Ahh A window of oppurtunity. Since priest balancing is now slated for LU7, maybe they can slip some bard balancing in LU6 How about it Moorgard.....
Well, I wouldn't hold your breath if I were in your position. That said, they MIGHT look to doing a broad balancing at the same time when they do this, though that's hard; big patches break more things due to the sheer amount of potential dependencies to work with. We'll see. =)
From 40 on, hitting the same con mobs, your personal DPS goes DOWN. Your buffs and debuffs had an effect back in the 20s and 30s. In the 40s and espeecially at 50, they do not matter. They do nto matter AT ALL. Back then, if a buff dropped, you knew it. You could suddenly see it. Now, at 50... I might fight for an hour before I realize I haven't refreshed a buff in say... an hour. DO you know what clue is going to fill me in? Its not the hits on the mobs or the health, power of the players.... its, "You know, I haven't seen the blue sparkles from rush of battle in a while." My guild never holds off on trying something because the bard isn't there. If the enchanter is missing, yes... bard... no. Back then, your buffs and debuffs were good. Now, they are compared against the player's GEAR. Sadly, the suprise is not the the gear is superior... its by how many times the gear is superior. 40 mana regen in combat equipment. 21 haste on gear. Skill increases on gear. Once players get hold of upper t4-t5 Master chest loot, Dirges regulate to the reject groups and running the Jboot quest.
I read that the dev team said that gear mana regen is out-of-combat. I don't personally have any. Is this true?
Bingo, its an utter shame seeing someone with GEBS and RotI out regen your songs *not that its all that hard haha*. You're right on the buff deal, I don't think I'm even gonna bother using any anymore, no point. I don't see the effects, and my imbued daggers proc 1000x more than our Proc, heh its more like .5% then 5%.
Heh Why not bump this with another point of interest of mine. Fluff spells, we get 2. Dark Elf illusion and an Emote. I see other classes getting up to 6, and some are cool like ghost/skeleton form.
Oh yah Another thing just came to mind. Hex dolls, 9% slow, unlimited charges -------- Dirge debuff 10% slow Hex dolls (x2) +24 to a stat -------- Dirge buffs +46 to a stat (unless of course you use JMA for speed like 99% of Dirges then its +36 to stats for us) Can we get stacking buffs now and some increase to our slow debuff.....
Eh... I don't want buffs in the same line to stack. It doesn't even make sense; I don't *care* if troubadours can do it. There are far more things I'd like to see fixed (see original post!) than that.
Honestly, I like the idea of the dirge, I have always been a strong advocate of how utility oriented we are and what we can bring to a group, but as time goes by, and I see the advantages that other classes have, that really outshines our abilities. I played EQ1 as a cleric (65), but had a few alts in my time, one of which is a bard (40). Am I comparing the bard of EQ1 and 2? Sure, who can’t if they played EQ1. Did they have more utility than EQ2? Much more so. I think the Devs saw the inherent imbalance of using the template of EQ1 bard into the EQ2 gameplay and really watered down what our concept of being a dirge/troubadour is all about. A guildmate posed this question to me: Would you, if SOE let you, switch classes? I paused at first, honestly my first gut reaction was yes. As I thought about it more and talked with the various other scout classes, it seems that they ALL have issues with their class. So we are not in the silent minority, we are apart of some bigger problems that SOE has to fix. The game itself was not fully developed at release, that much is true. Knee jerk changes to core things to our class (AGL nerf), spell lines that do not have a logical progression and spell lines that have no business being in our abilities is our problem, other classes have theirs.
Another fun thing I forgot to mentioned, but before the last patch, I could have multiple instances of Clara's up on different encounters. Now it is available only once, for one encounter, then greys out, til I cancel, the timer runs out or the mob or myself dies. Nice stealth nerf of an already haggered class.
Yeah, I think that was a stealth nerf of a very unintentional sort. If it's a real issue though, then we can complain about it. Wait till LU6 goes live though, that's gonna change it again. Also, while the AGI nerf has had some far reaching consequences, the nerf was NEEDED. The kind of breakage that was gotten from buff stacking (still doesn't make sense) on AGI heavy characters was outrageous. Even AFTER the nerf, it does not really affect us too badly... only people that used to be unhittable before. Unhittable isn't good for the game, because then you have a one combo only sort of scenario. No variety,a nd a large part of the game becomes stagnant. So I would really hesitate to call the AGI nerf a "knee-jerk" reaction. Do I think it can be addressed better? Maybe; we'll see.
Maybe im a little late to chime in but... I do feel the dirge class is "flawed" to say the least. The part I would not most is the Bria's line.. has anyone noticed the difference between the thrilling ballad and the original one.. I know that I was regening 50 or so per cast back in FG.. it seems now I get about 5 more or 15 less... give or take. More fun spells or fluff spells would be neat.. Im not sure if i just havent lvled high enough or is the funeral song mine or what.. maybe someone could let me know. In general tho I think our abilities do need to be looked into. The overall class seems to weaken through the lvls though I am hitting some kind of plane at 35. -thanks for the graphics on Luda's Dlisk 35th dirge ::GROBB::
Uh adapt1 bria's exhalting ballad is 13 a tick, thats the latest and greatest version we get. Its really pitiful, I can name 4 items that regen better than it heh.
But I still haven't gotten a response as to whether or not that regen (from items) works in combat. Since I don't have any yet, I cannot test this.
GEBS (20) IN| RoTI (Can't remember) IN|fancy necklace from the zek instance (30) IN| Swiftblade of the Scale (12) IN| Sigh, so there you go have a nice day, theres some more items, but I haven't seen them personally.
Give us increases to are darn buffs and debuffs and I think alot of our problems can be solved, especially in the higher end game. This is the area where I think alot of Dirges are feeling the un-usefulness to there parties and getting a feeling of "umm so what exactly do I add to the party". I think the game was very flawed in making the bard class in the essence to buff and debuff, when just about every other job can do buffs and debuffs. Join a party and slap on your 3 or 4 buffs to go alongside the 30 other buffs going?? Wheres the uniqueness in classes? When you have a class as ours which doesnt fall into the healer, dps, or tank category, there needs to be that distinctiveness to set them apart. Heres my feelings each time I party: I slap my slow on, woot it just got outdone by countless other classes. I play mana song, woot look at that chanter go. I do Boon, woot the Guardian just put on almost the same buff, oh and wait even the Wizard is tossing in his buff of the same type. I Discante a whopping -35 Str, hmm I wonder if the tank can tell. I do Harls and every other job imaginable is increasing stats also. I Tarvens and dont see a difference. I try my Haste song, oh god why did I bother. Then I get booted out of my raid party because one of the highest DPS in the game, if not the highest, can outdo my P/D mitigation buffs, so cool. So where does that leave us, with Claras as our last hope of salvation? Then make it more effective. Some Dirges want more DPS, some want better buffs/debuffs, I personally dont care one way or the other as long as we can somewhat stand out as usefull. Cause the grand plan of being diverse in many fields is just not cutting it in the end game. End game your entering raids where every job is used for its best abilities to quickly and effectively take down a mob, or encounter of mobs. And being half skilled in alot of fields will just get you passed up for the ones that are highly skilled in a limited amount of skills.
My DPS has definately gone up in the forties, not down. Granted, I have a Master I of Fiendish Howl song. I can now put out effectively 1500+ dmg in the span of about 10 seconds by doing Scream, Howl, Depletion as well as getting a 180sh pt heal with them. This isn't to say I don't think we need some loving, but against 'equivilent' mobs our dps doesn't drop. I think all scouts could probably use some loving as it seems they are the least played archetype. Here's some stuff I'd like to see fixed/changed: Afflicted Blade -- seems to miss much more often than Bereavement. Fiendish Howl -- might just be me but sometimes i hit it and it doesn't fire off and the hotbar shows it as 'depressed' then I have to hit it again to make it fire off. If its not just me its definately an annoying bug. Sneak line -- it would be real nice if they wouldn't break unless I actually do something. Merciless Melody line -- changed to 1 conc spot. Just not worth it at 2. Ambush line -- very useless overall. Much more effective using other stuff while the mob is being pulled instead of wasting time using this skill which really doesn't do much more damage than our flank attack. Haven't used it -- except to goof -- for a good 15-20 levels. Combined with our stealth bugs its pretty useless in my opinion. I'd like to see it either boosted or replaced with something useful -- perhaps a high damage stealth or flanking attack on a long timer or something that makes me actually want to use it. Lanets Excruciating Scream -- don't we all want to see an upgrade to this later on in the path? At lvl 45 I just upgraded this to Adept III because its still a staple in my arsenal. That's my short list for now, I could give a long list if I wanted to be nitpicky but I'd be getting happier if some of those were addressed.
Well, despite any problems that may exist for scouts overall, rangers are in the top 5 top played classes. May have to do with a massive psychological popularity that class has... =)
Our guild recently took down Darathar, and one major thing to note is that none of our debuffs stick. I would notice that I would cast Claras, Selos Chords of Cessitation or other debuff on the dragon it would land, but only stay up for about one second. Not a fun thing to happen when our major mitigation debuff doesnt stick and the dragon is all but immune to pierce and slash does pitful damage. Stock up on crushing arrows for this fun fight. Message Edited by Laureous on 04-26-2005 03:48 AM
