Test Update 02/10/16

Discussion in 'Test Update Notes and Bug Roundup' started by Hludwolf, Feb 10, 2016.

  1. Arwyn-RoV Augur

    [- Necromancer - The Call Skeleton line of spells have been placed on a shared recast timer. Corrected messaging errors in some early ranks of the line.]

    Shocking, silly and misguided.

    If your telling us that we'll have a single cast of a few swarmpets where we used to be able to make a cloud of pets then congrats DBG on a gigantic amount of necromancers quitting the game. The only way this nerf is acceptable is if your increasing the amount of pets per cast or greatly reducing the recast timer to compensate for what used to be 5 spells becoming one.

    In one fell swoop a play style that many people use to solo content is removed. I've yet to see a case in EQs history where this sort of change was met with enthusiasm and increased subscriptions. Are you really sure you want to do this?
  2. Gnomeland Augur

    Uh, you were arguing that the 46% on Unholy Guardian makes Knights equal to Warriors. But whatever.

    There's no reason at all to believe Carapace would last two minutes against raid monsters, considering it has 50% the hit limit as Mantle. But I'd actually agree with not allowing Knights to have longer total defensive time than Warriors, so I'd remove Carapace and lower Mantle to 25%, but remove the hit limit.

    The only reason that ability was introduced was because of how badly Shadow Knights specifically were behind Warriors on raids. It can be removed whenever that distance narrows so that Shadow Knights are a valid choice for main tank.
  3. Jujue New Member

    Seems to be fixed for me.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  4. Cicelee Augur

    It would be nice to know the reason why the necromancer swarm pet is being changed. Most necromancers I spoke to are understanding with the mana burn changes (I have seen some ridiculous insane parses on short burn events by necromancers because of mana burn). But the swarm pet change I guess I don't get. And I am a magician.

    Maybe if we know the reasons why, it can help us to understand. Then again that would require transparent communication. Which unfortunately does not always happen at this stage of this game...
    Gyurika Godofwar, Danille and Utaerx like this.
  5. coloures~ New Member


    it clearly has been fixed in that regards, or else Sedulity and DP would stack.

    they do not.

    the reason that phalanx was removed from the game is because the stacking between phalanx and DP was undesired by the developers. possibly the recent modification to the SPA-168 stacking mechanics that allows LS and DP to stick without stacking is also responsible for providing the developers more control over innate and effectual SPA-168 stacking -- and now the innate 168 effect of sedulity (the only innate 168 effect in the game tmk) does not stack with SPA-168 effects like DP or defensives.

    it has long been the stated intent of the developers that SPA-168 effects not stack; the ultimate dispensation of the phalanx AA upon the discovery of its stacking with DP was a direct result of that developer desire.
  6. Kleitus_Xegony Augur

    You're also leaving out and down playing things like Warlord's Tenacity (48,000 HP self-buff that Warriors cast/trigger). That's roughly 22% of my current, max raid buffed HPs. That's not an insignificant amount.

    I know you're replying to an SK, but a Warrior is still the better tank when paired with a Paladin (group or raid). The main spells we cast to self-heal and tank with (Protective Proclamation, Admonish, Valiant Deflection) are Heals on the Target's Target, so they will be hitting the Warrior tanking. As a Paladin, almost everything I do benefits the other tank while much less of what they do benefits me.

    Ignoring the loss of a spell gem... The part you're forgetting about is the different rate that Staunch Stance decays as well as the lower value it decays to. It starts out higher than Ferocious Growth but ends up less. It's supposed to be a trade-off for it being self-only. I'd call it even and to be honest, I usually won't waste a spell gem on it.

    During raids, we have Shamen/Druids that are really good at putting it on our tanks when they switch in. I start events with my version ticking away, but once it drops I get Ferocious Growth if/when I end up tanking something significant. In groups, I generally don't deal with the hassle but could - raid geared tanks generally don't NEED the buff. I cast it if I know that I will have the downtime for it to refresh once memorized.

    Honestly, the 188 AC and 2611 HPs which is all Armor of Formidable Spirit RKIII provides simply closes the gap between the base HPs and AC difference between Warriors and Paladins. It's nothing monumental, especially when you look at what you guys can trigger to jump so much higher in both AC and HPs.

    That's my understanding too. Spells that did damage and had a hate override were getting the Hate Override applied twice. Paladin Crush spells are a DD + Hate, so before they were getting the hate values added twice. That's also why things like Engraging Shot RK III were changed:

    Live:
    Ranger: Enraging Shot Rk. III
    Slot 1: Decrease Current Hit Points by 3018
    Hate Override:1785

    Test
    Ranger: Enraging Shot Rk. III
    Slot 1: Decrease Current Hit Points by 3018
    Hate Override:3570

    The SK Terror spells were actually improved with these changes. They were only getting the hate values applied once but are now getting their base values bumped up an additional amount.
  7. coloures~ New Member

    ...right, there's no reason to believe that SPA-168 stacking rules would not be modified to allow stacking of SPA-168 effects, providing warriors with the ability to achieve 75% DI-portion mitigation while under LS.

    o-tay.

    well, you claimed yourself you were not very active on the box due to a high level of attention to the tank; you further claimed that a "single healer merc" plus the tank's self-heals was sufficient to keep up with unbuffed named DPS. perhaps i am a victim of bias, but to me, those claims are roughly equivalent to a claim of the mobs being moloable by the SHD in outdated group gear. perhaps a true molo would take longer, but a single healer merc keeping up with mob DPS seems to indicate that group DPS taking down the named before a bad round hit was not really important to your fights.

    i don't think many wld disagree that named were not designed to be risklessly single-heal-merc-moloable by offtank toons from prior expansions out of the box...certainly not every named in the hub zone save one.

    ...err, warriors molo better than knights ?

    o-tay.

    i don't find it so much "funny" as "farcical" that your threshold for tanking viability includes being able to risklessly tank every named but one in the hub zone of a new expansion with just one healer merc.


    i'm not sure what you think group-geared war were "doing to the content", but i still have to help friends with group-geared WAR at 105 in full TDS T3+ kill some of the named in argin-hiz (namely lowenn) and torot; i know a couple of group-geared 105 WAR who cannot tank in the cooper HA's. probably they are not the most talented or knowledgeable representatives of their class, granted t2 is harder than t1, and cooper possibly does not scale well to 105, but regardless: there are plenty of examples of overgeared, overAA'd, and overlevelled warriors needing pointers or assistance in CotF content.

    being able to faceroll the entire hunter of a new zone is not a proper metric for the minimal threshold of tanking viability.

    the DP port was overplayed.
  8. Gyurika Godofwar Augur

    Thank you Hludwolf! I appreciate your and the team's efforts in getting this issue fixed.
    Hludwolf likes this.
  9. Riou EQResource

    Discs count as buffs, they don't stack because they are both Buffs, in the past anyway.

    It looks like the Reset AA isn't clearing Knights Sedulity gains, so have to use a non Tank to test max hits vs their max hits.

    Full un-buffed Monk on same mob:
    All AA + Reset AA - Max Hit 1654

    Fully un-buffed Paladin:
    Knight's Sedulity - Max Hit 1585
    Weapon Stances + have Defensive Proficiency on - Max Hit 1171

    So it does look like they did specifically change how stacking works on that SPA with this patch to not allow it at all, otherwise max hit under Sedulity and DP should have been like 100 dmg lower range.
  10. Jaerlyn Augur

    I don't know the order in which they are applied, but your numbers don't prove anything either way:

    Base 15666
    SB off first = 14099
    Prof next (based on your .267075 approx mitigation) = 10334
    Thus, you get the same number regardless which applies first.

    hmmm...

    Someone claimed spa 168 (which is used for def prof) -only- effects the DI portion of damage, but 162 (SB vie spa) effects all of it.

    Unless this particular mob's DB = 0, one of those two claims have to be false if the above numbers from Tri are correct.

    Or I'm very tired, and missing something. Someone check my math and logic on this, please.
  11. Lianeb Augur

    I didn't mention those because were arguing mitigation and utility.
    A 2 for 20min HP boost is hardly even close to comparable to a Paladin's ability to refill theirs/or others HP pool.
  12. Blurred_Memories Augur

    first i'd like to say thank you. looks like a lot of neat stuff coming in this patch.

    i'd like to ask though, that you consider better lubrication for the mechanical mounts. the noises they make are not intermittent like other mounts or the sounds being removed; they're constant.

    alot of players use them because they don't have a any bob moving screen slightly, and on raids there's so many all over the place you can't escape their horrible noise pollution.

    i'd also like to see them start using a cleaner fuel because they pump out alot of smog making it hard to see and breathe in alot of cases... but let's start with the noise first.

    thanks,

    ~blurred
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  13. coloures~ New Member

    tenacity is 2 mins out of every 20. it's a lot of HP, and i love when it's up, but honestly i (and i expect most others) use tenacity for those oh-sh~t moments more than for the buff; the HP injection is, to me, the more important part of the AA.

    those self-buff spells you have may decay like growth and have a much lower HP boost altogether, but they can also be maintained active 20 mins out of every 20 mins.

    that's fine and all -- i can accept that growth is better. but it is a stretch to compare an always-on HP buff to the 2/20 mins tenacity and 1/3 mins command (which is only 10k and, when activated, puts charge on cooldown too).

    the game is not supposed to be tuned around 100% efficient, raid-geared class synergy; you may not be a player who has much opportunity to require to use staunch, as you don't need the buff for the group game and can get growth when seriously tanking in the raid game, and honestly i'm not terribly worried about staunch overpowering any knights against WAR on raids, but it's part of the nice utility package that knights enjoy which is largely absent from the WAR toolkit.

    again, it's not really fair to consider tenacity as an HP "buff" in the sense of the always-on buffs, if that's what you're thinking.

    and while i agree completely that your self-buffs are perfectly fair, and you probably needed a mitigation boost, i have also seen knights (in deathseeker's, granted) effectively tanking raid namers in TBM prepatch. the 30% mitigation seems like an obscene overshot meant to place knights at tanking parity with WARs; if the WAR's entire raison d'etre is not "tanking those few things that others classes can't", i'm nto sure what else it may be.

    will WAR still be able to tank raid namers in TBM ? obviously; nothing has changed in regards to WAR abilities.

    but will they still tank "better" ? what does it mean to tank "better" if neither tank dies ? some clr has to cast a few more heals ? burn a couple more emeralds ? the comparison between two DPS who last thru the fight is straightforward; the comparison between two tanks who last thru the fight is quite obscure.

    if WAR no longer tank better than knights -- i.e., if knights are perfectly capable of tanking everything with about as many deaths as a WAR -- and WAR cannot provide any meaningful utility to raids, what is the point of having a WAR ?

    i am quite sympathetic to the complaints of SHD (even tho i find myself rather severely outDPSed by the better SHD in our guild) who feel that their class doesn't bring utility to enough raids. i can't imagine that eliminating the warrior's niche was a valid solution to that problem.
    Lianeb likes this.
  14. Lianeb Augur

    I wish i could like this ALOT
  15. sojero One hit wonder

    Well Sir if you find that your guild no longer has a place for you, as you know you are now an old warrior with nothing to tank, because well, you feel that way, have your raid leader throw you in the dps group if they have an empty slot. You SK's are out parsing you because they are less reliant on adps than you are, but they also don't get the gains that you would in the right group. You have a higher potential but never see it because your raid leader hates you and is throwing you in the wrong group!

    As to the tenacity part, it has the same duration/recast as reaver's bargin and serves the same purpose, but at least it doesn't drain your mana (if you had any) and endurance at the end.
  16. Lianeb Augur

    Haha


    Hahaha Well played
  17. Gnomeland Augur

    People still have trouble figuring out whether 168 passive abilities & active abilities work together. It's hardly an obvious cut and dry case. And importantly, code is different between Test and Live, so it's necessary to actually go out and test them, instead of just sitting there thinking about whether they'd work-ideally-according-to-developer-design, especially now that every release doesn't.

    They cannot be moloed by a group Shadow Knight/Paladin because your healer would run out of mana, and even sooner, you would run out of cool downs before it dies. I said in that very post that you cannot simply sit there with a shield and expect to out heal the damage with a single mercenary healer + yourself, and that bad rounds still = death, so what else do you want? The character I used to test the content was made specifically for that content with the best of the previous expansion's group - ie a 110,000 health + 9,800 armor Knight at level 100 doing COTF, and even using abilities from after COTF. In no way did I just walk into COTF with crap and think I'd win.

    Except that's exactly what Warriors do?

    First of all, Heroic Adventures at 105 are not COTF content.

    Second, Argin-Hiz IS over the top in certain fights, and I'm sure any Knight would also have trouble with it. But I'm talking about entry level COTF, and I *do* expect entry level COTF to be as easy for Knights, as it has been for Warriors, and yes I have ran Warriors through it.

    Who told you it was face roll? The fights were hard and the only way you'd make it trivial was to go in a full group. But in which world of balance do you come from, such that you'd require a full group in today's Everquest to do first area in COTF? Because I am certain it was not designed for a full group, and in fact no place out of Plane of War is.

    And just for your information, I was doing Argin Hiz with group Warrior + group DPS back at 100, so it's hardly special that I'm doing COTF first area with group Knight.
  18. Kezik Lorekeeper

    Can the whining from the warriors stop please? You guys are derailing the important feedback from the necros who were actually nerfed into the ground. Mana burn as previously stated was broke, fine. The swarm pet nerf is a toss up , i could see a middle ground where 3 lines work instead of all 5. But the flesh to poison godr nerf holds no water. It was "working as intended", and absolutely needs to be reversed.
    Nenton, Yinla, Igniz and 6 others like this.
  19. Riou EQResource


    From quick testing it looks like at the very least this patch did make it so that SPA no longer stacks no matter where it exists, which just makes the on paper power Knights are gaining look worse then before.

    Of course there's a chance it got broken in the big spell change stuff they did :)
  20. sojero One hit wonder

    Oh come on, whats a good patch without something getting broken. This is dbg isn't it :)
    Gyurika Godofwar and Riou like this.