Presence of the mighty?

So....
More (epic) bards
Position mobs better
Get better at timing, calling and jousting AE's
Farm / wear appropriate resist gear when an AE is unavoidable

Nothing new here, except potentially more fears assuming non-damage spells get increased difficulty in resist checks as well

A 500 AE is now 575 for Velious mobs. I don't think that changes much.

Resist checks will be the big question, are AE's going to be resisted at all due to level gap between mob and PC based on a static increased number?

If not, it will just mean you have to heal through AE's you cannot avoid and it's a pure HP vs healing vs DPS question.

I'm not okay with it being that black and white because it turns the multifaceted balance of resists hp and AC to a much simpler equation where HP > all.

It's easy to say get a better raid composition, recruit more bards etc. It's an old game, xp rate is so slow we are past the point where new players would even consider making a character here. TLP's shrink as time goes on, making content that requires X amount of bards is fine for zerg guilds with 800 members. But it makes it too hard for smaller guilds.

That's why you need RAID SCALING.

Every single problem that ever existed is fixed entirely and thoroughly with raid scaling.

AE doing too much damage? Raid scaling
HP regen too high for your dps? Raid scaling
Not enough HPS and DPS? Raid scaling
World Hunger? Raid scaling

Maybe the 30 guilds of 50 players should turn into 20 guilds of 75 players if they want to do current era content.

If you want raid scaling, you should consider playing WoW.

so are we going to have to keep a buff slot open for this new debuff the mobs give us?

Because that's a brilliant way to make a long running successful TLP. Problem with the game? Tell everyone to go play WoW! Why didn't I think of it earlier. Why aren't you a dev for EQ?

Patch Notes:

Double Harm Touch damage, go play WoW
Velious mobs regen bugged, go play WoW
Innoruuk not spawning in instances, Go play WoW
Swamp of No Hope Ground Spawn, go play WoW
Kaesora Ground Spawn, go play WoW
Likelihood of Pained Soul / VKR / Rotting Skeleton unchanged, go play WoW

GG.

If you want to zerg stuff maybe you should go play starcraft?

This is stupid. Fix the currently broken buffed mobs before you come out with more stupid ideas. You do not get a broke car and then fix something else that is not broken bore fixing the actual broken issue first.

Totally agree, Dr.Evil. Get things right first. Then worry about less important stuff. The raid mob regen in Velious is absolute BS. FIX IT.

Apparently everyone is missing this:

- All buffed bosses will regenerate less health in combat. Velious era buffed bosses will mitigate less incoming damage.

Regen: Fixed
Damage Mitigation: Reduced

IMHO this is a balance so that the raids are not made too incredibly easy with these "nerfs". Just hold off on your judgements until people get a chance to raid it.

Nope. The debuff goes into the bard song window, and only appears when the boss mobs are engaged (1000 range aura)

From what I've seen, the regen has been modified to 1% every minute engaged. If a mob is disengaged, it regens to 100% within seconds.

Right, because everyone raided Tormax with 75 people back in the day <rolls eyes>.

Thats good. if this all works out like the data implies it should, it wont be so bad, just a little extra oomph to the AEs, which wont be so bad since we may have more HPs than back in the day, and more efficient healing.

not sure i like the lowering of our resists as part of the aura, since i know the gear hasnt changed since back in the day so the resist check itself should still be the same as it was, but minor nitpick

DBG: STOP MEDDLING WITH STUFF THAT IS NOT BROKEN!!!!

FIX HARM TOUCH!!!

FIX YOUR SHIZNAY and STOP MAKING WORK FOR YOURSELF!!!

GETTING VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY SICK of this BS...

Gear hasn't changed, nor have player resist levels, but the entire resist check system was completely overhauled several times.

The scary part of all of this is that someone actually thinks that not only would it be possible for the devs to adopt raid scaling for mob's damage, hp, and loot drop output and it would even remotely come out correct... but he actually thinks that raid scaling in a game with as incredibly lopsided early class balance as this one would benefit from it.

I deep down hope Tulgin is somebody's unfunny troll account. I am fearful of the idea that someone could actually take one of his absolutely terrible ideas and actually try to implement them.

You do realise that the same patch notes that have this change have HT fixed too?

You do realize that previous patch notes also listed HT being fixed? Let's wait to see it to believe that it will actually happen just because it is in some patch notes.

Gear has changed - focus effects. Not that they add resists or HP, of course. However, people are more aware of what the best gear is, how to find it, and picks make the group gear more readily available. And people are also more aware of the benefits of resists and bard songs for those. So the average raider is better equipped than they were back then.

That's why I didn't actually say it was fixed. But the rant above was misplaced.

We were talking about resists only.

So... you're saying your "raid" guild doing instanced content cannot reliably field 6 bards for a 36 person raid?

Anyone who raided Velious at any point near it's era knows bards are essential on any resist check or long duration fight. Changes to resists or not; changes to HP of mobs or not; 36 people or 72 or 100. Doesn't matter. Bards have always made raids better, always will; especially epic bards. There is a reason why top raid guilds can never have enough clerics or bards; especially bards once overhaste and rizlona's get into the game.

If you cannot recruit more, perhaps you need to start an alliance so a raid can field enough; which I think is the point of the changes. They don't want anyone doing content with 30 people. They want you in the 60 person range on a raid. Like it or not, that is the direction they have gone.

Not all content is designed for 30 people to consume. Particularly after Kunark; and especially at an instanced level with no one breathing down your throat to take your mob if you wipe.

There is a reason why raid mobs from multiple eras were labeled as a certain "tier" of mob. If you can only field 30 people, MAYBE you can clear in-era Tier 1 and some of Tier 2; but if you're running 7 paladins on those 30 people, maybe you barely clear Lodizal and that water dragon in Cobalt Scar.

If you rock 50, maybe you're Tier 3 or 4. If you can field 72, you're Tier 5 clearing all but AoW, Tunare, CT and Vulak consistently, and if your guild has its act together with top geared and skilled players, you're Tier 6 and can beat the end bosses in-era.

Lets face it, just because you can throw 30 or 36 people into a raid, does not mean that your 12 or 15 DPS are going to be enough to down Tunare. That just isn't how the game ever worked for the pre-PoP Eras. Ever. At level 65, with max AA and VT gear? Sure maybe then you drop Tunare and AOW with 36 or so people.

I think many people are miss-remembering that they were doing content out of era when they complain about low number raid issues.

As for scaling, clearly nothing they do seems to work to change content on the first run.

Flat number, base changes to resists on mobs that range from level 65 to 75 or 80 when the player level is static at 60? That could change things dramatically for resistability of an AE from a level 65 vs lvl 70 vs lvl 80 mob. Particularly if the mob has debilitating effects like fears, slows, stuns or mana drains.

Just like regeneration placed at .001% of mob HP may not have been very consequential when the mob had 350k HP, but when that mob turns into a 1.8m HP mob, that .001% changes the game from requiring any sustained DPS to see progress to obscene dps (which has been mitigated down due to AC/resist adjustments) to just move the HP from 100% to 99%.

But, failling a DPS check and getting a mob to 60% versus failing a DPS check and seeing no progress? They both are failed DPS checks. This is the argument against some of DW's gripes on Ragefire which the only evidence has been unsupported claims and anecdotal observations.

In fact, if you simply changed regeneration of mobs without adjusting the mob HP you could achieve the same effect of placing a DPS threshold without having to buff base HP, AC, resists, etc. Changing both HP(base amount) and regeneration(a scaling factor)? That's caused Ragefire's problems.

The clearly have not figured out scaling. Asking for it now may just make things worse because they'd need to scrap motm entirely and start over; something I rate them as likely to do as me winning powerball and retiring to play EQ everyday.