Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

You can get up to 8 procs just by casting forcast shots and rain of arrows once each. Do the math.

My priorities may be skewed at the moment.

As far as server lag, I have seen the Mage beam go to work, The rest> No!

Rangers typically take on 5-7 mobs or so at a time, slow, snare, and mow them down at that rate. rinse and repeat. Good yes, great, sometimes with someone who is practiced..... Server affecting?? I doubt it that much.

Zerker decap? well, same goes, except that they can decap any type mob. Limit it to humanoid like the rest, and I am happy.

As for rogues and assassinate, the most limited of the abilities out of them all! Yes we have an assassinate chance on riposte. Normally this doesn't amount to much overall. With rogues fury and counterattack, It is a very good , very drastic ability with huge success rates. BUT it already has a nerf built in. We Rogues can only pull this off every 24? 26? minutes or so and it lasts what, 2, 3 ticks?

Leave it the hell alone!

As for mass killing for long periods, we rogues have been nerfed from the get go. Humanoid only, and if not a riposte, from behind only, and only on backstab attempts or thrown weapons from behind!! As any rogue who has learned to mow down mobs, we have realized, to be effective, we REQUIRE a tank to hold aggro so we can snipe them from behind. Which then also requires a healer to keep the tank alive long enough to be any good.

On top of that, the only zones they work in for ranger, zerker, and rogue are LB mobs or under, at level 100, max AA in said abilities, no more advancement after that, and generally hoT and lower in expac.. although some very few mobs in Argath and upper Valley of lunanyn.., but that is it. We are already NERFED, leave it be!

Take care of, modify the beaming if you have to, but dont go saying " all mass killing detriments servers" Because it is a load! take care of the actual problem, dont just say, well Beaming sucks server resources, but if we change/take it away, we better screw all classes equally or worse.....

<<<<<<Moved this here from original thread, as i don't believe it has been really noted, answered, or really had any attention paid to it>>>>>>

Now for the proposed * fix* changes... The ability to use on higher level mobs is a long time coming.. However, as under prev restrictions, those zones aren't as populated like they used to be. And i don't know many rogues who, when using the no tank type of Rog Fury/counterattack that are willing to pull more than 15 to 20, because in 12 - 16 secs, at current proc rate, killing them all is still in the luck plus massive skill index, clicking targets like mad. Because if we mistime it by 1 sec, we are insta dead! and as for using a tank, 6-9 mobs at a time at most usually, because tanking 6-9 Light blue mobs can still wipe a tank way before you can get them all, with a healer merc on reactive. So I say again, why punish those that, by standard coding, and doability, really have little to no impact on the problem?

As for adding higher levels being affected, I think it is a long time coming! However, i vote for keeping the rogue part the same, as it isn't a huge thing anyway. However, scale the procrate by level or toughness vs current character level. IE currently level 87-88 mobs in Feerott same as is now.. Level 90, say they have a 10% chance of avoiding the assassinate attempt.. Level 92, 20%, 94 40%, etc , and scaled to auto change as we level , by con if that is easiest, or by actual level number. Rogues aren't broken as is,. Rangers were already nerfed to bring down their massive success rate to manageable. Make Zerkers, as was posted by another Likeable soul, pay the same AA costs and ranks as rogues and rangers, and limit shot type to humanoid, or make Rog and Ranger types to all like the zerk.


These i feel are valid concerns and/or suggestions to keep those of us interested in our preferred classes, without major upset and/or major malice.
I would love any feedback the Devs have on this topic, and Piestro as well..

LOL I have used HA on a group of level 10 skelly's only to have them all come running at me. The majority of the time it works, but often it works as an ae aggro regardless of the mobs levels especially in older content. It seems in the newer content, it works as expected, as does snare, flusterbolt, and cover tracks. But if you are going back and doing any pre-HoT expansions, these abilities fail quite often.

I'd also be largely in favor of removing the humanoid only restriction for Assassinate and Headshot to bring it completely in line with Decap.

And as mentioned, there will need to be some sort of hate override instated - at least on Decap, probably on all three...

I will accept that I maybe a bit off on the HA. I took a couple years off and when I came back it no longer worked as it had when introduced and the standard statement from rangers on my server was that it was "broken". I was basing my statement on how it was originally designed and how it works now.

That being said, hatsee is simply wrong about how often headshot has the potential to proc. 30 times in a minute is not crazy if you have a fast bow/max overhaste and are casting your spells

Maybe you should check the SK forums. There's a lot of whining in the thread about this, but the general consensus is "don't touch our epic, it saves our lives in normal situations constantly" and "get rid of mortal coil, problem solved." ( Here's a link: http://www.evilgamer.net/forums/showthread.php?t=9054 )

One of the most fundamental rules of troubleshooting a problem is to make one change at a time, and then re-evaluate the new data from there. Slow down the number of nerfs per class; fix the initial problem, and decide if it needs further adjustment down the line.

SKs (including myself) are very worried about the viability of our class. All other tank classes surpass us in just about every way. As I said in previous posts, our lifetaps are the only thing that keep us close to being tanky enough, and it isn't always enough. As a raid leader, I always prefer a well played paladin to an expertly played SK, because their class is just that much more useful in all situations. The only situational advantage SKs have as a knight class is AE Aggro, and you're quickly taking away the tools for that to be useful, and there's almost no raids where it is both useful and survivable.

Now if you honestly want to re-evaluate the SK class and make our epic less useful or potential useless, we need to have our ability to put out sustained and burned DPS as compared to our holy counterparts, and our mitigation and survivability severely scrutinized. I do hope you follow through with actually improving our class since you've specifically stated you've not given us upgrades because of our ability to swarm - an ability many SKs just didn't bother with, myself included, because it was fun to try but not fun to keep doing.

Obviously, this is conjecture since you're not actually telling us what the hit limit is and we can't do any theoretical maths or any real testing until this change may or may not kill a valuable tool for our class. My guess is you don't know a proper value to make it. My suggestion is that Lich Sting doesn't need a hit limit. It's fine as is.

Could be that they are aggroing due to not meeting the reaction radius check. I'd look it up but its going on 4am...I seem to recall that our regular lull spell had a better reaction radius check at rank 2 and 3 (on the outdoor lull).

I think it's also 12/100, the spell data looks fine and last I checked it the ability worked.

I believe they are upset that the description in game isn't how it works, which is just making a case for asking Elidroth to reword it. Nothing major.

Please reduce the agro on decap otherwise all this will achieve is causing zerks to get instant agro.

Well I didn't say whether I agreed or disagreed with 30 procs per minute in its current state, I was just stating that your assumption about Hadce was quite off...but really, that number does seem a little high to me...but its so hard to say because nothing lasts through more than a couple headshots. I would say I get 1-2 from each spell cast on average (yes, there are times when I see it proc all 4 times but also times where it doesn't proc at all), and 1 proc in about every 10 to 12 bow shots, on average.

Also want to point out, that even at it's current max, at level 100, it still takes 2-3 assassinate procs to kill a light blue or green Lizard in Feerot. Up the damage as well, please, if we are going to be able to use this on higher levels. Otherwise " assassinate" loses all meaning and should be called " vital strike" instead.

Have you ever thought about having a set limit of npcs a pc can have on agro? If not warp them back to spawn. Obviously for raid zones this will not work too well on raids with multiple mobs where kiting is used, so it would have to be a switch by the zone.

I can only speak for ranger class as I have one. I would personally like to see headshot's frequency left alone and the applicable level left alone. I don't agree with the proposed change.

A bit late in the day for this suggestion, I guess, but here goes...

As a recently returning player, who stands most to benefit from this change (main necro with 5kaa, Sk and (1kaa) and a bard with 250aa both level 96 purely regularly XP'ing to 100) all gold accounts.

This will be (in theory) an awesome boost to my SK and Bard, and get them both "playable" quite quickly (I had of course planned on getting level 100 them ploughing through AA)

However, I have massive reservations, namely 4kaa in a single DUMP being counterproductive to the core "reasons" for doing it in the first place.

I.E New or returning players getting "up to speed" how on earth can a returnee like myself (or even more-so a new player) comprehend the effect and hot-keys that come with that many AA in a single dump. I'm struggling to get back up to speed with my Necros new abilities after 3 years away....

My suggestion:

Level 60-100 (40 levels obv) grant 100aa's per ding = 4000AA for the player to "invest" as they choose (limit the available AA's by expansion/level requisite. The "can purchase" button being a great way to filter only buyable stuff to a mangeable list.

This at least involves the player in the process, and makes them aware of which abilities they have gained/hot key-able abilities they have just obtained. Meaning more likelyhood of the player having a clue what they are doing.

I'll wager most new/returning players when they obtain 4kaa in a massive one-off pile, will probably "miss" key abilities purely because they are overwhelmed with choice.

Not withstanding that, love all the proposed changes, I for one will definetly continue my 3 gold accounts for the foreseeable future, I suspect I'm not alone.

Devs: Don't get overly disheartened by the "squeaky wheel" noisy forum ranters, they always have, and always will remain a noisy vocal (yet important) section of your player-base, but they don't speak (shout) for everyone....

Re Class Changes: As somebody pointed out, there is still no mechanism to avoid someone pulling the zone. You did not address the root cause, which would either be the ability to aggro so many mobs for an extended period of time or the server performance (I can somewhat relate to the latter being difficult). I cannot believe that all the development resources at SOE cannot tackle the root cause and have to rely on a totally game-changing hodgepodge of class-nerfs. However you adjust the details, this is not top quality as the root of the problem is not addressed.
Also please test the solo/molo-ability of each class in each level range before these changes go live.

Re AA Changes: I have the feeling you have a corporate bonus in place to increase conversion rate to gold. This is probably higher than the bonus for retention rate...
For me it is the basis for a MMORPG that progression is something you earned through gameplay. I can personnally live with some pay-to-progress items as money is also some indication that an individual earned it, if only in RL outside the game.

You used careful wording here _can_ and _some_, yet the statement has only impact if someone sees the amount of AAs, is overwhelmed and just quits. Because there is all the time a method to progress - just move that AA-slider away from zero.
I do not think that there has to be any other method to earn AAs than moving that slider. Granting them all automatically (or with a check-box that probably few new players can resist) is such an overkill for a perceived problem that again I am going to doubt the creative potential of the team.

You have a wonderful, working mechanism in play which is the AA bonus curve. Just tune that up. Increase the limit of banked AAs so that the bonus does not get wasted partially or completely (if someone forgot to assign them). If you want to tie this to gold-level, have a different bonus curve for gold and silver.

Another point is the number of AAs that are needed. I have a rogue at 90 with about 3100 AA. I am having a hard time allocating the earned AAs as do not need illusions and innates and such. Is it really benefitting new rogues to have their innate wisdom maxed out by the SOE dev team ?
In my opinion the amount of AAs needed in reality is much smaller than the 4.000 (?) that would be granted at 85. If you up the curve and the limit anyone with a bit of dedication can earn the needed AAs over the course of a few weeks. That is of course just with quests, normal killing, hotzones and daily tasks, not including PL.

Have you considered the new player experience after this change ? So he (she) would level to 51 then instead of turning on AA exp would leave the AA lever at 0%, getting all AAs as they level. They could level-lock, but probably won´t as there is nothing to be gained any more. So they just mow through the levels, not staying in any zone for a prolonged length of time as they are soon outleveled. So Feerott and House of Thule are the zones where these guys actually end up playing the game in the way it is currently played with AA exp turned on and much slower leveling speed. A haunted hause and a dark forest for all the new hänsels and gretels - this is what you have envisioned for new players ?

This is an old game. People who still play do it probably just because it is how it is. Disruptive changes will provoke resistance from the player-base. Unneccessary, disruptive changes like these are much worse. Someone mentioned occams razor. Please only do the minimal changes that are required. Its good philosophy and good for the game.

How is that different from the way it is now? Take for example, Breakneck in MMM. He's able to be assassinated and headshot (and of course decapitated). It takes way more than 1 proc of any of those to bring him down. What you're describing is / has been occurring ...for quite some time now. The name of the ability is semantics. =)

They likely won't tinker with the damage of the abilities at first, to see how they interact with raids and so forth.

Rogue had a way to solo xp with assassinate even if was pretty limited at level 100 but it could be used at least to help friends and have some fun, with 2ppm you remove it. And you do it to the already worst soloer dps class out there. Now we will be able to use it in group but we need to find groups fighting humanoids and dark blue mobs max. Not really a big improve seeing it that way isnt it? You need to make it work on all kind of mobs to have more actual content choice like berserkers and find something else for rogues to have some fun playing solo because it is really crippled now.

I don't mind the homogenising of Decapitation, assassination and headshot, but lets be clear, one of the reasons berserker decap works on all mobs is because it has a lower amount of hit damage and it can not be modded at all, unlike assassinate and headshot.

So if were going to make these skills all the same, please ensure the damage and modification restrictions on decapitation are also addressed.

You do realise there are still thousands of AA's to get beyond 85, that will still take your typical casual hundreds of hours to acquire as the rate will be baseline....

in fact in many ways the new players will be penalised by using this "feature", yes they might have 4k+ AA's automatically, but they'll be spending a LOT more time getting those important 85+ AA's, but at least at 85 they will be well prepared for the content going forward.