Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

Im still optimistic that these changes are for the better of the game. I just cant wait for them to go live. it will be interesting if this has an impact that is negative.. or if it will bring back more than it looses.

I'm not talking about the auto grant, those are fine. There is no real benefit that the other nerfs will give other than the few that were purposely causing lag.

For SHD, they have no benefit whatsoever, and do not at all have the desired effect. All the sudden they come up with some hogwash about how the servers can no longer handle all the swarming. Well guess what, nerfing our epic, mortal coil, does not remove our ability to swarm power level in some of the more efficient zones to do it in if the purpose is power level. I can still swarm FM, Zeka, anything weaker. Kaesora would probably be pushing it some, but could still probably be done to a limited extent.

However more current content like RoF and CoTF, I now have a fun 4 or 5 limit cap to using my abilities on if I want them to last their full duration. I am now complete garbage in situations where I used to excel in. I can now look forward to wasting deflect more, wasting more cleric mana, more group wipes, etcetera, to supposedly fix a problem that this change does NOT fix. Of course SHD have other abilities, but this is on the level of them nerfing Final Stand to have a damage cap of 500k absorbed nerf, it is absolutely terrible. Excuse the poor warrior reference, I don't pretend to know them well. SHD has and always will be my main on here, even if I don't play any more.

The SK change affect their ability to swarm correct? WHich was done in order to keep players from creating pulls that cause zone disruption correct? Not removing them is called entrapment. Giving somebody something that they no is bad and then punishing them when they use it. You cant leave an ability on a person and hope they will not use it. So they changed it. Is that not what happened? Did changing that spell/ability for the SK make them less capable of swarm pulling?

I don't get it. There are so many people whining and crying about the nerfed abilities, but you guys did it to yourselves. SoE created abilities like decap to help groups level quicker. The problem is that rather than grouping with these uber abilities people were greedy and kept the experience to themselves. Have any of you realized that these abilities most likely wouldn't be getting nerfed if you as a player made access to groups easier for the average player? I couldn't even begin to count the many times I've attempted to get a group to no avail as I watch someone solo or box. How's that fair? That's my two cents.

That's just it, this doesn't make me unable to swarm in some of the most efficient zones still, it only hurts SHD fighting at content for their level.

They chose to stop swarmers, even those not having an effect on the servers. Swarming is still available, just not so easily and this is the third nerf at least to the swarming abilities like Lich Sting.

Swarming is not the only thing that will be affected. Do you know all the specifics of what abilities were nerfed, why they were nerfed, what exactly they do, how exactly in all circumstances are they used, and why?

From what I see the only abilities changed were those linked to the classes that were swarming the most and or using these abilties the most when they swarm. If that is not the case I apologize but from everything I have read the only abilities changed were those that were being abused in swarming.

Swarming wasn't actually an abuse. They have known specifically about SK swarming for many years now and it was discussed here on the boards with the devs at length. They just decided to change it finally. It's not new, it's been around since at least the introduction of Lich Sting. Lich Sting has been nerfed at least two other times to make it more iffy. Headshot is not swarming and has no effect on the servers and neither does doing small groups of mobs while swarming.

The abilities were not put in the game to swarm, they were put in to help the class which are now also nerfed. See how that could affect the class when they don't swarm? As hard to believe as it is, most people who play Rangers, Mages, SKs, Rogues, and Berserkers don't use these abilities in the ways people were so busy whining about for years.

The abuse im talking about is that players discovered that they could mass swarm.. and doing this was detrimental to the game as it affected other players and created server lag. Not the swarm themselves. just how people were using the swarming. That is why it was fixed.... sorta like how they fixed warriors PBAOE swarming we used to be able to do.. it caused problems and was fixed.

Not all the abilities that were nerfed were swarming abilities.

Thes abilities were not put in to swarm, but they are now nerfed and that affects how they were supposed to work not just how they work with swarming.

"Swarming" means something different to each person. 40 mobs does not cause lag. I've seen it many times. 100 mobs does cause lag. They had no interest in punishing those who were actually causing the lag, nor those dominating entire zones before this. In fact, Piestro specifically stated it was not an exploit. Swarming wasn't detrimental to the game. People pulling such a large swarm to cause lag were detrimental to the game and they continue to play while everyone with the abilities who didn't abuse it got punished which is their moto and always has been.

I agree, this reduction in the process rate seems extreme

[QUOTE

“Example: Giants are not humanoid, but some Goo's are”

Some giants are though. ][/QUOTE]

May be, I have not found any, and if so that is part of my point. The humanoid restriction has no point now, and is not balanced with Decapitation that does not have the restriction.

Ah, I see. Thank you for that. I didn't know.

Would it be worth getting those AAs? Reason I am asking, is when I played 7 months ago, people in General were adamant that those stat boosting AAs were not worth it at all (cause of the defiant armor).

At lower levels, the Stats (Strength, Stamina, Intelligence, Wisdom, Agility, Dexterity, and Charisma) are normally maxed out with full defiant gear. I am not sure how this is at level 100, group gear. Resists are not normally maxed, so I normally put the points in them to raise the resists.

Unfortunately the people who populate General chat do not always give accurate advise IMO.

You can open your Inventory (type I) and select the "Stats" tab at the top to see what your stats are. Take Magic for example under resists, if it was to show 381(green)/565white), you currently have a plus 381 "Save vs Magic", with Base stats, gear, and buffs you have. If you put one point in the innate magic protection AA, the 381 would increase to 383 (2 points per rank). You could potentially have 565, so putting points into innate Magic would be beneficial.

This is how I understand it. I hope that is helpful and accurate.

Just an info post here im a returning player lv 76 mage 500 aa's took the best ones up to 76 or at least what i thought i needed as the best cause of the aa bonus thing.I was doing this before the aa grant anyhow, cause im one of those min max idiots that will squeeze all i can outa any game .

Copied to test with my 500 (485) aa's i had

Before grant 485 aa's well placed
14.3 k hp
12.6 mana
8k end
2300 ac
1077 att

After grant with just pure grant reset my 485 aa's first
15.1k hp
13.5 k mana
8.3k end
2700 ac
1106 att

Pretty unimpressive at 76 lol half my aa'k burned up by crap AND even at lv 76 i had hot or higher aa's i can buy think ill stay silver and use up my 1k free aa's then go gold and still not take the grant pick the good ones whilst on bonus aa's Then take the grant ill prob end up saving myself grind time in the end.
If your higher then 76 say 81 or over you'll even eat a TON more of the bonus thing cause you'll get alot of planer underfoot aa's for stats at 80+ and half the stats i dont need as a mage and after you get all the uf stats hit youll have no bonus aa exp.
Soo my point if yer not uberized and max level dont take the aa grant right off ya prob be screwin yerself with bunch of useless aa's and have no bonus to fast get the goodies hope this helps

edited cause of word wrap made my side by side stats run into a mess
double edit at 76 it 2133 aa pure grant forgot to put that in.

Shazam !!! vox server

The Zek bros in PoT seem giant to me. And, as it turns out, a few formerly raid dragons also have heads.

Question..
Sorry if it has been answered before...
90 toon, 5.5kaa's spent on what was desired, lots of random pre Underfoot not spent, are those aa's granted?
Thanks!

all underfoot will just fill in as soon as ya take the grant cept craft aa's and everything under underfoot as well

Well the news is out HS, Decap, and Assassinate will now have a proc rate of 2 per min, but only if you are a raid geared toon. For those of us who see raiding as a total waste of time we will have a proc rate of once every blue moon. A really Sneaky Nerf SOE. We can now spend those AA's on useless stuff that will never work. Doom on you!