Would you prefer if trash mobs had more HP?

I know that exp per kills in goro vs. chardok during EOK is not comparable. You earn much less exp now. That seems arbitrary.

Also... all the moaning about boxers is garbage. Just plz. They pay the bills and keep this game running.

What, you might actually have to work for a decent group optimization to complete some content?

This would be INSANE.

Yeah, we all want to box 5 - 6 - 12 toons while using isb etc just so we can complete some content .

ETA: no offense to any isb users!

It would seem logical that DB will have to fix this in the next expansion no matter what. They already stealth fixed the max HP issue early this year.

The way I wrote that, i wasn't trying to imply that alliance spells were the only issue here. A very fair number of people are basically DPS addicts. That's all they care about. You can see this reflected in their box groups as well. I've seen a paladin grouped with 5 wizards, SK with 4 mages and a cleric merc, and any number of other combinations. The point being, that they all share the trait of building groups that are focused on trivializing content and I don't think the answer is to raise HP.

I do think we need a lot less of the big HP big hitter and a lot more of the swarms like we had all the way back pre-pop. That would help bring back interesting fights, which I think is the actual problem here not just duration of said fights. I've said this in reference to 'other' games in the past, but why even bother to put trash mobs in front of you if all they are going to do is fall down when you sneeze. That's not game play, it's busywork. No one wants a game full of busywork. Increasing HP falls into this category imo.

An example of a bad type of swarm though is like in HoT and CotF when mobs would summon swarm pets that lasted a few seconds and did literally nothing to assist their caster in the fight. Why even put that ability on the mob if they weren't even worth reacting to. They didn't interrupt casting, they didn't do any noticeable DPS, they didn't heal their master, they just kind of appeared, did some attack animations and vanished. At first I was intrigued that maybe I would have to put my CC skills to work again after all those expansions since pop, but alas, no.

You talk as if the perfect group combination is available for everyone. Personally I have all 3 priest classes 105 on different accounts and all 4 caster classes 105+ on different accounts plus 110 sk and 105 bard on a different account and a multitude of other classes on their own accounts 85+ so yes I could rework my setup to optimize things but this is not realistic for the masses. The game should never be designed around a "perfect" combination of classes otherwise it makes the other classes irrelevant. Rather every class should have areas in an expansion where their abilities shine and make them valuable. This keeps one class from appearing to be worthless while other classes appear to be OP. The last thing we need is everyone playing 1/3rd of the available classes because the other 2/3rds are inferior and non of their abilities have been taken into account during the development process of new content.

World of warcraft has this feature, the mythic plus system. The rewards are increasing for the higher difficult mobs. The drawback is that weak classes get exposed in extreme cases.

I dunno why I am still posting in here but lets set a few things straight.

Group content is designed for group equipped players and that should be a persisting ideal in EQ's design. There should be no need to join a raid guild and get raid equipment to play in/conquer group content. It should be designed to offer varying degrees of challenge for GROUP EQUIPPED PLAYERS. (see emphasis to left/above in bold caps if there is still any uncertainty)

That implies that some of the lower tier content is going to be trivialized even with just full kits of the next tier of group gear. Or with groups that are just blatantly dps heavy.

The final group zone should present some challenges for everyone. That might mean that its an area that only a well balanced group of group equip players can best. There should be the need for CC, pulling, and other specialized skills where if you do not have them in your group, success is doubtful. Raid geared players will have it a bit easier but still won't be able to just phone it in. Not every zone should require this. Having the open field zone of random creatures just derping along is just as important as having a challenging dungeon to crawl. The rewards should be commiserate, however.

Now if the premise of this thread is how can DBG create group content to challenge raid players, well...that horse has been beat dead a long time ago. Yes, some seem to think their talents are wasted or that it reveals OP design. Well, all I can really say is count your blessings. Stacking a group of 4 dps, tank and healer will do that, which might be the case since no one has really presented any empirical data of the events where their skills are being wasted. Regardless of that, increasing the monotony factor by raising HP of trash mobs is not the way to go. Yes, it is an easy pencil whip fix to grab the HP slider bar but the better way is to make challenge through terrain design, mob placement etc. Even then, there still has to be the easy zones to just grind in where that group of 5 mages and a merc can just be obscene. Not everyone has all day to pull together a strong group and crawl through an epic slog of challenge.

The same goes for raids. Not every wants to kill a large army of trash for 4 hours just to get to trigger for the main event. That is about as far as I am going to touch on the raid aspect.

I don't understand the focus on making sure that every class can utilize every ability in every situation.

Sure, necros get dots, but it's not all they have.
Sure, bards are great pullers, but it's not all they can do.

As a shaman, there's a decent portion of my spell/AA lineup that never gets clicked in group content. And that's okay. I'm not complaining that there aren't more massive groups of mobs because I want to use my PBAE slow spell. I know that it's there when I need/want it for unique camps/situations.

I'm normally pulling in my groups as a shaman. That's not because I'm a great puller. It's because the things that I do excel at in groups are simple enough that I'd prefer to take on the role and allow the "pullers" to do the thing that they excel at and dps/adps.

Over time, you have to learn to adapt and look for opportunities if you feel that the game is going in a direction where your previous role is starting to minimize.

Chorus wrote,

The way I wrote that, i wasn't trying to imply that alliance spells were the only issue here. A very fair number of people are basically DPS addicts. That's all they care about. You can see this reflected in their box groups as well. I've seen a paladin grouped with 5 wizards, SK with 4 mages and a cleric merc, and any number of other combinations. The point being, that

t

hey all share the trait of building groups that are focused on trivializing content and I don't think the answer is to raise HP.

I agree in that raising mob hp is likely not the answer, however my opinion on why this is happening with a much higher frequency is a bit different.

I suspect that people aren't dropping their tried and true long time mains and box characters to roll up brand new dps class boxes to trivialize content. they do it because the low dps but well rounded group that they used to run and be successful with just cant progress anymore. every expansion there are more and more dps checks and if you cant beat them, that's it your done with progression right there. theres no long way around or alternative method to getting anything done.

today a guy on my server was asking for help with a progression task, he wanted a tank and four dps
likely because he felt that anything other than that formula wasn't going to be able to get the job done.

and everytime they nerf the dps of a non dps class they make those dps checks more and more difficult.

what is worse is that, the majority of these nerfs come to pass because of what happens in the raid game. (no offense to the folks who raid) and bringing that dynamic back in line crushes the folks that just don't have access to that type of player pool to group with.

so to compensate folks start rollin up dps classes. because its that or forever give up on doing expansion progression. (especially when they put the dps checks as the first mission of the expansion)

I suspect some wont care for my opinion, that's ok you don't have to. its just my viewpoint.

With group gear most mobs die within the 20 second mark with a real group. There are class defining abilities/spell rendered useless or complete waste of time (debuffs/CC). There’s no reason to roll with a healer assuming an SK or Pal tanking. Mobs simply die to fast.

show me the group geared paladin who is out tanking with no healer. i am sure it is possible but it is very far from the norm. I am raid geared. I spend 90% of my time solo/molo. another 5% i box a necro.
there are so many tanks on this server that on raids with 40 ppl sometimes 15 are tanks. i have never had an actual group with no healer of any kind and cant think of an actual reason to do so.(had alot more to say but decided to bnbr)

Adding more HP to mobs is a bad idea, we will get that anyway next expansion. They already gave NPC's non dispellable abilities at least with RoS that give enough players heart burn.

Why add more to screw the casual player?

Are you equating casual players to those who lack proper AAs? RoS is doable EoK group gear as long as you have a decent amount of AAs and a few real players. Besides, I don’t think anyone is advocating loading every zone with bloated HP mobs, just in the upper tier group zones.

I made no comment about AA or groups and I'm not going to get sucked into that.

The OP was about adding additional HP to mobs in general and they did not specify zone or zones. Any change like the OP suggested would most likely impact the lower half of the player base adversely.

Adding additional additional HP to mobs in current content is only going the content take forever for those who are purely molo and it make it hard for those who don’t have the AAs.

RoS sucks for soo many reasons, and I really don’t want to do anything to defend it. However, I cannot stand to play a utility or healer and perform those functions. And raid guilds wonder why they are vanishing.

If we are not going to consider increasing mobs hps, then we have more heavy handed nerfs incoming to DPS and tanks mitigation.

Wouldnt mind having more hps on mobs, which would make debuffs/dots more useful. However, other adjustments would be needed as well to make up for increasing the time spent per kill:

1. Increase exp
2. Increase respawn time
3. Increase loot dropped
4. Decrease mob density

We know devs already have the tools to modify the first 3 with ease. Changing mob density seems like a time consuming thing though, as I dont believe it is tied to database multipliers. If that is the case, then they couldnt make these changes apply retroactively to past expansions without a ton of work. Going forward they could do something like this though.

Simple... put the chase loot on the high HP mobs.

As a raidgeared wizard who sometimes likes to molo in current content(at least the easy zones), I rely on abusing burn-discs and cooldowns to get past annoying non-cc-able see-invis mobs. I can with some care and patience actually deal with yellow-con trashmobs(if they are single-pullable). If mobs had more HP, this would be problematic for classes relying on burst damage.
Not everyone has a box crew at hand, I prefer at least some places to be moloable.