I finally figured out why I don't like EQ post 70

yes it is true , i forget what exactly they nerfed if it was the pets mitigation or actual AC or combination of both, but they do get hit more often and some spikes in hps more often , however as a person who plays pet classes alot although i find i have to pay more attention to my pet using more of the tools at my disposal (ie throw a heal or 2 everyonce in awhile or using pet blocks (spell and AA)) my pet can still tank well and 1 mob np 2mobs np but with alittle more watchful eye and 3 mobs can do but def need to be pushing some buttons and working with CC options and heals..

Pet tanking only got nerfed on the TLPs because they were insanely overpowered and people were basically tanking any boss with an endless stream of pets. Once the TLPs reach LoY (or any server reaches LoY i guess you can say) pet tanking is returned to normal, which is where it is on live servers currently

Ah OK. I remember trying to pet tank Underfoot trash and, well, not having a good day Didn't seem like my warder needed a nerf

I had a 105 pally with a 100 shaman healer who got killed in VoA zones but was able to tank RoF zones fine. Also the humanoid mobs (I think) hit harder than the beast-like mobs in VoA. Also it's not like the tank always died, it was situational (multiple mobs) but it did happen, whereas in RoF it never happened a single time even with multiple mobs. I doubt it was just luck but I guess there is a small chance it was.

Ah, OK, I can see how it could happen with multiple mobs.

With a real healer I woulda been fine too but the shammy just wasn't cutting it

Some of the Sep named were harder than almost anything in VoA. But SHM are definitely real healers, and so are paladins. Unless you mean real as in not being boxed, then yeah, that makes a huge difference.

Real as in cleric. Shamans get 4 heals, one that mirrors the Renewal cast line of clerics, another surge that's an AE pulse, a HoT and a heal that consumes HP instead of mana.

Clerics get two .5 second remedies and a normal heal (amongst more but irrelevant to this)

Even Druids get a quick cast .5 heal with vivication (dont know 105 name) then, much like clerics they got two other heals to go with it. Out of the three classes Shamans really do get the crap end of the stick.

Paladins also lack in the healing department like shamans although they have some quick cast self heals that work like lifetaps.

Boxings no issue and wouldn't have made a difference, the shaman trying to slow + not having a fast heal is the issue that was being encountered I am fairly certain. By real healer I mean a cleric, just like I wouldn't call paladins/shadow knights 'real' tanks, only a Warrior gets that title of 'real tank' - though with the recent changes to Defensive Proficiency I am not so sure how much worse SKs and Paladins are than Warriors any more on raid bosses.

After all, there is a reason clerics heal the tanks, Shamans are stuck in melee groups and heal the melee, druids get caster groups and Warriors are the people who tank raid bosses whereas SKs/Paladins are always on Splash/heal or kite/off tank duty.

shamans have alot of heals at their disposal .. i dont play a high lvl shaman but off the top of my head thier Epic is a group heal ever 3 or 5min recast ? healing counterbias which is a slow with a healing to the inc mobs target .. Quirks Line which is a group heal that does multiple heals on group .. not to mention their fast heal yes it has a 1m30sec recast then they get a 2.5sec cast time heal .. with aa's ancestrial aid and call of the ancients just to name some .. shamans are a great healing class not to mention CC abilities , DPS abilities ( all with the right aa's ) ..

Indeed, Shamans are capable of healing. They just pale in comparison to a cleric much like an SK or pally tank pales in comparison to a Warrior. Since the classes inception they were never meant to heal as good as a Cleric. They may one day though, shamans everywhere have their fingers crossed!

sounds to me your comparing apples to oranges.. are clerics the best healers in-game yes. can druids and shamans heal group content yes .. im not positive but i doubt druids/shamans can be main healers in raid content .. backup yes but not main ..

as far as raids go i couldnt tell you as i do not raid .. but im sure clerics will always shine as far as raids go just like warriors will in raids..

Back to the original point, what is the logic (other than HC sales) behind making the 65-85 path so difficult? Who's having fun?

Mostly just neglected, I doubt it's intentionally awful.

There should be a gear set to bridge the gap between the highest defiant and HoT's T1 armor that requires appropriate effort to acquire for a filler armor. And the molds for HoT's armor should be tradable.

Well this conversation started by me saying I needed a better healer than a shaman for what I am trying to do so yes I was comparing apples and oranges. I was trying to make apple juice and all I had was oranges so I had to settle for making orange juice =P

The problem with 65 to 85 is simply a relic of the content that came out. Don't forget that (talking about best gear available in the era on average versus raid gear):

Level 50 cap lasted 12 month (1 release) - average gear probably had 30 hp (a lot of 0s in there or low numbers even in raid gear)
Level 60 cap lasted 19 months (3 expansions) - group gear averaged maybe 60 hp, gear maxed at 125 hp
Level 65 cap lasted 23 months (4 expansions) - group gear averaged maybe 130 hp, gear maxed at 220 hp
Level 70 cap lasted 24 months (4 expansions) - group gear averaged maybe 200 hp, gear maxed at 415 hp
Level 75 cap lasted 14 months (2 expansions) - group gear averaged maybe 220 hp, gear maxed at 575 hp
Level 80 cap lasted 11 months (1 expansion) - group gear averaged maybe 400 hp (varied a lot by slot with crystallos dragon loot a lot better), gear maxed at 800 hp
Level 85 cap lasted 24 months (2 expansions) - group gear averaged 850 hp (up to 1000 for crystallos though, but most people had less), gear maxed around 1650 hp

The first several expansions and level caps had less massive inflation. And since a lot of gear used was more variable in stats, upgrading from 50 to 100 hp in a slot might not upgrade your ac at all. So on average, you were not so far off in terms of being functional even in sub par gear from level 65 to 75. Level 80 content (SoF) was a huge game changer, and for a soloer trying to "group" in those levels in today's game, that is really hard to jump to solo unless you're a min maxer type, in which case you never had an issue anyway.

So you have this HUGE range of content (10 expansions) from level 65 to 75 where there are so many places to get gear upgrades, levels, etc. because gear increases (especially the group game) was severely restricted. This was the era of camping for hours on end for 5 ac or 20 hp increases, because those increases the item's stats by like 10%.

When you get past that era, you get into shorter level eras, with less overall content, but much bigger jumps in gear (and consequently much bigger jumps in content difficulty). Back when current, sure, you take a full group of people in last expansions end game group gear and they could struggle through the early content for huge upgrades (or buy them from raiders that monopolized named early on to sell droppable loot), but now when it is a soloer with a merc, or 2 friends grouping/boxing together, it is much more of a wall.

IMO this was and is a much bigger wall than the "aa mountain" people whined about. Heroic characters are really half done too, because they put you right at a point where you need gear to compete in the upgrading content, but you're missing augs, your ac is poor, and your overall mods are weak. So unless you want to slum in older content for weeks to catch up, you ram your head against HoT/VoA content and feel like you can't move in it (talking about hypothetical person just starting).

I don't think it says anything about the content being bad. It is simply a function of the switch to yearly expansions and more frequent level increases along with continuous gear resets, when the devs hit a point where the only way to create encounter difficulty was to ramp up damage output such that huge gear increases were required.

Without trying to get into too much of an internet slapfight, I think you are seriously short changing the potential of those classes, and ignoring the real loss of character power that comes with boxing. In order to say "It's impossible with what I had" instead of "I couldn't do it".

Playing a paladin well (or any tank) requires a lot of actions. If you're also sending commands to background characters or tabbing around, that reduces either granularity of commands being sent to each character, or time spent on each character. Sure, you can do decently well at multiple characters while boxing, but to think that a dedicated player can't do better is delusional.

Priests match up with those classes for adps, when possible. There's still lots of dru/shm healing tanks, and paladins healing caster or melee groups. EQ doesn't require "optimal" groups in its hardest content, and it certainly doesn't require it for several year old group content.

The issue was the class composition with the gear they had. It's not impossible with a pal/sham, it was improbable with my pal/sham (and if I had a cleric it would have made up for where my gear was lacking in raw healing power or if I had a warrior it would have made up in raw tanking ability what I was missing in healing power). My pal had 110k hp buffed, both were in Latent Etheric with no augs the paladin was 105 using 100 spells, no charm slot, neither have raid focuses - the only point I was trying to make was it was harder than RoF content. Arguing with someone about who is better isn't something I am interested in and all you've been trying to do with me since I got here a few days ago. (first with vent and now this)

There's really no point for us to continue the discussion because you think you know more than I do and are better than me. Whether or not that is true it's evident in the way you've spoken to me the last few days.

Luckily I am only a temporary forum troll. I am bored between med breaks as I finish PLing the last 12 of my 54 after which I will vanish and you won't see me again. I am telling you this so you can secretly rejoice that the annoyance of me in your territory will end in about 4 days. I promise.

Your presence here adds value in the form of information and experience on a neglected issue.

You dont like EQ pass lvl 70 cause you suck at the game.

I know for a fact that Illa knows more and is better than you. And so do I. If you think anything in this game is hard you dont have the knowledge to figure it out or the skill level. There hasnt been any content that I havent been able to solo heal as a shaman in years.

And I get put in melee groups for adps mainly. I keep my group and spam heal the tank/other people none stop. I can even beat clerics on heal parses. So yea...