what I truly would like to see happen in the future in regards to buffing.

You mean why continue. Not the first place.

The answer is because it is easy to keep it. Your suggestion to redevelop the entire system so a buff stacks is a lot of work. It also wouldn't be popular. Paladins are useful for Brell's. That's sufficient.

Sure we don't use those buffs because we have been spoiled by pocket clerics. Thing is though that the spell line continues by just changing a few numbers and one name. HP, AC, mana cost and name. The line continues. The real question is... Why take it away? It has almost no opportunity cost to exist, if anyone for some crazy reason likes it wants it they can still use it, and it's legacy. Heritage. If that has no value to you, then that's okay.

as a paladin i generally prefer to use my ashbound keeper over assurance. it gives more ac but less hp and its only real drawback is only lasts 70 min at max focus. i try to be as self sufficient as possible. maybe we could get some help by increasing the length of duration on alot of short term buffs or mid-term like ashbound. And really. make aa yaulp passive already. everyone i know has it as a bind key and has it up 24/7 when fighting. get rid of the cast/cast denial clutter.

Just for fun let me suggest this:

Not everyone has a buffing class.. Not everyone has a box group...

What IF... you placed an NPC in the Guild Lobby that for the price of, oh... 5000 pp, cast every known buff that your class and level could handle before adventuring out into the wilds?

As I see it would cut down people hogging the lobby waiting on buffs, speed up time actually playing, and take some of the money out of the economy to bring things back into scale.

Merely a thought.

this idea has been brought up many times ..
I believe its a good idea , however I would make the pp cost like 50k pp and would put the NPC elsewhere like in PoT or the Nexus ..
also the NPC would cast group buffs on entire group.. and Rk2 buffs only ..

All true. The one thing I would like to see (No I don't have a pal above 60) is the pal aego made self only and be more powerful then clr aego. I know as a Knight they get stance HP buff, but I think this would add more uniqueness to the class

Since neither of us have a pally, I don't think either of us really can take a strong point on it, so what I'm going to say next might be completely invalid, but I don't think they need a change to their HP buffs, I think what the Pally class needs is a version of the cleric Vow.

This system was no less complex when EQ launched. Buffing a raid took a long time (before the whole 'Unity' fad hit). Seems to me it was designed this way.

I understand you want buffs to be simpler. I surmise this implication is what elicited the WoW comparison. Even a basic understanding of how buffs and stacking works in EverQuest requires some studying. But I doubt this will change. You have some knowledge now about buffs. I suggest visiting Lucy and looking into what these buffs do and how they stack. You'll be much more informed and be able to speak with at least some authority.

I'm pretty sure pallys prefer cleric buffs (I play a cleric on casual raids). Clerics prefer cleric buff + self buff. Warriors prefer druid + symbol.

Yeah that was already mentioned in the thread a bit above my post which is why I said others.

What was the name of that cleric that posted those funny threads along the lines of " I don't have time for that symbol crap, I cast the big bomb buffs... When I want to take a break you take a break, you pull when I'm not ready and you're dead and I'm gating"....this thread reminds me of that guy....

No.

As a pally I disagree with this. My usual group does not consist of a cleric (shaman healer) so Ashbound comes in handy, I know we can always drop one person and merc could cast assurance.

As others have mentioned Ashbound is higher AC than Assurance but less HP. The only downside is the length of the buff. I have tried over 2 betas to increase the duration but to no avail.

It would also be nice for Brells to have something additional, innate spell shielding or increase in spell damage or something else.

so you buff your group with pal aego? I'm just curious because I was opting for the pal aego to be self and more hp the clr

Yeh I do if we have a wipe or skin/symbol/ward drop from the others.

I understand what you're trying to do and it would be nice but I wouldn't want to lose the buffing others option (besides knowing DBG they would probably keep it the same and make it self only).

Also remember going forward this becomes a one rank buff, if it were self only then it would lose the 1 rank status, what do the devs balance the buff on then?

I don't think there needs to be a balance as it were. I is my belief that Pal should have the best Self HP buff. I haven't played my Pal in years, but from what I understand about them, they are Tank/Support I feel this would be right in their wheelhouse. But that's just my opinion on it as one that plays an SK as my main tanking class.
On a side note, I just like talking shop about tank classes.

so, a few people responded with "learn how buffs work then you can talk filthy casual" or pretty much saying "git gud or learn2play"

I am just curious as to why the developers continue to add inferior buffs at high level content, like the paladins group aego if it's not really going to add much to anything so reaching the new levels getting new buffs won't mean anything.

as I said before, I totally understood the idea of paladins being able to buff but not as good as a cleric in classic EQ days because getting buffs were pretty hard to come by and those cleric buffs just faded, yet there are no buffers in the zone or available to rebuff you.

I really don't understand this whole elitist attitude, I admit I might not know much about the best buffs to use while raiding, because I am not in a raiding guild but we do take on older raid content to prepare for the future, so we are learning as we are going.

and if we are going to use the elitist route and use the whole buff gymnastics, then why even add high level inferior version buffs like paladin group aego? or maybe remove the paladin aegolism line and bring back the AC only style off buffs (armor of faith, shield of words) and make it a unique buff line that paladins can cast which provides a nice extra AC boost or a small total damage % reduction.

I don't know, maybe I am not making sense or maybe some understand what I am trying to say, all in all, this game has been around of a long time, and I've been playing for a long time as well, but I play on and off, from original through PoP it really felt like every expansion gave something new and unique, but I had to quit from the PoP era for a long while due to IRL situations, I came back during the mid life of the HoT expansion and had a lot of fun because everything felt new, but during the last few expansion packs, its been recycled spells and AAs mostly, I am on the fence about the new expansion, I mean the mobs and new ice shader looks nice and all, but I am worried it will be the same rodeo again with the recycled spell lines and AAs.

because there are some people that dont like to play with mercs and hard to find clerics so they use their pally buffs to substitute .. also

on TLP's same thing mercs dont get introduced till SoD so before that if there are no clerics around a pally is the next best thing ..

I mean, they can still pop out the healer merc and still get those cleric buffs and dismiss the merc, and I don't understand what TLP has to do with it since they are playing the expansions already made years ago, but even after SoD expansion dropped, it's still 10 expansions in and basically the same cookie cutter pattern on spells.

I understand that's how it goes, but it would nice for a new change once in a while to add some spice once in a while