With the current reality of TLP being seasonal, it's pretty baffling that we've gotten almost no balance changes throughout all of them (dot reworks, melee damage aa's.....is that it?). I assume the spell resist change made Vaniki better for casters, for example. The 70 stretch is pretty famously anti-caster, and could benefit from a vaniki-like spell resist change. Also imo, rogues should always be capable of topping damage. They have no utility, basically can't solo and a positional requirement. There's no reason for them to not be on top at any time. All you have to do is buff mainhand piercers throughout the early game, boom done. Those are 2 glaring problems. I'll refrain for calling for nerfs but most of us know where they should land if they were to do nerfs.
I would love to see rogues do better, but I imagine the struggle from what i read past is balancing TLP with live servers. I whole heartedly agree though, rogues are too weak early on and it makes it a struggle for good rogues to stick through the first few expansions before they class change or quit.
Make poison needs an alchemy make-over. Give rogues something useful to craft like how shamans can craft conc pots. For example, rogues could make aggro poison pots which other players can use.
They could easily balance rogues by just increasing the backstab damage on piercers (doesn't need to be all of them) that are dropped in the earlier expansions. This would have no impact on the Live game as later expansion items are better anyway and this wouldn't change the damage that other characters could do with the items (since BS is only rogues). They could even just change one weapon per expansion and rogues could be where they should be in the dps rankings (on top of all melee).
Fair enough, but I feel like it would be much easier to buff a few things on TLP, than trying to go through the 50 different buttons people press on live and trying to figure out how to buff them. Literally all you'd need to do for rogues is add some damage onto MH piercers. Make them rogue only if there could be a problem with others using them. Rogues being a joke in classic and second banana to monks afterwards, who have way more utility, is getting old.
Rogue's aren't that bad, at least not as much as everyone makes them out to be. Once they get a decent weapon, and actually pay attention to the game, they become decent DPS. They also have one of the more accessible epics that makes a massive difference in their output. Good rogues will be one of the more consistent overall damage dealers (trash and bosses) in Kunark on. It's the rogues who get lazy and don't worry about proper positioning, aggro control, and pushing buttons (plus the mentality that rogues suck) that is the bigger issue.
At this point, they should consider tlps (say classic - pop) a separate game and give it its own data base. Hell. release two types of tlps, one geared toward the current game, then a second one geared toward the new data set, and even release expansions for the new data set, could take it in a new direction. They could get cash from people wanting to play past pop with a $60 buck expansion, then grab some cash from people wanting to experience the current game making it to final expansion. The possibilities are only limited by small imaginations.
I agree! TLP classess are in desperate need of balancing. I just did an unofficial class census on Yelinak TLP server which I plan on publishing this coming week completely with pie charts and other graphics. Rogues are currently being played by 2% which in my opinion is a disgrace and sure sign that they are underpowered. They are the least desired class on TLP servers by far and are on life support as a class. Players vote with their feet and gravitate toward classes that are needed, useful, provide utility and most important fun. The WoW rogue has some amazing abilities that I believe EQ should copy. Seems only fair since WoW copied much of EQ. Here's what I would do to make rogues more desierable: -- ability to mez one target while in sneak mode at level 15 -- kick with a 50% chance to interupt casters at level 30 -- critical strikes should be available earlier and do more damage -- Sprint ability at level 20 with 10 minute cooldown -- Backstab avialble at level 5 instead of level 10 -- dual wield available at level 7 intead -- Double backstab at level 60 -- better non-raid tradable itemization at launch
You forgot to mention mark… nerfing pet classes and arguably everyone to “balance” how easy content was given the existing combat environment.
I'm not sure the time or effort needed to adjust things on Vaniki with the resist modifiers and what not. But I imagine a good portion why you don't see tweaks for balance changes for early gameplay is because unlike say... WoW and WoW classic (two completely different clients) I don't think TLPs are designed in a way for them to have separate balance adjusts from live. When they make tweaks on live, it affects TLPs and vice versa. Hence the DoT reworks, nerfs to various AE stuff, etc all effects everyone. So it would be difficult to try and balance all the classes at every era of the game. Not to say they can't make tweaks to help rogues out, Idk how they compare early era to modern EQ, maybe they could just use an overall buff.
A great many of the Rogue dps issues are resolved when Backstab mod daggers come into the game. I'm not saying all of them are solved but it makes Rogues much more competitive. Asking them to change the item table however seems to be a losing argument. An easier way to do it would be to raise the offensive / piercing skill caps. This would help counter the massive melee dps nerf caused by mitigation of the mighty nerfing melee damage by 40% on top of poor piercer optimization. I'd also love for them to remove the nerf on the Assassination skill. Something that existed prior to aa's at level 60 and was a mechanic that was much beloved. As for caster balancing it would be nice to see focus effects put back on items pre-luclin. This allowed for more options for "optimal" gearing especially in Velious. A toned down version of the resist changes on Vaniki would be helpful as well for the 70's range. (I think there is a reasonable middle ground here)
They are bad because all they do is DPS and their DPS is positional, yet a Monk will do more DPS than them all without it being positional, while also fulfilling the critical role in a group or raid of pulling. Rogues should be significantly higher DPS than monks to balance them due to the higher utility than monks have compared to rogues.
I don't see monks as a problem. Until bards get fading memories they are pulling during raids and not dpsing trash anyway... half the time they have minimal buffs/rez effects when the boss is pulled. Once bards join the team and the game stops thinking death touches are a good raid mechanic Rogue's have backstab mod daggers. As for boss fights, proper disc usage and the bribing of a shaman for avatar can keep us "competitive". That being said an increase of base dps (by raising the skill caps) would make us more desirable in groups. In the current meta if you are a rogue your best option is to be very sociable and be the person who organizes every group... because by pure math alone you aren't the first second or third pick as group dps. Another thing to consider is the number of monks vs rogues and loot availability. As far as backstab mod daggers... I'm not dumping tons of dkp on that. Until Zerkers become a thing we're only competing with rangers for ATK chain... It's much easier to BiS a rogue than a monk when the raid has 2 rogues and 6 monks. TLDR: Rogue dps isn't a bad as you think. If you min/max and try you can do okay and we have advantages in gearing. That being said we could use a little help if only to make grouping easier. We just don't talk about Classic. Classic is a black hole that will devour your soul and make you want to reroll enchanter or cleric.
Just litter every dungeon with lethal traps that only rogues can sense / disarm Good luck AOE powerleveling with pungee sticks covered in goblin poo hidden all over the map Also put bear traps in misty thicket
This is the closest I've seen to classic EQ. It is not perfect, but i do agree they can adjust the rogue a tad to avoid that server 1% that continue to play. Otherwise, nobody is picking the class.
