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

People can argue circles around this all day, but the crux of this all comes down to the fact that a caster overall stands a much better chance of being healed (IE not being dead) and constantly receiving all the adps benefits of their group. Melee...not so much. A well played raid...most casters won't die at all unless the raid is already a wipe by virtue of being able to stay close to where those beneficial classes are. They keep their buffs, regens etc. Melee, well there is always a good chance some random melee dps will get one rounded. It just happens sometimes. Especially with AE rampage and trying to find the sweet spot or you get in that one good round that grabs an opponent's attention right when the tank was picking their nose. In fights where the playing field is about level for both in terms of handicaps, such as BG1, melee and casters did not have a vast amount of disparity. For most others, casters are what seals the deal.

Maybe that has changed. I saw the end of RoF and quit raiding in any kind of formal basis as a rogue or any class for that matter. What I saw before arriving on the decision to quit was that if there was only one bard, caster groups usually got first dibs. A wizard beats any other dps class hands down day in and day out no matter what expac it is or whatever the flavor of the month is unless they decide to just make everything a belly caster or 100% resistant to magic. Which will never happen because it just won't. No need to list any reasoning either.

So yah. Wizard gets the the bard. Every time.

Lol welcome to the "lack of objectivity team". How can you say that and still be serious. You know like me that devs gave you defense because your dps was already too high and they wanted some stagnation so if they wanted to give at least something not useless without giving dps there wasnt lots of choice = they gave you defense like you asked.
Melee had dps problem (and some still have considering the mechanics of events (again these damn mechanics !) and bugs (hello backstab critical bug) and so players asked for dps like you casters did the past expansion (voa, rof...). And btw its a bit dangerous to ask for more defense when AE rampage is obviously too high in raid anyway, because more defense means also easier tanking skill in group, less needs of tanks in group, trivializing content etc...

This!

If we're expected to be in that area 100% of the time, we need to be able to.

That is a poor fight to show a small disparity between melee and casters, and better one would bet ToV dragons.

I would have to disagree, Wizards got much needed boosts during SoF, they have suffered before, but I guess that has easily been forgotten. I know you, and raided with you. You have not seen the highest level of raiding, because the server you were on. If you had/have seen higher level raiding, and were not being bias (not saying you're), then you would probably not be saying what you're saying.

I only have my perspective from experience. Enkel, your raiding situation is unique in being completely ideal. Most people do not enjoy that luxury. Ideal conditions mean you don't have to filter out a bunch of garbage as well as theory being able to almost match reality.

As far as wizards go in the past....they used to die more. Some care on their part for aggro management used to be a factor. I have no idea about any past issues with Dps for wizards prior to VOA as I was still a cleric back then and didn't bothering looking at parses.

As for NToV, that zone was conceived in happier, more balanced times for an expansion that many considered the high water mark for EQ in overall terms of getting it exactly right. . It might be "new" in the context of the soaped up RoF version but it is still the same mechanics only tiered up to be as deadly at lvl 100 as they were at lvl 60. It makes a good place for comparison of how it could be, but most recent raids do not try to kill everyone equally and fairly as it were like NToV. That really puts more emphesis on mechanics than what is going on with classes but if looked at in a big picture sense, with class balancing and raid mechanics thrown in the same soup, melee really get screwed more than casters.

The over tone of this I could also sort of take as a rub in the sense that not being in a top 5 raiding guild disqualifies me from having a valid opinion. Maybe it does. Beats me. Guess I need to just leave it to Gragas and yourself to debate, Enkel.

You would have to read again, my point of this is the fact I respect your opinion, and because we were guilded together I know what you have seen from the raiding scene. Fact is, I could care less if you're (as a person, whomever you're) if you're in the top 5 guilds or not. Truth be told there are players in the top 5 guilds that are not very good at their class, and are there as filler. Top 5 is not some paradigm of perfection; there are some good players, and some bad players, its how it is (yes,there are more good, or decent, players, hence top 5). But, without being in a guild with high level players, and dps (high level players need good support to reach max potential, so mid tier players can be plagued by bad synchronization) you won't be exposed to the higher end of all classes. In lower tier guilds wizards look like gods of the parse because they don't rely on adps as heavily, as other classes, for that shining glory parse, or the decent combine.

You said wizards beat any class day in and day out, which is not the truth. They are a great dps class, but they're not at the top of every parse, or every nightly combine. There are raids were no class can touch a berserker, some where necros will do very well, its all situational. The amount of misinformation on these forums about wizards being untouchable is false. They're not nigh omnipotent on the parse, no matter how much it is said. They're great, do not mistake what I am saying, dps, but other classes can compete and beat them, depending on the event.

Everyone deserves, and are entitled, to their opinion, all I did was say that because your raiding situation, which I am very intimate with, you don't have all the information. Saying that I am taking an elitist stance on something that is basic fact is pure exaggeration.

P.S. the extent of debate that goes on between Gragas and I is if I'll join vent while we are questing together

So you had bad raid group makers. Wizards are well behind the gains a few other classes get from bards so they should be one of the last classes to get one.

Sorry if I misunderstood the intentions then.

Also we have asked for reductions in wild ramp, repeatedly. Possibly it's already been done. It's hard to say with just 4 raids, but we haven't had anything as evil as Shadow of Luclin yet or several NToV bosses. However even a rampage that drops you by 50% health, although far easier to manage, is perhaps too strong if it's on top of random event AEs. (Especially if dying has raid-wide penalties, like in DH)

Wizards probably benefit less than any other dps class from a bard.

I will continue to lobby for less dependence on others for melee classes in order to perform respectably. The percent improvement for casters overall from ADPS versus the improvement for melee is staggering.

They really should give bards more personal glory too. Its not a role that enough people find fun, supporting others and not being visible at all themselves. I am sure people who play the class as mains have plenty of good ideas, and ones that fit well with their "class vision."

Well, Enkel and I came from the same guild but went completely different paths when we left. He went to somewhere a bit more professional about raiding. I formed my own little guild with my alts and went as casual as you can get short of quitting the game. Perhaps now my perspective is even more skewed in the wrong direction, but I still have fun most of the time. It still doesn't stop me from being opinionated.

What I took away from my less than ideal situation is it really seemed like as a rogue, I had to bust my hump A) to stay alive and B) to make a decent parse. Typically I tried to stay ahead of at least beastlords and rangers but mages, necros, wizards, monks and beserkers could knock me off at any given moment depending on what is going on. Casters could lead the pack most of the time and it seemed they did not have to be overly concerned with taking excessive damage.

I was not the only rogue there, but about the time I left a fair amount of the other rogues had stopped logging on and the guild I was in became caster centric. I am not sure if there was some bad class balancing decisions being made. Rogue do less dps than others because we wear chain, use poisons, can hide/sneak/escape and can steal/picklocks and disarm traps? Great for group play but mostly irrelevant raiding these days. Other classes who have utility tend to bring more to a raid to offset their reduction in dps compared to a rogue. I get a zerk doing more damage, and their offset is they are highly vulnerable to any damage but it seems with casters there isn't many drawbacks anymore.

Some have suggested some triggered defensive abilities for at least rogue and zerk, which would help tremendously. As a rogue, I would like to see poison craft looked at. Otherwise, I dunno.

I got my rogue to be enjoyable again by being strictly a group player, with a bard in tow. If I was going to raid, I would probably not play a rogue again. Not right now. It seems the rogue class is very bad at pitching a fit and hammering the dev team for changes.

To their credit, the group makers had what they had to work with. If you ALWAYS have druids (since they were just about all 100% RA), usually always have at least 2 chanters but you were hard pressed to get more than one bard or shaman any given night, then you can understand the nature of it.

There might also be 1-2 beastlords and 1-2 berserkers. The bard and shaman still typically went into one melee group with one beast lord so it was winner takes all usually for those lucky 3. Usually it would be zerks and then rogues. If another class got boosts, like monks, than it was not uncommon for rogues to get bumped down to a group with rangers and a druid healer and no further adps support. Then it is just a matter of staying alive and squeezing out whatever dps can be squeezed. Forget making parse.

The adps was not spread out but instead it went to whomever was making the best parses at the time. I am not sure if that was a good strategy but it was fun to be in that perfect melee group. All it took was missing a few days or weeks of raids due to classes and low and behold, I am stuck wondering if I am even gonna get a healer, let alone adps. It was a glorious night when we had 2-3 bards on and 2-3 shaman since EVERYONE got the adps they needed but those raid nights did not happen as often as anyone liked and still didn't produce the numbers it should have. Otherwise group make up was as much about merit and hookups as it was about producing good dps. A few other people I won't name would pitch a fit and log if they didn't get full adps support, so if you kept your mouth shut and just accepted what you were assigned with the intent to make the most of it you probably would not get adps right away until more logged in. Meanwhile, your numbers are not where they should be and in the merit basis of things, you don't past muster to deserve adps. Kinda a "you need experience to get a job but you can't get experience without a job". Sometimes they switched it up to give people a chance, but that depended on who was in charge that night and how much folks whined when the adps they were used to by default went to someone else.

Quite a bit of dysfunction, but it probably happens in many guilds all the time, day in and day out. That is assuming there are more mid and lower tier raiders than what is in the top 5 guilds. Hence, plenty of opinions based on what some might considered to be faulty data. /shrug. You only get what you get.

Well I meant more so for casters to do it on their own to see how melee needs to deal with it. And even with belly casters you cant go completely off that because even with casters being max melee they can still do max dmg. Melee on the other hand still gets their dmg cut down because they are out of range to do a lot of stuff. So maybe casters need to treat it like a belly caster and can only cast one spell at max melee then run in to cast one spell and keep moving back and forth. Then maybe they will know what the melee deal with. And b4 anyone says oh ur a monk ur good to go, yea I know I probably have it the best out of all the melee. But maybe the casters can see how the zerkers feel on raids minus needing to be dmged and being rooted to do full dmg.

Well, Sojuu...there is some lessons to be taken. It is all about who cries the most and the loudest.

Your class was behind, but you all collectively whined and whined well and thus were rewarded.

Casters wanted safeguards against incoming damage as well as other boosts. So they whined and they whined well and were rewarded.

Zerkers and rogues....I don't know what it is. Either there just are not enough of us crysacking loud enough or there is some restraint against whining. Maybe Brogett needs to emulate Beimeith in being adamant to the point of making people hate you but getting results none the less. Like it or not, if you whine in this game you will get your way. Rogues and Zerks just need to get on board with it.

Yea unfortunately you seem to be right Langya, the facts give you reason. Rogues are not what they used to be with still same insane requirements to dps (having the back of mobs which is harder than ever in todays raids).

Langya, and people can yell at me all they want, currently Berserkers are a force to be reckoned with, it's rogues that need a boost.

on shorter then 5min events yes, on anything longer we're in just as bad a shape as rogues.
in other words, rogues need burst + sustained increases, berserkers just need sustained increases.

but really both are pretty screwed when it comes to survivability on raids

I can't disagree with that. I am not yelling at anyone either. I made my decision with my feet though. Rogue is a blast to play and enjoy it immensely but I am not so sure how it would go if I was to shop around for a guild right now. Many guilds still have plenty of rogues on their rosters and employ them well.

Still, if it was down to filling one or two raid slots with all things being equal with gear and AA, who would get invited? A caster, a zerk, a monk, or a rogue? I think it would fall in that exact order. Give a zerk a means of triggering a mitigation for stuff like frenzied ramp as well as improving endo usage and zerks would probably pull ahead of even some casters in preference. Granted most guilds have to take what they get and don't have the ability to pick and choose other than at the top of the end game. The whole bit of dps preferences is a total mess IMHO with there being flavors of the month. If I really wanted to raid again, things being as they are, I would have to play my cleric or bard or settle for a guild that needs a body.

Rogues are fun in group, we can cycle our discs, be in the back, no lag, no push, etc... but really less and less fun to play in raid, we have insane requirements to do our max dps (rampage, always the need to move/strafe to find the back of a moving, casting mob, and it's so many times impossible to achieve perfectly, need lots of helpers with perfect synchro etc...) and still are far away from the best in every aspect of dps (sustained, burst, and typical fight duration), its really frustrating.

It would go in the order they apped. Guilds don't often turn down good players of any class unless the class is closed but they will still likely consider them. Everquest is so cyclical classes always see the top at some point. Only the high end guilds have the luxury of being choosy dps is dps. Stop pretending that relative dps means anything with regards to rosters. It is a horrible argument, one you have been proven wrong on before.

Reasons to get into a guild

Be a person people like
Know how to raid
Know your class
Don't cause drama
Show up regularly
Be willing to help others

And most of those aren't even mandatory.