Nerf Mearates (Now)

I do not think it is a bad thing, that player base be forced to use AA abilities they ALL get (every single class gets that AA)

I would see your point, if only certain classes got that AA .. however EVERY SINGLE CLASS gets it .. so I don't understand what your saying..

Its bad that they have to use an AA ability they all get on a raid ? Is this what you are saying?

the final raid in the expansion shouldn't be easy by any means. glyphs were designed for raids, so having raiders use a raiding utility is not far fetched. we also beat this with 49 (post nerf) and triton beat it with 45, trophy and eyes will not make or break you on this event. there are many raiding outlets for average players across all the servers. pick one your speed, or bank the 40aa your raid guild requested and follow instructions?

I was pondering, when the dev, Parthun? made this raid did he factor in an entire guild using the dragon glyph. In future raid design when balancing damage will they assume an entire guild is using this glyph? Will it be the standard, or something guilds can use as a crutch to get the extra bit of help they need at a cost of 2000+ AA an attempt per guild.

Im thinking the devs heard us when we said Talendor was too weak.

I disagree with removing the second lava rock. If a mechanic can be muscled through, there's little point in having it in the first place. Something needs to be done with the raid for sure, but I don't like the idea of negating raid mechanics.

There's a lot going on with the raid, and whatever is changed on it needs to be done carefully so as to not drop it down to something akin to walking a dog.

Glyph is nice but not really required. I'm more curious about the poison DT - at 25% it happens during the corridor emote, and it's physically impossible to cure everybody at that time. Therefore, everybody in the raid must have a way to cure themselves. Was this raid actually designed to require Venenium or poison cure potions?

Super info Lisard, thank you for posting that.

What I don't understand from the "nerf it now" crowd is this: Any guild getting UEE to 25% relatively consistently has the rest of TBL + GMM on farm or pretty darn close to it. We are not going to see new content for six months. Why nerf the only thing presenting any sort of a challenge?

And it's a very good thing. The final raid must be the hardest one, by far.

It also shouldn't be so hard that only a few guilds can beat it, and people get so frustrated they start to quit. That's not good for the game.

This 1000%

This kind of thread makes me sad. Years ago, it was understood that Everquest is a game that REQUIRES the cooperation of many people to acquire the best in slot gear by way of solving and beating the most difficult of raids. The introduction of "Mercs", "Chase Loot", DPS classes that can Tank and Tank classes that can DPS, and hundreds of items that can be used to "self buff" have enabled the entitlement disease that plagues Everquest today.

Learn some self discipline. If you cant devote the resources you THINK you need to enjoy EQ, then step away from your keyboard and get some sunlight and fresh air. This is a GAME and will be here when you get back. You don't have to beat it... you really don't.

Nothing wrong with it being super hard at first and nerfing it later. If we could always have a final raid of this difficulty, that would eliminate the most abhorrent (IMO) aspect of the progression - morning/holiday raids. Raiding at 5 am shouldn't help you get ahead of the competition. Your guild's real strength, skill and organization should decide the progression race.

And the matter of when to nerf it and how much - that's a separate question.

Reminds me of OOW with Mata Muram. http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=17190

Bascially he was put in the game, but raiders would do every mob but him. Even years later they just skipped the content because the reward just was not there.

This will just be another classic example unless they change it. Is there 1 item that drops from this raid that makes this raid worth it?

With the best gear comming from tradeskills and GMM is there any point in doing this Mearatas raid? Honestly the dev's should nerf it to make it easier.

It's a money/time thing. Why make a raid/zone that no one uses? Pretty shortly with no adjustment that raid will be never used and a waste of digital space.

Hard is fine but at a point where we are the raid needs to farmable. 6 months after release and 5 guilds have beat the raid. Let’s make it farm status.

I enjoy this raid a lot, but I also know that 80+% of EQ do not share my opinion, I want raids to be difficult but I also think at some point they also need to be farmable. Even if you are farming this raid it is taking you 20 min or so, and the wipe is not happening till you spent 15 min on it. Let’s face it anyone farming this is not wiping 100-25 they are either hitting enrage or wiping at 25.

There are several things that can be done to ease the 25% wiping. To those guilds that have beaten it changing the 25% on way or another will make it to easy to them. Once you get the hang of this raid the ONLY tough spot IS 25%. So of course any change there will seem like a neuter to those beating it. Look at it from other view though, the raid would still be tough, until raid teams got the hang of it. Which is how raids should be, they shouldn’t continue to be tough just because you feel a final raid should be hard. It is hard but it should also be easier with gear and time spent farming it and getting better at it.

This raid is not farm status for anyone and really comes down to luck at the end with how your timers match up at the end phase to to get through all 5 mechanics thrown at one time.

Like I said above the easiest fix I would think from a dev standpoint is to remove the mechanic that splits the raid up during a crucial part of the event, you’re still going to have to deal with all the other stuff but at least do it as a team

Its very interesting to see some of the top guilds on here saying nerf this, enough is enough, and you guys have already beat it. The guild I belong in is just now able to raid it (beat first t2 raid), and I'll take your word for it...seams like a sh%t show of an event and not worth it until they make a change to it. Sounds like you need max skill to get to the point when you need good old luck on your side to beat it at the end? If its a bad as people say it is, and nothing changes on it, I know our player base would give it a solid 3-4 weeks before they would stop logging on that event lol.

Do the archived messages from the old message boards exist anymore?

I really, really want to find that Underfoot re-tune message that was posted. The one about how designing around a fully geared raid force just plain doesn't work. About how they want people to experience the events multiple times and not just the bare minimum. About, in general, how that kind of tuning is bonkers.

I failed to find it in my short search today, but looking at the total number of wins on the progression site is eye opening when seeing the sharp cliff caused by tuning the last couple years. It's saying something when even the top few guilds have issues with it.

This kind of tuning, as if no one but the top few guilds exists... yeah.

TBL (20):
http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/progress/expansion.php?exp_id=84

RoS (31, dropping all the way to 21 for T2):
http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/progress/expansion.php?exp_id=79

EoK (41):
http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/progress/expansion.php?exp_id=67

TBM (31/34):
http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/progress/expansion.php?exp_id=64

TDS (50):
http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/progress/expansion.php?exp_id=60

CotF (55):
http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/progress/expansion.php?exp_id=57

Keep in mind that on some of those older expansions, some of the "newer" wins are literally several years after the first win overall. The data is interesting, but you need to try to restrict the numbers to something reasonable like total wins within 6 months or so of the overall winner.

This event is beatable....

That being said, it has been tuned once. Once in six months compared to the multiple tuning passes of Vault 2.0 of RoS.

The event doesn't even begin until you are nearing the enrage timer.

Machin Shin puts this event at the end of it's lineup because the risk v. reward is out of balance. If it's to stay the uberweiss powerhouse end expansion raid, put some good loot on it.

Our guild has seen an influx of members applying from another previously listed top 5 guild, largely due to issues with not beating this raid, secondary to their own guild politics.
Ask around, look at this thread, you'll see top 10 guilds, people who put in their hours of work on the event, asking for a needed re-tuning.

The problem with Mearatas, as it stands now, is that any microcosm of a fail is a catastrophic fail for the entire raid force. Add to that, the instance is BY FAR, the laggiest in the expansion and you have a recipe for failure.

Positive changes in the last re-tuning lead to 2 additional guilds beating it. TWO.

Figure out the lag. Some instances, 0 lag, some, there's usually 1-2 people who have to gate out because they are just a liability.

Increase the actual timer of the hallway emote, the debuff in your window usually triggers for a fail/success when there is > 1 tick remaining on it, which is deceptive.

Fix UEE railing on people/main tank/ramp tank while unable to be attacked/debuffed. This is usually 2-3 ticks at the unlock phases.

At the 25%, I think it is unrealistic that 54 people use a glyph of the dragon scales to survive ie. beat this event. Most would be using a glyph, yes, because it is a raid, but they would be doing a DPS glyph. Raid tuning, 6 months in, should not revolve around 54 using a defensive glyph to MAYBE win.

I would like to see the tuning somewhere in the range of, not having to glyph to beat it reliably and still being a challenge...to me, that means adjusting some of the mechanics.

Possibilities include increasing the enrage timer....seriously, if your guild can manage keeping banes on multiple add waves of mephits while kiting an around a room and curing while also dedicating dps to the hallway sentinels...a DPS check is redundant.

Reducing the amount of hp on the boss. We really need that much time from 100-25% training? Not asking it to be trivial.

Increasing the time between mephit spawns from 25-0, allows some extra time on UEE.

None of those drastically change the event, in that they don't make bane damaging any part of it trivial, you still have to do the meatball dance, you still have to perform well in getting to your hallways, you still have to pick up adds.

The slightly comical part of this thread, is that many of those here that are upset about the difficulty, were also those STRONGLY posting to not nerf mearatas yet.

Alarmingly, I agree with a lot of this. Though people wanted the raid left as is for the challenge (I'm one). IMO that has been done (or not). Talendor it up

Hi Sancus

It also happens to be the most creative and "fun" raid in the expansion. But I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. There are certainly RoV members that would like to see it nerfed. I'm not one of them.