Severe and shortsighted SK nerf with Feb. 8 Test server patch

The problem with this line of thought is that it ends up being the playground of raiders as groupers aren't able to compete. (no, I am not trying to create a raider vs grouper argument) The zones that are supposed to be the challenge are the raid zones. If you make the open zones too hard, then groupers do not get to see them.
I think it would be better to have one or two mobs in a zone that are harder and maybe drop loot that is somewhere between group and raid level. I would also make it so that these mobs can spawn from any mob so that it cannot be perma camped.

mostly just the total misrepresentation of everything in here lol

Shield specialist / Proficiencies / Weapon mastery strikes again! I'd expected to see leech uncoupled from melee damage before being nerfed like this.

True but those are the exception and not the rule.

Absolutely. Generally most interactions are positive, which is why I continue working with them.

I just watched a video of Drogba swarming 300 mobs post patch so not sure what was nerfed. Nm it was fort mech......

Where is that video...

Yes we have Gribble and with this expansion they have added incentives to encourage people to go elsewhere. So the whole most efficient thing may have been solved. Yeah it still leaves it open for those who want very easy. As far as it making bad players I don't see as many of those as you do I think. I run a very large casual guild so I see a lot of the returning players. The majority seem to pick up the game and regardless of gribbles far surpass the skill levels it requires. They may not hit the 90th percentile but get end up well past what Gribbles needs.

As for designing zones that are tuned to "really challenge" people what people are we talking about? It can't be the highest common denominator just like no content gets designed for the lowest common denominator. So what? The top 90th percentile? One zone so 17% of an expansion for the top 10%? Or two zones and 28% of an expansion for the top 10%? But you may mean really challenging at thte 70% percentile. That would make sense two difficult expansions would be 28% of the expansion for 30% of the players. The problem is that what is a real challenge for the people at the 70th percentile will be a breeze for the 90th percentile and above. A real challenge for the 90th percentile and above may end up being near impossible for those at the 70th. Granted if you are in the 70th and can be pulled through the content some get to use it. Those would mostly be raiding drones who are well trained in raiding just not super players. Don't see that as working.

Daybreak has to do the best they can by keeping the challenge levels high while also ensuring the whole expansion or majority of it remains relevant to the highest number of players. Though you can probably lop off a chunk at the bottom who will be happy with older content.

So not disagreeing with you nor did my previous post which mainly outlined all the groups Daybreak has to consider and why you might not get zones intended to be a challenge for the best of the best.

One solution may be to create a couple HA each expansion that give bonuses only game play in the raiding content and are super hard. The high end raiders will just pull their lesser brethen in raid guilds through them. A few HA is much better dedicating a couple of expansions to them. And if they are too hard for group players no biggie they don't affect the group game and don't have a large amount of Dev time devoted to them. Of course it would be a pain in the for raid guilds to have to pull people through them as not all would be able to handled them.

I like the harder mob idea though I guess it could be farmed by the high end folks. But it could also be raided if needed by the group players.

One of the biggest draws of EQ is that it isn't easymode. Designing content around the lowest common denominator is something WoW does to cater to the iPhone crowd.

Which is why you have open group zones and closed raid events.

EQ also does not design content around the highest common denominator luckily.

LOL i was about to come back to EQ after a 2 year break to play my SK. My favorite play time was usually solo by swarming old content and leveling at my own pace. Haha thanks for saving me the time in downloading the Game.

You can still swarm old content with ease. The issue was swarming current content with ease.

Throughout the games life, the devs have always reacted the same way to anything that trivialized content, they nerf it into oblivion. Of course players hate this, because god mode is fun..for a while, but the overall health of the game actually does suffer.

Devs don't do stuff like this because they hate players, they do this in a effort to keep the game any kind of challenge. With no challenge, people quickly lose interest. Go turn on god mode in any game cheat, how long do you play?

If you post a "LOL look what I can do" video that basically makes a mockery of the content, you can take 100 to 1 odds that it will get changed. There *is* actually a certain amount of challenge that needs to remain in the game, to make it EQ. There are a billion MMOs out there where the players can experience superman mode, I'm glad EQ is still at least moderately challenging, and the devs keep trying to keep it that way.

They can at least remove the prior nerf of putting counters on all these abilities.

As it stands currently ripostes that no longer qualify to heal you still the eat counters wasting your abilities in many situations. Seems easier to just remove counters from the first nerf years ago then trying to code qualifying vs non qualifying ripostes in regards to eating up those counters.

It was over powered and made SK's gods.....you all still have some of the best argo tools and can STILL swarm......perhaps shut up before you get nerfed to paladin levels.

Oh man that sucks. Haha, sorry guys.

Paladins are not in a bad shape.

lol take a poll on how many times Act of valor was EVER used over 18 years and I'm pretty sure you'll have perhaps a dozen times. Now ask SK's how many times mortal coil was used.........