Everyone should have some form of slow, slow proc has been on belts for years now. Even if you equip an old belt until slow lands. If you have a tank merc and a healer merc your 2 chars should be doing the DPS to kill the named. I'm all for improving survivability of the tank merc at the cost of tank merc DPS. Just a healer and a tank merc should not be able to kill a named, it should require the player to do DPS on their chars.
I am not sure what the heck you are doing that your tank merc can't survive. I've killed almost every named in the expansion so far, and my tank merc hasn't died once. I am not sure it can get any easier than that. Of course, I am a raider, and a wizard, and any named is going down in less than a minute or 2 at the most. My tank merc is not completely unsupported. Your "test" is for afk play. People have more than once asked me why my tank merc seems less gimpy than theirs. It's very easy, I have a bard playing an AC buff song, a heal song, standard haste songs and some DOTs. My bard also has heal target target 1hbs (2) and heal target target augs in those 1hbs, so heals proccing constantly on the merc tank. If I hit the flurry disc, then heals proccing constantly + merc healer means the merc tank can take almost anything for a brief period. This is a very simple trick / tactic to make a merc tank tougher. Just like sticking lifetap procs on a wizards weapons and switching to that weapon during a heavy AE raid helps the wizard live longer. Items are in the game to be creatively used, it's your fault if you aren't creative enough to use them. Also, UKK doesn't even play EQ, do you just come on here to whine and moan incoherently as some form of trolling entertainment?
I think there is confusion here on the idea of easy. ALL Group content should be pathetically easy to people in raid gear - because raid gear trivializes all group content by design. T1 group content should be middle of the road difficulty for an average (not optimized) group of people with zero raid gear. It should take into account that your average group will still be leveling up, minimal new AAs, and will have little to zero gear from that new expac. T2/T3 group content should be doable by an appropraitely leveled and geared from T1 content, and assume a (not optimized) group of people with ZERO RAID GEAR. Zero raid gear doesn't just mean raid gear from that expac, it means nothing with a type 8 augment slot in it. Edit: I'm more referring to missions than open world named. Those tend to be just fine if not rather boring at times.
I am all for making T1 suitable for casual players but that is going way to far. Mercs should not be able to handle mobs all by themselves. As has been said it encourages AFK play. Sorry even though I have spent most of my time promoting a balance in the game that is casual player friendly that seems way off the mark and would be making things way to easy. What that request really seems aimed at is making things easier for Free to Play players but in a backhanded way. I think Free to Play SHOULD feel like they can't do as much as those subscribing. Thats how you encourage folks to subscribe.
T1 easy? So can a tank merc survive 10 mins with a healer merc. Oh they can't. Maybe the raider tank difference is too great if people be fighting 10 mobs at once. 10 mobs if they came at me, the group would be deleted on sight. Tank merc drop dead on sight. So now we talk raid gear, tone it down if raiders are soooo great they tank everything they mass pull yet a tank merc with healer cannot survive 10 mins in a T1 named fight. Might wanna check balance. Check check. Might check other things than can raiders beat beta raids. Might do actual, casual checks in beta Might wanna do merc checks in beta. This is all too much raids raids raids. Raid gear person, T1 toooo easy, good you should not be here, go play in T3, hopefully T3 mobs float you flip you upside and spin and fling you, but in T1, you can do 10 mobs at once, wow tank merc can't even do 1, thats a huge difference. EQ balancer person might wanna check balance. Beef up mercs or tone raid gear down. Also casual gear, tone it up. Back to the topic. My check, Tank merc, Healer merc. Fight a T1 named Mercs Survive 10 mins without player doing anything to help, the mercs can buffed too. No debuffs on the T1 named. If its too easy that you can pull 10 mobs, check that too. Tank merc not gonna through named fight, you running to get 10 mobs the named is already finished the tank and the healer merc and basically running after you now or summoning you before you even get to 10 mobs. Then probably does a 2 round combo on you to delete you. 6 hits 42k each another round 5 hits 42k each you've been deleted.
Capping mercs at a given level won't increase the number of players available to group with at higher levels.
Correct. They can't. Nor should they be able to. Mercs are not there to replace players but only to supplement a group with players. Mercs are not intended to allow the players to do nothing (i.e. AFK). Mercs are intentionally (in current content) not as powerful as players. They also use AI to determine what to attack, when to heal, what heal spell to use, etc. which also limits their abilities and should. If you have a tank merc and a healer merc, that means you should have 2 player characters as well. Those two characters (whether a single player boxing or 2 people) should need to be ACTIVELY participating in the encounter doing damage, debuffing, healing, etc. In balanced current content, you should never expect to be without any gear (or all/most gear from more than 2 expansions back) and expect the mercs to do it all for you. You need to have at least the group gear from the most recent previous expansions, maybe a few other items if your characters class doesn't have certain skills you might need, AND actively participate in the encounters. Yes, your character should be expected to "intervene" and might even need to be able to take a hit or two even vs the non-named. A group might need 2 healers in some areas depending on the gear and capabilities of the characters and players. A druid or even poorly equipped cleric might need to be supplemented with a healer merc. With a healer merc, a druid might need to be doing healing as well as debuffing (via damage spells) and possibly even snaring. A tank merc might need the help of the group to maintain agro, by the group not overpowering the taunt + damage agro of the merc as well as group members doing the debuffing via the means they have available. EQ is not and never should be balanced around a Free to Play soloer using an apprentice merc, gear from more than 2 expansions back, and being able to gain XP while playing AFK. In my opinion, for 'casual players' (like me), T1 group content of a level increasing expansion should be balanced around a full group of players with group gear from the previous expansion at the entry level of the current expansion (i.e. for LS, 120 with mostly NoS T2 group gear and the rest T1 NoS group gear) and a group composed of at least one tank and one healer, not necessarily optimised. As the levels of the group members increases, through whatever means, and the members get gear from the current expansion (or have raid gear from the previous expansion), the balancing would allow a different sort of mix with fewer player character supplemented by mercs that are equipped and have AA.
No one has issue with 1-85 honestly. 85 to current thats the issue. Especially close to the current like 115, thats just do overseers don't even think about playing, especially in zones like TBL to current EQ, avoid those zones. Play the bazaar if anything. Mephits, those trash mobs are still nasty. Thats entry level TBL, those mobs they can still mess you up badly. Tank has 50 50 chance of getting whooped by TBL mephit. With a healer merc duo. Can't even do a TBL mephit duo tank/healer merc, and the players just dpsing. tank merc drops. Game over. I have to check if they can beat down a tank merc with a healer merc healing, I haven't been to TBL in awhile. Sad if its true, I wouldn't be surprised too. TBL mephits are crazy, and thats starter mob, didn't even see the other mobs. Go do older content, shoot 125 going to 110s zone because 110+ crazy. idk what they was thinking. They forgot to test casuals or something. You don't check by a necro moloing, the best standard is can mercs survive at least 10 mins on the lowest Tiered named. If they can't survive expect the player to get whooped right when that tank merc drops. Which is very quick. Difference between survive and kill. Survive is they can hold their ground, doesn't mean the named is dead though. Tank healer merc duo, purpose is holding your ground. If you can't do thats sad, its gonna very difficult and remind you this is the lowest tier, I'm trying to progress, if i can't get gear, how am i gonna progress? Remind you LFG is empty all day every day. Remind you youtube 100 hours, don't need to be told how to groups, already know, it takes a lot of effort and you gotta everyday, very tedious not enjoyable process, not everyday is a good day, etc. Why can't LFG have people listed, whys no one going LFG. multiple issues. multiples reasons to frustrate someone. If only tank healer merc duo could survive 10 mins against T1 nameds, which can open a lotta doors, in a positive way.
UKK seems to have skipped over what I wrote and just intends to keep on whining about his dead tank mercs. HEAL TARGET TARGET WEAPONS WITH HEAL TARGET TARGET PROC AUGS. Then your tank merc wont die so hard. Mercs are not intended for AFK unsupported play as just about every single person in this thread that is not UKK has said. FYI, I just killed Ingot in Hero's forge using a tank merc and tanking 2-3 adds the whole time when one wasn't mezzed and cleared all those adds (everything from the second story kept aggroing and jumping in) about 4 rounds, and then killed the named. Not once did my tank merc die, and that was tier 2? named. True, I am 3 boxing, and my merc has 2 healers and the bard proccing heals. Maybe I don't know.. gearing up? Not sucking? Learn to play the game?
OK Lets look at leveling 85 - 125 Number after the expansion was the max level for that expansion House of Thule level 90 Veil of Alaris 95 Rain of Fear 100 Call of the Forsaken 100 The Darkened Sea 105 The Broken Mirror 105 Empires of Kunark 105 Ring of Scale 110 The Burning Lands (Gnome Memorial Mountain) 110 Torment of Velious 115 Claws of Veeshan 115 Terror of Luclin 120 Night of Shadows 120 Laurion's Song 125 Pretty much the expansions/zones you want to level in are the ones I have in green. Call of the Forsaken HAs you can do prior to level 100 but that was the max level for the expansion so going passed that level won't be giving you the best exp anymore. Level 105 to 110 IMHO is the toughest level of content I'd 100% recommend GMM far easier than ROS or the rest of TBL content, exp isn't as good as it once was, but it isn't bad or drop down to 105 expansions zones and do EOK. I'm not surprised your having issues with TBL, the trash had some rough abilities for both that expansion and RoS. Thankfully it didn't carry through to ToV and beyond. General rule of thumb is you want to be doing level increase expansions to level, they are usually the easiest of multi level expansions, there are of course exceptions to any rule.
My group geared wizard can kill a mob easily with a healer merc. Now lets add another toon. My group geared sham and group geared mage, 1 with healer merc and 1 with tank merc can easily kill a named in T1. T1 is extremely easy.
Is there an ignore feature on the forums? I'm sick of seeing this empty-headed doofus drop his spaghetti all over the place.
Yup. Click on the name. Ignore is an option. Any thread they start will be hidden. Every post they make in another thread will be hidden but there will be an option to show the posts from the ignored. If someone else comments with a quoted bit by the person you ignored, you won't see the quote. It makes some threads a little odd, but once you figure it out, it's a sanity solution.
And only if your signed into the forums. All appears normal and you will see their posts if your not signed in.
I avoid the forums if I am not signed in, because of the ignores and 'cause I can't post unless logged in and I only use one of my 3 accounts for the forums, too. Each account is considered separately for the ignore list, etc. too.
This is true. As someone who has an unpredictable play schedule, I can always guarantee my mercs are available to help me. They don't complain, they don't AFK (mostly), they don't take any loot. For people like me who are often caught in the middle of being able to molo to 105 easy enough and then struggles to find groups, if you nerf the mercs, I'd just quit.
Well... at 125 with the 120 merc gear, max Tank Merc AA and buffs, a max healer merc (lvl/gear/merc aa) can keep the the tank merc alive... I assume forever (since the healer mercs mana barely moves) but for at least the 5 minutes it takes my "B" team to burn down Laurion's SOng T1 named. Before this expansion, I couldn't make it work.
Completely not true depending on what era you want to talk about. If you are talking about true classic although the term may mean different things to different people is velius and earlier to me. T2 would be maybe up through dodh (had alot of instance ldon questionable expansion i like to pretend didn't happen) etc so if we are talking velius or earlier then you could pull 3 mobs for the average group and you could off tank 3 probably up to 5 mobs in most areas without dying and had plenty of time for enchanter to get mez / slows done. Even with 3 mobs off tanking was pretty easy. LS has been alot better than CoV->NoS as far as difficulty and I can even off tank 2 solid mobs no problem in T1 LS. I can even molo kill any named in LS with my bard and a cleric merc. When the expansion first came out i had a level 112 sham who was with me and he was able to off tank adds with his sham pet. So LS is plenty easy enough for anyone to do. We were able to 2 man pal mission or 4 man the hero mission with all group people (given the hero mission can be tuff with the lich which is the only part I think should be fixed so he only jumps once every 30 secs for making it easier for group people). None of this matters to raid people anyone fully raid geared in NoS would be able to molo any T1 named easy.
Maybe UKK is going for the "most ignores " achiev. It would be funny if it told you how many ignores you have earned.
