I know this comes up every expansion but as a Caster it's worth preaching about. It even effects things like this POW threads https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/beat-pow-tonight.213632/page-2 where people talk about currency desire. But because of game design, I'm a caster sitting on 300+ currency and while I could go spend it for a tiny AC/Stat upgrade, I just haven't bothered knowing it wont matter so soon. Now if they removed Focus Decay, or raised T2 focus levels since T2 was out for such a little time period. Then I'd care about T2 gear.
I am a caster as well. Why would you not use currency right now to improve your character right now? How does currency sitting in the bank not doing anything improve your character? Raid focus items will still be better than any group focus item in the next expansion. Except when you reach lvl 105; but even then the difference is so insignificant that it really should not matter. Example- Raid shoulders have 22% mana savings at lvl 10. With a 5% focus degradation, here becomes the updated percents for the new levels: Lvl 101- 20.9% Lvl 102- 19.8% Lvl 103- 18.7% Lvl 104- 17.6% Lvl 105- 16.5% Group shoulders will maintain a 17% mana savings through lvl 105. As you can see, the raid shoulders are still an improvement until the last level. But the difference is only 0.5%, which on a 5000 mana spell is 25 mana. And the raid shoulders will still maintain a statistical superiority in every aspect over the group shoulders. The above presumes a 5% focus degradation on the original 22%; however let us apply that degradation percent by level instead. Now we have the following- Lvl 101- 20.9% Lvl 102- 19.85% Lvl 103- 18.86% Lvl 104- 17.92% Lvl 105- 17.02% So if the degradation percent is applied to each level, the raid shoulders actually come out ever so slightly ahead of group shoulders. With all the statistical upgrades as well. tl;dr- Use your currency to buy raid focus items. They will still be relevant in next expansion until you can upgrade to raid replacements
My guess is the OP may be long in a loot council guild - where he'll be less likely to get that focus upgrade if he's got the Tier 2 version (whereas if he still has Tier 1, he rises to the top of the list since the upgrade will be more for him).
1. Purchase slots without important focus effects since you know you know early purchases/loots will mainly be those with important focus effects in TDS. 2. Be slightly less powerful by banking currency until TDS launch or you otherwise know if T2 items will have a soft cap of 100, 105 or somewhere in between and then make purchase decisions armed with the relevant information. 3. Purchase important focus effects in T2 now to get the slight stat gain and to acquire the only non-rare items with a reasonable chance of having a soft cap higher than 100. 4. 360 Fists for a rare provided your guild gets the relevant achievements. The only thing not to buy is BP for your class if yours has a clear history of 100% degradation like Mages. You have virtual certainty it will only apply to (Remote) Relentless Servant and virtual certainty you will rarely if ever cast (Remote) Relentless Servant once you are Level 105.
The problem is sure I might as well spend the points. But I am not gaining a slot that I wont want to insta-replace soon as 105 hits. I'm in full t1 every slot/evolving shoulders. The amount of gain is so marginal that it just doesn't excite me. It just doesnt have that "oh I cant miss a single T2 currency raid" because I want to buy my "whatever" I won't spend DKP/Loot Merit whichever, on something like that. And the issue is, one of Game Design. Every time I they announce a level change expansion, I spend the last 1-2 monthes before not really caring about raid loot. And this expansion its magnified by the staggered release. With such a small window of T2, it didnt have a shelf life for me.
A bunch of math that is wrong, but misses my point. You're slightly off because EQ truncates and doesn't round. As someone who used cultural back in UF/HOT when it was good, and uses it on alts. Because you can put say a mana pres old raid focus on + have current mana pres group focus, you will see the new group one start firing before the top level like you claim. As I recall the group one fired on the 3rd level. IE 103 and above next one. ((You can only have 1 focus effect of same type fire per spell. so if you have a cultural mana pres wrist + group normal shoulders, only 1 will ever fire per cast)) But, all the truncate math aside, I won't be switching back to group gear, but I just simply don't care about getting T2 atm.
If SOE wants to keep focus degradation why can't there be a compromise and have it start degrading by 5% after level 103 instead? This way our prior expansion raid focuses still have some value but the new focus items would still be desirable.
If I understand this correctly, once you hit 105, your bonus for all cotf gear will significantly decline.. If that is correct then it doesn't seem right to me. T2 content was completely available in COTF only a little over 3 months before next expansion release. There doesn't seem to be much incentive to even complete COTF T2 gear if you haven't already seeing as the gear will be out done by T1 of the next expansion (overlap and Focus 105).. I don't really have a feasible solution, just don't see how that was not a fluke or an oversight really, and more of a " here is that last content we promised you" " now that we made good on what you paid for" "please focus on what we want you to pay for now"
Don't worry there are more focus changes coming. This is to do away with the mythical front loading we casters supposedly benefit from.
Dreading focus decay on 5 mandatory focus effects all paired with new AA hold you back power lines for each resist line as well. Yes I need more motivation to gear up and some magically had all my power at launch despite needing 10 dots, 7 focus effects and all the new aa lines.
This again? Just get over it already, it's how they've decided to do things and it's not even significant
This is pretty much exactly how it used to work. Focus effects on gear used to decay two levels above the current cap (i.e. level 65 gear would start to decay after level 67). I never understood why they stopped that.
I hope we can hold them to this, but I doubted it from the second it was stated! When you actually crunch the numbers of what it would take for raw spell gains to overcome focus decay so this statement is true doesn't seem realistic to me one bit. It gets even worse if you choose to account for the new AA spell focuses that are suppose to happen.
All this means is a dps spell might be 10 more dps then your old combo but they ignore that it might cost 25% more mana. Which equates to it not actually being better.
yes this again. Focus decay in and off itself is stupid now we get to tack on special aa lines hidden behind something as well. Not all casters are equal so universal changes to all spell casters for what basically was a non issue is even more stupid.
You caster types really need to get over it. You guys get spell upgrades one day one. The devs have stated that new spells with old focus will be more powerful than old spells with old focus so I do not see why you even care about it. Other than competing with melees who need to go get new weapons to compete with your better spells at least for dps. That's always the way its been. They are not going to change things for a few babies who can't farm gear like everyone else. Ever notice that only casters complain about having to farm new gear? Everyone has to do it but casters only complain about it. And they tend to top parses easily before melee get weapons anyways so why does it matter? The funniest is people who decide that group gear is better than raid gear just due to focus alone. Everyone will need to farm new gear when level cap increases. I guess casters want the equivalent of gear being handed to them since they only seem to care about the focuses(at least the ones who complain in threads like this imply it).
They can state whatever they want, it doesn't mean it will actually be that way in game. They've stated that Day 1 Rank 1 spells with old focus are better than older spells with older focus, which is patently false in almost all cases. Any good caster knows this, and most do not even bother buying rank 1 spells at all outside of buffs. That they don't understand this, something any raiding caster that plays this game knows, makes me VERY wary about their ability to properly tune new spells. Only casters complain about it because only caster focus effects degrade. If melee focus effects degraded, they would be complaining too, and probably even more, (they whine an awful lot).
If I remember correctly, focus effects didn't even enter the game until Planes of Power-ish. And the only gear I can recall the midpoint level for decay on was the gear from Gates. Omens of War allowed us to go to 70, but the focii on Gates armor was adjusted to 67 before decay. I don't believe that the Omens gear was set to 73 when TSS came out. Gates was the exception, not the rule.
