Class Balance

I'm going to go with "No". Then again, crazier things have happened.

CoTF or lower parses are not irrelevant. Considering the overwhelming majority of guilds still raid them quite a bit for clicks, augments, for gearing up less meaningful but weaker gear slots until fully decked in current, for achievements, for spells and for apps or returnees. Many guilds actually devote more of their raid time to older stuff then current either because they can fly threw the lack of raids in TDS or because they can fly threw the few they do beat and then go back. You should be balanced based on current stuff for sure and its the primary concern but no you cant just totally ignore rog and zerker dominance in half the content guilds do because you say so. Im sure other classes would like the novelty of doubling their burst and sustained in any content the are 5 levels above. Its most certainly a factor to consider when looking at the overall picture of a class.

Apology excepted.

1) I never said they are the same. I know they aren't the same.
2) The difference between 340% of crit focus and 375% of crit focus is negligible. @375 Ethereal Fire can hit for 1.16 million. @340 it can hit for 1.09 million.
3) The damage isn't the issue. The issue is that it can be proc'd continuously.
4) My post was a direct reply (hence why I quoted you) to you saying it took me 6 months to mention there was a problem. It didn't. I reported potential issues with it immediately as I always do when I find something that looks wrong.

I misunderstood then because from what you posted it appeared you were only talking about the activated form and not the proc as well since you mentioned the 375%. My mistake.

Then we have to respectfully agree to disagree.

IMO the current expansion is where things must be balanced. If as a consequence of balancing dps in the current expansion it demonstrates an inbalance in older content, then that should be revisited as a separate matter (eg changing the level that assassinate/decap/headstrike proc, or whatever other causes are found for why some classes do disproportionately well on out of date content).

No worries.

My only real concern is that in typical EQ fashion the powers that be will miss the actual problem and simply nerf the ability into oblivion.

I'm really confused how you - and I *believe* this is what Beimeith was saying - think that the proc'd version and the activated version are the same. There are multiple ranks of the activated AA. The proc definitely does not add the +375% modifier the max level activated AA adds. It uses the lower level rank that the original activated AA was on release. The proc is 340% and the activated max rank AA is 375%.
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i don't believe it, i'm just saying, beyond testing (which i have not done) they 'seem' to be the same proc, as I'm evil and typically only post on the forums while at work (currently muhahah?) I'm unable to do the test until much later today. the test being to block the proc version then use the activated or vis-versa and see what happens. the other test being to remove foci and use a single nuke to see 'max' damage from both.

I HIGHLY recommend that you READ or even ASK on whats causing the 800k+ damage hits. In fact I'll tell you, not that you will believe me.

Haze STACKS with IoG!

This stacking is what results in the 800k+ hits.
With just Haze you can get to the area of 600k.
With just IoG you can get to the area of 450k.
Add them together and . . wait a sec math is hard. . . carry the π .. . mm Pie. . .∑∆ ♫-√█ . . . .
1050k range

i agree, they need to fix haze so that it doesn't not work. Nothing worse that attempting to do something only to not have it work cause deflection isn't up the bonus wont apply

Beimeith explained why it is doing what its doing. Crit mod and crittable focus are not the same effect. It seems like even enchanters at times are not understanding what it does so its not just us outsiders.

Typically for nukes focus effects don't crit. There are a few abilities that have now been introduced into the game that do and it appears the benefit from chronohaze is one of them. Its not a crit mod like Illusions of Grandeur its a focus effect mod for nukes that can crit. Basically for one nuke it either overwrites normal focus effects for its bonus and allows it to crit or it works in addition to normal focus with only its bonus aspect allowed to crit, someone with more technical nuking knowledge could answer that for you.

A very vanilla and probably slighty off description would be you take a 10K fire nuke and multiple it by whatever crit mod you had if it critted and add that to what every focus roll you had, something like 10K x 5 equals 50K damage + (10K x .75) or 7500 damage for a total of 57,500 damage if you had a 5 crit mod and 75% focus boost. Same numbers but with the way this focus effect crit effect works would be (10K + 7500) x 5 or 87,500 damage since the 75% focus boost is able to crit.

They need to fix *both* of the perceived problems discussed here, not just the one you want fixed, sir. Or can I go back to using clinging darkness for sk dps like the good ol days?

I don't really have a problem with casters doing more dps than melee. 250k vs 120k may be a bit much though. My problem is with them having infinite mana, and also with the amount new mobs hit for trash and named alike, the gap between melee durability and caster durability is way too small. We both go splat in seconds. On bosses its faster than you can hit 1 key to maybe get some kind of mitigation ability off. If that's the dps gap wanted, then melee should be WAY more durable. But they are so concerned about infringing on tanks they don't know how to adjust it, it seems.

This is mostly correct. The issue isn't how it works though. A couple large hits aren't much when averaged over a long period. The issue is that it can be made to proc continuously.

Ermm I don't think you get what Beimeith was stating. Him and Silv were discussing (due to my question) the difference between activated and proc-ed Haze crit rate %. I see no were in this thread where he states that its the cause of a bug. Rather I see him stating that he questioned the developers in beta about the change from Haze being critical damage % to critical focus %, with no answer according to him.

Now i believe that was changed since the description of Haze (proc) does not include foci % but is rather
1: Increase Base Spell Damage by 340%
2: Limit Type: Detrimental
3: Limit Max Duration: Instant Spells Only
4: Limit Min Mana Cost: 10
10: Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 100% and Increase Critical Nuke Damage by 100% of Base Damage

which then stacks with IoG's
2: Increase Chance to Critical DoT by 10%
3: Increase Critical DoT Damage by 110% of Base Damage
5: Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 10% and Increase Critical Nuke Damage by 250% of Base Damage

So you get 340% * 250% (3.4*2.5) or 850% Increase in Critical Nuke Damage of Base Damage while under both. Now critical damage multipliers and foci results in ~4-5 times base damage. When this is applied to a spell that hits for 25k, you get 25,000*5*8.5 = 1,062,500 damage.
Hrmm big nuke. Hrmm stacking of abilities for multiplied effects.

I have no idea how people are getting it to proc continuously. I usually get one every 10 casts or so...that's not to say I haven't seen like 2 or 3 in a row..but I have also seen where can go a whole mob and not see a single proc.

Yeah not debating that fact. But either it needs to proc as intended without a way to "game" it to proc so often. Or they leave the proc "games" alone and reduce the effect.

i don't believe it, i'm just saying, beyond testing (which i have not done) they 'seem' to be the same proc, as I'm evil and typically only post on the forums while at work (currently muhahah?) I'm unable to do the test until much later today. the test being to block the proc version then use the activated or vis-versa and see what happens. the other test being to remove foci and use a single nuke to see 'max' damage from both.




I HIGHLY recommend that you READ or even ASK on whats causing the 800k+ damage hits. In fact I'll tell you, not that you will believe me.

Haze STACKS with IoG!

This stacking is what results in the 800k+ hits.
With just Haze you can get to the area of 600k.
With just IoG you can get to the area of 450k.
Add them together and . . wait a sec math is hard. . . carry the π .. . mm Pie. . .∑∆ ♫-√█ . . . .
1050k range





i agree, they need to fix haze so that it doesn't not work. Nothing worse that attempting to do something only to not have it work cause deflection isn't up the bonus wont apply[/quote]



My point was totally about the proc rate. Based on its design its supposed be a rare bonus and its not. Meaning haze in its current form is broken and its impacting balance or peoples claims as to why casters are above melee right now. Which is why on page one I labeled it as one of a few issues at hand. I never claimed it was the problem.

I didnt even bring up the fact of how much it amplified hits when it proc'd until I learned how it worked on page 7 or 8 of this thread. Your own words is it stacks with IoG which is not true, items that stack work the same and add to each other. These abilities do two different things that are modified by each other. I suggest you understand how it works before confusing what someone is saying or talk down to them about material you seem to not understand yourself.

Its been demonstrated a few times but those most vocal on keeping it that they don't even fully understand what it does or how it can be "gamed" which is what is making it an issue. They just get all upset as if people are suddenly out to get enchanters which is the farthest thing from the truth.

I don't think anyone was fooled by this. Chromatic Haze increases a nuke by a % of the base damage (340% for the proc and 375% for the activated AA), and this damage can crit. It is completely unrelated from normal foci.

There is 0 issue with how the buff itself works, that is in no way broken. The only question is over the means to proc said buff, which is unrelated to how the crit focus works.

Edit: You've since said (well since I started writing this) you're concerned with the proc rate not the damage, so... /shrug

I never claimed there was an issue with the way it was working per se only offhand made a comment that myself and probably a lot of others were not aware of how it worked until Beimeith explained. This was further evidenced by a few self appointed experts on the matter showing little understanding on the matter. Most of us non experts quickly read the description and assumed this proc worked like IoG, Group Black Wolf, wiz 2nd spire etc. Thus occasionally providing an extra 100-150% crit mod to a nuke over what those mods did normally. We didn't realize what was a 300-400K crit could turn into a 1,000K crit because it in fact was 340% or more focus effect added to nukes that can crit.

Regardless if the proc rate is adjusted to not work with all the gimmick things and it returns to being a rare mod for the group then its a non issue. Or leave it completely alone and make it an enchanter only benefit. And it still is only one part of what is currently causing issues in game at times for some classes.

Whilst I fully agree that having a way to exploit it and make it proc far more often than it ought to is a serious bug in need of fixing, it still doesn't invalidate the parses I posted. They were done without spamming it.

Perhaps it was just luck (althoiugh I didn't explicitly look for high enc parse, I sorted the parse history by my own dps instead).

How about instead of posting several messages asking for a class that finally got a boost with something useful to be nerfed, you go back to the original intent of this thread -- balance around all the anti-melee mechanic bs. The problem is not that a support class has something which they can actively use (making it rare makes it essentially something that will never be planned around in group make-up/gameplay, so might as well get rid of it), it's that an entire archtype has harsh penalties. Things people mentioned on page 1 like high AC, short range ramp, slow/snare combo, big damage shields, emotes making melee run all over the place, lack of mitigation/self runes, rez effects limiting max haste while also being more vulnerable to death, etc. It's about the ability to do one's job and survive as consistently as the caster classes. That's where things are out of balance.