Without being too insulting, I thought I worded my original comment simply and clearly, maybe not. You literally can not play this game without spending real money on your character especially a T1 dps if you want to competitive. Yes, almost anything can be earned in the game through play time BUT everyone neglects to mention that the game time required to match people who p2w, will take you an unreasonable amount of time, mostly because of RNG. Sure, allow people to purchase character power, but the time investment to match a player who does so should be achievable within the current expansion, before it ends.
Isn't 'T1' and 'competitive' a completely paradoxical statement? If you want to play casually (T1/Solos), you don't need to min-max like a raider.
Yes, but that comes back to the time vs money equation. Those that want to be max right out the gate are going to spend money, those that don't want to spend money are going to have to take the long road to get to that level. We're barely over 4 months into the xpac, the spread will diminish over time. My only point in this entire thread is that everything available in the marketplace is also available for free (as in rewards or plat) in game, so real money isn't REQUIRED. Again, money vs time. If a guild requires a class to be at X number on the parser, then the player needs to find a way to hit that number or move on.. but since they got rid of contested mobs, who really cares anymore, lol.
You are correct in your claim that everything can be earned with a sickening amount of play time. I'm not an opponent of pay to win as I said earlier, the few whales this game has keeps it solvent. But I don't care how hard you try there is absolutely zero chance of a T1 becoming relevant in a raid force without spending money on their toon. You can try to White Knight the truth away but it still remains. The game is structured around P2W.
Thanks for agreeing that everything is available in game for free that's available in the marketplace, my only point throughout all of this was it's a time v money thing, anyone who wants to be competitive has to invest one or the other. Since the only argument anyone has here concerns raid forces.... then yes... to be a top-tier raider, you need to min/max your toon, that will require either a time or money investment, obviously top tier guilds want to clear everything now, so it leans heavily towards money.. but that's to be in a TOP guild, who need their egos stroked by getting a ww first kill.... if people aren't willing to invest the time or money, then they need to be content with being in an average raid guild/alliance where they belong.
You're twisting things to try and make sense of your point, which isn't working. It's not just top tier guilds with strict requirements on T1 dps. If you aren't shelling out money, even healers are going to be out parsing you, there is that much of a gap. There are lots of things to blame it on, obviously the p2w factor but also stat inflation, rng, etc.
But it actually doesn't mean what it used to.Yes, you can look at a raid parse and see that there are clearly T1 DPS, T2 DPS, and everybody else... they're pretty clear plateaus on the graph, but that doesn't mean that Assassins and Wizards are always T1 DPS. In the end, some of it is gear, a lot of it is player skill. And if some people with fat wallets want to spend a lot of cash to up their DPS instead of utilizing slower in-game methods, well, that's on them. Checking EQ2 Raid Progression, there are about 57 guilds raiding world-wide. Most of the top raiding guilds are on Thurgadin. Maj'Dul has two of what I'd call high end raid guilds, but we have raid alliances killing stuff in the top ten on the server. I don't get what people are kvetching about. The high-end uber serious raiders blow through the content each expansion well before the next expansion is due, then I guess they sit on their thumbs. Competent raid guilds take a little longer to conquer the content, and they end up spending more time raiding to get everything and less waiting for the new expansions. It is completely possible to have fun and raid without spending thousands of dollars. Right now, with the covid quarantine situation, a lot of folks should have more time to obtain these things in-game. OTOH, I am completely in agreement with Mermut on how excruciatingly annoying it is to have stuff we need locked behind RNG. I still don't have the new infuser recipes, and this isn't for want of running instances. I still don't have all the new recipes for all my many alts, because I ain't paying millions of plat to get stuff that the Overseer and RNGeezus drop for free, when they deign to do so.
T1 DPS is Wizards, Warlocks, Assassins and Beastlords from what I remember. Monks, Necromancers, Conjurers, Inquisiters, Shadowknights have been observed beating all but Beastlords consistantly. The term T1 DPS is antiquated and a thing of the past. There are too many other classes owning what once was considered T1 DPS on the parse.
Which toons are t1 dps may change from expac to expac, but that doesn't mean the phrase, and it's meaning, are different. T1 dps is not a fixed set of classes, it is the top level of dps. The classes that 'qualify' vary.
Thank you!! In the end the only people that *have* to spend money are the people who want everything right NOW so they can blow through everything right NOW and then sit on their thumbs and complain some more about the lack of content for the next 8 months...
I'm not twisting anything... there are TWO avenues to max power.. 1) cash and 2) time.... if you want to be in a top guild and haven't invested in either, you're gonna get out-parsed by healers and likely (and rightfully) get the boot. Everyone needs to pick their path... spend money and have it now... don't spend money, but invest the time over the xpac to get it... or a mixture of both. Whatever anyone chooses to do is on them, people coming on the forums and crying about not being able to compete are doing #4.. wasting their in-game time... and I get it, many don't have the time to spare for a game... that's when they need to figure out what's important... competing and being a top parser in some elite guild, or just playing the game and having fun on the class you most enjoy regardless of what the stupid parser says.
I think you are woefully wrong about being outparsed by healers. I play a bard and have put a fairly average amount of time and approximately $30 (2 months of sub) and I pretty easily do 5x what healers with 5-10k more potency than I do. In fact, I have single abilities (not ascensions, for the record. Mine are all grandmaster [didn't pay for any of them, etherealist] and my profession abilites at expert still outparse them) which outparse healers alone.
I agree with this. T1 DPS has always been relative and changes from expansion to expansion. It's mostly just a power ranking of DPS classes. As of right now, T1 includes Wizard, Illusionist, Summoners, Predators etc, and T2 would be like Coercer, Bards, Rogues etc. It's all relative.
While I understand that there is a large curve for new / returning players to max out their toons? What I don't get is the expectation from them that they should be able make their new/returning toons the equal of toons that have been played & maintained for years by nothing more than grinding. Most vets have one or several mains that have had continuous spell research ongoing for years. Most of their spells / melee skills are pretty well maxed except when a new expac rolls around and they start again. Players that have been gone for years don't have that. But, DPG will now let you equalize your new / returning toon to the level top tier raiders....for a price.
