Decap , headshot and assasinate

I'd be ok with every class getting something like headshot. Mages insta kill on any nuke against summoned/abominations. Wizards instakill any thing with a nuke. Sks anything with blood, paladins insta kill undead, enchanters some sort of mind blast. etc etc.

ppl are forgetting its not a instant kill all the time and it doesn't go off every time and its only effective against lite blues . I have a ranger and use him to help guildies out i dont charge for PLs yes ppl abuse it but others use it to help new or returning ppl to catch up .

even if SoE made it trigger with less then 3 played toons in the grp would be fine with me sence i try and fill the grps i help

how can you even compare swarming in this you have a large amount of mobs beating on you if they get behind you you are insta dead you have to have massive aa and gear to do it right sorry headshot dont even come close,
it is a joke always was a joke and should never have been allowed to be so risk free as it was and to think they nerfed druids and wizards from kiting more then 4 mobs at a time yet let this survive.

Hi can we be friends I always wanted a pony but never got one and it makes me really really sad so now I play everquest and kill monsters with people on the internet cause it's fun and gives me lots of entertainment but right now I'm doing laundry and having all kinds of fun here too.

These skills were not intended to PL, they were intended to be able to kill NON EXP mobs fast...there are NOT going to be new ranks until the rank will coincide with not exp mobs...period. And for those that do not understand this, see the next threat about this in 6 weeks, or the one 6 weeks after that.

More like two weeks, if that.

Please explain to me how abilities that worked on greens and light blues even when first introduced were intended to never work on exp mobs. Somehow, that idea just does not match history.

not true or they would have made it so it counted on mobs that were green and grey as well however it dont ., as far as sk goes anyways

certainly, i love rangers who know how to play the class further then just headshot, i myself played a ranger for many years and never even had headshot aa and never really missed it till others were maxxed then could afford to spend it on that (how many rangers today say that?)

Odd, as I've never had HS pop on anything but a gray. Maybe because I'm only 65 with rank 4 in HS, but I seriously have no idea what the fuss is about. It seems more useless than overpowered, at least in my circumstances. Maybe I'm just missing something. /shrug

Yes, you're missing something. Headshot works on different mob levels at different skill levels. At level 65 with 4 ranks of Headshot you can headshot any humanoid mob up to level 52. Try Trolls in Crypt of Nadox.

Couple facts about headshots history people always gloss over

1. When headshot first was introduced it worked on only grey mobs at the time.

2. They changed the con system a long time ago and after headshot came out, to add the light blue range, which also changed the green mobs to encompass some mobs that where previously grey

3. With number 2's change, Headshot, which was at that cusp of the previous grey/green ratio, was now squarely in the green mob range

4. With each passing level increase and Headshot rank increase, the ability moved further from grey mobs and closer to light blue mobs, until it squarely jumped into the light blue range.

5. The intent of headshot was to clear away non-exp, trivial mobs, on the way someplace else, to factilitate moving from point A to Z.

6. And finally, Headshot was the Hybrid alternative to Disintigrate, the Caster instakill nuke that worked on mobs to instantly kill them, at the cost of an expensive reagent, and gave no EXP and no body to loot for items.

Headshot was never intended to be used for advancement in any way, shape or form, but with many more pressing issues in the game, this was pushed aside, until it morphed into a major problem yeas later.

They seem pretty quick to take out stuff they don't like regardless of "pressing issues." They had the prefect opportunity to take care of headshot when Eldiroth moved it from cone AE to selected target. Instead, he added 3 more ranks. That to me seems to confirm that regardless of what was intended they were comfortable with it working on XP mobs and have been for 6 or 7 years now.

It's hard to take a side in this debate
As a rogue, I've been lucky to have used Assassinate a lot to catch up on my AA. I was able to make it to 3k AA really fast, made 2k AA within a month or soo (probably 1 month +1 week).
I used assassinate to grind AA to catch up and make my Rogue more attractive to group.
It is really nice to been able to solo and catch up .. but
Assassinate and Headshot ... You always got into the "zone" appropriate to your lvl to find out another Ranger (since ranger are 10 times more popular than rogue) already there doing their lvl or AA.
Then when you get to have the camp, you monopolized it from other ... wich is still not that nice.
Everytime I go into a camp to assassinate I'm confronted to other who want the camp to.
EQ is a group game, funner in group and most of the time progress faster.
This ability goes the other way, make progress faster solo than group. (never been able to make 50 AA per hour in a group, and I was able in PoF at 80, easy)

The good part is, this ability make soloing and catching up really easy, and .. make you learn your class most of the time since, been efficient need to have you know your char.
The bad part, zone are overcamped.. by 1-2 players at a time, wich is sad since those zone could hold a full group of lower level people.
Exemple, Plane of fire is a great place for XP, and even better for AA, at most level where it con from blue to red. But ... C1 and C2 are 80% of the time camped by Headshot and assassinate.
At higher level, other zone got the same problem, some are more friendly to this, I've found myself often in BB with 2-5 other people and, it still true that they are 1 camp that were really nice xp but if I had, I was going in other place to have people been able to play.
Otherwise, now, Obliteration mob in commonland, I can kill all camp arround the lake, but when people come and want the mob for quest, it can make people get angry, like, you're camping the whole zone, or if the one camping the camp was on if Lesson of the devoted it's like, you messed up my lesson.

I like that ability to Solo AA, I like it to powerlevel my lower level alt. I like it to powerlevel my Friend and guildee.
I hate it because it make me prefer soloing for AA, Because they are fewer camp available that offer good xp.

The biggest problem I saw was .. the lack of grouping overall. When I group, I'm often stock been powerleveled, or doing powerleveled. Grouping is nice, but most people used merc, wich is good since Healer are the rarest kind and Tank have HARD time been able to tank decent content.

I think the Ability are fine ... raising the cap doesn't seem a good idea.. They are already too much ranger everywhere. I think the ability is really nice to have some easy powerleveling avalaible to have people get to lvl 75 + and make them learn and group.
I think the biggest problem is other class, not able to catch up as easily, Having over 2k AA is mandatory at 85 for me. But I don't know much people been there, they prefer leveling instead, and ... making AA seem harder to make since mob get really harder to kill at those level.
Wouldn't be good to have, instead, a better bonus Experience for grouping ?Instead of 20% each ppl and free at 6, we could get 30% bonus, with the 6th free or not we would have better exp gain than before.

But I think what would make grouping more popular, +40% bonus per member, at full group, each member would get 50% of the mob worth xp. Wich is kind of nice and make Merc been only an alternative instead. Full group or moloing = same xp for same con mob, but 6 people got xp instead instead of 1.

In other word, I think the problem is more about having people to play with, and place been overcamped by solo/duo or Powerleveler. when what we all want is playing together for fun.

I have said it in numerous threads in beta and out of beta.

Headshot = Fine should have the cap raised

Assassinate & Now That Decap Works = Not Fine.

Wizards, Monks, Warriors that want a similiar ability = Not Fine.

Bards that want a similiar ability = Not Fine

Necros & Mages = Not Fine

Paladins & Beastlords = Fine should get a similiar ability.

Not as sure on Priests

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I know Eldiroth wrongly only looked at who won the race to 100 and it was often HS rangers and he decided to go off on the whole line but really when I did far more data driven searches using Magelo and AA counts the data far and away supports HS.

The problem on this thread is everyone only looks at AAs someone can solo for.
They never look at the TOTAL AA Count. Rangers for example have an 11,250 Achievment to max out thier AAs. Warriors & Monks highest achievement is 8500. That means a Ranger needs to get almost 3000 more AAs than a Warrior or Monk to max out. Also keep in mind that Bonus AA works out to 4000 which is about 1/2 a warriors total but closer to 1/3 a rangers. In another words, so what that a ranger can go off and HS when a monk can not, they have to do that to catch up the extra 3k AAs.

When I used magelo to do a "Poll" and Representative Sample. I found that Rangers did NOT stand out as much as people would have thought.

Rogues were #1 by far. The Combination of a Potent Solo Tool + Low Total Cap = Overpowered

Warriors were #2 by decent margin. It sure wasn't soloing. It was thier ease of getting a group + Low Total Cap. They really don't need a Potent Solo Tool.

(3 to like 8 were all bunched together)
Monks were surprise #3. Again Low Cap at play.
Rangers were #4

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Basically you break EQ Classes Down into 4 Groups:

Low Total Cap = Dont need these type of abilities = Wizard, Warrior, Rogue, Zerker, Monk

Alternate Method = Dont need these abilities because you can outdo Headshot (Bard/Sk. For record Bards out XP anyone if they good)

Mixed Feelings = Mage & Necro. While they have higher caps because of Pets. I'd prob skip them because they have the ability to solo named. Consider it a trade off. Cant mass Light Blues as much but can kill a Yellow.

Need a Kill Shot ability to match up with High Total: Rangers Paladins Beastlords.

Classes that I don't personally compare as much would be priests or enchanters.

They should increase AA costs on all classes to make them equal and see how people like that. Then they can get rid of these abilities and no one would have the right to whine anymore. Except we all know that won't happen.

They could do that as well. Adjust AAs so every class has exactly 10k AAs to get.
Then make sure all classes have some sort of solo tool.

Example: Veterans Wrath last rank might cost a monk 21 and Ranger 12 ((When if you think about it makes sense in another way since Veteran Wrath effects 100% of Monks DPS but only say 60% of a Rangers)

Exactly. Everyone should be able to solo some in today's game. I think some will do it better which is true in all games, but it's hypocritical and stupid to whine about certain abilities and then refuse to accept that some classes have a much higher hill to climb.

Even out the climb.

11,423 AAs to max as a ranger

I'm a rogue and have extensively used assassination, but tbh I think it was a bit overpowered. Headshot (due to range attack) and decap (due to any mob type) more so.

The main issue though was rate of proccing. When we first got these skills they were a nice rarity. Now they proc all the while and I feel peeved if I kill a mob (bear in mind it's green con) with normal melee before assassinating it. The proc rate is just HUGE - likely due to hdex or something? I haven't parsed, but it feels like unity helps it a lot so the dex value is probably key.

However nerfing it, although needed, is only the tip of the iceburg. Even before the nerf so many other classes hammered rogues on AA gathering rates, and still do massively. This wasn't the key inbalance in EQ IMO.