Casters overall better than melee, is it a question of customer retention?

add aggro is often based on proximity because no one but the tank had touched the mob and then when said tank goes splat whoever is closest is first in line to get whacked. unless your talking about single-mob add-trash I dont see how its ever riskier on the casters in terms of avoiding aggro.

and you left out the biggest "mechanic" of all, death i.e. rez effects. 3min slow everytime you die regardless of the event/expansion. nothing casters have to deal with on raids is as debilitating as a death to a melee. obviously I'm being facetious in calling it a "mechanic" of raids when its a much larger issue with the game outside of raids as well, but because of broader issues like rez effects it magnifies the mechanics on raid that are almost instant-death to melee. a caster dies to an AE, they get back up hit a mod-rod, use a mana-return ability (unless they're a druid), and they're able to contribute again in a meaningful way.

pretty sure you misunderstood brogett, he is directly talking about the frequency at which anti-melee mechanics are used by saying "casters avoid 90% of raid mechanics", I dont think he was referring to a list of every possible raid mechanic but rather the ones that are used, repeatedly.
by no means do casters avoid 90% of the mechanics on raids, but it would be safe to say they avoid mechanics at a higher frequency than melee do

It's nice to see we agree on most things Beimeith

Probably safe to say that casters avoid 90% of the mechanics that are instant death on raids, though...as how often are DTs actually used?

If a caster is right up in a mob's hit box (unless, of course, it's a belly caster which...has that even happened in recent history aside from the ToV revamp? lol)...then I'd wager they're doing something very wrong to begin with.

*shrugs*

Either way...as Behelit said, when we get struck by AE rampage (which happens a lot as it's a pretty frequent mechanic in most raids these days) or rampage (it's not that hard for a melee to get on this, too, tbh)...they often hit for the full damage (or really close to it) the mob can do...multiple times.

Unless the mob is permarooted, it's almost impossible to find the max range of AE rampage while still being able to attack the mob...and stay within it cause it's such a tiny area...if there even is one.

That's not even looking at the sheer fact that, again as Behelit mentioned...we get slowed for the entire 3 minutes of the rez effects (if it tapered off like the stat losses do it wouldn't be so bad, tbh)...and we're at a major disadvantage over casters as a whole. It's just a sad state of affairs, imo...but unless they tweak AE rampage to not do full damage (i'd say probably 1/2 damage would still be sufficient to make it important to keep people healed but not instantly kill people) and/or limit it to fewer hits...I don't see this ever getting remedied.

Single target nukes, sure I agree. Single target AE - you *can* avoid most of these. Melee must bunch up, casters don't. You can elect to avoid such things therefore it's not a check but simply a matter of skill (mostly - there will obviously be some cases where you have to also be bunched, but not normally).

The same applies to some of the fears, mezzes, stuns, mana drains, silences, spell slows, gflux, etc). Many of these are PBAE around mobs and you won't even be affected while melee will. Some of them will be personal via emotes etc, but a some will be player oriented AoE. If said player reacts properly (think of Neriak raid) then you avoid them, if not then again it's based on location. Casters CAN be spread, melee CANNOT be spread. Simple fact.

Also your list was convenient only things that can affect you and not a complete list of the things which cannot. Eg Melee slow, snare (ok it affects you but is rarely an issue).

Finally remember almost every effect that works on you also works on melee and usually with a higher chance or being more severe. About the only effect I can think of that's not true there is mana drain and spell reflect. Maybe saying 90% or even "most" was wrong, but the impact is still there - melee have a far harder time of it than casters and we're getting %^&%ed off with a continual barrage of anti-melee mobs.

I decided to look at the CotF raids in more detail. I probably miss some things though as I only remember the bits that really matter (and maybe not all of those).

WK
Wardens - Hail of Arrows; targetted AE 100' radius, 31k x3: melee - serious, caster - serious but potentially avoidable if spread.
Wardens - Headshot; single target DD; melee - minor, caster - minor. (Being single target it's pretty rare it hits and it's less damage than the dot)
(Other adds - lots of minor single targetted fluff.)
Deathmaster Sarenth - Blazing Rain (targetted?) AE dot 50' radius: melee - serious, caster serious but maybe avoidable, however we splash cure it anyway so all hugging is easiest strat and it becomes irrelevant to all then.
Deathmaster Sarenth - Massive Strike; 35' frontal knockback and DD: melee - medium (we get it a lot, but mainly due to poor pins I think, or maybe it's not as frontal as I believe, but it's just one DD); caster - irrelevant.
Deathmaster Sarenth - Reflective Skin; 50% spell reflect for 2 ticks in every minute: melee - irrelevant, caster - medium?

All things considered, the most serious thing in the event is the Warden targetted AE which naturally affects melee more (we're forced to be clumped up while casters are not). The other detrimental things spread more evenly between melee and casters.

Dead Hills
Festering Pustules - nasty dot that must be cured. Affects all - severe.
Toxic Blast - PB AE 60' 60k DD; melee - medium; caster - irrelevant
Cloud kiting - affects anyone, although chance of being called up are small.
Mosquito and cloud effects shouldn't happen, so avoidable by all if we play correctly.
Xulous Prime - Wild Rampage; melee - severe, caster - irrelevant.

Conclusion: favours casters due to avoiding PBAE and Rampage, but the worst part of the raid (dot) impacts all equally.

Bixie
Myriad of possible detrimental effects, and what you get will depend on strat. However some are worse than others so we cure the worst (eg pollen cloud) and live with what's left (melee avoidance). For us it's therefore:
Wave 1 adds: melee - severe (huge drop in hit rate); caster - minor (brief periods of pollen cloud being up).
Wave 1 boss - Wing Bash small nuke; melee - minor, caster - minor
Wave 1 boss - AE rampage; melee - minor (it's not that bad), caster - irrelevant
Wave 2 adds - forget details, but random single target things that don't normally impact heavily.
Wave 2 boss - DS/feedback; melee - severe (dead in under 1sec), caster - medium (small nuke and drains mana if you keep casting). Both melee/caster must react, but the impact of not reacting in time is usually worse for melee.
Wave 2 boss - AE rampage; melee - minor (it's not that bad), caster - irrelevant
Wave 3 minis - single target lure/spell slow; melee - irrelevant?, caster - minor (low chance of being hit)
Wave 3 boss - same as minis, plus adds that match wave 1/2.
Wave 3 boss - AE rampage; melee - minor (it's not that bad), caster - irrelevant

The hideous anti-melee aura from the adds and the huge damage shield put this in favour of caster event. Everything else is relatively minor.

Neriak
Energy pulse - kite it, affects all but unlikely to be called up so minor impact.
Bone crusher crystals (80k DD); melee - medium, caster - irrelevant.
Bone crusher PBAE cold shock (100k DD + melee slow + snare); melee - often fatal when combined with crystal; caster - irrelevant.
Bone crusher Sonic Shock (targetted 70k dot & cast level reduction); melee - severe, caster - severe but easier to avoid (spread).
Nightmare Devourer; Dot/snare aura; melee - severe, caster - irrelevant
Nightmare Devourer; Grave Chill targetted AE (2k/tick mana drain, ~no melee); melee - severe (we do zero dps basically), caster - severe if it makes you go oom. All can avoid if people with emote react.
Nightmare Devourer add spawns; being next to it when they spawn is deadly so melee - medium impact (lost dps backing up, with snare), casters - irrelevant.

Conclusion - very unfriendly to melee, but only medium issue for casters.


Overall
Yeah it's not 90% caster avoiding stuff (I know it was hype), but the patten is very easy to see - events are mostly anti-melee with no events that penalise casters more. It looks more like 70/30 split in favour of casters, give or take.

Also don't claim 2 casters suffer all the melee things too due to pets. It's simply not true. Firstly necro pets matter that much? Lol, no way. They're basically a dot on legs and if it dies, well it's some small dps loss but not a major issue. Mage pets clearly matter more, but they instinctively find max melee range with easy so avoid most Wild Rampage. If they die the mage loses a significant chunk of dps, but can regain it from a parked pet if needed at a loss of some personal dps in time spent bring back the pet. Dead pet is irrelevant though compared to the impact of dead melee toon.

Edit: it's not my intention to nerf casters or to make them inherently punished in future events. This is simply a reaction to the casters out there that claim melee have it easy through our superior armour. It's simply not true. We bare the brunt of the damage and special effects that EQ is throwing our way and so even with the small mitigation advantage that we have it really doesn't help that much (especially given the huge amount of spell damage we're taking).

I don't think giving us spell runes is necessarily the answer, but innately having significantly more hp than casters would help a lot to soak up the spell damage and rampage. I believe it used to be the case back in the early game where the hp gained per stamina really mattered. These days we all essentially are within 10% of each other as 90% of our hp is through gear / general AA. Bring back our hp advantage!

If you are dying to wild ramp, how much more hp would you really need to not be one rounded?

Also, when stamina mattered, how much more hp did a rogue have vs a mage?

To make AE rampage function more or less like it did in the old days, we would need about +250% of our current HP pools and heals would need to land for about twice what they do now.

I don't run best in slot gear, but on mobs that AE rampage, I am reliably hit for anywhere from 60-90% of my health. I'm sure a lot of this is because I am a monk, and we have leather AC. Originally, this was countered by our superior dodge and block skills, but my understanding is raid mobs are now ignoring those defenses completely.

Is there any possibility of changing the slow on rez effects to an inhibit melee speed type effect (the one off the Z dragon from TOV comes to mind). So that fully raid buffed and with overhaste, we can get back up to 200% or so haste? I don't mind paying a penalty, but no buffs, no endurance, and my melee speed reduced from 225% to 95% for the rest of the fight makes me feel irrelevant and not even wanting to take the rez, I might do at best 40% of what I would have done otherwise. I don't think a caster pays a price that large, and as stated above, they are often less likely to die anyway.

AE Ramp in CoTF hasn't been to the same silly proportions it got to in RoF fortunately. There I could sometimes be one rounded, which is just silly. However it's not only Wild Rampage. Melee eat far more spell damage too, so raw hp helps there.

As for HP table, for rogues IIRC it was 8.75hp per point of stamina, up to 255 and then half that beyond it. I've no idea what the equivalent was for other classes though. Of course even back in original EQ our hp was part stamina and part gear, but I *think* stamina accounted for a solid half (if not more). Now it's more like 5-10%.

I see no reason why all casters MUST bunch up on every target. Some yes, but not most. Even if you need to keep close as a group, there can sometimes be one group here, another over there, and another somewhere else. Put simply you won't avoid everything, but you can swing the odds in your favour. Far more so than melee can. I'm not saying casters have it all their own way and are immune as they're not, but it's still chalk and cheese. You won't convince me that the odd bit of bad geometry in any way equates to the *requirement* to be within melee range to do damage, let alone the requirement to be behind the mob too.

As for the PBAE. Read what I said: "The same applies to some of the fears, mezzes, stuns, mana drains, silences, spell slows, gflux, etc).". Some, not all. Thanks for digging out the numbers, it demonstrates that around 30% of PBAEs you'll basically avoid due to range[1]. Sure I didn't know the maths, but I knew enough to state what I said - that *some* spells affect melee and won't affect casters. So we're not equal in that regard whereas you were implying we were.

I'll restate what I said in the last post - I'm not wanting to nerf casters or make their life a lot harder, but to defend my position against people like Francisco and Naugrin who are trying to imply that melee already have plenty of defenses and don't need any more. Everyone dies in this game, but it doesn't take much observation to see that melee mitigation alone isn't enough to stop us dieing at a far greater rate than the range dps, and that is what I want to address.

Brog

[1] Of course that's *all* spells in all expansions. Go through the break down by CotF raids looking at the more severe ones and you'll see it definitely still holds true.

deleted: double post

imagine a circle around your toon, now cut that circle into a 45 degree frontal cone. what if casters had to keep the mob inside of this "vision" to maintain LoS instead of being able to have their back to mobs? (enabling them to bypass any emote about "look away", Aary and Xorbb both being recent examples of that)

complaining about geometry to a melee is a bad joke.

Neriak has a pretty hefty spell resist rate as well, Casters do not get free DPS when you kill the Aura named. WK can destroy your parse with that Reflect up, its not medium.

Brog, you have a lot of things tailored towards melee and are brushing off a lot of caster things (lets not include one class has to use AE spells to maximize their DMG and every event has adds, minor detail). Would rather you just stayed on topic for Melee then make some potentially made-up things about how casters are affected by raid mechanics.

It would probably go a long way if melee asked for more defensive tools then consistently harping about DPS if you are in such bad shape. That is what Casters did this expansion and we got tools to help mitigate things (Shield of Fate, Wizzy/Mage Carapace). If that was done, and SOE did not take to it then obviously they feel you are in a fine place for dealing with the mechanics they have chosen for the content.

Either way this is how it has been for quite sometime now really.

All of this

Your rangers should be dispelling that reflect in WK.

I didn't imply that. Infact I suggested you ask for a rune aa. Someone said you had and got shot down. I was pointing out that it's not the I win button so many melee think it is. Personally I think campaigning for wild ramp to be reduced is a better bet.

This.

If you ask for AAs that mitigate the effects of rampage and wild rampage...then you open the can of worms where they just start increasing the damage overall so that it stays the same and you still get pounded into the ground almost instantly.

Now, if we could get the AAs w/o them doing the above...then I'd be all for that, however...

Seems to me best way for casters to see what it is we go through is for them to stand next to the mob and only cast spells if thier auto attack can hit the mob

Yea maybe SOE could come up with something for this like ... Maybe belly casters or well I just dont know