Remove Elixir of Greater Concentration as out of era until PoP

I AM ERROR

Oh melee augs. Who cares? Melee suck. They always suck. They suck forever. Sorry until like GoD, they're for raid specific tasks like long term dps or tanking, outside of that they suck, who cares if they get expensive minor augs. Why are you bringing up random unrelated things they changed to balance the game.

melee augs were readded to give melee an early game buff to compensate for how garbage they are.

Lol, the fact is that casters are better than melee until LDoN. Melee are worse even than raid dps in a lot of situations, basically anywhere you can charm. In terms of group or short fight dps casters are vastly superior with the exception of SKs using their hour discipline. A shaman casting both dots will out damage melees by a lot until they go oom (which is pretty quick). Melee will easily be beat by a charm, which is most places until velious. And as far as grouping, melee are vastly inferior to enchanters/casters.

The ideal PoF group, or the deep group, or sebilis group do not involve any melee at all. The ideal duo does not involve a melee at all. They had to let charm pets tank because melee couldn't melee because they were too squishy and you wanted the charm to tank.

Melee do not catch up in kunark, AT ALL. it's not even close, the suggestion is a joke.

I do not understand why melee kinda catching up in dps sorta on raids means its okay for the previous 59 levels for them to be so undesirable that no one wants them, they can barely solo a single blue.

And no I don't play a melee, I play casters, because why on earth would I play a melee.

Well I said out of era in the tittle, so maybe think about it a bit and consider that maybe it was a typo? You know, typos?

1-59 is newbie leveling circa Kunark. I should know, I live in that range even when servers are at LDoN (I go slow). What I mean is the population balance is heavily 60+ once you get a few weeks into Kunark.

So balancing 1-50 would only impact original era. Melee are terrible, despite some positive actions in original era due to poor weapon itemization. This was true even before they did all the years' worth of caster improvements to the game that scaled down very well (for casters being better). They could just give melee (especially rogues) a few better weapon options in original... but that is more power creep when we are already too powerful. I think you will find there is a greater appetite to do nothing or just tune casters down.

This is also ignoring the fact that leveling casters to make plat and farm gear for the melee you want to play is a common, old tactic. You want to limit that you have to use the 1 character per account rule... and even then... lots of people are willing to run multiple accounts.

Most classes were not meant to solo dark blues. This is true well into the level 70 era of the game, just look at the way later "mid-level" zones like Gunthak and Dulak are designed (social aggro, mobs wander, mix of undead and live, some nasty casters, etc.) there is no way an intended level warrior in intended to have self-obtained (not bought) gear is soloing there.

By TSS the game was old and soloing was designed in for the 1-75 content (gear up in TSS and you can go solo some old stuff with that warrior), then they added defiant gear and mercs... now that mid 40s warrior has the raid stats of a full time geared 65 back in the day... you better be able to solo a level 38 dark blue.

So the OP wants potions properly era set. That can be a noble cause, if a potion is unbalancing. Greater concentration appears to be a Luclin era thing. The question is "was it needed before but only finally added then? [then leave them in] Or is it too powerful for classic, Kunark, etc.? [then era-set them different]" but keep in mind if casters fall off shortly after 60 is level cap... is there really a point to making a change [making level 1-49 harder does not promote population retention]?

Irregardless, the casting time on them is too long. Reduce that please.

Starting in Kunark a twinked out ranger/sk can actually solo XP faster than a group gets XP until about level 40. Once you hit SoV raid geared Ranger/SK +Sham/Cleric can actually duo much harder mobs then Chanter/Cleric and outside of Seb, Velks, Chardok, Kael which all have insane charm pets they actually kill quicker. A twinked out Rogue will actually destroy anything in a group DPS slot from about 20-45 then they slow down from about 45-54, at 55 they get double backstab.

Ironically the pots you're talking about are the biggest power boost for the hybrids like Ranger/SK since unlike casters they don't get to med all that much

I'd like to see things that lower downtime stay low but overall player power should go down too. So, instead of lower mana regen, I'd rather see dps/healing go down. That way you're at least "busy"...

Did any of you managed to read this entire thread and post a reply while waiting on a greater con pot to finish casting?

This is not correct, on Phinny I made a twink at every expansion, a ranger in classic an SK in kunark, a monk in velious, and a beast (ugh) in lucling.

My extremely heavily geared (like ridiculous... I had a cloak of flames a shard of night a fungi a fungi stick and just all around extremely good gear) SK had trouble soloing a single yellow giant using fear kiting. Meanwhile at the same level (40ish? It was giant fort in the zone outside of chardok, BW? It's been a while) my enchanter in classic rags was able to solo white camps in guk. I was able to solo king camp at lvl ~46 (it was tricky and involved bind wound but very doable).

My level 10 ranger in classic with the dragon claw from planes and like, all around really nice gear was so bad I stopped at 10.

I don't know that melee ever get stronger pre60 on the TLPs, maybe in PoP, but gear starts to become recommended, and honestly it wasn't even close in velious/kunark

Casters do not fall off at 60 nor at 65. Certain casters do, specifically druids mages and necromancers, and wizards never really pulled ahead in the first place. Enchanters remain overpowered at 60 and 65 as do Shamans. The capability of a solo Enchanter or Shaman at 65 is not even remotely matched by any other class, even rangers. In LDON they are still invaluable for basically any group, and remain the best soloers outside of LDON.

People keep saying that this is just an early game thing, but on a TLP with 3 month unlocks it winds up being over 1.5 YEARS of overpoweredness. After which most people move on.


I want a challenge, its too easy.

You can always attempt to solo in Sky as a caster.

Ah i see the problem you're bad at the game

What is wrong with you people!? The reason EQ lost the war against WoW is because of people such as OP promoting gameplay styles such as sitting around and doing absolutely nothing while OOM. While waiting multiple minutes for their blue bar to refill.

Why do you think sitting around and doing nothing is fun? Do you not value your time?

Balancing the game around soloing at level 10 is much better than doing it around raid content.

^I chuckled.


I think I have been consistent on the forums in saying leave the 1-40 game as easy as it is, possibly even make it easier. It's the hook to get us playing, and someone that wants to slowplay can also choose targets to make that happen anyways. [so for example while I am fine with focus effects being in, I am also fine with them not happening until Luclin. I acknowledge their removal would be a significant power trim... but we are already very, very powerful in this content]

Tuning the 40-50 game in classic, 50-60 in Kunark, etc. there is an argument that the raid content and "hard scary dungeon" content is way too easy in era. Some have said the overall content is too easy. I'm not convinced that leveling XP easily equates to not fun. But anyone easy killing raids does lessen the accomplishment and probably the replay & retention after you have done it a bit.... but, a raid shouldn't be impossible to go back and kill when it is all grey /con either.

Implying raiding is hard?

Raiding in EQ is a total joke at all levels and all expansions right up to live. EQ players are terrible mechanically and the encounters are incredibly easy. Comparing a heroic ICC LK fight or a modern mythic final boss to anything in EQ is like comparing kindergarten soccer to the world cup.


And this change would make raiding harder. So what exactly is your point.

The game needs to be harder across the board.

This is my overall point, that dungeons and raid content in the mid to end game are too easy.

Early in the TLP no one even has conc pots. They're used in dungeons and raids. They're also not terribly fun to use or engaging, spend 15 seconds drinking one, get a mana regen buff that makes content easier, all while making alchemy a boring joke to level.

This thread really meanders though... remove the pots is a minor pimple on the overall complexion of progression difficulty in era.There are much bigger factors... not sure the pots mathematically would make the top 5 --spell damage boost from ages ago, focus effects, gear availability due to not no drop + instancing & picks, ancient changes to charm that make it easier to do then originally [resist checks], player knowledge & skill and mentality (Why go anywhere other than Unrest and Guk?) are all bigger factors than this particular potion I would think...melee augments might even math out as a bigger DPS increase...

The cast time is dumb (non combat effect, not a gate --no need for more than 3 second cast) but not directly part of your point... except that I think more people would want dev time spent reducing that cast time vs. era-setting them. They were originally put in by Luclin by the looks of old Allakhazam posts... and may have been thought overdue when implemented (when they got around to putting something in isn't always when they wished they had put it in).

I use them all the time soloing on my necro... because any +regen helps with the painfully slow med time on progression servers. I have decent-ish gear now for a mid-level non raider, and I still use them. I also bind wound (bought AA for it at 51 rather than leveling) while having +regen buffs on... this is just tedium reduction. It doesn't break the game if I manage to kill 4 extra level 50 mobs in half and hour because I burn a couple concentration potions.

Part groups of non-elite players being able to kill most of Lower Guk at level by themselves... that may be an issue (not Crushbone though... level thing). I still think reducing the respawn rate and randomizing it a bit, and making some named no-charm would be enough to put some danger back into Guk.

It's ironic... because I think the "trivializes alchemy leveling" argument might actually be stronger.

We should stop doing all of this at once. I am not remotely interested in an authentic EQ experience, it was awful even by 1999 standards. By today's standards it is an unfunny joke. We played it because it was the only thing of its kind, not because it was particularly good at what it did. When a good fantasy MMO came out, most people jumped to it and have never looked back to EQ.

The game became playable around Luclin/PoP, nerfing anything back before those expacs is dumb. Nerfing longstanding encounter bugs is dumb, if it's been a bug for more than 5 years, it's a feature. Ask Microsoft. The vision is dead, let's bury it quietly.

Couldn't agree more.

Not sure what difficulty of the content has to do with comparing one class to another. But balancing the classes from a max level raiding perspective makes a lot more sense since that's what most people spend the most time doing.

I not convinced that most people on most servers spend most of their time raiding, with the possible exception of raid guild heavy Phinny.

However, I agree that raiding is the only place to care (the devs that is) all that much about class balance.

Sure, some classes are better for solo dabbling, useful in certain group makeups, slow playing, duoing, fast leveling and so on... but that's the meaty midgame (that you can play forever in or rush through as it suits you) --endgame is where balance matters or you kill the reason to main a character and pursue endgame.*


*and some of us semi-aspire to endgame at some point even if the way we play right now doesn't show that commitment.

End game balance doesnt matter. Show up, collect loot. Simple as that. Your classes balance wont effect your ability to do end game. In fact the weaker your class the less played it will be and the faster you'll get loot.

All that matters for class balance is the ability to solo or duo or one group high level content that has valuable gear.

Do not use the pots if you feel they are so detrimental to your game play! That or start a guild that does not allow them and see how many people join your cause.