He is protesting that Horde of Aculeids Rk. III level 103 12161 mana 0.5s cast time 6s recast time T10 54s+ duration Magic -100 Single Stacking: Stinging Swarm 28 1: Decrease Current HP by 12716 per tick No longer stacks with lv103 Horde of Aculeids Rk. III "Decrease Hitpoints by 2134 (L105) per tick" + lv98 Horde of Mutillids Rk. III "Decrease Hitpoints by 1888 (L105) per tick" + lv93 Horde of Vespids Rk. III "Decrease Hitpoints by 1554 (L105) per tick" + lv88 Horde of Scoriae Rk. III "Decrease Hitpoints by 1412 (L105) per tick" + lv83 Horde of the Hive Rk. III "Decrease Hitpoints by 1041 (L86) per tick" + lv78 Horde of Fireants Rk. III "Decrease Hitpoints by 798 (L81) per tick" + lv73 Swarm of Fireants Rk. III "Decrease Hitpoints by 573 (L76) per tick" + (I'm stopping here) Since obviously he was in the habit of loading & casting all those on each mob he killed, and is angry that now all 12 of his spell gems don't match.
I figured he must have meant something else, given that the new spell does about twice the damage of all of the previous lines collectively with only a single cast. I suppose not though...
The insect swarms- Stinging Swarm, Drifting Death, Drones of Doom, Wasp of Bees- lorewise, they're insect swarms, so named because of the D&D druid spell Creeping Doom. The more you know! OP: The stacking was changed with this recent DoT revamp that landed, for druids and shaman, last month. The damage values went up considerably and were nerfed down somewhat this month. At the low levels, it is a reduction in damage, because the scaling up came nowhere close to equaling, say, four DoTs from the same line, but they will get much better at the higher levels.
Glad some of the people above seem to like this... it simply ended my EQ playing for good... I do not like most the changes they have made over the past several years...this one is the final blow....good bye EQ was a helluva run...but it is quite obvious people in control now have no idea what makes the game enjoyable to some...and while at level 110 maybe this makes since...at earlier level it does not...as not everyone is level 110 or whatever the cap is today... all the focus on end game destroying all earlier level game play has ruined what was still the best all these years later...
He is throwing darts and seeing what sticks. Few pointers not that it will really help or be considered. All dots level 70 or under should stick to the original magnitude of changes. Their are not enough dot lines for classes or tools impacting them like crit mods, crit rate, bonus focus and twincasts to make them an issue. They should NOT be getting nerfed via some scripted change as you balance higher level dots for classes. Your hurting your tlp market. Druids,shaman and enchanters should not have one giant dot that accounts for something like 70% of all their dot damage. You need to reduce the giant dots base power they have and redistribute whats taken to their other dots, so that it takes them a few casts to get up to speed. So enchanters and druids top dot should be like 18 or 20k base damage at most not 28k and 32k spreading out whatever is taken back into their other lines. Additionally chromatic haze and gift of chromatic haze should not work for nuke-dots or you see the insane 2 or 5 million damage ticks we can currently see out of druid dots. Shaman don't like it but because of their insane mana tools you are correct in reducing their dot efficiency mana wise. Otherwise you would have to nerf their mana tools back down to earth and then possibly revamp their healing, buffs and other stuff in addition. Making dots hurt when only using the highest version constantly is the simpliest solution. Follow the same logic for shadow knights and necromancers. Don't underestimate shadow knight dot tools.
Shadow I think you over-estimate shaman mana regen. After the most recent changes on live, casting every top level dot a shaman can stack tops out at an average of under 70k dps (the actual average is less but if post the real number someone will claim I'm sandbagging the number cause they got an occasional twincast and saw a higher number on their parser a few times). This takes *about* 47k mana. For me, that is roughly a 1/3 of my mana. That's 3 mobs before I'm oom. Canni AA is 40k mana every 2 mins. Spell canni is about 7k mana every 20 seconds ON PAPER, but in practice you just can't cast it that often, so let's say every 30 seconds (even that is pushing it), so 14k every minute or 28k every 2 mins. I can regen about 68k every 2 mins. Killing a mob every 45 seconds is 47k mana, 2 mobs in 1.5 mins = 94k mana, lets say I get luck and get some twincast and lucky crits on the last mob so kill it in 30 seconds to make an even 2 mins. Unlike a nuke, I still paid the full price for those dots, so that's another 47k mana, or 131k mana in 2 mins to kill 3 mobs. In that time I can regen 68k mana, im at a loss of 63k mana from my approximate 141k total. So I can go about 6 mobs, or 4 mins, before I need to take a break. Sure, I can dot less and stretch the mana, but then my dps drops. 70k dps for 1/3 of my mana. How much of your mana do you spend to get 70k dps. How long can you sustain 70k dps? I really think you (you meaning druids and necros who seem to approve of the recent change) need to get behind the idea of un-doing the most recent dot reduction, because I already know the answer to those questions, and I could post them, or a dev could simply test it themselves, and then you'll probably be next.
I am not throwing darts... You are wearing BLINDERS... While this may help a Druid at the TOP END of EQ...that market is bleeding and it will just get worse... The more viable market is the returning players...who do not want the level 80+ game... Progression type servers bring more players to subscription than trying to extend a game to even higher levels where 6 million dmg per tick was even a consideration...lol This change has also landed on progression servers... and it has ruined the Druid class in earlier stages of EQ... destroying the over all play of EQ to satisfy a few who want to progress characters that are beyond growth is fool hardy... root rotting and kiting are staples to the class...it was part of what made a druid really fun... for a LOT of players... If you want a game that PLAYS differently...maybe they should build that...and STOP destroying EQ...as changes since around 2008 have all worked against what was at one time a very well put together online game...
Keep in mind...people are not going to want to buy level 85 characters and catch up to the top end... For too many that is just not FUN to do...and that is BAD for your population long term... Maybe it is time to let go of the 18 year old toons... Doing it again is a lot more fun than going 80-90 or 90-100... Making changes this large to try and breath additional life into the end game is a HUGE mistake...
Reading the post above....lol a run of stackable dots doing 70K damage...lol cost 47K mana to cast...lol game was a LOT more fun when characters had to bust their hump to get to 20K HP/MANA... increasing your hit points and mana pools just so a character can continue to progress...is just a bad model... There should be a beginning game and an end game...once you reach end game (and EQ had a solid progression curve to about level 70) time to reroll or find a new game... This is the part people seem to fail to grasp... The population at the top of EQ today is SHRINKING... and the path to get caught up is being destroyed... and in doing so the game will not attract new or old returning players... and when people stop returning for progression servers this game will finally die as it will not generate the income to sustain it...
You can't ignore is it 6 or 7 straight minutes of casting from your hp pool at an 80% bonus penalty which you can basically just heal away for free. I don't know exactly what the costs of your spells are so he might very well have over done it. But you should not be freely spamming away all your highest level dots endlessly. You should have to use older versions for sustained or actually go out of mana. But yeah by choosing oom there should be a return.
I agree with you that the pre 70 dots should be left alone from further tweeks. They could have seen a nice bump and been left alone from his scripts but thats now how he does anything. However your doom and gloom is a bit much considering it probably will be corrected down the road. Far to many things tlp have screwed over live for awhile now and we worked around it until addressed or just accepted the stupid. Not that something on live then screwing over the tlp makes it right but we moved on realizing the limited resources and time they have now are just a hard pill to swallow and you enjoy what you can if you want.
The total of all Live servers gold accounts is higher than the total of TLP players, without a doubt. So DBG is still getting more money from live players than TLP players. That being said, the Live server players have funded the TLP server creation, to allow TLP players to play. It's fair that there is a return the other way too. No thanks. I like being able to expand my character beyond later expansions. And this is a feeling shared by the Live server players still playing. I started back in EQ in 2006 with the first set of progression server on The Combine server. Since then, I never looked back to come back playing from start again. It's not shrinking more than TLP players that leave the server when the server reachs a certain expansion. In the other way, EoK expansion with his Kunark theme seems to have attracted many returnee players that came back playing on live servers. Not really. The Live server players are loyal longstanding EQ customers, they don't leave for the new TLP flavor of the year server, stopping playing and paying when the expansion doesn't suit them anymore. They are the ones that bring the constant income in EQ all over the years.
Yes one who has had a paid subscription since 2000.... Who has never leveled above 80.... and played many different classes... Having a good game over all...far outweighs trying to stretch it out in the end... The number on live are falling and have only been sustained by reducing the number of live servers... They create new servers for TLP... very few new or returning players go back to LIVE... new players have no one to play along with on live... returning players have to grind for a few months to catch up... just a fact of life... The over all population is dropping...the little new they get is not starting 100 levels behind or even starting at 85 and getting back to end game... You think live is supporting the group...they make enough off a few heavily populated servers all access required servers to more than keep the game running... Can they continue to afford to pay a team to add new content...different story...
Going out and casting snare root and a dot is boring...stacking your dots and sitting between cast and mana management was fun... changing the fundamental way a class has been played for over 18 years is just not a good idea...
it is what it is and yet another the sky is falling post. shrug. your preaching to the choir on changes made to a class yet plenty of mine aint up and quitting. do as you wish, but your totally preaching to the wrong class on changes made to a class here. Go check other posts and nerfs to theirs, you think your the only one and the game moves on.
So the game is alive 10 years after when you pretend the game was destroyed by bad changes, not bad lol. The game did fine without you it seems, as you're a returning player, it will be fine without you again I guess. That leads to the next question: can I have your stuff?
