Can someone explain why partial slows have to be a thing instead of just reducing the attack speed by the amount listed on the spell description? If 70% is too much, why not just reduce the base rate to 50%?
Because that gives them more control over how slow works and they have multiple levels to chose for a zone. My understanding is that the 3 levels they can chose from can be tuned based on the content Your spell was mostly successful. Your spell was partially successful. Your spell was slightly successful. Here is an old thread on the topic. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/slow-mitigation.2850/
Because slow hindered the monster's ability to punish the player and trivialized content as stats scaled up. Rather than changing multiple, class-defining spells the dev team opted to change the effectiveness of said spells. Pretty simple, really.
Because slow got too powerful. Each time we got a new level slow, it slowed by more %. They start at about 15% and have gotten up to 70%. That is just too much because mobs tuned enough to be a threat while slowed would have to be absolute beast mode when not slowed. So, to fix this too much %, they added a way to reduce the slow by only giving a partially effective slow. So your 70% slow is only 50% effective its a 35% slow. This is the same as what happened with heroic stats. Our stats ballooned out of control so they capped the stats. But then players don't have any need for new armor, so they added heroic stats, which are now ballooning out of control.
Players still needed new armor long before they added heroic stats to the game it is just that they didn't matter anymore.
There isn't any reason for multiple levels of one slow anymore - it's just a old barbaric mechanic. It's something they could easily remove and almost no one would notice.
Many would disagree with you on that as there is no reason to have trash mobs have the same level of slow mitigation as raid bosses. Before they added slow mitigation they would just make mobs immune to slow so that they could be properly balanced and we don't want to go back to that.
I remember when they did it. They didn't have much choice as the way it was going you either a) had a slower in your group or b) wanted one. The difference between a fully slowed mob and un-slowed is huge. So either they design the mobs with the assumption everyone had a slower (balanced while slowed) or they balanced them around no slower and groups with them had a huge advantage As much as I hated it at the time, I understood too. Slow is powerful, its also why the %s haven't gotten much better since Kunark. (75% shaman, 70% enchanter) or Pop (65% beastlord) Bards fall somewhere in there too. Just to show how long ago this happened, here is a thread on the beastlord forums talking about it from 2004.
To be honest slow being so strong and lasting as long as it does was one of the bigger things that they got wrong in the game. There is a reason why slows are a lot weaker and shorter in duration in other games.
Some zones slow is in full effect still. I think blackburrow from hardcore heritage is up now where I think it works at 100%. The difference is insane.
Why? I may be wrong but I seem to recall that the devs did elaborate on the reasons why at the time, though that was probably on the old SoE forums, something to do with the slow being too powerful if allowed to land and the mobs too lethal if it was resisted altogether, so the mitigation gave them more granular control over the power of slows & allowed them to control vs the content better. Mitigations Mostly Successful (multiply slow % by 0.75) Partially Successful (multiply slow % by 0.50) Slightly Successful (multiply slow % by 0.25)
I seem to recall back one of my friends who played an ogre shaman solo face tanking some pretty outrageous mobs and bragging about being a "battle priest". Pretty sure that was with the 75% slow. It's been too long so I couldn't say what expansion that was
Slow doesn’t matter anymore because most of the mob’s damage comes from burst. The only scenario where does, means your dps is the suck. I would rather have clarity on what something does rather than slow icon with no benefit.
You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to.However, get medium size real group and parse slow vs non slow. It doesn’t make a difference statistically... unless your dps is horrible
You should provide some evidence that slow doesn't provide any benefits as slow will always help as it lowers the damage taken and lessens the need for heals.
I don't want to speak for Tappin, but as a healer with how good mana lasts as either a cleric or a shaman often it feels like slow isn't worth casting. While I am sure if you parse incoming damage it's a difference that can be parsed It really isn't worth casting. Specially on short fights and if the tank has one of those slow belts and or ennui. Some nameds are for sure worth slowing specially if you're in a smaller group but trash mmm I guess depends on your tank,
Just to add to this, if the tank uses a slow belt then generally that’s good enough. Healing is mostly spam casting nowadays.
You might not need a top level slow on everything and there are other ways to keep mobs slowed such as slow proc items or buffs. Besides the situation you are talking about sounds like the players are over geared for the content they are doing and it isn't that there isn't a benefit for casting slow just that it isn't as big as it used to be. Even a smaller slow from a proc belt or proc buff can add up over time.
