Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

Have you stopped to look at what actual current content zones have humanoids? It's a flat out nerf. Comparing a random high crit on 1% of the possible mobs in current content versus our ability to earn decent AA for ourselves isn't even on the same bookshelf, forget the same page. This will not allow for soloing of current content, the mobs still hit much harder than any of us(chain classes) can take over any period of time. Just do away with it, give me my 199 AA back and give me something that lets me be able to take some amount of of hits. Then we *might* have something to be excited about.

To answer your question, random trash in EW/Kael have 1.3-1.8 mil HP. I spent some time there yesterday. Giants do not count as humanoids, the dwarves *should* and if we get lucky the fey might. Congrats! We're slightly more useful on a handful of mobs! Aren't you so happy?! That's totally worth giving up the ability to gain decent AA without having to count on a box or someone else!

The issue with claiming there is some kind of compensation for assasinate removal, is that it only works on humanoids and almost none of EQ mobs are humanoid.

It has the potential to proc 2 times per minute, but it will never proc because the mob won't be humanoid.

When assassinate worked on riposte, a rogue would seek out humanoid mobs. But a group will never try to seek out humanoid mobs just because there's a rogue in the group.

It's a useless AA now.

Smed also promised a playable EQNext in 2013.

Now, you we can believe.

When trying to solo on a Zerker I felt like I had to have decap. I dont have the defenses and mega mend that a monk has. I cant FD or pull singles so I have to kill whatever I end up pulling. All I can do is hope I kill them before they kill me. With no more Decap will Zerkers be compensated with better survivibility while soloing?

Whether we want more power from bows or swords is really the moot point. The reality is that we do more damage under disc with archery and more damage when not discing with melee. We can't really afford to throw away either our swords or our bows.

As for pulling with throwing, I would rather use a jolt or a dispel.

They are not live, yet. They are currently scheduled to go live with this month's patch.

So no class AA will be granted up to Underfoot....only General and Archetype?

In other words the headshot change is not of much consequence. At least in the context of pulling...

I am against auto-granting AA, however, I do not understand how this will be applied in terms of the AA from those expansions in scope already obtained on the character. If dusty old Character A is L97 with 1k AA with 800 AA from the older expansions, and pseudo-slacker Character B is at L98 with 3800 AA, with say 2000 AA from older expansions, how will the system apply the "free AA" across these two characters? Will each end up having 4k AA or will Character B still have more AA than Character A because he has more AA purchased from newer expansions which are outside the scope of the "old expansion" policy? Also, if the AA are simply added to the accounts indiscriminately with old useless abilities like innate charisma, how is Character B getting anyway near equal value as character A for his fee of a Gold membership? Some clarification would be appreciated.

Gray con? Why not lightblue. I can 1-shot lightblue mobs with a certain amount of luck, probably once or twice a minute. Why can't a fellow berseker or rogue, who should be my dps peers? And no, that's not OP. It's just one lightblue trash mob. All 3 of us can kill them just as fast (i.e. within 30 sec) without the uber procs. It's applied only to the target. You are already removing their ability to do it to multiple mobs at once. What's wrong with letting them 1-shot one lightblue mob at a time? I think it would make more sense than letting these abilities work on the current content (lv 99) but with greatly reduced damage.

Now, rangers are not quite the same dps as berserkers, rogues and wizards. And I'm not sure if you want headshot to be equal to assassination and decapitation. So I won't include headshot here.

Actually, when headshot was originally released, it could kill XP level mobs IF the ranger was not level 65. There were no ranger AE archery spells then. In DoDh we got our first AE archery spell and there was still only one level of Headshot.

Probably because wizards don't have a riposte disc that stacks with other dps enhancers that can kill unlimited light blue con mobs every 30 minutes or so. It all comes out in the wash, but you guys are off the radar right now. Its commonly accepted that it is A-OK for you all to be able to blow S up while other classes need some help from others to do the same.

Wizards are not currently being chased by the angry peasant mob brandishing torches and pitchforks. Mages are. SKs are. Rogues are. Berserkers are. Clerics are. None of these changes are due to the dev team having a wild hair up their collective buttcracks. This is all about addressing a tidal wave of hate and discontent from the community. Most of which is valid.

Plus, you have Beimeith looking out for you and we, well...don't.

The dumbest part about this whole change as I see it, they could increase the level AND leave ripostes alone, and it still wouldn't be a soloing tool in newer content. Because we aren't going to do 1.2+ million damage in 12 seconds. Without a huge upscale in damage it still wouldn't be practical.(God forbid one mob manages to get behind you or you get stunned not facing completely forward and you're dead before your disc is finished) Headshot is in a different class, it's a ranged attack. This is one of the most baffling nerfs I've ever seen, you're taking 2 classes that need INCREASES and nerfing them for no reason.

But they said decap and assassin won't work with riposte anymore?

Oh noes, you're going to have to watch and avoid aggro like you're supposed to.

Well, that is the heart of the nerf.

What you are asking has no right or wrong answer. Ultimately, we got it taken away because the community thinks it is a detriment from an ability archetype standpoint. Logic is not in play here. As a rogue I don't really care. I got most of my AA from normal play. My berserker decapped quite a bit, but it is not the end of the world to see it go.

Monks don't rely on riposte disc. They instead do enough AE damage and total outgoing dps with a combination of things that they instead use very fast refreshing things like impenetrable or other abilities that lowers incoming dps enough that they can survive. They still swarm its just differently.

And all of these changes still ignore swarming to plvl people via high level toons killing lower con grey con mobs with toons being lower leveled or shrouded low enough that the mobs are red or yellow con to them. They simply removed the more common ways. As someone said fix the real issue of server problems or make it so 40 mobs aggro and the rest fade off and return to spawn points.

Why does anyone still pull with arrows when Entropy is the best option?

Any idea when this will go live?

The "PAYING FOR PL" spam, is really annoying btw. It's because of that Krono system you put in place.

can't read general for more than 10 seconds before some person starts talking about "PL PL PL".

This is also why I don't give one iota about giving ppl AA for free, because half the server is getting PL'd now. At least this way it might get rid of the spam.