Focused Feedback - Fighters

Overcap for AE auto ... ST maybe!

Paladins

Divine Aura needs a minor adjustment to make it not completely worthless when the mob hits you for >50% of your max HP. Instead of reducing all damage if <50% I would love to see it simply reduce all damage by %50 of the Paladin's max HP. Minor change but huge impact on Paladin survival in raid.

As stated previously, the HP buff from Paladin heals does not even remotely scale appropriately. Rather than an HP buff (flat amount or % of max), I would love to see the buff component change to a damage reduction for the beneficiaries of the heal.

Lay on Hands, the single-stoneskin does not produce much benefit now that mobs hit for less but hit more often. Please either increase the number of stoneskins, or give the spell a short duration 100% damage absorption/reduction.

Manawall still needs some help. Given the mana cost of the spell the duration is terrible.

Damage potential on the class is pretty terrible. Even right-side prestige spec produces very little damage output, and reckless is worthless for soloing or tanking heroics. I actually have little suggestion here, except to perhaps boost our combat art damage considerably. The only alternative to get a Paladin's DPS to respectable levels is to run a full DPS gear set and pray your priest can keep up.

Given the weakness of some of our temps (failure of DA to work on harder hits, generally low utility in raids), the very low DPS, and poor AE agro-control, it is a tough sell not to betray to SK some days. I have always loved the Paladin class (since the original EQ before there was a need to refer to it as EQ1), but I think a lot of other people would love it too if some of the minor tweaks listed above could be made.

Thank you for soliciting player feedback on this. It is great that the developers care about the community at large, despite all the trolls and flamers on the forums.

Bruisers feel fine and fun now, Only two real issues I have with buttons that don't really do anything. (Eagle Shrieks is amazing)

Lightning Fists is a combat art that gives us 5 procs of 3300 damage and we have some AAs to enhance it as well. Probably needs to be reevaluated to make it worth using in combat and not just prepull.

Martial Leap the TSO Endline is still horrible in PVE/PVP, I rather see the intercede go and be a teleport to target enemy with an AE upon landing attack and even have 2-3 position hate decrease for non fighters if I am not asking for too much there.

Bruiser

Agree with Lightning Fists and Martial Leap needing attention. Add another 0 on the end of Lightning Fists' damage and it'd be great

I disagree about Eagle Shriek. Maybe it's useful in pvp, not really in pve. If you're under 50% hp and don't have a temp going you're as good as dead in any content that matters. Would really really like to see it changed so that it places a duration buff on you if you cross the hp threshold. Having to remain under 50% to get the benefit plain sucks.

Still would like the ward on Rock Skin bumped a bit. The cb change didn't help it, since it doesn't crit

I would rather Weapon Damage.

Bruiser
Eagle's Patience could be more user friendly. at times it wont even activate when you are <50% hp. I would rather see it as a passive ability that when under 50% hp it would proc a stone skin. The ability can only activate once every 30 seconds.


I have to agree with everyone else on Martial Leap..... might as well delete this from the code, because it is a non needed ability.

I have to disagree with you Malleria about being under 50% with out a temp running. A bruiser isn't going to just explode instantly if they are under 50% hp with out a temp running. Now, if you aren't geared appropriately for your role in a heroic or raid then sure you will die w/o a temp....

Well it may have been a slight exaggeration, but it still comes down to what you expect to get from the AA.

Realistically no healer is going to let you sit at 50% or below for any length of time. At most you're going to have that bonus mit for 1 hit, or none at all, and the base auto attack bonus for maybe 2 seconds. That's not really much of a benefit. And if you took Eagle's Patience and use it well, that mit doesn't even come into play cause you stoneskinned the 1 hit anyway. Plus, if you're 'geared appropriately', you probably wouldn't notice the extra 2200 mit, because you're already geared defensively. I see the AA as a way to compensate for not having perfect gear. You know you're gonna be taking some hard knocks, so you get a boost when it happens. If you're going in with enough defensive gear to reliably survive you wouldn't be taking the AA line anyway would you?

In my opinion the AA fails to accomplish its intent. The length of time you're going to be below 50% is so negligible the effect isn't going to be felt. A duration buff after crossing the threshold at least lets you realize some gain from it.

Most if not all of the under 50% AA suffer from this issue.
Too much Risk for negligible reward.

Hi!

I am not a fighter (unless you want to count my lolsySK that I torture CB with in pugs, FDing folks in the middle of their burst chains... or other various activities that make me laugh), but I have a QoL complaint.

In groups, 6 folks(!), none of these fighters can hold aggro... from anyone. Like, for a smooth run, you almost need to run a double bard, double fighter, coercer, & healer setup. This seems TERRIBLE. Like, I get that you don't want fighters to have too much self-hatred... but like, it's pretty not-fun. Can you boost things a little bit? It seems like it's more problematic in heroic content than in raid (due to being able to cycle 2 sets of shout/AV), so even if you gave a boost for up to 6 folks in party, that ought to be enough (kind of like the procs on some gear... Sting like a Bixie? Something like that... idk).

Their QoL affects my QoL (or lack of life, so it seems). I still want an AE deaggro, though.

Alone the ability seems bad but coupled with Tenacity that puts you back at 50%, A Dragon AA that can give you a few seconds of 50% damage reduction when a deathsave triggers even just something like a channeler healer or a defiler using deathward. Those extra stoneskins will be <3

This.

I also agree with the block vs mit argument and frankly what good is having more mit/stoneskins when there are classes which can outright miss the incoming attack and not worry about blocking and mitigating the damage at all. Granted it is early days in the expansion and with more raid gear with higher mit, the incoming damage may not be as much as it is right now but clearly steps can be taken now to alleviate the current insane auto attack damage/speed from mobs. The rock mob in temple zone is an example.

If you are worried about introducing anything new then why not just update the warrior and guardian tree? Especially the endlines, of which some, have not been used since EoF/RoK. Arena endurance, stance mastery, executioner's fury are all redundant these days.

Flurry in the guardian tree can easily be updated to bring in the AE/flurry conversion with and w/o FO.

With the current protection values on the shield we are just way too behind on the block curve considering brawlers (monks) can be invincible for almost an entire fight if they can sync their temps with healers etc.

Please fix GM spells as well. The proposed fixes on ToS/Sphere are decent and should not make us any OP.

I can go on about a number of things but please just do the basics right first.

• Eagle Shriek and Eagle Patience – I think if Eagle Shriek placed a buff of you for 5 sec each time you pass below 50%, given the way mobs are hitting in this xpac it would help. In addition, as long as that buff is on you Eagle Patience could be used to full effect, it would also help.
• Lightning Palm – I guess I forgot about this one… I took it off of my Hot bar since it is not worth casting… ever. This needs to be changes and I like some of the ideas above. Just giving it 10-20x more damage would be ok… but I would rather see it changed into something that would help us. I am thinking of a Blue Taunt (maybe unlimited target and 10-15m range) with a Very Small damage portion, in Reckless Stance it a Dehate.
• Outward Calm and Serene Energy – what to do … Outward Calm wards agented non physical dmg, and Serene Energy is Ward that procs on a Block for all Dmg. Outward Calm warding for 60k+ this is not going to help on any given AoE. Maybe making it into a Stoneskin for non physical dmg would help, or change the AA in the Monk Tree “Outward Tranquility” to convert the ability. This way the Ward version is still there for the ppl that want it and a 1 trigger Stoneskin is there for the ppl that need that.
• Serene Energy is in a very valuable location so I do not want to just waste it, I can see just removing the Proc-limiter would make it Ward/Heal for too much. But changing the Proc-limiter to 1s each Sec would at most make it here for about 15k hps… that would be ok I think, and only if we are Blocking an attack that often.

@ Nezette – I think that the base Damage of all Tank Attacks would be looked at so we can DPS more when tanking. This would help if agro when tanking. Or just make sure that all Mit/Block gear also has Pot on it. Ether would help.

I also Really think the Monk Right Side Prestige Tree from Waveform on down needs to be reworked. Here is an idea or 2.

• Waveform – atm it’s a Single Target DD/DoT/Debuff. That is fine at the surface and the base ability is probably fine. Lets make the add-ons better.
• Liquid Movement – Adds to the trigger chance and 1/2/4 tick of Waveform. This is not bad, but if we can double the added ticks to 2/5/10 this may be enuff to start making the ability better.
• Ocean’s Onslaught – When not tanking adds more damage. Nice idea, but in order for this to work Reckless needs to also work. Also can you add a Dehate to this to help it not take agro, I am thinking on par with Dragon Rage atm on live.
• Stifling Assault – Attack Speed Debuff, this is not a bad idea now that we have a way to know if the mobs are in need of a debuff, but I do not think that this is going to help with the MT surviving? I suggest changing this into more damage. Maybe a small WDB per increment on the target buff? Would that be to complicated to workout? Or a chance to have our CA’s Double Cast… since they do not do much dmg anyway…
• Fluid Combination – this is the real problem, I think. Remember to get to the ability we are giving up the Left side Conversion and all of the added survivability on that side. It needs to be worth sacrificing for. I would recommend increasing the reuse (maybe double) and X3-X5 the base damage. This in conjunction with the more increments of Waveform should more a lot more damage.

Silzin it sounds like you want to turn the monk class into an aoe tank.... if you want more ae capability roll bruiser

Non of m suggestions are AoE, with 1 exception... the 1 blue Taunt. that would be a very Small damage hit so it can trigger procs. all of the other suggestions are for when Monks are not tanking, since no monk should be tanking any hard with Rightside prestige. there are also a lot of useless abilities in there also.

(I couldnt re-edit my post so im reposting additional to my original post)

SHADOW KNIGHTS

Death March:
Give back that hidden aggro generation it used to have...It ended back in the SF expac, it was awsome to cast and snag all aoe aggro, making it more useful than today... never understood why it ever changed...
also to add, get rid of that multi attack bonus, it's completely worthless now. Back then it used to be DPS mod. I would have rather kept that instead.
Id really just prefer give a weapon damage bonus so it actually has DPS use for a scout group. And for mages why not give spell double attack instead of cast speed which is already capped so easy.

Divine Aura:
I Would rather see it as a riposte all damage or even as a 50% damage reduction.
If no changes then Please make it Faster casting just like Furor.

Some old abilities just in general really need to be looked at again for all classes since the games change so much.

This seems to be a good opportunity to suggest something that has been on my mind for some time: perhaps we should consider making melee and ranged auto-attacks not delay from ability usage, the same way spell auto attacks work. I understand that this will likely be a contentious issue, but please consider the following points.

1) New Player Experience
As far as I am aware, there is no form of in-game tutorial that covers the importance of timing your auto-attacks between abilities. I can't even recount the number of times I have been counseling a new player on how to play effectively and they have had no idea that auto-attack timing was even a thing. This isn't just total newbs either, people are more than capable of leveling all the way to max without realizing that they are restricting their own DPS. Invariably, upon being informed about the mechanic, said new player always ends up feeling quite negative, especially if they had already been struggling in groups without knowing why. This isn't a "eureka!" moment, it is an "are you kidding me?!?" moment.

2) Restricted Itemization
The need to time your auto-attacks seriously restricts the variety of weapons that can be used effectively. Any class that dual-wields must acquire weapons with matching delays, or end up losing nontrivial DPS due to their out-of-synch auto-attacks being delayed by abilities. This also means that any new weapon that a player obtains must match the delay of their existing weapon, or else it collects dust until a matching delay weapon is found. This makes obtaining weapon upgrades far less exciting. Additionally, some weapon delays are simply unusable. The two-delay 2H weapons in ToV are a prime example. Nobody I know who has even the slightest clue how to play the game used these weapons on a class who uses non-spell auto attacks (except maybe for short bursts to capitalize on non-normalized procs, but even then, I doubt the DPS increase is worth the trouble). The worst part is that many such 2H'ers were designed for priests, who have many long-casting spells, making any weapon with a delay under 6 a massive waste of potential. Just think back over the years at how many times weapon delays have had to be adjusted due to itemization gaps, and also the need for clunky, dirty-hack mechanics like the conversion gemstones for the Fabled KoS collection weapons.

3) Average Player Performance
Since auto-attack timing has been a thing for years, many veterans have made use of various tools to facilitate it. ACT ding triggers are popular, as were 3rd-party UI elements such as auto-attack timing bars (which have since been added to the official UI, but are inexplicably disabled by default). However, believe it or not, there are a lot of players (I daresay most) who do not use 3rd-party tools or mods of any kind, and therefore are at a distinct disadvantage on several fronts. Player such as myself, who comb ACT logs following every single play session, are already going to perform much better than the average due to having deeper knowledge of game mechanics, itemization, and UI optimization. Removing the need to time auto-attacks will standardize auto-attack damage output across the range of players, raising the average a bit, without significantly increasing the maximum (since the best players already optimized their attacks, anyways). This will allow less-experienced or skilled players to perform their roles more adequately, and hopefully therefore improve the quality of PuGs.

4) Class Balance
It's no big secret that many consider scout damage to be heavily skewed in favor of auto-attack, and generally less practical than mage damage with current mechanics. I can't comment on this specifically, since I do not play my scouts in high-end content, but a quick glance over the "Focused Feedback - Scout" thread makes things pretty plain. This seems like a great opportunity to implement a change to auto-attack timing, to normalize not only the proportions of scout DPS between auto attack and abilities, but also DPS between scouts and mages. Removing auto-attack timing as a variable will smooth the entire balancing process.

Now, I know exactly what response this suggestion will receive, so allow me to address it here.

"Dumbing Down" the Game
While it is true that removing the mechanic of auto-attack timing would remove some measure of complexity, I personally feel that this is a good thing. EQ2 has added many, many new mechanics over the years, and each new AA and/or prestige update just piles on even more. I personally love how intricate and deep the gameplay of EQ2 can be on the high-end, and would not like to see that depth diminished. That being said, auto attack timing does not, in my opinion, count as depth. It is merely a form of needless complexity that, as mentioned above, penalizes new characters without providing much in the way of satisfaction for those who master it. When was the last time you saw anybody express pride in how well they timed their auto-attacks? Having you ever been in a situation where you were only able to succeed because of your ace auto-attack timing skills? Do you look forward to testing new mechanics to see how they interact with timing auto attacks? If auto-attack timing suddenly stopped mattering tomorrow, would your gameplay really change at all? I feel that removing this minor bit of complexity will leave room for more interesting and engaging forms of complexity in the future.

In closing, thanks for opening this dialogue with us players, and I hope some of these suggestions can help make the game more enjoyable for all!

If you need a 5th reason: THE LAG IS REAL. Most of us have gotten used to it, but some zones (yay water) are worse than others (plus, some mage abilities really wreck the zone for the rest of us...) For me, this is the only reason I'd support your request. The other stuff you mentioned is fine, but personally it doesn't really bother me. But, combined with lag? Yeah, I'll raise my hand and admit I'm really bad at timing my autos when I'm taking server-lag/zone-lag/mage-lag into consideration. I'm just not in tune with my inner lag chakra.

Agree with everything you said. Timing auto attacks doesn't add difficulty, just tediousness.

Timing Auto-attacks is a required skill and it should stay. If you don't have it you might as well just replace all PCs with bots, its the only advantage we have to bot players. It also separates people a lot by skill, which is really nice since people who know the game stand out from others.

It really is not. If mages can fire off spell-attack missiles while channeling spells then warriors and rogues should swing a sword while also executing a backstab. If were going to talk fairness.

It's a QoL and the game is already Mage-Heavy. Raids used to be MT/OT/Scout/Mage groups... now it's MT/OT/Mage/Mage with scouts littered here and there for various buffs/debuffs but not real dps. Heck sometimes the MT and OT are the same group since the MT really doesn't take much damage anymore.

I would rather see more power removed from Auto-Attacks and moved instead to Combat Arts and Spells bringing back importance of spell/art rotation and timing them well. Auto-Attacks should be that, automatic. Timing them was a thing back when arts/spells would be on cooldown for awhile. That's not true anymore. Timing is a relic that I would love to see removed in all honesty.

I'de also rather not have 80% of my DPS be my auto-attacks but that's just me.