Preview of Upcoming Changes to Combat Escape AA Abilities

On its face I don't have an issue with the change but once again its a pretty big thing being changed without the appearance of it being mulled over by a few eyeballs for a while first to prevent a change to the change to the change over the next few months.

That's a different ability, not a previous version of Hiatus. It won't get changed.

Since Melee will be able to activate Hiatus and then have enough Endurance to fade after 2 or 3 ticks, can you consider changing Modulation Rods?

Siphon 60% of your Max HP
Return 20% of your Max Mana

This way Casters can recover the resources required to fade just like a Melee fan shortly after a Rez?

Also this has the benefit of not requiring a new mod rod AA or item each time inflation dictates one is needed.

Uh, no.

And I'm unsure what any of that has to do with anything? Who cares if a melee can regen the endurance to fade when it has a 10 minute reuse or whatever?

You have a ton of ways to regen mana, over time and quickly. Melee do NOT have a ton of ways to regen endurance fast.

I don't see an argument for why giving AAs a resource cost is bad design. It's just different than it was previously. And it can be useful for expansions where you're not adding levels and new spells but players are getting big upgrades via equipment. At least there's something they can attach additional costs to if needed.

The ability is based on the player's current level so it does grow in strength as you level up. It's just as useful the day you purchase it at level 85 as it is as at 115. What fixed value could you give the ability that would make sense at both levels? 5k mana is way too much at 85 but almost nothing at 115. The only alternative they have to pick from, aside from no cost at all, is to have forced upgrades every 5 levels where they attach a new fixed cost. They clearly never want the ability to be cheap or free. You're supposed to carefully consider when and if you use it and a percent cost makes sense if that's the goal.

That alone is huge for raiding warriors! I don't really care too much about the fade thing since it was borderline useless after the earlier changes anyway.

What are you talking about? There are tons of rangers around. Lots of paladins as well.

If the mob is more than 5 levels higher than you.

Basically it could be used as a means to dump a ton of hate.

It would include everyone who has the spell "Hiatus".

But that is you assuming. Which he explicitly stated he didn't want to do

Initial agro is not a problem provided dps can wait 5 seconds on a 20 minute encounter before diving in (apparently many are incapable of that). It is not so much a problem with warrior agro as it is with dps stupidity.

I have no issues on long term survivability. Just don't use everything at once and rotate your abilities (if you use it all at once you are "wasting" a lot of capability).

Raiding without warriors is only realistic on trivial content.

" All melee classes - Hiatus can now be activated in combat "

Seems pretty clear to me. No assumptions. All melee classes have Hiatus (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=129738) So when he refers to "All melee classes" I he means all melee classes, which is exactly what is on the Hiatus tome. Hiatus is a specific spell, not some general term.

Do think that has some different meaning? That maybe Hiatus will work differently with different classes? What is the basis for that belief? It would certainly be a first, all other spells in the game work exactly the same for all classes that can use them. Perhaps you know something everyone else does not? Please elaborate.

The wind line was basically phased out with the Rest or Respite Line.
We gave up the LONG recast on the wind line in favor of the "you must be less than 29%" restriction Rest line has.
The wind line has a 36min lockout and was essentially useless.
The rest line couldn't regen you higher than 29% for rank 3 but was essentially an unlimited Endurance pool once you were below 29% with it's 1:30min recast. (which imo is to short)....but it also carried the out of combat restriction which kept it semi balanced
I don't feel having an unlimited Edur pool is good so the timer needs to play into it's reuse.
Enter Hiatus with it's 6min reuse and still having a cap restriction, though the cap was increased to 35%

The problem with Hiatus is the slot 9: Increase Weapon Delay by 1000%....that is not a "slow" it is a stand around and do nothing for 48s if you want the effects.

Let me do something in a reduced capacity, verse standing there.
I am ok with the reuse if the slow is reduced so that i can participate some.
The current slow creates harsher penalties than Bard Rally which regens Endurance AND Mana for a shorter period of time. It just seems like Melee with Hiatus are punished more for needing endurance verse mana

Because we are constantly told "there isn't time" for numerous things. How is taking the limited time and resources he has to go back and retroactively apply a cost to decades old AA's in some cases, that were free, benefiting the game? It even goes against the reason many of the AA's came to be aka your AA nuke lines or these save your butt lines. You are speculating that by adding mana to things that he will suddenly be adding more during non level expansions. IIRC we are limited to 300 AA lines per class before it inhibits "performance" which some classes are already encroaching on by having 25 focus effect AA lines and it directly goes against his policy that an AA should not limit or inhibit current spell/disc design.

The ability and its use are the same strength always, you can fade off mobs +5 above you, on whatever your timer is and you get an invisibility buff. It scaling as you level does not make it grow in power it remains a steady flat effect. However the price you pay for it and your chance of failing the resource check go up as you grow. You should not pay more base cost relative to your resource regen or have a higher threshold to fail the resource check because you have better gear and grew in power. Thats bad design.

You're basically telling me that at 115 it would be good design that Ethereal Skyfire would do the same amount of damage it did previously but now cost 8K to cast instead of 6K like it had at 110 because your mana pool grew. Its improvement to the game if Aristo gave everyone 10 less spells this beta so he could spend that time to go back and redo all spells to have a % based cost to them instead of a flat cost.

I have to wonder when you decided to call Paladin Ranger Shadow Knight Melee classes.

Oh I remember it was to win your internet arguement

Melee means melee.


My basis for asking the question is that the "fade" ability is still very different for different classes...ie paladins and clerics do not get invis from hitting fade. That he specifically said "melee" and not "all who can use hiatus"...

Ya'll do know that these were most likely what they were planning to switch them to initially, and decided to 'up them' so people would be 'grateful' for the changes as opposed to disliking it.. it's like when you see an amazing sale on a bag of milk for $14.99 and the store lists "Original Price: $39.99".. anyway; happiness ensues if you aren't jaded by logic I guess.

Only if i still have over 20K mana if I have less it will do sweet FA. Normally when I finish a burn I have little to no mana left.

Curious as to how much agro i create during a burn 1 million sounds a lot, but which is better dropping 1 million points of 60% of it?

Im sure its already been asked. But how will it interact with Revival sickness? The one that caps you at 20 percent mana/end. But also a hard cap of 4k in that resource. Its fairly short duration, but if you decide to banner back instead of waiting on a potential rez you have no way to fade now. Revival sickness cap at 20 percent resource is fine, but the hard cap of 4k is crazy in todays game. I have no idea after X years of mudflation it hasnt been fixed. Its super fun to not actually be able to cast a spell for 2 minutes unless you get a rez with alot of current era spells.

I would be more impressed with the reduction in severity of the nerf to fades ... if I didn’t play a Ranger as my main.

Hiatus as a means of regenerating Endurance does nothing for me. Fade now taking 20% - now wait, only 8%! - of my total mana when I have no means of regenerating that mana on my own in a hurry makes this a straight up nerf. The percentage of mana taken, the reuse timer, nothing here but nerf. A lower nerf, but still a big nerf.