person behind screen has always been the culprit for classes being op. same person can play lesser class and still prevail.... This has been the case for years. Our guild has defilers topping parses, rangers, warlocks, coercers, dirges, BL, assassins, Zerker, conj, wiz, etc.... Its a matter of timing, lucky crits and tbh just INTELLIGENCE. Class balance will never return to this game because it will be IMPOSSIBLE to implement it at this point. Enough saltiness, time to adjust with the environment.
On a sustained parse, no one tops our parses other than a Ranger/Con/BL, Rev. On a 30 second parse or shorter, it doesn't matter, it's mostly luck and who paid to win more.
I know, the general theme thus far behind this thread is that only BL top parses, which is entirely inaccurate. On sustained fights its a different story, However, there's very few sustained fights anymore, and with all the variables involved now, it really doesn't even matter. Its more of other DPS classes being broken than it is of BL being overpowered. I'd love to see Sorc's returned to former glory. However the DBG seems to be losing staff members hand over foot so the likelihood of that happening isn't exactly great. Normally, speaking in terms of our parses, whoever has sustained complimentary buffs is the 1 who prevails. i.e - whoever has permanent bolster. we normally bolster 4-6 people prepull on actual noteworthy fights and its always a variation of the same 4-6 people on top of parse.
Totally not impossible, 10% off bl conjur and ranger, 10% on assassin, 20 on rogues and 35 on sorc fixes everything
Get epic passive pet - increase real life IQ with +100 Funny how the summoners (and to a lesser degree BL's) suddenly became propellerheads when they were nowhere to be seen pre-Epic 2 upgrade.
Assassins don't actually need any fixes. If they get fixes, something needs to be done about their max health debuffs. Cause in reality, if you're building a raid force and you've got say... 2 slots for tanks, 7-8 slots for healers 4 bards 4 chanters that leaves say 6-7 T1 dps. And yes, this is a dumbed down breakdown, there are MANY exceptions to the above build, I'm just going with a fairly normal one. if you can only bring 6 T1 dps, this is what you currently want 1 Ranger 1 Assassin 1 BL 1 Conj 1 Brig 1 Swash If you're able to make a bigger push for more dps, you'll simply add more BL/Conj/Ranger. Ideally, no "good dps build" includes using Sorcs. At all. Ideally, no "good dps build" includes more than 1 Assassin.
In theory, you can justify a single Necro from their max health debuffs, but no ideal build would have more than 1 Necro, as well. But I'd slate them pretty close to Assassins, in overall value. Slightly more dps, significantly less max health debuffs. The real outliers are primarily how massively terrible sorcerers are. Yes, the "big three" of BL/Conj/Ranger are pretty far above the rest, but there are at least valid reasons to include 1 Necro and 1 Assassin (in fact, you'd be far less than ideal if you left out 1 Assassin) - but the problem really comes to a head when it comes to dps checks on Expert-Raid content. If you REALLY care about progression and being on top, you don't want Sorcerers in your raid. And if you're bringing 1/2/3 Sorcerers in your raid versus an extra BL/Conj/Ranger, you're effectively sacrificing 5% RW dps or more per wasted slot.
In all honesty running 5/6 healers is quite possible and wouldn't stir upheaval on survival. Problem is the panic scripts, it would be a constant nightmare. Being top heavy on dps was never the problem before, funny how the tides have changed..
I would bring you because you troll like no other! and I need someone to continuously use ancestral sentry on!!
We can't make Sorcs #1 again. If we do, all the FoTM players who swapped from Sorc -> BL will then be able to swap back far too easy. Any BL who says that BL are not in a dominant position is insane. Any Ranger/Conj who doesnt think their pets are passive DPS is insane. Anybody who says Sorcs don't need some love is insane. However, I wouldn't like to see much done until Tithe is nerfed/curved. Otherwise we could see huge shifts that cause all sorts of extra drama that isn't needed. Ideally the changes should come at the same time.
Maybe not OP. But in our guild there is a good social member with heroic fabled gear mostly, he raids often but isn't a raider so by our guild rules, hés always last to be able to ask for gear loot. So .. he is well geared but not as well as our assassin. The assassin is a good player and knows his class well. Has more pot and stats than the beast lord. Both have epic, the assassin is fully GM and the BL i don't know. The BL is always 1rst or second on parse. So don't tell me it's only the skill of the player or the gear. The BL has one issue though ... aggro management. Maybe the BL is where he should be, but then it means other classes aren't
I imagine the new class balance will be balancing the 4 ascension classes instead of trying to balance the 26 base classes. I've always thought they should cut out some classes and simplify this game, even before they fired 75% of their Dev team, but I didn't imagine they would do it with ascension. I'd much rather see all the split classes merged, i.e. Warlock + Wizard, Brigand + Swashbuckler, Mystic + Defiler etc. etc. and effectively cut their "workload" in half.
But then where do u put healers and tanks ? Because those 4 classes are mostly dps. But to answer for the "BL are paid class so normal they are better" channeler is also a paid class. but not the same love it seems.
While I agree it is going in a much different direction than expected. I really wish they would integrate the class individuality back into the game. Seems eq2 has gone astray from its original Lore, or at least the Lore I was accustomed to from playing since launch. While I do like ascension, I also cant stand it. I would love to see to see classes somewhat fixed so they are unique again. I'm not necessarily sure that sub-class consolidation would fix that, but it might lite a fuse that can signal positive growth.... Which is long since needed.... PS. we totally derailed this thread.
It is just sad that assassin and rogue are nothing but a max hp debuffer and sorc are simply whorthless. People play dps for a shot of being at the top if equally geared. But devs have no intention to fix the big three weeks after weeks. Every Tuesday it didn't make it into the patch, more and more especially sorc is leaving the game. Oh and yea my assassin friend becomes my ranger friend, and told me he saw a 30% dos increase, so that's the tips for assassin I guess. Please fix sorc cuz we can't betray to beastlord ...
This about sums it up perfectly regarding assassins. Used to be competitive on the parse, well, except when BL became op but it still remained somewhat competitive. Then along came epic abilities and overnight dropped on the parse to 3-5 instead of 1-2. Its not even close parses either on a sustained fight, typically losing by 500m+
