Preview of Upcoming Changes to Combat Escape AA Abilities

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Dzarn, Sep 30, 2019.

  1. Ryino Elder

    This right here. Almost all the raids that require movement (Prince, Mearatas, Doomfire etc..) the pets get stuck on terrible pathing / lag and the only way to move them is to summon, which now requires a fade. With this change you could move your pet once per raid and that would only be if you were willing to take the mana hit.
  2. valiantSeven Elder


    Four years of watching and this is what you decided needed adjusting? ...
  3. Fintank Augur

    Could care less about these changes tbh, however something I don't understand is in regards to the Monks/Necromancers/SK's. All 3 of these classes have an alternate means to fade that has no resource requirement at all, the only difference being it is not instant drop. So why is their relative resource cost 2% vs 20% for classes who only have the 1? This doesn't make sense to me. Arguably the classes who have alternative means to fade outside of these changes based on their class should be lumped in with the higher resource costs. Due to the fact they LITERALLY could never have to use it anyway if they wanted. I'm assuming no changes are being made to regular skill Feign Death or AA Death Peace? These abilities being a part of their "tool kit" should not be an exempting factor, being a part of their "took kit" is having the ability to have more than 1, this should not end up being "the argument" for their resource cost difference.

    Side note: 20% on Ranger does make me sadface though, being the only class without a resource recovery option.
  4. Alythea New Member

    As a long term Enchanter (17+ years), I'd just like to comment.

    The time change is a good idea, but the 20% requirement is a bit extreme - unless you mean 20% of existing mana. If you mean 20% of full mana; that sounds very inconsistent with the way the game is played.

    I understand why you feel you need to make a change, but it has been a long time as it is. I don't mind if you put a longer time on Stasis at all. I prefer not to use it at all unless I actually have to. If you have to escape, you are simply unprepared. I prefer to mezz and mindwipe.

    Players today are often small groups (3 players). They don't have full groups with a puller, tanking, crowd control and player healing

    They use escape when mana or other resources are low, or mercs start acting oddly. When things go wrong, you don't have a lot of time. I think that the resource changes to escape abilities will cause players either hold back mana to activate them, cause them to activate them too soon or stop using them at all. It does not strike me as a good balance of alternatives.

    Have a great evening!
    .
  5. Benito EQ player since 2001.



    Bard Fade re-use time is currently at 1 second. Will this be reduced to instant (as it was before)?
  6. Benito EQ player since 2001.

    Word of Caution

    I plead with people not to "tear down" other classes and narrowly address the devs focused on their particular class/concern.

    Quash emotions of senseless class rivalry.

    Most people have boxed most classes.

    When we fight "other classes", the devs will just nerf everyone to oblivion and no one wins. Bards are going to end up with a 10 minute recast on Fading Memories (and, woohoo - in exchange, zero mana cost) by the end of it all.

    Maybe this "discussion" (eventual poop flinging) will give the devs the political capital to go to the extreme.

    Stay in control.

    No Scorched Earth!
    PCSS likes this.
  7. Cragzop Cranky Wizard

    Things never go well when you design expansions based upon certain abilities, then later make those abilities worse but do no redesign with the old expansions. Mob placement and con level for expansions UF and up have clearly assumed an abundance of fade or fade-like abilities. Yet there is no mention of going back and looking at the content for adjustment in your statement. This is not good.

    Oh and your timeline for escape abilities is wrong. Wizards and druids had the very first escape abilities from the start - lesser evac and lesser succor. Sure you had a zone time (and it didn't always work or bring everyone) but it cleared aggro and let you get reset.

    Until of course you changed it...now mobs will follow you back to the zone line and bring a bunch of buddies, if they don't start summoning you back first. So now Wizards and druids get a crappy version of evac/succor AND the ability to use something every 15 minutes...and blow 1/5 of their mana. Woo hoo!!! It's really close to what we had before all the recent changes...really...

    It used to be that clerics, paladins, enchanters, druids (that were outdoors), and rangers (that were outdoors) could actually try to control how many mobs aggroed on a pull (hello pacify lines). Until the mob level caps were lowered, radius reaction was increased AND you decided to pack mobs in like sardines AND decided that pathing wasn't really a strong design consideration. Not to mention all the snare/root/mezz/stun immunity mobs over the past 8+ years.

    NO ONE NEEDED ESCAPE ABILITIES until you decided to take away all the other ways we could control pulls...ways that have been in the game since the start. Personally, I think most of the abilities above are dumb as they never fit the classes historically. But changing something you have designed content around, either consciously or subconsciously, without going back (or forward) and changing content to reflect the new reality is going to make for really poor game play. So I guess I'm saying you might want to think about changing these before you actually do.

    But if you are going to make these changes without changing Norrath, for the love of enjoying game play, can you stop with the 10 and 15 minute timers for abilities? There is no reason that the longest timers on these new abilities should be over 5 minutes when the penalty for using these is 1/5 of a resource.
  8. Solis New Member

    I honestly don't know what era DBG is starting in their search for a fix on this. When server population supported 6 player groups and most classes were present in some form this might make sense to limit botting etc. The current server populations do not in any way support this change. All classes now are used to pull etc as not everyone has access to the optimum pulling class. How we get monks, bards, and SKs with no major change but Rangers ( a pulling class ) with a huge nerf on top of having Harmonious Arrow still broken baffles me. The change to Riposte compromised many characters ability to hold steady aggro when getting multiple mobs... no we can't even fade to save a character or 2 to minimize the rebuild time. Seriously DBG please rethink this change and ask the player base for some better suggestions. Things like this and Riposte can easily be game ending as if we can't pull without having a fully live group of players and without the population available for that ... guess its back to XBox or something else.
  9. Raccoo Augur

    Devs: Man, people really like these TLPs, why don't we make live servers more like these so they will be more popular!
    TLPs, the reason we can never keep our nice things...
  10. Funk Augur

    Your comment was not needed, and you know good and well that many classes are used to pull in a group situation as "original intended" pulling classes as you say are not available at all times. So please refrain from littering up the thread and further.



    I believe these drastic changes should be reconsidered, this does not seem to be a focal point in the game currently in any way...but you've made it into one.

    I cannot see any game changing form of abuse of fading abilities for any class currently, so why put focus before an expansion on such a thing? Surely there must be other things these resources can be better used on.
    PCSS likes this.
  11. Makma New Member

    Making it 20% mana cost, what you are trying to make is a single person evac, as you said it’s a last chance get out of jail you want. That has for every year I played EQ been evac. So might as well let new fade of 20% mana cost let you evac. Fade was a new thing, a tool to change the way we group some. I agree with many pulling will be more likely handled by pullers then. 1 bad pathing and you have quite a bit of waiting for fade to pop again.
    Making pulls for pulling classes, would be like making the healer mercs worse. You make sure ppl need the real deal.
    I often pull with cleric and if u guys make this change I prob need to use gate or train a bit more with the mobs.
    Gate / campfire has lower cost :)
    Strumph likes this.
  12. Remien Master

    A 20% mana tax is nuts especially for rangers who are already mana starved. WTB a mana recovery tool. We might have to start prepping empty bag slots to start dumping gear to get to a 20% mana pool so we can pop fade if we drop below 20 while geared.

    Hopefully this new expansion won't be filled with runspeed immune mobs and I won't have to worry about keeping this updated fade on a hot bar.

    Part of me wonders if the new expansion will now have mana/endurance and reuse reduction AA for these updated fade abilities.
    Strumph likes this.
  13. Hekaton Augur

    so say i'm in an emergency situation with little to no mana to begin with. will the abilities still fire if im under my 20percent mana threshold?
  14. smash Augur

    Mana / endurance cost should max be 2%.
    Reuse of abilities for most be 2,5 min, and for a few 10 sec.

    This mean increasing mana cost by 20% and upping reuse from 3 min to 15 min, sounds like a major nerf, IF were a druid, I would keep the 90% instead of this change.

    Now I am a beastlord, so I have nothing to lose with these changes, beside I gain the 100% fd with 2,5 min reuse and 2% mana, except if Playing possum is gone,

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    What I do see is missing being mentioned is: Summon Companion. Prior to the changes in 2015, we could get our pets to us and it would fade. This we no longer can, which also means we cannot get our pet with us, because it is stuck at other mob we also fighting, like in Plane of fire fighting the General. Is this something you going to unnerf ?

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Now something to the cost... Today people can do their aggro lose, even if no mana/endurance, except for bards. This they would not be able to in the future, if they just died. And this is especially bad for priests and casters with their 20% mana cost. And well, with coming expansions it is going to be even worse. Why, because it will take longer and longer to regain mana to get to 20%, because of our increasing mana pool. Today people got around 200k, in next it is prob 230-240k. 20% = 40 mana, next it is 45-50k and so on.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    My solution, keep the old powers, and implement new ones, but let them be on the timers of the old ones. That way people can continue to use their old less powerful powers, if they want the lesser chance of success. OR they can use the new ones with higher cost.
    Example druid, I use old veil, it has reuse of 3 min. Now l cannot use old veil for 3 min, but NEW one I cannot use for 15 min. That way people cannot first use old one and if failure use new one.
    Jordis likes this.
  15. Dobbs New Member

    If I had to guess....3k aa's and you're right where you started with a 100% success
    PCSS likes this.
  16. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    With the change to wizzys hole is space are you going to improve their other agro reduction spells/AAs?

    With hole in space on a 2.5 coold down these abilities weren't really used that much now with a 15 minute reuse time they will need serious upgrades.
    Coagagin and PCSS like this.
  17. Roxas MM Augur

    20% feels a bit harsh.
    Coagagin, PCSS, Teylana and 3 others like this.
  18. Zipe The Healer

    Please, leave it as it was. You are punishing everyone and your reasoning is "10% to fail sucks".
    10% to fail is awesome, it gives a feeling of randomness like original Feign death classes had.
    When I use this skill I am like: WTF will I fail?!?!? and When i success it feels like a real success.
    Now you are taking out that feelings and nerfing the skills with increased reuses and costs.
    And overall it feels like just a nerf instead of the boost you pretended meant to avoid the 10% rng cost.
    Just remove the level limit or just increase it on all skills, then your second argument would make sense and everyone would be happy.
    PCSS and Chatoyan like this.
  19. Corydon Augur

    While announcing all the "cool new stuff" that you have done there is no word of how (or if!) these escape abilities now work on mobs 6+ levels higher than yourself. Looking for clarifiction here.
    Strumph likes this.
  20. Schadenfreude Augur

    If Cover Tracks could be changed to use 20% of our Endurance instead of Mana that would be super.
    Brohg, Strumph and Jhenna_BB like this.