Easy/serious early tlp class balance.

Give bards their luclin mezzes in classic.
Give paladins their luclin stuns in classic.



Harder/won't be taken serious but needed

Wizards need mana free nuke aa on a 12 second timer
Comparable to passive mage pet DPS.

Rogues need a 20% melee DPS bump in any form.
I'm not playing any of these classes either.

That's all

In the AMA they made it pretty clear that they don't want to balance the early game.

Q: Any chance you'd be willing to address the glaring imbalance of DPS vs Utility across the expansions?
Q: Will you ever do class balance for TLPs?
Aristo: While our main focus has to be the live game, many of the changes we have made and plan to make will affect TLPs as well.
Ngreth: We do not plan a specific task to adjust balance in older expansions. As Aristo said, some tasks we do for the general balance will go backwards to a certain extent, which will balance TLPs in later expansions.

I can agree with Rogues needing a bump but the other classes I have no idea what you are preaching about.

Wizards do just fine, even with a mana free nuke in classic they aren't going to hit PoSky bosses due to resists. Once Kunark drops they do just fine on parses and in group settings.

Bard mez: Why?
Being able to mez outside of the intended level range just makes certain camps trivial, like Juggs in Seb.

Paladin stun: Why?
Cease and Desist are low level stuns that really do not impact anything on a well played paladin, other than generate more aggro which is not needed in classic.
Use Flash of Light until you get the lvl 21-25 "Stun" then "Holy Might" which are both higher stun durations anyway.



If you want a good change:
Kill the Out of Combat timer or drastically drop it for group and raid settings.

Bard mez should be same as enchanters mez, does ench mez make juggs trivial?

Flash of light wipes more groups than an afk enchanter on charm break. never seen a paladin use it right. And level 28 to get a class defining ability is dumb.

Wizards do great on raid boss parses but their sustained DPS is possibly worse than paladins. Wizards only job is DPS, they shouldn't do "just fine" imo

Imagine playing a monk for 45 levels, and then suddenly FD no longer works
Or playing a druid and snare can't land on mobs above level 45

mez is a major part of a classic bard's toolkit and it arbitrarily stops working at high level.

Imagine your ability to pacify mobs suddenly stops working at 55.

what class are you talking about? paladin?

Bard paci stops at 60 and works amazing, crit resist and your
Screwed tho if you can't mez. Making bard lull unresistable like harmony would work just as well.

bards are already OP and crazy as heck. Why do they need even more stuff?
Mages get like 40% of their dps from pets, so your saying wizards should get an additional 40% dps bump with none of the downsides of a pet (pets are killable)?

Stun is a trap for paladins in general. When you stun you are not:
1. getting agro
2. doing damage
3. healing yourself
Thats a big source of the disparity between pal and sk. SK heal, do agro, and do damage all with the same spell. Pal has those 3 things split into different things that don't combine much. More stuns won't fix the pal issue, dots and lifetaps will.

If a Paladin cannot use FoL effectively that is a "YOU" problem.

Bard mez has no mana cost while enchanter's has a 125 mana cost, which in Kunark is 5-6% of your mana bar.

Imagine being able to mez all of the Ssra Emperor event before intended, sounds pretty event breaking to me.
If it is arbitrary they should just remove the "Max level" on every single mez spell in game system.

full disclosure...a classic's bard toolkit is double mana song. Really what 99% of groups want you for.
a raid bard is the same is except you will add a few to melee groups for DS/Attack/Resist songs and one in pull group so monks got the selos.

Bard mez is helpful at lower levels as it is intended, they are not end game CC in classic. Nothing about it is arbitrary. Level 50 bards are not enchanter replacements.

You're right, and that's a problem isnt it? Enchanters, in addition to being the best class of the game (best DPS, best CC, best pet tank, best buffs), don't have any other class able to do their basic CC job. They are the only class filling the CC role. It would be really good for bards to be a clear alternative to enchanters in terms of CC. Enchanters would be a bit less required in XP groups and that'd be just great.

The only thing that allowing bards to have luclin mez's would allow is give them the capability to mez camps such as Juggs / Graveyard and other lvl 57+ NPC areas.
No camp requires an "Enchanter" but they are liked because of the versatility.

Bards / Ench / Necro / Druid all have charming capabilities.
Bards / Ench / Necro all have mezzing capabilities.
All root classes have CC capabilities.

I'm not sure that you realize enchanters get a level 57 mez in kunark. All the luclin songs do is match that. Your not comparing apples to apples. The mana cost is irrelevant because it's already built into the balance of a bard via only being able to do one thing at a time, and only lasting 3 ticks. Level 2 ench mez goes to level 55, bards can't do it until 53. It's obvious it's not balanced. If they could mez the same level bards would still be nowhere near as good as it as enchanters

Bars are definitely not OP in classic through luclin, they are the druids of utility everything they do another class can do better.

You saying pets have a downside doesn't make sense, pets are killable means they serve as free dmg mitigation for you. An AA nuke that functioned like backstab would not be able to hold Agro for you or Proc root, Stun or offtank and I would say 40% is too much because wizard nukes are better. I would say about 20%. I know the wizard thing will never happen though it's just me dreaming so I could play the class.

Lol, your not the arbiter of bard toolkits. Mez is a huge part of it for sure, double mana song doesn't even work and that's very easy to test. If they're proposed changes for Bard were made people would still take an extra enchanter over a bard not trying to make them an "enchanter replacement"

Sionachie's Dreams (40) is already on Serilia Whistlewind in Gfay during Luclin. Enable the song to be available in classic, and then bards can mez up to 53. Not as high as enchanters or necros, but better than having no mez from 45+ until they get Song of Twilight.

I don't agree with Darkpaw's decision not to try to balance the classes from vanilla to at least Planes of Power. Since TLP servers start at vanilla and are offered each year, the resources used to balance classes would not be wasted.

In the world of video game design, you have 15 minutes to convince a new player that your game/MMO is worth playing. This is why successful studios like Blizzard polished the heck out of their newbie zones and make sure that the classes all felt heroic and impactful. It's all about selling the fantasy of the class and fulfilling the expectations of players. Watch some of Blizzard Lead WoW Design Rob Pardo's video presentations on this subject for further insight.

A player playing a archetypical fantasy RPG class should not have to wait till level 30 to get a good idea of what makes a paladin special and heroic. The same goes for other classes. For example: a Beastlord should not have to wait till level 8 to summon an animal warder pet. They should get one immediately.

You shouldn't have to pay your dues for weeks or months in a fantasy virtual world before you can experience the essence of a fantasy RPG class.

By all means polish and refine the endgame too. But realize that if you don't create a spectacular newbie experience, all those players that stopped playing will never be able to experience your amazing endgame content because they will be playing other MMORPGs.

Instead of asking for mere class balance, I think we should be talking about enhancing ALL classes from TLP and onwards. Make them more fun to play. Make them feel larger than life. Make them feel heroic. Make them feel exciting and rewarding to play. Give them abilities which add to synergy in groups.

While I respect the opinion of the developers, the opinions of the players should count for something too. After all, we're all in this together. Players need devs and devs need players. I think it would go a long way if Darkpaw made some gestures toward improving the TLP experience and class balance is the best way to achieve this.

We are not asking for miracles. We just want to see some acknowledgment that improvement is necessary and some commensurate effort to rectify it. We all want EQ to be alive as long as possible.

"Balance the classes" seems to be making the classes whoever is posting more powerful.

I think the thing is - the amount of players that give a rats booty about balancing Classic/Kunark for the whole 4 to 8 weeks they are open is nominal at best and it takes a lot of work.

Honestly, by time you are in Luclin it's all actually in decent shape.

Also, new players? really? I have been working a friend to join on as a new player that never played for the last 3 months to try this TLP out and it is unlikely they bite. I don't think the amount of new players you need to impress is really worth the effort. They aren't signing up in droves and it takes months of goading friends to join you and test it out even.

Hence the "easy part" it's 4 spells. I'm not a software engineer, but I'm guessing less than an hour to turn them on??
It would make bards a lot more viable in endgame dungeons for sure. And paladins in early game.