of changes which-shall-not-be-named last patch, this hurts soloers and groupers the most: the majority of people to not piss off if you'd like to keep customers.

Why is the sun yellow? Why is the grass green?

Why should 1 class get nerfed when numerous others lag zones? That argument works both ways. More then Magicians lag zones by swarming mobs around. There was no perfect solution to this, they are seeing how this works.

Like I said, it is not perfect but its definitely better then some of the other options they have used. EQ is not a solo game, it is meant to have groups of people playing.

The smart thing would have left the instances fine, but made it so the static zones had summon mobs. But the smart thing generally does not get done.

EverQuest is not "any" type of game. Its not a group game. Its not a raid game. It is a MMORPG, that you play how you want. Much like boxers and merc users say " don't force me to play the game your way " ( and I agree ), I am saying this also.
I enjoy soloing. Don't force me to play the game your way. Sometimes soloing is nice when I only have 30 mins. Its great when groups aren't around.

Soloing in EverQuest has been a part of it since the game was created. Saying EverQuest is any >specific< type of game in regards to soloing, moloing, grouping, raiding, is just silly and short sighted and trying to spin this HORRIBLE plan in a positive light since it greatly benefits your class while screwing over many many people.

Aside from the bad fixes for beam kiting...

Pretty impressed with some of these fixes. Pass on my /golfclap to your agile team's B.A. for fleshing out some personas.

Beams should have been limited to 20 mobs.

It seems apparent that those determined to do it will just find another area.

Exactly, since there are fewer kite-able zones, there will be less places for the people who are taking gross advantage of beaming to go.

Wonder if it would be possible to make it so if you aggro more than 20 mobs they all summon, instead of making a single mob summon when it hits 97%

While we're at it lets make riposte be target capped too then.

Mmmmk... so lets see: Mages already have a good PBAE nuke. Please tell me the *numerous* uses of beaming aside from an addition to that lineup or beam-kiting, and lets be realistic, beam-kiters were just as bad as Feerrott HSers. It only took ONE to ruin a zone. So the "few" who abused it were the ones who ruined zones for the many. The 7 zones "changed" were mostly abused by beamers or HSers. I think they may have added one or two in order to smooth over the blanket fix so that Mages such as yourself can continue to defend Beaming and like I said earlier, avoid any one class from complaining they were nerfed. I have a Mage myself- I've used Beams for non-stupid reasons and tried the "kiting" in an instance after the huge post just to see the hype. It was very /yawn and honestly too tedious compared to regular kiting or charm killing for me. I do very much enjoy reading a Mage of all classes defend the summoning changes though.

As for the AA Malo vs. spell malo- veteran Mage raiders requested this change; you clearly disagree with your peers. Trying to say 'ppl are too stupid to wait is' ironic in itself; on a raid, who waits to try and land any debuff as soon as reasonably possible? You would basically cBlock yourselves trying to quick debuff with the AA, supposing you weren't on the up and up, and stayed at rank 1. You realize what you're sarcastically saying is backwards right? The AA Rk. 2 was the issue, not the spell. Casting the AA before the spell WAS the issue.

Fine, change summonable mobs. They should still nerf Mage beaming. Let's see the response then.

It was a 25 resist nerf to a class with no resist adjustments. People were being idiots for not casting the spell version before Malo. People knew about it and still did it lol.

Like I said you want to nerf one class, because NUMEROUS classes lag zones. It is hypocritical to say the least.

^because the 25 resist nerf was more important than the 10% increase to incoming magic damage. Yeah... no. The change would probably be most meaningful to raiders, which will have Rk. 3 spells, therefore, a greater resist mod on the spell. Your debuff is one of the few still running on %+ instead of static dmg #+ like Tash. A 25 difference in resists is well worth the fix.

The other numerous classes who lag zones are not any of the casters affected by this change (as most are swarmers). Druid/Wiz kiting has a hit limit, Enchanter reverse charming cannot work if a zone is lagged out, I have no clue about Necros so maybe?... Some of the zones which were targetted were ones that weren't lagged out anyhow, they were zones that were monopolized (e.g. Feerrott). They actually did nerf some of these classes by discontinuing spell lines, however, that obviously doesn't change the mob level in the zones which were problematic already.

i use beam for killing large amounts of mobs...like in a grelleth raid i beam rat adds, in missions where lots of adds spawn, i beam them.
thats just about the only time i use beam, to kill large amounts of adds fast.