Hi EQ Vets! Have hit 65 on my SHD and am starting to climb up the AA ranks but there is still a lot for me to learn and understand. Among the questions I have is about the current state of Harm Touch. When EQ was first released HT was the iconic ability of the SHD, able to deliver significant damage to a target in an instant. However, I did hear that the developers eventually had to make changes to the HT ability due to hit squads of SHDs mass HT'ing raid targets to oblivion. What changes did they make and how is HT used these days for us SHDs? - Gorgol
For TLP servers I believe they just capped its damage, on regular servers its basically the same, but now has a DoT on top
there's nothing "current" about the state of anything at lvl 65 At 105, my HT can crit hit for up to 3.4 million. In my 24 hour log from yesterday, my max hit was only 2.8 million. Trash mobs in T2 EoK zones tend to have 6-7 million hps, but amygdalan have 15 million. Group named mobs vary a lot, but 20+ million is pretty standard.The Bridgekeeper has 80 million. I think the T1 Raid bosses are in the 1 billion hp range. My 3.4 million HT is a whopping 0.34% of that. It would take about 300 SKs (critting!) to instantly HT a raid boss (and that's assuming event mechanics would even allow it). Harm Touch is awesome and makes a big boom, but it's not making or breaking raids
I forget exactly where, but yes, it eventually requires AAs to improve. There are a bunch of free ranks though.
GINA automatically backs up my logs every 24 hours (at midnight). I find this less intrusive than size-based backup plans, which always seem to back up my logs in the middle of an awesome fight. The vast majority of AAs are given out as you level, up to level 100. I would not put any exp towards AAs until lvl 100. Fun journey ahead of you, I'm jealous!
Gorgol didn't mention it in this thread, but he's speaking from a Phinny TLP perspective. So level 65 is current, and makes perfect sense he's working on AA's. Gorgol, from a couple logs from yesterday I got these: 04/26/17 01:17:09 PM SK_01 begins to cast a spell. <Harm Touch XIII> 04/26/17 01:17:09 PM SK_01 hit a prismatic recluse for 1691 points of non-melee damage. 04/26/17 10:39:30 PM SK_02 begins to cast a spell. <Harm Touch XIII> 04/26/17 10:39:30 PM SK_02 hit a forlorn Darta soldier for 1691 points of non-melee damage. 04/26/17 11:19:22 PM SK_03 begins to cast a spell. <Harm Touch XIII> 04/26/17 11:19:22 PM SK_03 hit a Witness of Hate seer for 1691 points of non-melee damage. These are max or near it AA SK's (at level 65 on Phinny) so it appears the max is currently 1691 damage per hit. I believe they mostly just use it as an agro tool more than the "instantly melt this mob" tool that it used to be.