Massive Nerfs Inc - Melee, Tanks, Berserkers

No. The classes are out of balance and the game is becoming designed for it. That's why it's on course for a downward spiral.

I agree with strongbus...class balance is unrealistic, and Eq was the most fun when they were *not* balanced (or it hasn't been tried).

The easy example is Chanter, it was a hugely powerful class back then and part of the Trinity.
*But* that did also mean it was super challenging to play, and difficult to master.
Because people expected miracles from me (which sometimes i was able to deliver and sometimes not =p). Good Chanter were given credit, and i did see *nobody* who was jealous.
No my rogue friend back then for example, he knew he did not even close to the dps that i could do with a charm pet in the GoD/PoP eras. But he did not care, he benefited from that in the form of exp/fun killing and so on.

Now look what happened to Chanters after the glorious class balance.
We are now best known for adps...who would have ever imagined that 10 years ago?
Who would have started a Chanter for this kind of play??

Some classes working miracles does not create jealous reactions in a good community.
It delivers food for talk, inspires people to create alts and try themselves, or even switch toons.
But it keeps this game alive.
Another good example was SK swarming, many of them helped lower toons to get plenty exp.
These things created friendships, the current trend creates people leaving the game...

This is very subjective and depends heavily on which side of that pendulum you're on.

Cases can be made for "powerful" abilities, but care must be taken to ensure that powerful does not become overpowered.

Oldworld Enchanters difficult to play? Compared to what?

Without seeing all the final changes, it's hard to say how bad berserkers will be affected. Sure, we can use Self-Preservation+Rest in raids, but we also have 7th Wind and Communion of Blood for some endurance. Some...not a lot.

With furious rampage, it's likely being changed so that more ranks can be added (like they did with Decapitation). 12s / 24s may get more ranks so top-end can go 36, 48, etc.

If these changes stay without other adjustments to endurance (reduction of timers on discs, boosts to regen), endurance-based raiders will have to work harder to survive, which is good. The raids should encourage paying attention and not

There's nothing at all wrong with balance between classes, infact it should be strived for.

However how it is achieved is what matters.

1) Nip an overpowered ability in the bud. Everyone makes mistakes now and then, so correct them QUICKLY. People won't like it, but they'll accept going back to how things were a couple months back with a minimal of grumbling. Don't wait 2 years for everything to settle down and then nerf it (especially if stagnation has meant it's not even overpowered by then).

2) Try and balance by improvements to others or stagnation. We all expect the pendulum to swing back and forth a little bit. This expansion class X is flavour of the month and next expansion it'll be class Y. That's fine and in itself it is a form of balancing; everyone gets a turn of the "glory wheel"

3) Finally if something does need nerfing and it's simply been left for too long (more of a "I wouldn't start from here if I was you" situation, but that's not helpful), then it needs to be done with tact and sweeteners elsewhere. Eg the assassination and headshot nerf was a good example - huge nerf to proc rate, but the level cap was improved.

Here is my issue with class balancing. When the game started each class had some area that they where good in and some that they sucked in. Good examples. Clerics had the best heals and rezs but sucked at dps, and could offer little else to a group. Druids and Shamans were bout = in heals but the heals where below what a cleric had. But both could do more dps and could offer other things to help the group. Such as druids could ds the tank and snare the mobs. Where as Shamans could slow the mobs and haste the tanks. Same with tanks and all other aspect of the group game. This made it fun when in a group if you changed out one class for another you had to change how your grouped worked.

Now a days you can change out tanks/healer/pull/dps/cc type classes and not have to change a thing how your group is xping. It has made the game to easy.

You do still have to some degree do that, but I agree.

I would love a return to the old days where class roles were far more defined.

From what I have read any agro will drop the effects of rest, so your scenario won't work too well, any buffs from someone in combat or bard song (direct or AE) will see rest poof.

P.s. everyone should blame berserkers for this nerf, we told the devs our endurance regen bp click was useless and BAM!!! they made it usefull by nerfing rest

I don't understand your point. What you're describing is IMO balanced. You can do this *or* that, but doing both would be too powerful. You have to pick your strengths and weaknesses. Balancing isn't about making everyone equal, it's about making their relative merits approximately equal in merit.

Regarding interchangeability though, you could always do that. Sure a cleric was the best healer, but others did work and I sometimes XPed with a druid healing the tank, and sometimes that tank wasn't a warrior. Shrug - worked then and works now. It's not an excuse for never changing anything.

He's confusing class balance with abilities being given to other classes. It's more clear from other posts, but he thinks it means "all classes have the exact same abilities" not that classes achieve a similar power level through different means.

Here is the difference. Back then a druid could heal in any zone but because the druids heals where not as powerful as the clerics the druid had to work harder to keep the tank up. Cause of this the druid would go oom sooner. This means that if you had a cleric healer and went to a druid then you had to change how you where fighting by 1. not killing as many mobs or 2. killing lower level mobs so that it was easy for the druid to heal. Now a days a druids heals are just bout on par with a clerics.


Changing out different class of the same type(healer/tank/puller/etc) should have a big change on how a group works. As it is now you can change out class types and it has little or no effect on how the group works.

This is what I hate bout class balancing.

Maybe I am but then why do all classes have to be balanced in any way. I love this game but I don't care if the classes I want to play are balanced out with the rest of the classes. A person should pick their class based on what they like, They shouldn't be worried if that class is balanced with other classes.

I don't think that would be fun.

All 3 tanks should be able to tank; but in different ways
All 3 healers should be able to heal; but in different ways (and seriously WRU Druids being the DPS healer)

Going back to the stone age: where some content just wasn't doable without a druid AND shaman healing or a cleric doesn't sound very thrilling to me.

Or the days when IF you didnt have a warrior to tank your group sucked.

Yeh no thank you.

We need to be balanced within the set roles we can fill if we are not then our class is not needed. When 1 class out performs all others people will just box 6 of that class and destroy everything. And then all the unique things our classes can do is pointless.

Now raids on the other hand there is a little more room to throw us out of balance a little bit so X class does this or that but not in groups.

You are more talking about class uniqueness rather then balance.

While I think both are important one should be for one area of the game and anothe rmore so for the raiding part of the game.(not completely on either or though)

And most people chose their class on what they like and the game has changed so much that some classes don't even come close to being the same as it was when they chose said class.

It is always people that are part of classes that have been or are very very very very strong that say "there should be no class balance"

And if you believe druid healing is on par with cleric healing...lol.

The issue is not that the healing is on par ( its not ). The issue is that too much current content is a joke to tank. When something is hard, its very noticeable the differences. As a druid I *can* heal PoWar. And it *can* be fun, as it has its moments of being very challenging. There are many instances in that zone where I would prefer a cleric be present to heal, though.

As someone who boxes both a cleric and a druid (not at the same time mind you) I agree with what your saying:

However in most content (outside of War) I think my statement that the 3 healers are pretty much on even terms is not a far cry from the truth.

In fact in most group content, I prefer to bring my druid over the cleric, since: Why not have more DPS? All you need to do is toss the occasional heal out there for most group content these days.

However yeh in War... ooof Druid as main healer can get sketchy at points, not having all the clickies/quick heals and balances when it matters... makes it a good margin more difficult.

makavien I see where you are coming form. the problem is there is a point at which you need to stop balancing and just let there be a set order of best to worst with in each roles. For example with the 3 main pet classes and moloing. mag/nerco/bst are all bout the same in terms of what they can do. But if you have all 3 be = in all around power then what is the sense of having 3 different main pet classes. There needs to be some sort of imbalance to say ok here is why we have 3 different classes.

Ravengloom I never said druid where the dps healer just that they can do more dps then a cleric.

And I know people who will not group with cleric now a days cause they say that because druid and shaman heals are on par with clerics and druid and shaman offer more to a group that clerics are useless.

No I said they should be the DPS healer, or Implied it.

As far as excluding clerics entirely.

Druid and Shaman DPS isn't all that hot either lol.

Maybe changing a little, but being ABLE to change is what I love about balance.

An example of how balancing can make sense.
1) Cleric is top healer, able to dish out more healing than others and having more "Oh ^&*!" abilities to combat when things go pear shaped.
2) Druid with slightly weaker healing, but is able to attack debuff the mobs to reduce their damage output and smooth out some of the spikes.
3) Shaman with weaker healing, but is able to slow the mobs, reducing their damage output.

All 3 should be able function fine as main healing, but all are unique in their own particular way. Score for keeping the classes feeling distinct, but not making any of them feel worthless or second class citizens in groups. EVERYONE deserves to be able to have fun. Balance is about achieving that and not leaving one class in the cold because no one wants them in their group.

If that's not your cuppa tea then sorry, we'll just have to disagree on this point.

After this nerf Fairly certain Warriors/melee DPS are going to be Second class citizens at best...

I know I wouldn't invite a healer that had to med every 10 minutes
I know I wouldn't invite a DPS that had to med every 10 minutes
I definitially wouldn't invite a tank that had to every 10 minutes

Thanks EQ dev's for making atleast 4 classes completely irrelevant in the group game.