February 2016 Patch Preview

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Roshen, Feb 4, 2016.

  1. Sheev Lorekeeper

    Pet agro is just as bad
  2. Dre. Altoholic

    So Ad Hominem we come to at last, eh? I'll let that one slide with a warning about throwing stones from glass houses. And the answer is yes, but not TBM (Applies to Warrior also)
  3. Dre. Altoholic

    After some reflection, I'm somewhat understanding of Knights getting closer to Warrior mitigation levels. That said:
    • Using the well-documented-as-broken proficiencies system is bad
    • No 'Warrior' version of the knight passive is wrong (our 10% was deleted)
    • Proficiency modifier equivalence between WAR/Knight is absurd
    • The total lack of any dev discussion on this topic prior to change announcement is reprehensible
    • Throwing some sort of bone at Warriors would be nice. Something like "WARS - look for more next month"
    • All this could have been avoided by giving SK's a raid niche, which is still deserved
    • Further-distancing tanks from non-tanks might not be the best thing for EQ in the long term
  4. Santonin New Member

    Fixing things is always good, but I won't be renewing my sub until DBG fixes much older issues than the recently introduced issue of pet taunt.

    From reading the patch notes since Dec. 27th, 2015 (when I quit EQ), it appears that DBG has still done nothing to fix the issue with broken fades. While fades do work as advertised at the group level of play, they fail 100% of the time at raids. This applies to most classes that have one or more forms of fade, and although this is a legitimate complaint, DBG seems unwilling to even look at the issue. At the same time as the nerf to fades, there was the nerf to rain spell dps. A lesser issue perhaps, but one which noticeably cut the dps rate of all classes which use rain spells.

    Additionally, the two most recent expansions (TDS and TBM at the time of this writing) have excluded evolution AA's such as crit strength, crit rate, pet damage mitigation, and so on. These were aa's that allowed characters to evolve to the new difficulty levels and were a part of every expansion until TDS was introduced. Instead, DBG seems to have adopted the practice of giving players insulting and useless "new AA's" (which they are careful not to describe in the pre-release hype and kept covered up by an NDA during beta and the pre-purchase period). So it appears that DBG's new method for slowing down player progress through expansions is by reducing the effectiveness of the character classes (through various and sometimes hidden or non-obvious methods) rather than continuing with the time-proven practice of simply making expansions appropriately more difficult.

    Until these fundamental issues and attitudes are changed, I see no reason to renew my sub.

    Plug for Planetside 2: An outstanding game, supported by a great dev team, and well worth paying for. While members do gain worthwhile benefits, the game is really only limited by the skill of the player, even those using the F2P model. The only noticeable issue with PS2 are the immoral players (kids and other immature players) who use aimbots, esp hacks, and other forms of cheating to gain an unfair advantage over the players with moral standards. While cheaters are eventually caught and banned, hopefully DBG can one day introduce a launcher or some other means by which cheaters can be detected at launch and prevented from even logging in.
  5. Gnomeland Augur

    Shaman also have a rain spell: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=49200&source=Live, and you can usually work in a system where you double cast both spells on every cool down. The main advantage Shaman have over Clerics is that Shaman simply doesn't run out of resources. Clerics do, eventually, were they to chain cast their group heals.

    This is why I think getting a lot of Shamans for group heals isn't necessarily a bad idea for a raid. Of course, raids where you absolutely must use double cast Cleric group heals exist, but that's a design problem in my opinion, as the developers have already stated that they want Clerics, Shamans, and Druids to be able to replace each other.
  6. segap Augur


    The three priests are interchangeable in the group game. The intent of being able to replace one with the other is to ensure groups don't get stuck waiting on a healer. The raid game is really where classes need distinct niches. It should be where odd abilities and spells become useful. It's where the defining strengths of each class should make each class desired. Clerics are the best healers in raids (over powered for the group game). Their niche is keeping the tanks up with their plethora of heals. Druids and shaman heal well and provide support to casters and melee. They do well keeping dps and utility groups alive as well as supplementing MT heals. You can also add in Paladins with their splashes that have great value in some scenarios.

    I've yet to be on a raid that was short of clerics. Usually the problem is having enough shaman for the melee dps groups.
  7. coloures~ New Member



    i stand corrected, but i made it clear that it was only my admittedly ignorant "understanding" of shm heal mechanics that their group heals could be spammed, and the fact that they cannot only strengthens my argument in favour of shm and dru healing potential not being anywhere near commensurable to clr healing potential. (the astute reader will note that the extended comparison in my post was strictly between dru and clr; it was my explicitly stated intent to exclude shm from the discussion due to my ignorance of that class' mechanics.)

    battle rez, HP aura, even ac spire...the list is long. the idea that dru or shm are anywhere near close to replacing clr on raids can only have originated in a twilight zone of eq class-mechanical ignorance.
  8. Gnomeland Augur

    The current state of Priests isn't a solid argument for/against the tank changes, because the developers have said, in the past, that they want all Priests to be able to fill the heal role, and I never saw a comment about "but only in the group game." The main problem with Priests however is that Druids and Shamans actually have a significant % of their spells devoted to DPS/add DPS. It's not equivalent to the case of tanks, where the role of all three tanks was to tank until Paladins got out of hand by becoming a second Priest class. Even so, I do not believe developers actually want Paladins to be a second Priest class, and you might see changes in the future to that effect.

    In my opinion, the argument for having all three tanks be able to tank all content is actually quite solid:
    • It saves developers from having to create new roles in raids for Paladins and Shadow Knights, thereby increasing the flexibility of raid design and decreasing the design burden.
    • It saves raids from having to run with X Warriors whenever the raid demands X main tanks, thereby increasing the flexibility of guild recruitment.
    • It lowers the difficulty of balancing group and raid content drastically, because in groups, Knights have to tank, as opposed to being whatever role they are in raids. When a large difference in defensive ability exists between Knights and Warriors, it makes it difficult to create group content that is properly challenging for all three classes.
    • It equalizes design logic between tanks and DPS, as DPS have always been designed with parity in mind.
    • It simply makes sense, as players chose Paladins and Shadow Knights to tank, not to heal and add DPS.
    That said, I believe the goal of these changes ultimately is to bring Knights back to where they were before Elidroth's 2014 changes, when the difference between Knights and Warriors were getting smaller, but Warriors still had an advantage.
  9. Battleaxe Augur

    Given that multiple raid roles have been developed over time, these have provided flexibility in raid design, variation, and reduced design burden - 3 sized bowls and 3 salad dressings = 9 combinations. Ah the power of combinations when variation exists.

    It requires that guilds recruit splasher/add tanks, kiter/addtanks, ramp/add tanks, no secondary role/MT's. Want to be pro, recruit by position. Want to be secondary tier and maybe not finish the expansion, recruit by general archetype.

    It allows for role oriented design.
    Group 1 MT Group - Clerics, Warriors
    Group 2 Secondary Tank Group - Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Paladin, SK, SK
    Group 3 Melee DPS Shaman, Ranger, Rogue, Monk, Berserker, Bard
    Group 5 Caster DPS Group - Druid, Wizard, etc.

    It preserves roles long practiced and expected by players.

    It simply makes sense since knights chose less tanking and considerably more outside of the tank archetype secondary abilities.

    IMO it would take a great deal of time, effort, and money to undo the Rube Goldberg strap on complexities, much less the damage done to the Warrior class, somebody introduced to the game.
  10. Darkark Augur


    I haven't had time to read through this thread, but I did read the patch notes.

    I just wanted to say though that your OP was appreciated and a good step towards building back some customer confidence in the dev team. I've definitely lost a good deal of it in the last few months, and I don't think I'm alone.

    Not for any particular issue that has been addressed in the OP either, just the general tone and setting an expectation of future quality of life improvements into the future. So thanks.

    I generally avoid Jira, it's a dog of a bug tracking system ...

    [IMG]

    But if the quality of life sentiment continues it might be worth setting up a master bug to track all suggestions along those lines. I'd be happy to get that started, hell knows I've got a good number of little things I could start it off with, and I'm sure there are others that already exist and can be linked. I doubt I'll have time to do that this month though, but I will keep it in mind for when I have some free time.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  11. p2aa Augur

    Yes, the comparison is a solid argument. Because clerics are miles ahead druids and shamans in heal spell power. Heal multibinds destroy druid and shaman heal spell. While mitigation is the thing measured amongst tanks, mitigation amongst the three tank classes is the same now.

    Not really

    No, it has never been intended to have the 3 tank class being viable at MT Boss Mob. It has always been a warrior niche, and class defining. Also, knights were able to MT TDS and TBM raid bosses before this atrocious new patch. And this last thing is what knights have never recognized in their whinning crusade.
    It destroys the warrior class recrutment in high end raiding guilds because knights can do the same job as warrior, and adds utility too (healing / cure for paladin, dps and reaver bargain for SK).
    Haha with def prof it makes knight even more OP in group content. Want to farm an aug ? Paladins could solo trash mob with a wiz merc before, now they will be able with def prof to kill the named too alone with a wiz merc, with def prof and all the self healing boost they have. I suspect the same can be done for SK, in a lesser degree though.
    Which logic ? SK are the best dps atm in the 3 tank classes, followed by paladins and warriors at the end. Warriors would not be in the last spot if they were in a melee dps group in raid, but if RL start to put warriors in melee dps group then your guild fails a lot. Also from a personal point of view I don't care of my dps and that SK do more. But I chose the warrior class for having the best mitigation class in the game especially when MT Raid Bosses, and this is not the case anymore.
    They chose a knight because they wanted to be able to be more balanced at everything, aka able to solo better than warriors, but accepting the idea to mitigate less than them. They certainly not chose to play a knight in order to be able to MT Raid Boss Mobs. Which DBG gaves them again today.
    There is one simple thing to do to put back in place the mitigation balance between tank classes, it's to reduce the def prof mitigation % to 15 %. Make it stack with Knight Sedulity ok. If they do this, I'm sure warriors will all stop to complain about this mitigation problem, and knights that are reasonable agree with such a % to go back too.
  12. strongbus Augur

    As someone who helps get stuff ready for raids this change is great. My guild team raids with another guild on the same server as we have both lost people the last few exp and don't have the force to do raid alone. But between the 2 guilds we have 4 raiding wars. Not all are on ever raid night. For raids with one raid boss this is not that hard to deal with. But for raids where there are 2 raid bosses that have to be tank at the same time, we have no option but to use knights as backup and hope that they can stay alive long enough for the wars to get rez and buffed and back in to tank.

    Maybe for the upper end guilds this might suck. But for the lower/mid level raiding guilds this is a great change as it removes a limit to picking what target to go for that night because of the number of wars on.

    War will still be the number 1 chose. Ya knights have the healing/lifetap spells they can use to help stay alive. But when you are toe to toe with a raid boss that can stun and who knows what to a tank trying to get a spell off can be hard and not something to count on.
    Vrinda likes this.
  13. p2aa Augur


    It has yet been said. Your guild unable to field a class, that is not a "rare" class played in this game honestly, should not impact class balance between tanks.
    The same argument could be made for clerics. You could not raid current content without clerics.
  14. strongbus Augur

    I use my guild as a example. But there are plenty of mid to lower level raiding guilds that struggle to get enough people to even have number to raid. There are one or two guilds on the server that the only way they can raid is to do open raids. For guilds like those its take what you get and go for it. This can't be only on my server. There are guilds on all servers that are like this. Take what you can get and do what you can based on what you can get.
  15. Rykard Augur

    Have seen this in the past, the typical cause is due to healers with clerics leading the way. I have heard with the healing upgrades over the past few expansions that Shaman and Druids can fill the Cleric spot.

    This is not really on topic, but there have been calls in the past to reduce the raid numbers to allow more to raid. It, however, has always been met with resistance and shutdown. I wonder with the change in what mid tier guilds are now could it also bring a new call for smaller raid force number options.

    Rykard
  16. Jaerlyn Augur



    Actually, when some of us chose knight it wasn't because we were looking for balance. It was because, at the time, knights taking the longer, more complicated road still ended up at the same spot as the quicker, easier wars.

    And I'm aware of quite a few knights who started this game at the beginning who felt the same way.

    I'm aware the game has changed, but don't try to say it was this way back in the beginning when we chose these classes. And even just a few years ago, a knight decently geared from one expac could step up into a viable MT role in the next one, while trying to break into that content.

    If you want to argue the game has become 'Wars only viable main tanks, Knights add tanks' that's a valid argument for the last few years. And I'll even agree that anyone who, knowing this game and made a knight in the last 2 or 3 years probably wasn't expecting to MT. But please, don't try to claim it has always been this way.
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.
  17. Battleaxe Augur

    Actually, knights were generally well aware that Warriors were considered the narrowly focused parent class with superiority in tanking. And knights were a hybrid part tank/part outside of the tank archetype abilities. These things were discussed widely enough.

    In GoD knights argued that they should be able to tank their own group flags. That was done for them. But Warriors continued to be the Raid Boss MT. VERY stout knights tried their hands with Berserkers Iirc - a nasty high DI raid yardtrash mob.

    At DoN release SOE discussed it's new policy of tank parity in all group content. You don't make changes and discuss new policy if it's been that way for a loooooong time. Until then Warriors still enjoyed preference vs. group content heavy hitters in addition to raid boss mobs.

    BTW Afterlife had a Paladin (and later an Enchanter) tank all of PoTime...after it was on farm/after people were geared up.

    It was always supposed to be that way and starting at Kunark it definitely was that way. (Before even - I did PoHate a LOT and PoFear ocassionally. Never saw a knight be the MT. A tank, yes. MT no. Heck, we were calling Paladins on the phone to come to PoHate to loot their epic piece (not much dropped in Hate for them)). Being a Warrior I tanked my own epic piece tyvm. And raid epic pieces for likely 50ish others.

    BTW, leveling a Paladin was a lot easier than leveling a Warrior. When I played one I wasn't looking for balance either. I was looking for advantage and an easier path.
  18. Thancra Loladin

    Awesome memories Battleblade! Welcome to 2016 though...
    shik and Elricvonclief like this.
  19. Weake Aggro Lorekeeper

    On the TBM task Lost and found I, TBM Group Geared Warrior, can tank all 3 Ghoul mobs at once while COTF raid geared Shadow Knights are unable to.

    If knights are supposed to be on par with a warrior then why can they not tank 3 TBM mobs at once?

    From a cleric stand point, when the warrior is running his discs to tank all 3, his health barely hits 40 before the next heal spell lands.
    When the SK is tanking. They normally die before I get through a rotation of heals

    Has a group SK or Paladin ever Tanked all 4 trash named in the TBM task Grummus?
    My warrior can do this pretty well. On the runs where we had a SK tank we normally lost the tank and had to battle rez them

    I don't understand why people do not want SK Paladin to get a Defensive bump. From my game play I think they need it.
  20. Makavien Augur


    No one thinks they shouldn't get a bump but a 30% bump that is an exact copy of a warrior ability added not that long ago to balance out the tank classes is not the bump they need because it is not accounting for all of their other tools and its actually a 35% bump with another aa taken directly from the warrior class and merged into defensive proficiency making it what it is today . Because they are not suppose to stack.