Test Update 09/17/15

All 3 stack

Guess it's time to go back and farm some Form of Protection / Rejuvenation. I don't recall seeing Rejuvenation since DoDH. They weren't worth the effort over FoD / FoE - PW.

Warrior notes!:

Warlord's Tenacity: This has been renamed to "Unknown DB String 16112-2." Still raises the HP cap and heals correctly, but does not time down in buff frozen zones like the patch notes claim. Instead, you seem to have gotten rid of the ability to extend the duration of the buff, as it used to last about 2 minutes and now lasts for only 1 minute. Nerfed! Please undo, thank you.

Bold Attacks: This is now under the Archetype tab, presumably because Knights get access to it as well. Having the ability to toggle it off when I am DPSing instead of tanking was just a nice idea, until I saw the new value. Old Bold Attacks had an aggro modifier of 6% after 3 ranks, the new modifier is 25% with 16 ranks. Holy smokes, that's a bump.

Howl of the Warlord: Only works on mobs up to level 108, so will never work on raid mobs. Also now has a 10% chance to fail on creatures of any level, just because. No longer makes you invisible, but instead puts you in a sanctuary effect. The buff defined as Evader's Temporary Sanctuary: "You evaded your attackers and have been blessed by sanctuary. Your attackers will prefer other opponents until the sanctuary is removed when you perform a hostile action or use a beneficial spell on a target other than yourself."
Example 1: If cast near a creature you're in combat with, you don't get the buff. If other combatants are nearby, you remain off aggro and the mob attacks somebody else. If you are the only available target, the KOS mob will immediately re-aggro you. You basically have to tie Howl to a /useitem command for invis potions now.
Example 2: If you get out of range of a mob that has you on aggro and successfully get the Sanctuary buff, it does not prevent other nearby KOS and currently unengaged mobs from aggroing onto you. KOS mobs will attack and the Sanctuary buff is dispelled immediately.
Warriors were given a second rank of Howl that increased casting speed, and Quickened Howl ranks that further modified that casting speed, so that we could cast the ability between a mob's melee swings. The point of introducing those AAs directly conflicts with your new (and terrible) Fade paradigm, so the cast time matters not at all now. This reworked version of Howl is a hair's breadth from worthless. You can keep this change to yourselves.

Warlord's Grasp: The aggro lock component still works on targets up to level 110, but the gravitate effect only works on creatures up to level 104. This is not a pulling tool, I don't see why you're including it in the fling nerfs. The loss of the gravitate effect directly affects how raiders currently deal with Principal Indagatrix Lucia's memblur/teleport-ganking during Arx4 and spark workers memblurring every 20 seconds during Arx5. This is bad news, especially since Fade no longer works against those targets either. Enjoy your death, squishies! This is another change you should reconsider.

Forceful Attraction: I am disappointed to find that you also decided to include this in your fling nerfs. It already carried a hefty penalty by locking out the Stormwheel Blades line for 5 minutes, and was actually used as a crappy form of CC. I never tried using it as a way to split a camp and honestly don't even see how I could, since I don't get Pacify or Mez. Other Warriors on my server didn't even know it was an AoE ability until recently when they asked how I was Grasping a group of mezzed trash in Arx1 into position.

Press the Attack and Grappling Strike: Thankfully unaffected by the changes to fling abilities. I can still re-position yellow cons, so I assume that I can do the same with red cons and raid targets.

Clicky buff changes: Why do familiars continue having a 10 hour duration instead of permanency? What is the point of making clicky buffs like Gunthak Grit into permanent duration instead of permanent passives? Why are further ranks of Prismatic Ward visible if they cannot be cast by currently available items (current 22 out of max 25)? Two-Handed Proficiency used to conflict with the Myrmidon's Skill line; does the new innate passive no longer have stacking issues?

Overall, the Warrior changes in this patch:

How are recommended / required levels on the relevant gear impacting the level at which the AAs are useable?

So for the monk skill change, I'm guessing its still better to spam tiger claw since tiger claw's skill cap being so much higher means it will have a much higher accuracy than the other skills, right?

Seem the entire purpose here was just to nerf necro's because were the only class that seems to have lost 100% fade versus group content.

I would definitely recommend Storm Guard. It doesn't have any stacking issues.

Actually pretty much everyone not in the puller classes fade got reduced down to 90% (except enchanter and shaman who have other effects on them and don't invis you, prob why get to keep 100% chance I imagine), Druid is the only class that was 90% and un-adjusted.

Also Beastlords are the only class to have no fade still to this day.

It get's weirder in that Rangers gets boosted to 90%, but not 100% even though they are in the Puller class.

You can find these in SoF.

The Ward + Defense just means everyone in game gets a slight mitigation boost.

Tiger Claw is probably more dps from the skill dmg mods on gear too on top and it can proc a dmg AA that the rest don't, such as DP procing KB (gross and makes this skill perma un-usable basically) and Eagle Strike procing end regen (pretty weak)

Without even taking into account AAs and gear I still think it should be more DPS since DP/ES works out to like 500 something accuracy and TC works out to high 700s (pre-other spells/item bonuses)

I can answer the first couple. Familiars are still a buff because they're overwritten (and then, naturally, never refreshed, leaving us short hp) by shm/dru Growth buffs. Gunthak Grit because it has to stay there blocking mount buffs.

Ok. Fine. Mage pets can no longer wall boss mobs. I understand the intent of the change and don't disagree with the intent.

However the numbers that people are throwing out suggest that they are being nerfed into oblivion.

Problem:

Wizards -300 nukes all types.
Necromancers -200 magic, disease, and -100 fire.
Mages . . . No resist adjustments . . . magic and fire nukes.

Now that having more than a handful of mages in a raid nullifies all their pet damage and for the most part magicians can not land nukes on bosses, why are they desired in raid guilds?

Even before these changes have gone live guilds have stopped recruitment of mages.

Suggestion:

Now that you have handicapped pet damage, please add a negative resist check to some magician nukes so we can do some nuke damage on a raid.

Either that, or make the pet debuff only trigger if the boss is not being tanked by a PC. If the PC dies or backs off and a pet is the main target of the boss, then all pets get the debuff. Even if the PC moves back in or another PC jumps in, the pets will still have the debuff for a specific time period. This will prevent summon tanking.

If you really don't want pets doing damage to raid bosses, please consider the first suggestion. You are pretty much killing an entire class in raid guilds.

I revoke this suggestion and given current implementation hope none of the D.S. clickies are switched over due to events which require NDT and kiting.

If we could cancel individual lines it would be ok for the rare occasion, but having to reset all of the clickies for one event would be a pita.

I wanted to test the changes to fade so logged my toons onto test and went to Combine Dredge, luckily two namers were already up and I thought i'd try the "harder one to pull". I had all my toons at the zone in. As the namers in this zone is lvl 109. I delevelled the bard down to lvl 103. This meant i could not fade off the Namer, unfortunately it also meant I couldn't use my 105 gear.

So with about 50k in HP's I ascended up the north tower to get Saevus Lapis Operarius. I used DA and ran into his room and picked him up, then went out of the tower and started to head back to zone in with the Namer and about 9 adds in tow.
I hit fade about halfway and this dropped off most of the adds , bar one. One more fade and the Namer was single.

I cannot see how this is supposed to make pulling harder. Normally when i pull that namer i'll take him outside of the tower...try and lose most of the clump with fade, perhaps mezzing a couple and using punt to throw some into the water, until i can get him single.







Unless the trash in plane of Fear/ Hate is going to be lvl 110+, then folks are going to be able to do exactly this. A better idea (imo) to force folks to do the trash would be to have a leash range on each of the Namers so it forces the raid to go and fight them , and clear around them.

Wizard - Atol's Unresistable Shackles is now rank 2 of Atol's Shackles.

Thank you for fixing this typo. Please use actual words (irresistible) where possible.

with the new Evader's Invisibility rangers loose the ability to double invis themselves

Before we casted Invis vs undead then cast Cover Tracks which would then double invis us
Recent change has evader's invisibility casting a buff which is same slot number has invis vs undead in song window (slot 1)
Old cover tracks gave invis which was did not give a buff so had no stacking issues
I like to say changing slot # of evaders invisilibity will fix this but not sure

dont worry there will be a new AA released with the new expansion that lowers the mana consumption.

Not related to this AA but many AAs have multiple levels with added effects each rank. For example bards have the Group invis AA. I believe rank 1 is just the Invis but rank 2 has a levi component to it. is there a way to use the rank 1 version if you have the rank 2 purchased? There are times when you dont want levi. I am sure there are other examples of this.

But necros have had the abilities to pull since day 1 of EQ. Many of these abilities come prior the other classes now being treated as "pulling classes". True pulling classes by design came years after the fact when they added additional tools to bards and monks. SK's, enchanters, rangers and necros always could fill that role but never as well as the top 3, except a good enchanter. Rogues joined the party much later in the game when the smokescreen spell came to be. Its stupid they are rewriting history and trying to label necros as non pullers and thus nerfing away their abilities.

Level 1, pet
Level 2, lull/pacify and fear
Level 4, snare
Level 16, feign death and root
Level 18, charm
Level 22, mez
Level 85, AA fade late to the party compared to monks, rogues and bards but same time as rangers, enchanters and shadow knights.

@Dzarn, can you please explain the rational for nerfing necro fade from 100% down to 90% 5 years after its inception and capping necro fade at the levels of "non pulling" classes when we have been pulling as long or longer than shadow knights, rangers and rogues with our toolset? We never considered ourselves a pulling class to the degree of monks, bards and enchanters when that became a focus point for them but we have always been right with rangers, shadow knights later on and rogues later on yet those classes are being treated as pullers and we are being nerfed further.

they wanted to make pulling a challenge again.. thats what they said.