Any classes still not happy on Live at 125?

So I know the next expansion is not a level increase, but are we sure its Pt 2? I haven't played in LS yet, I'm almost 120 again and then i'll buy it (so next week)...but does The Outer Brood tie into LS? Has the story been left open for a part 2?

First off, thank you for admitting that LS is easy. It is what I said several pages ago. And FWIW I am level 125, as is most of the players on Live today. The thread was discussing classes on Live at 125 if anyone is still unhappy. It was not discussing three expansions ago. My hope, as an EQ player, is to get to challenging content that not only can I accomplish on my raid geared magician, but is also a challenge but doable for a group geared player. I purposely made it more difficult for me, having less focus than what the group geared magician has, and still was able to accomplish things in current game that others earlier said I could only do because of raid gear. Speaking of earlier, a quick synopsis-

Me- currently the game is too easy. I hope we get harder content next expansion.
FQ- it is easy because you have raid gear. Those of us in group gear cannot do content
Me- raid gear helps, it makes me kill mobs faster. But a group player can still do everything a raid player can, again just takes longer
FQ- you are wrong, it is the raid gear that allows you to kill a named by yourself with your raid pet and raid focus
Me- does a test with group pet focus and no other focus, still is able to achieve success
FQ- you don't understand, your raid gear is what allows you to do stuff in game!
Me- exasperated

I never said a raid ranger tanks better than a group warrior. You put words in my mouth. All I have maintained on this tangent is two things-

1. The game is too easy, and I hope we get more challenging content next expansion
2. Raid gear helps a player kill things faster, but it is not necessary. A competent group player can do all mercs, partisans, missions, hunter, achievements in the game, AA grinding with group gear. It may take longer because of group gear, but possible. Because the content is too easy, and older content is easier and therefore doable by any competent 125.

I’ll be honest not sure, but I think it’s a safe bet based on the expansion since ToV. I just loosely used Part 1 and 2 with respect to level caps.

For of all your ranting, you’ve never discuss what would make things difficult for you. Your specific examples would be solved by having mobs ignore pet tanks.

What makes you so upset about T2 content designed for leveling, when you know T3/T4 are launching in December?

Think this is the biggest takeaway when looking at group gear vs raid gear argument.

It would only make it harder for people using pets for tanking, without actually increasing the difficulty of the content. We've had missions that ignore pet tanks, and it doesn't make it "hard" per se, just requires a PC to be there taking hits instead.

PC meat shield being required for aggro issues isn't what I would consider hard. And as we've gone over a few ideas in this thread as is, I'm honestly at a loss for suggestions. I'm a roll with the punches kind of guy who adapts so it's hard for me to think of something that would truly be considered "difficult" and Szilent already said my 3 previous ideas were already mechanics in prior raids lol

Two weeks for you maybe not for everyone.

I have seen the effort you put into your box group. I'd prefer content that is a challenge to more casual players who do not max every bit of dps they can get.

But content that would slow you down a bit maybe? I suspect if you find it hard to do it might be too hard for others. Unless I am wrong but you seem to be a focused and pretty hard core player but without raid gear.

I dont think he said it is auto win BUT it does make a BIG difference.

Most times groups are not full so no to group content challenging 3 raid geared players. I think what is dumb is raiders telling groupers about group content. But that is just me.

I hope that the majority of group players can complete all group content. If that ends up being too easy or too hard for me I am fine with that beacause the game will not last if don't keep group players going in addition to raiders.

Personally I think group content should be centered around 4 group players and 2 mercs. An argument could be made for 3 players 3 mercs. I do not think group content should require six group individual group players. That is silliness.

Saying competent doesn't say much. Competent as the raiders who get pulled along? Competent as the raiders doing the pulling? 4 group players of whatever the average play skill is plus 2 mercs. I am happy without whatever difficulty level for group content that keeps the most players engaged with the game and feel its worthwhile to buy an expansion each year. I don't think it should be designed around someone who subs one month out of the year because they do all the content in that time frame.

Actually it depends why they are a bad player. I guess we need to define WHAT is a bad player first. Still raid gear gives them chances to make more mistakes and still get by. This increases learning because they have more time to make decisions. I am guessing bad raid geared players at least follow orders so as long as they are with good players and can take direction they will learn and get better.

Raid gear helps kill faster and helps stay alive longer. Its not just about killing faster BUT killing faster means taking less damage per mob which also helps folks survive.

And who said group players can't do the current group content? All I have seen is folks saying that you can't just blanket make it harder because you find it to easy. And raid gear makes content EASIER that is not going to change. I also don't think anyone is saying raid gear by itself does everything.



The game is going to be easy for anyone who has played for years and years but we also have to include folks who are gone for years and come back.

True.

Gear helps cover the gaps in skill
Skill helps cover the gaps in lack of gear

The having skill cover the gaps from gear will get you further than gear covering the gaps in skill.

It is not necessary but it most certainly helps. The longer I am tanking something the better the odds that I am going to take a bad round. In my case when I die , it does not end well for the rest.

Someone mentioned 10- 20 mobs at a time is nothing. Im sorry I have been tanking for over 20 years and in my best of slot group gear and maxxed AA's , I have good augs too mind you, but I dont see that being possible. It may be just cuz I am boxing and an old fart.

I'm pretty sure I saw a dev recently (Ngreth maybe) say that LS is a one-off expansion...there's not going to be a part 2.

beyond this, being good at raiding isn't the same thing as good at other things. Raiders are good at maximizing burn windows, stacking adps appropriately, those sorts of things. It gets really complex, and there is a wide margin of skill levels. The ones who are good at it are quite good.
However those skills dont transfer to group content where you don't have every class stacking burn abilities for a specific window. You might have to use alot of other non-dps related abilities to fill in needs of the group. Stuff you wouldn't do on a raid.

In a group setting, its easy to feel "good" in raid gear because well, your in raid gear in group content. That actually discourages a player from gaining other skills. When its not hard to have a named and 6 other things in camp, you just boringly push buttons and go on your way. A group geared tank who doesn't have perfect gear needs to know his class alot better than someone in raid gear who functionally cannot die. Especially if the group tank only has a merc for healing, so knows he cannot depend on the healer.

Again, not saying raiders are bad or groupers are better. However there is no single category of "good". As well, this is complicated by LS being so easy. Try to remember most every other expac in the game where the group game wasn't so poorly setup.

What a shame to waste all those doors. Design team, or Q&A team, someone did not show up to work for several months over at Darkpaw.

I'm happy but I think it's a colossal mistake with the obsession to keep the game unchanging. Personas reduced to a footnote all to avoid a game changing feature.

Then there's the "pure" class problem. That was short sighted design because they had no idea the game would be going decades later. Clerics in particular are bonkers.

The game could use more "hits the target of your target" type effects, maybe as far as like the old tgb toggle, with other spells being worth using.

It's one thing to want classes to specialize, but to have thousands of melee and damage AAs that when all combined result in almost worthless damage, that just doesn't make sense.

It's like the great nerf wave a couple years after VoA added a ton of fun utility. That wave of nerfs did absolutely nothing to improve the game. Class purists got to have smug satisfaction for a day then forget about it again. At least they partially rolled back those nerfs though. But the statements literally snubbing players without full groups and treating keeping the game unchanging as some sacred necessity were concerning to me.

I started this post saying I'm happy. And I am. The post is more nitpicky.

Or he could uninstall the third-party software he relies on?

People in raid gear are like people that can hit 300 yards off the tee. They say it's no big deal, and sure, you don't technically need it to score well. But let's be honest, it helps, a LOT.

I don't really know how raid gear feels on a caster in group content, but if you're a Paladin or SK you will feel that raid gear and it's not a small difference. If you're a melee dps you feel the difference not just in DPS but in defense. It might be different as a mage, if you're just using a pet to tank and a healer merc the raid pet focus may or may not be making a big difference.

It doesn't help clerics. Tanks are already tanky enough. Making tanks tankier means the clerics have even less to do. The class is boring and bringing passive mitigation to a situation where there is enough mitigation makes healing even more boring.

There has been plenty of talk here about how the group game is too easy. The issue with clerics is that they are OP for the healing needs in a the group with with an established tank. The issue with clerics is they contribute no DPS to the group game. Everyone would rather just have a SHM.

I'm all for catchup mechanics but tuning clerics as the catchup healer alianates the established cleric mains. There is a better solution than making clerics the pair with bad tanks.

I keep saying the solution to CLR is significantly buffing Vow because 1) it's an easy solution and 2) it keeps them strong healers in raids but balances their contribution in groups. Maybe Vow isn't the best solution but Clerics need a way to DPS or they will never have anything to give to a group that has an established tank (unless they make the game hard to the point where non-established tanks can't contibute).

Imagine a world where Clerics are as they are in raids, have a defensive Vow that makes them into bad Paladins and a DPS Vow that makes them into bad Druids. There's ways to spin that where clerics could be sort of like WoW druids where they can fill a number of different roles and fun and amusing ways, but they would still have their primary fundamental role as the game leading healer, without encroaching too much on the other classes they try to imitate.

So keep in mind I'm not arguing against you. This is simply for the sake of discussion and to keep focus Clerics needing something more.

Given that:
Yes tanks are beefy as is. And this will tie into the next point as well. But with the discussion of group gear vs raid gear, and how much of an impact it makes. While not necessary, it definitely helps. Same concept.

So, as a group geared focus player, what the benefit of these runes would do for me, would move me from T2 group gear to T1 raid gear. So looking into the next expansion, a Cleric would cover that gap between my T2 LS gear and my Outer Brood T1 gear. Not that it would be necessary but it would definitely speed things up. Same could be used for those who pet tank. Instead of the EM 26, my pet is now, defensively, running at like an EM30-32. Instead of having to wait for that next earring to drop or wait for the next level of pet spells before tackling something. Perhaps that was the push you needed to complete that mission

Yes this would be overkill at the top end once you are fully fleshed out, but it's already like that. And yes I agree, healing is boring as is. But this wouldn't be one of those situations where the defensive value is up 100% of the time either. But maybe thus could also open up new opportunities such as allowing Monks to be able to tank consistently (read as outside of burns/cooldowns). Like actually able to handle chain pull tanking. Caveat being singles as they've no way to control aggro themselves.

As for the group game being too easy, I'm not going to deny it, but I'm going to ask for who? Raiders who are able to skip it pretty much because last expansions raid gear is better than this expansions group gear? That's its own problem. Foe people who run full 6 box crews with the moat synergized group with 3rd party software? What about the solo/molo player? I haven't tried out LS yet, but ToL hasn't been bad. I've enjoyed the level of difficulty I've had going through it with a BST + Bard + Healer merc and coming in a little under geared and shy on AAs. For me and my set up I needed 115 before I was able to finish all the ToV missions (and actually pulled a guildies tank for one of them). That may be slightly biased since it's just me boxing and not a full group either.

Just some of my views on it