My problem with melee dps being so dominant.

Remove caster focus effects from the recent TLP, caster DPS goes down.
Reduction in classic charm pet dps, caster DPS goes down.
Don't address AA consolidation and changes.
Mage pets reverted to pre-Planes of Power.
Don't address changes to melee damage such as.... banestrike, AA's like Innate Fellstrike or other melee DMG AA, or pre-PoP monk ratios.

I don't know where I'm going with this but all these changes and not changes just seem absurd to me in a game focused around a TLP.

Is MoTM in the game to make Zerg guilds feel better about themselves? Seriously, why does no address MoTM, in the context of end game raiding on TLP, why is this even a thing, if you want to make raids harder, you don't ask the devs to buff the mobs, you bring less people.

I also like how much of a meme mages are till much later and we barely even talk about it. That one confuses me.

The necro DoT revamp is only for 71+ spells AFAIK, with the exception of spells they shared with Shaman.

Only real tank and spank event to parse.


Sanguimanus the Redfang in 226s, 7904k @34974 | Monk 636k@(2915 in 218s) [8.04%] | Monk 487k@(2306 in 211s) [6.16%] {7} | Rogue 473k@(2252 in 210s) [5.98%] | Rogue 458k@(2141 in 214s) [5.8%] | Ranger 442k@(2086 in 212s) [5.6%] {7} | Ranger 415k@(1932 in 215s) [5.26%] | Monk 415k@(2065 in 201s) [5.25%] | Berserker 387k@(1858 in 208s) [4.89%] | Rogue 384k@(1836 in 209s) [4.86%] | Berserker 328k@(1592 in 206s) [4.15%]

Highest caster: Sanguimanus the Redfang in 226s, 7904k @34974 | #12 Wizard 298k@(1484 in 201s) [3.77]

Highest necro was: Sanguimanus the Redfang in 226s, 7904k @34974 | #14 Necromancer + pets 241k@(1186 in 203s) [3.05] {L}

because without motm "raid mobs" disintegrate into dust faster than spells can be cast in some instances. motm might not be the best solution, but something needed to be done and motm does it "well enough" imo.

other than that, unless casters get something akin to the innate natureblade/felstrike etc or they remove those from TLPs, melees will have an advantage.

and im not advocating they take the innate melee aa out at this point, but it does pretty much chuck game balance(both in terms of class balance, and player vs mob power) out the window, especially in the group game.

banestrike goess off on spells and its a timed proc, so casters should benefit from that near as much as melee assuming they cast with any sort of regularity.

All they really need to do is tie the out of era innate melee dps aa's to a much later expansion. Problem solved.

You play the class you enjoy the most...

I'd wager over 90% of the people playing on Aradune will never see TSS let alone anything beyond that so while everything you are saying may be true, its well beyond the scope of the OP's post. OP clearly plays on Aradune which is in Luclin, talking about stuff in RoK means you may as well be talking Pantheon, it's (basically) another game that will get released years from now and likely not played by the majority of the people currently playing Aradune.

A monk/Shaman duo is likely able to do just as much if not more than a necro + healer in these expansions. Does class dynamic and ability change throughout the expansions? Of course. Does it change between Luclin->DoDH? Not really, and by then people will be tired of TLP 2021 and eagerly awaiting TLP 2022 to re-do that fresh classic run and Aradune will be old news.

Do they also revert the out of era revamped spells that cause casters and SKs to just be better for most of the leveling process and most of Classic-SoV? or do casters just get be op?

Skuz said: ↑

“We already had CasterQuest. Team ManaBurn etc.”

Oh, please. My point was the manaburn thing was 20 years ago, it's time to stop using that as an excuse.

I didn't say that, I was responding to a bad argument with an equally bad argument.

Atabishi wants to claim Wizards should be worse than a Monk because they can do things "other than dps" while conveniently ignoring that Monks have plenty of things "other than dps" they can do also.

Yes, it was rhetorical.

I don't currently play on TLP, but I have played on Quarm, Ragefire, Phinigel, Coirnav, and Selo for various amounts of time, though not always using the same name or playing the same class.



Generally speaking, the current design paradigm is supposed to be that classes with similar roles should be more or less interchangeable, e.g. a warrior/paladin/sk should able be able to tank for a group. A Cleric/Druid/Shaman should be able to main heal a group, and the dps should all be around the same.

The problems of course, are that:

A) this isn't the case: there are clear winners and losers,
B) this wasn't the design paradigm for all of EQ's history and thus the earlier eras have wildly different class strengths and
C) the fact that dbg has historically taken a "wait and see" approach to solve balance issues, meaning they often don't fix something when it's broken/OP immediately. More often they just let something OP stagnate until it's no longer OP, which might work for Live, but means it's still OP on every TLP during that era. Likewise, they often don't buff up existing underpowered abilities in era, they'll just increase the upgrades next era by that much more, which again works for Live, but means it is still underpowered every TLP in that era.

It's a strategy that (debatably) worked fine when EQ only had 1 era (Live) but fails when you add TLPs into the mix.

So yeah, balance is a complex issue, and ANYONE claiming their class or even archetype should categorically be the best is full of it and needs to sit down.

Most people care about their classes performance. It's not that simple.

Please please please stop just saying this sentence thinking it's wise or some ****. It's not. It's overly simplistic.

Idk I find Necro's to be pretty useful on raids with an incredible amount of utility, sure they don't do the best DPS but they do have a lot of other things to bring to the table. As well as being one of the best, if not the best solo class in the game.

Having the ability to feed mana/mind wrack is huge if healers/other classes needed for the specific fight that are LOM. They also have the ability to rezz, so if healers are preoccupied during a raid Necro's can fill that position, especially with the low number of Paladin's. Or the ability to FD and rezz if there is a wipe, with the ability to summon corpses. Banish undead can be important as well, I know it's needed in Ssra. Yes, Cleric's can too but it would be a little easier for a necro to do.

I know some of these things become redundant on later expacs, like Shamans/Druids getting rezz in OoW.

Anyway, that's just my 2cp.

I'm not convinced early TLP (anything before Omens) is really that bad for casters. I've been part of lots of TLP guilds and raided with lots of good and bad DPS, both melee and caster. Casters as a broad category have often topped parses throughout that era of content. So have Monks. I've seen weird parses where even other classes you wouldn't expect can occasionally do so as well. I think for early era the balance probably is fine. The one class I feel like might struggle in this timespan is Magician, they have the most limited DPS toolkit (fire nukes and magic nukes) in these eras and a number of prominent raid bosses are all but immune to fire and that massively limits the damage they can do. Pets do generally poor damage in raids in this era as well.

Having gone through the era on a few TLPs now I think the level 70-85 range is the worst for melee vs caster balance, and significantly by DoN I've always felt melee are just way too strong, specifically monks. A lot of things contribute to this:

-Significant DPS scaling with hStats, which don't benefit casters
-Shorter cooldowns on melee burn discs, introduction of new/better melee burn discs with nothing easily comparable for casters
-A number of fights in these eras has serious resist problems which some casters completely and hurt most caster classes to at least some degree
-Casters generally don't scale nearly as much with gear, and in this era melee DPS scaling with weapons is massive.
-Melee DPS epic 2.0s are a major scale up in damage and basically "free", other than Necro the other three caster DPS epic 2.0s are not significant damage increasers.

Even then there's some fights in the 70s era where I've seen casters do well, but I think this era has a much worse melee/caster balance than "early era", I also think this era has more fights where casters are sometimes relegated to doing "nothing." This is in my opinion an unfortunate design mechanic that Darkpaw continues even into CoV--there are fights throughout the expansions from 60-115 where for some reason the designers think it is good game play to massively interfere with or entirely block the basic ability for a caster to do damage. I've had caster guildies tell me it makes them want to quit playing when they do a fight like this. There's tons of fights with mechanics like this in EQ but almost none like this for melee. There are a few "melee immune" mobs we've ran into having done all 27 expacs in the last 2 years, but it's like less than 5, and almost all of them were on encounters where melee had "something else" to do. Even the "correctable" blocks to caster DPS tend to be really . Like take the reflect shield on Devlin Rochester in DPoB. Yes, with coordinated spell usage you can shatter the shield and freely cast on him, but having to do that is an impediment to casters being able to DPS. The number of fights with similar mechanics for melee is very very small over the last 15 or so expansions vs how many you see for casters.

But it is though.

What you're looking for in class damage dynamic is not something that you''ll ever find on a Time-Locked Progression server and you know that. You want to heal, tank, or deal damage the best? You know exactly what to play as these things are etched in stone.

I personally think you should invest your time in live where the flavor of the expansion can change.

Actually it is that simple. Play the class you enjoy. If you enjoy topping the DPS charts, play a monk. If you enjoy spells, play a caster. If you enjoy utility, play a druid or necro or shaman.
You have to understand, making every class equal on DPS parses is a unobtainable goal from a developer standpoint. So since perfect class balance isn't going to happen, why concern yourself with parses? I sure as hell don't. Lets the monks, rogues, rangers, and wizards fight over top spot. I am playing the class I like and enjoying myself in the process.

I take a different view than most in this game. This is a team game to me. You want to raid, its going to take a team to do that(in most cases since some mega boxers can do it). So while I understand that some, not most, folks care about their class performance a lot of folks just care about winning and having fun doing that with the people they enjoy being around. Its why I play this game still that is over 20 years old, all strats figured out on tlps and keeps getting retreaded over and over.

As is the idea that melee DPS is so dominant. In some arenas it is, in others, it's not.

Just recently we raided Vex Thal and here are a few observations:

1. TOTAL DPS over the course of the entire raid was a real mishmash depending on who went AFK, who was OOR of the parser and whatnot. But our total parse shows a health mix of rangers, monks, rogues, and necros making up most of the top 15 or so.
2. BOSS FIGHT DPS was mostly a split between necros, wizards, and rangers. Rangers were easily #s 1-6 and monks/rogues rounded out the top ~12 when burning discs, necros and wizards split the others depending on resists.

In the 15 or so boss fights in VT, not once did a monk or rogue top a parse. In fact, I don't think a monk or rogue even made the top 5 in any given parse.

That being said, melee DPS was absolutely critical to clearing VT...while they didn't win any parses, they consistently placed well and made enormous contributions (in addition to pulling while I sat on my stallion.)

Yep, that's a great observation and should be the case with any guild's parse.

With focus effects, AAs, and ancient spells the caster vs melee gap should have closed significantly. Many people go into VT with a near optimal gear and the data should absolutely reflect that. However, I believe when melee acquire more attack gear they'll even out the parse a bit more.

They amount of "other" things casters can do is significantly more powerful then the other things Monks, Zerker and Rogues do.

Also are you just gonna pretend that support classes don't exist and that Melee don't benefit significantly more from them? A Monk without 400 atk worth of raid buffs, chanter haste, bard haste, puma ect is significantly worse like 30% dps worse then a Monk with them. A Wizard without a bard or KEI is still pretty much the same.

I don't really know that that's true, Monks have a lot of utility that isn't easily replicated by casters for various raid tasks, throughout most of the run of a TLP.

You forgot about spell haste, and resist debuffs, without which Wizards are a lot less DPS too...until they run out of mana and suck x10 worse than a melee with no adps.