I thought about this a while. it seems like the classes that are all in in their respective areas suffer the most with regards to balancing. Clerics - Druids / shamans are healing pretty good as well. Rog / ber - have trouble beating pet classes on parses, surely lose to necro / wizard. (rarely tops necros) Warriors - paladins have more hps, which makes up for their lower defense. in pratice their self heal, heal mod and higher hp is around as effective raid wise as the added mitigation warriors got. It seems like has changed alot from what it once was, classes blur out and its hurting the pure classes...
The pure class/hybrid differences were phased out ages ago. All classes are considered their own entity for tuning/balance (at least on paper). Also, please change the title of the thread to "Do" or it's going to drive me insane every time I see it!
For years, rogues and zerkers absolutely obliterated mages and beastlords, in fact mages and beastlords were in a horrible position in EQ far longer than zerkers and rogues were. Honestly zerkers and such have only been in a bad place for what.. a couple months now? I'm actually really surprised htat so many threads have popped up on the subject so quickly when most caster based classes were hurter worse for a far longer period of time until not long ago.
We all suffer. Oh, you mean in the game. I don't recall the clerics being called pure versus the other two healers. It is true at one time only clerics could heal effectively. And necromancers and wizards are pure casters. They've been called that since the beginning. As for those two pure casters beating out the two pure melee you mentioned, I can't help but wonder if you are referring to the group game. As for warriors being less desirable than paladins as raid main tanks, I haven't heard that, but my information is woefully behind the times in some respects. Only place I've heard warriors complain about is the grouping game, myself. Things have certainly changed, though. That is true.
I've made a post about it before, but the pure classes should be able to perform their only roles better than hybrids. However, hybrids should also be able to perform their shared roles equally if that is the case. Just because a hybrid has a heal spell, does not mean they can heal decently. My class, the Beastlord, has a wide range of spells and abilities that upon first glance makes them a hybrid. But, ask any raiding guild what is the main duty of a beastlord. We are dps with a tacked on ADPS ability. We don't heal, and if we do we can only keep 1 target up. Our slows are only decent in the solo/group game, so never used in raids. Mana regen buffs have always been laughable since mana costs/pools have inflated so much. SV is never requested, and Focus is overwritten just like our slow spells because someone has a better version. Beastlords are fine where they are right now, and the only point I'm trying to make is that; In the raid game, the word hybrid is just an illusion.
Ya, I was trying to be a kinder gentler poster. But this sounds like a group issue. Sure, pure melee are screaming right now, but they usually lag casters as weapons take longer to get, usually. And the last installments of what this expansion has to offer haven't even been seen yet. Worrying about being leapfrogged for a few months seems extremist to me. And if it really is about group content, well, that's never balanced in this game that I've seen.
OCD is kicking in, as the title is driving me nuts. Should be Do (plural verb form) the pure classes (plural noun form) suffer? so they plurality coincides. Just had to mention it. 'cause it's been driving me nuts as keep popping to the top of the list. And, yea, I'm aware it's too late to edit it. Another reason I hate the 30 min. limit on editing posts. Maybe a site admin or something could come in and change it, please! (Piestro maybe?) Yther Ore.
There is no such animal as a pure class. Everyone has gotten someone else tricks. Sad but it is what it is.
In the raid game you got paragon of spirit, fury line for massive ADPS, slow (to a lesser extend), ferocity and other awesome buffs that are sought after...
My original Main in EQ was a druid but for a long time, in the more modern era of eq my main has been a mage. and mages honestly are *mostly* in a decent position right now, but for several years they were pretty mediocre *especially* in the underfoot expansion where mages pretty much had to play amazingly just to stand out slightly. As of late this is a non issue and mages do pretty well even if they aren't trying their absolute hardest. I've played a bunch of classes though and seen other classes perform in both the raid and group game. My most played classes are mage/bard/ranger *shockingly not for headshot*/shaman so yeah you are mostly correct. I've *never played a beastlord* but even I can recognize and admit that they were a black sheep class for several years.
We have no evidence that these people whining and losing to great casters might be doing all they can do to maximize their dps(expendables, buffs, asking their adps to click stuff on time, etc) and perform the best as their class can. Only class that might consistently top every long parse is a necro.
Yes, and they came when? Fury was HoT. Ferocity became really useful only when the triple attack mod was added. Paragon was good, but never a make or break thing. So beastlords only sucked for like...hmmm10 years or so. No big deal, we dealt with it and our patience paid off. We are finally doing well and is a fun class to play. The game has evolved, some class rolls have changed numerous times over the years. So we need to get out of 1999 when the roles for classes were first set. I personally would love to see some of the "pure" classes get some new utilities that would make them more versatile...and you know what? I'm sure that most of the hybrids classes wouldn't cry about the melee getting stuff like that. Some of the "pure" melee just got some really nice self buffs this round of AA's and are kicking but again. Zerkers still need some help though.
I think you'll notice that most classes aren't talking on the boards anymore, just those who want to be increased. (I agree they need it too). But the rest of us are gun shy. Regardless of the rationale behind the nerfing, we find that it always seems to coincide with a squeaky wheel getting greased. A video gets posted, a nerf. An argument about this class doing X, and a nerf. That's why you don't find many people on the boards sharing strategy anymore.
How did class balance end up being based on who does the most DPS? Even if it was, a lot of events have mechanics that aren't optimal for certain classes.
You mean like fade/FD abilities, lulls, snares, Attraction, etc. abilities which have been farmed out to just about every class? Yeah those.
