Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

So, HS remains humanoid only after the change... Please refund the headshot AAs. HS will be one of the last AAs I purchase after this patch.

It is posts like these that are not helping the SK class who want to argue for a higher hit counter but refuse to put data behind it. You wonder if 3 mobs will go through 800 hits in 20 seconds. That would require you to riposte 13 times per second, per mob. Whoever first suggested 3 mobs would go through it has done a pretty good job of getting that number out there for the Devs to see, as every other SK seems to use it as well. But the numbers say otherwise.

I wouldn't consider that as the swarming we are talking about. Most SK's that I know will go to a zone, agro the entire zone, get all the mobs bunched up into a corner with DA, and burn everything down with SK epic + visage. Mortal Coil is not needed doing it that way.

Hiya - Get the concept - you try and only do server calculation for one mob - and add the rest to the swarm. Main problem I could see in the logic so far would be allowing for different run speeds in mobs - No guarantee that initial swarm leader will always be the leader if a faster mob joins.

The AA grant is going to happen at this point, SOE has made that very clear. As far as its impact on bringing players back, I know of at least one person now who will be coming back due to the proposed change. I discussed the changes with him last night and he was actually quite excited about it.

I suspect the result of this change is that EQ will end up with two separate major pools of players. Currently players mostly seem to pool into the top five levels. With the proposed change with the granted AAs however I foresee a second player pooling point being created at around the point where the free AAs cutoff exists. I also expect to see a lot of alts perpetually lurking in this range.

I still think the main issue at this point is how to make it "fair" for the people who put in the time and ground out the AAs. The best option I can come up with at this point is to give them the means of utilizing those AAs, as expendable AAs. This could be done via the loyalty merchant, or probably more ideally, create a new merchant and award 1 of the currency for each AA that the person had which was awarded to everyone for free. The expendable glyphs (same ones from the LP vendor) could then be purchased for the same cost of how many AAs it would have cost to purchase the AA itself. With this approach the people who ground out the AAs would still be able to make use of their previously earned labor, even if it is only temporary. Also people who would otherwise not use expendable AAs might be much more tempted to try them when they have 4k+ points sitting around.

For SK's like me, I made my SK over 10 years ago and he is still my main. I rarely swarm and when i do it is low level mobs for my new alts. I never swarmed for me, I 3 box got over 16k AA's, Xp is easy enough to come by nowadays. Most SK's I know never have or doesn't swarm anymore, of course there are still that do. But to nerf our epic like this is just stupid. And to those that said NTTB got nerfed cause of SK's , I have never heard a SK complain about it, only after it was nerfed did I hear SK's complain. Not saying some didn't, but sure in was a minority. And especially on the first neriak raid, yet another thing we have to learn to do without. Starting to get like the US Fed Gov, they feed us crap, tell us its good for us while most complain about it.

/sigh yes it is because sk epic + visage is not enough to burn all those mobs down.... We need mortal coil procs or we will drop as soon as epic does. Now there is backup plan in leechcurse disc which has like 50 minute reuse timer and horrible leech effect bp's from anguish or the group one from walls of slaughter. Bp does like 10% or something small and doesn't last that long in first place with i believe 15 minute reuse timer. If they were to just remove mortal coil aa or put lower hit counters on it, it would nerf swarming while still allowing sk's to offtank adds or tank the same in groups/raids the way they have always been balanced around. Don't believe me? /testcopy over and i'll take you to zeka with my lvl 95 sk and show you by just pulling not even half the zone in one pull that once my epic drops + visage i'll drop. I'll make sure to click off mortal coil if it happens to proc to prove this theory.

What about possible Curse integration? Map Packs through Curse would be hugely welcome.. Also, while it's a long shot I would LOVE to see a DPS meter that doesn't require me to parse data through a third party program using manually generated logs.

Honestly, I won't doubt that they are capable of 13 ripostes per second per mob if those are the numbers they're wanting to toss out. If those numbers however are correct then they are capable of tossing out more Ripostes per second per mob than I am with my Counter-Attack Discipline that grants a Riposte to every attack directed at me for a few seconds.. in addition to me dual wielding faster weapons.

So if that's the case.. then something is wrong with the SK class.

any comment from devs on why just removing mortal coil and refunding aa's vs. nerfing epic,anguish/wos bp,leechcurse,etc ? no mortal coil is again = no swarming. At least what true sk's call swarming. Not talking about pulling 15 mobs i'm talking about pulling 50-75 mobs + every pull. Which imo is nothing compared to what mage beam kiting is with "CURRENT CONTENT"

No need to endorse any particular site - I didn't mention any particular one either. Can always reword my statement to :

clear in game instructions on how to search for something on the internet and then where to place the resulting downloaded files. Look I didn't even mention Google in there

The whole point with this nerf is to eliminate swarming. What you describe is *not* swarming. Even the examples you use have more than 3 mobs. There are more examples. Why should our ability to tank these "regular grouping" encounters be nerfed? Why should we, all of a sudden, need to bring a CC class along?

I have played since Beta.... the game has had major changes... from the removal of Heck Levels.. to the increase to amount of exp you can gain to level increases. This all has made the game easier and there is no reason to be mad when a change occurs. Every class has survived "nerfs" or changes.. every class. Some have had to take larger hits but its what happens when abilities begin to be used in a way that was not intended. Even if it takes years to implement the change just because you got use to using it does not make it any less reason to fix the issue. People threatened to quit when Kunark Release mentioned that Lizards would get to play Monks... every single change or expansions has had people scream that game is ending or that they will quit. Of the hundreds that scream they will quit.. only a handful acutally do And they tend to come back anyway.

I love the fact they will be autogranting AA's. I just would love to know when. It will be nice to stop grinding and to be caught up to where I should be,.

Correction: YOU need MC to burn it all down.

Raid geared chars do not.

we are talking "LIGHT BLUE CONS" i have a raid weapon big bladed greatsword or whatever its called from crushbone raid. I have over 4k aa. Yet i would have trouble if my Mortal coil didn't proc. From what you are saying is that Raid Gear stats are inflated and they need to be brought down to be more in line with group gear... I WOULD AGREE . Just look at the massive difference between group gear shields and raid gear shields. AC matters most there and the difference is massive.

This is my take on it.

A small segment of the population are spoiled rotten and cannot understand why Little Johnny got a bigger apple than they did. It really doesn't matter to them that Little Johnny only has an apple to eat while they get an apple (yes, it IS smaller), a sandwich and ice cream (to them, the major point is that Little Johnny's apple is BIGGER). These people demand that Little Johnny's apple be cut in half. This will make their apple the biggest (which is just punishment for Little Johnny for daring to have an apple bigger than theirs).

As near as I can remember: Warriors were Little Johnny once. Bards were Little Johnny once (maybe twice). Wizards were Little Johnny once. Rangers have been Little Johnny a few of times. Mages currently are Little Johnny. AND in the very near future, Rangers, Berserkers, Rogues, Shadowknights and Clerics will be Little Johnny. SOE is just saving time by declaring the soon to be Little Johnnies as Little Johnny along with the current Little Johnny.

except sk's have been balanced around the 2.0. Heck we even got aa's making swarming easier and the devs know this. We have told them flat out that if you give us this it will make swarming even easier. I'm just trying to make their jobs easier. If they want to throw around nerfs then all they have to do is remove mortal coil completely or set it to extremely low hit count and swarming will go bye bye. I don't see anyone else on this patch update getting hit with such a major nerf when this whole reasoning for nerfs is because mage beaming is lagging servers. Sk's getting epic,bp's,disc,aa nerf in one patch is like the biggest slap in the face we could ever get. Yet mages still can kite 12 mobs "CURRENT CONTENT" while sk's are trying to be balanced more around offtanking/tanking 3-5 mobs? Does that make sense to anyone else? Mages still have pets that can outtank most tanks in the game and can nuke like wizards or close to it on top of that. All this nerf will do is make sk's quit playing and the need for us on raids even less.

Doesn't need one in the U.S. As soon as someone writes it, it becomes copyrighted. No longer required to send it off to the copyright office.

Yeah, comparatively that's not a raid weapon, more like a decent group weapon a couple expansions ago, let's stop playing.

its beats any group 2hander by like .31 it is still a raid weapon in my eyes For level 95 raid weapons included it ranks 20th not the greatest by far it just further proves my point that raid gear has inflated alot in short amount of time compared to group gear