Dream melee solutions patch

[BrikBludgaard]

Proposed Melee balancing plan:

This plan is designed to change the OPTIONS for melee characters and boost their damage production by a moderate margin.


Solutions (General 2H)
-All PoP 2H-only AAXP abilities will now affect any weapon in the primary hand, be it 1H/Shield, Dual Wield, or 2H.
-2H weapons with delay lower than 28 will now have an appropriate 2H damage bonus which is ALWAYS better than the 1H counterparts.
-ALL 2H weapons have had their damage bonus scaled to be better than a 1H weapon of the same damage delay if it should happen to exist.

Solutions (General 1H)
-1H weapons will now be more plentiful and more varied.. do not be surprised to find slower and higher damage 1H weapons.
-1H weapons will now have an appropriate damage bonus that scales with delay.
-1H weapons will sometimes be PRIMARY only. These weapons are too unwieldy to be swung in the off-hand. Weapons with higher delays and damage are more likely to be PRIMARY only. Most weapons that are wieldable in the off-hand are wieldable in PRIMARY hand as well.

Solutions (Dual Wield)
-Weapons wielded in the offhand will now have a scaling Damage Bonus that is the standard damage bonus halved (round down) for the offhand. A weapon that has a 13 damage bonus in the primary hand will have a 6 damage bonus in the offhand.

Solutions (Shields)
-Shields give an extra roll to both Parry and Riposte when wielded should you fail your first rolls. Shields allow your FULL parry and riposte rolls to be used against arrows. (riposte cannot hit, but does remove damage)

Solutions (Archery/Thrown)
-Quivers have had a change made to them.. they are now chargeable items (no longer containers) that are recharged in much the same way that the Minimizing Devices are, except in Fletching kits. Quivers can be loaded with up to 180 Arrows. (Must be the same type however) Quivers now fit in the AMMO slot.
-Wrist Pouches are now available for the throwing crowd, and serve the same purpose as quivers, except for thrown ammo. Appropriate new recipes are availble to make pouches that are comparable to tailored quivers.
-Archery now works differently. The delay on the bow now refers to how long the bow takes to take a shot with it. Arrows are fired after the aim-time, NOT immediately.
You may begin a shot right after having let the last arrow go. Archery will now be similar to casting a fast spell and has a chance at being interrupted if you are hit during shooting.
-Archery Line-of-sight is now fixed. If you can see part of the creature, you can hit it, in addition, the overall ban on archery at close range has been lifted.
-The following issues make archery less likely to hit: You are moving (large hit, and might be interrupted), the target is moving (small hit), the target is within 50 range (medium hit).
-Archery Damage bonus is now similar to 2H weapons and applies to all arrows fired.
-Thrown weapons do not have a minimum range and have no penalty when up close for any class... they DO have penalties for target moving and thrower moving, however.

Solutions (Aggro)
-Spells and weapon effects that ONLY cause Hate will also cause a 0 second stun
-Enraging Blow and similar spells cause slightly less numerical hate (to balance its new effect)
-Archery/Thrown deals hate as a melee weapon would... but that hate is modified by range... there is a cap to how much hate can be not looked at by the mob due to range.



Warriors:
-ALL warrior weaponskills now cap at 250, this includes Piercing, Thrown, and Archery. Warriors are the undisputed master of weapons and their skill with weapons should reflect this.
-Warriors gain a new mitigation table at level 55, level 60 and then again at 65. These tables reduce average damage by up to 15% at level 65 with NO AAXP.
-New "Greater Disciplines" have been added for Warriors. These are gained at level 62 (/stance defense) and 64 (/stance offense) Greater Discplines are PERMANENT until a new stance is chosen. Defense makes you harder to hit and take less damage, but hit less often and deal less damage. Offense does the opposite.
-/stance balanced is the default mode and is available at level 62 as well (you would use this to enable the old disciplines)
-The new permanent disciplines can only be changed once a minute. once in a permanent discipline mode, you must stay there for 1 minute, after which you can choose a new permanent discipline.
-Greater disciplines' timers are separate from old disciplines, but only one discipline can be active at any one time.
-Warriors gain /disc Battlemaster at level 65. For 20 seconds the warrior is affected by both FURIOUS and MIGHTYSTRIKE
-Warrior KICK now has a moderate hate modifier that applies to every KICK whether it hits or not. (if someone tried to kick you in the jimmy, you probably wouldn't appreciate them much either)


Knights: (PAL/SHD)
-ALL weaponskills and Offense now cap at 235. (includes archery)
-Knights will gain Thrown skill (caps at 235)
-Knights gain new mitigation tables similar to warriors at levels 60 and 65. Knights are always one table behind warriors, and will mitigate 10% at level 65.
-Shadowknight Leechcurse (60th discipline) has had its timer reduced.
-Knights gain enhanced versions of their old disciplines as they advance
-Shadowknight gain /disc Defile at level 63... this is an enhanced version of Unholy Aura that affects ALL offensive spells cast by the Shadowknight including Harmtouch by 50%. (doesn't stack with /disc unholyaura)
-Shadowknights gain /disc Bloodbath at level 65... this is an enhanced version of Leechcurse that lasts for 20 seconds and adds auto-riposte to leechcurse's life draining.
-Paladins gain enhanced versions of their disciplines at level 63 and 65.

Rogues/Monks/Rangers/Beastlords:
-At least ONE of Archery/Thrown are raised to at least 240 so that the class has an offense from range if they have the ammo.
-Rangers penalties to archer moving or target moving are HALVED from the standard. (everyone else has a very small chance to hit if both archer and target are moving, rangers have a decent chance to hit in this situation.
-Rangers ignore the general archery to-hit penalty to target too close.
-Rangers chance to be interrupted if hit while shooting is one-quarter of the standard.
-Rangers double-damage while non-rooted, non-moving, has been removed.
-Ranger now deal double damage at point-blank range.
-Rangers' Endless quiver has been changed to reflect archery's new power. Endless quiver will no longer shoot infinite rare arrows. Endless quiver will now summon (in .1 seconds) a LORE NO DROP quiver of the new style that has 200 arrows of a set magical arrow. This quiver will have haste as good as the best tailorable quiver. Rangers may use this ability once per 10 seconds.
-Rogues and monks gain two greater disciplines at 62 AND 64 and a combo discipline at 65.
-Rangers and Beastlords gain enhanced hybrid disciplines at 63 and 65.
-Monk/Beastlord Block skill is now applied to all arrows fired at them.


I am seeking comments and discussion... looking for all classes' input here.

Balance is the key... and options... im so tired of cookie cutter.

Brik

[Kitre Halfax]

Shields allow your FULL parry and riposte rolls to be used against arrows. (riposte cannot hit, but does remove damage)

-Archery Damage bonus is now similar to 2H weapons and applies to all arrows fired.


I like everything in the post, as a concept, except the above. They don't give me a warm fuzzy.

Shields do enhance defense, and allowing them to blow ranged effects is great - except you might be inferring that riposte is a separate check, which I "believe" is incorrect. I believe it works like this -

atk check - hit? Yes.
parry check - success? Yes.
Riposte check ...

Thus the issue of Riposte on a shield blocking an arrow would be moot, since the target is out of range :) (You can't hit them from here!)

Traditionally (D&D, anyone?), bows do not apply strength bonuses to damage, unless designed specifically for that strength of a pull. Perhaps mitigating this with "Minimum Strength: XXX" to equip, or to fire the bow, would solve the problem. However, I'm of the opinion that we don't really need increased damage on a bow - we do just fine with the damage we do with any ranged weapon (the same damage everyone does, except rangers with bows). I think ranger bow-damage should be where it is - >>> everyone else's.

I love your ideas, and though they would never take the whole package and implement it, I would hope it would inspire them, particularly including the majority of what you posted.

[weoden]

Giving off handed weapons a damage bonus once you obtain duel wield would probably bring 1handers much closer to two handers. You could also make this an ability gained at level 61.

[lelara]

Hey Brik,

You might actually have given spoilers to the next expension !!!

Lelara

[Besrikarle]

-Quivers have had a change made to them.. they are now chargeable items (no longer containers) that are recharged in much the same way that the Minimizing Devices are, except in Fletching kits. Quivers can be loaded with up to 180 Arrows. (Must be the same type however) Quivers now fit in the AMMO slot.

That would be such an awesome change.

[Superchum]

That's a lot of changes.

Basically rewriting archery, and range attacks from the ground up.

Interesting ideas. Would love to see them implemented in a game. Not sure EQ is the game for that though. I mean, damn, so much of those archery changes would just completely overhaul things.

The greater disciplines idea is also very interesting. Combines quite a few of the good ideas that have been floating around the net regarding class balance, and what to do with discs and the like.

Alas, you really only fleshed out SKs (duh) and warriors, and left the other classes kind of superficial.

Ah well. I guess that's why you wanted us to discuss?

[Isk]

Paladin disciplines atm suck ass. Changing them at higher levels to offer protection for the whole party and against a wider variety of effects would help. For instance making a group immune to Rampage (and/or AEs) + all the effects of Sanctification for 1 minute at 65 would kick ass.

Also I don't know if it's a typo or what but Ranger EQ's summon of a quiver every 10 seconds doesn't make much sense to me. You'd need Satan's own machine gun to plow through 200 arrows in 10 seconds. Also a way to increase the damage of EQ arrows would be cool, either directly through AA or progressively through levels.

The stun with EB is cool, not sure what level of mobs it would affect though. Also a lifetap (say 150 pts) in conjunction with EB would generate almost no hate but would add a little DPS and healing, I know Brutul specifically would be happy to see change like that.

Additionally another compensation for shields would rock, perhaps boosting the damage bonus of the primary 1h weapon while using a shield might work. In essence you'd be using a fast 2h weapon with a low top damage but great low-to-mid range damage.

[Korinn_emarr]

That's the best write up of improvements that I have ever seen. It doesn't favor any class inparticular and adresses a lot of important aspects of each which needed improving. I love the little extras also.

Until I got to the end of your post I thought that you grabbed that off of Sony's patch site. I guess I give Sony too much credit because I just couldn't commit myself to believe that they can create something so intuitive. Anyway, I loved it!

[BrikBludgaard]

Well... I'd like to see monks/beastlords/rangers/rogues/paladins/etc give some ideas on their 61+ disciplines that are in line with the Shadowknight and Warrior ones:

WAR/MNK/ROG get a 62 and 64 Greater (perma) disciplines
and a 65 combo discipline. (please remember the 65 one is short duration and likely a reasonable combo of two older disciplines.)

Hybrids would get a 63 and 65 Disciplines that are enhanced versions of their earlier disciplines.


Example: Greater discipline for monks (62)
Uncanny Dodge: for the duration, monks can dodge/block/riposte from any angle and use their full defensive value from any angle. Monks in this mode cannot use special monk attacks. (example: flying kick)

Example: Greater discipline for monks(64)
Natural Balance: auto-riposte every riposte set against them (thus taking no damage from ripostes in this mode) They can still be blocked/Parried/riposted (stops the monks blow), but the monk will take no damage (a riposted riposte does no damage to anyone) Monks cannot riposte normally vs attackers in this mode.


Notes:
-Hmm if riposte requires a parry, then sure... shields would only allow a parry check against arrows.

-Archery damage takes some nerfs here... (maximum damage would go down) and bows really should have a bonus that coincides with their 2H status. (average damage would go up)

-I listed 10 seconds recast for Endless quiver as I don't want it spammable, but it should be infinite and never need to worry about being out of arrows if you take it. it could be 30 seconds or 1/minute, but frankly, it doesn't matter... the quiver is LORE and NO DROP... you cant have 18 of them in your backpack. The ranger will use when his quiver is low. Ideally, the quiver summoned would never run out of arrows, but I was shooting for something that is actually already in game and doable right away.

Brik

[Jemort]

i thought you had pulled this from sony too. I was like awsome, they are fixing eq... hehe...

[Brutul]

Originally posted by Iskandar
Also a lifetap (say 150 pts) in conjunction with EB would generate almost no hate but would add a little DPS and healing, I know Brutul specifically would be happy to see change like that.

*High-Five's Isk*

Yea ever since I got my scimitar of lifestealing from VP I have been a huge fan of lifetap procs. Adding 150 point lifetap (or even 75) to EB would totally uber. Combine that with that sword from the Rathe with the "Runic" proc and you would be totally invincible to FG shrooms, whatever that's worth =).

Maybe I'll have to start /feedbacking this along with my "Add and arrow-summoning item for warriors" one hehe.

[Ladas Sindarin]

Solutions (General 2H)
-All PoP 2H-only AAXP abilities will now affect any weapon in the primary hand, be it 1H/Shield, Dual Wield, or 2H.
Small increase in mainhand damage in exchange for small increase of risk from DS and NPC riposte. I think you have better ideas to balance out the disparity between 1H and 2H damage without minor things like this that only add extra changes to a long list, increasing the chance something will go unexpectedly.

-2H weapons with delay lower than 28 will now have an appropriate 2H damage bonus which is ALWAYS better than the 1H counterparts.
At high attack levels, the damage bonus is already compensated for with the low delay 2H weapons, such as the Ornate Greatsword and the Crowfooted Lance. Increasing this would mean re-tooling all 2H weapons to make sure the relative power scale is accurate. Sounds like another minor change to satisfy some perceived imbalance about how the damage bonus works. Again, this from a ranger perspective, a class for which its trivial to hit 1700+ attack in exp groups for Elemental able players.

-ALL 2H weapons have had their damage bonus scaled to be better than a 1H weapon of the same damage delay if it should happen to exist.
And again, I’m not sure what your aim here is, but something like the Crowfooted Lance and Ornate Greatblade already blow my ABH + Bonechiller combo away, and the CFL and OG have the same bonus as the ABH, they just have a substantially higher base damage. These couple changes would require a complete re-itemization of EQ. But, maybe I don’t understand your post… it sounds like you are proposing changes to the current game… this might be a good model for a future combat system.


Solutions (General 1H)
-1H weapons will now be more plentiful and more varied.. do not be surprised to find slower and higher damage 1H weapons.
No comment, as its already been acknowledged as an issue by SOE

-1H weapons will now have an appropriate damage bonus that scales with delay.
Another change that would completely alter the ranking of weapons from various teirs and require a complete overhaul of drops to put them back into relative balance with each other. Why?

-1H weapons will sometimes be PRIMARY only. These weapons are too unwieldy to be swung in the off-hand. Weapons with higher delays and damage are more likely to be PRIMARY only. Most weapons that are wieldable in the off-hand are wieldable in PRIMARY hand as well.
Okay… not sure where you are going with this though


Solutions (Dual Wield)
-Weapons wielded in the offhand will now have a scaling Damage Bonus that is the standard damage bonus halved (round down) for the offhand. A weapon that has a 13 damage bonus in the primary hand will have a 6 damage bonus in the offhand.
Single most needed, and easiest, change to DW to bring its damage potential back up where it should be, imho, higher than equivalent 2H options given the increased risk of use, and it doesn’t require re-itemizing.


Solutions (Shields)
-Shields give an extra roll to both Parry and Riposte when wielded should you fail your first rolls. Shields allow your FULL parry and riposte rolls to be used against arrows. (riposte cannot hit, but does remove damage)
You have less than a full roll against archery without a shield now? I have never used a shield, so this is grey area to me. The extra roll for melee sounds good, but I fail to see the archery comment

Solutions (Archery/Thrown)
Sounds to me like you are proposing changed Ranged combat to nothing more than manaless nuke damage. No more line of sight, no range requirement, your bow delay is your recasting delay, your quiver is your right click (activated by using the Range Attack button) nuke item, and you have to “channel” the shot when moving. I would think that’s a pretty hefty change to the code. The only thing that doesn’t fit is the damage bonus that scales with the bow. There isn’t anything like that in the magic code.

Solutions (Aggro)
-Spells and weapon effects that ONLY cause Hate will also cause a 0 second stun
-Enraging Blow and similar spells cause slightly less numerical hate (to balance its new effect)
If are decreasing the +hate effect on EB weapons so the taunt is the same with the stun as it was before, why make the change?

-Archery/Thrown deals hate as a melee weapon would... but that hate is modified by range... there is a cap to how much hate can be not looked at by the mob due to range.
No comment yet


Rogues/Monks/Rangers/Beastlords:
-At least ONE of Archery/Thrown are raised to at least 240 so that the class has an offense from range if they have the ammo.
Ranger already have a 240 skill, and with elemental bows, have a 250 skill, as do rogues iirc. There is no change for those two classes

-Rangers penalties to archer moving or target moving are HALVED from the standard. (everyone else has a very small chance to hit if both archer and target are moving, rangers have a decent chance to hit in this situation.
-Rangers ignore the general archery to-hit penalty to target too close.
-Rangers chance to be interrupted if hit while shooting is one-quarter of the standard.
-Rangers double-damage while non-rooted, non-moving, has been removed.
-Ranger now deal double damage at point-blank range.

1) Removing the double damage bonus on stationary targets brings rangers down to the same level of archery (without disc) as all other melees, and by cutting our DPS when we have line of sight by 50%, it will put our archery damage well below our melee damage, instead of where it is now, about even (SEWS compared to Water Bow + 11/4 arrows).

2) You do propose adding a damage bonus to archery based on the bow, but that’s going to have to be a substantial bonus to compensate for a 50% DPS cut from above (your LOS changes are void, as I’m already talking about situations where I have LOS), and even if it is, all it does is elevate all the other classes to the same level as the ranger (barring knights with skill of 235, though that’s actually 246 with an elemental bow compared to a rangers 250 with same bow). That is the epitome of taking a unique skill and dumbing it down to cookie cutter status.

3) The are now only 3 advantages a ranger would still hold for archery, one is double damage at point blank range. That’s a nifty suicide trick given that the other proposed change that scales archery damage aggro based on range, so double damage (double aggro) isn’t such a hot idea anymore when you to stand next to the mob… add on top of that the fact to be in place for that double damage, we have to be in range of AE rampages/DD, which will actually interrupt our ability to shoot.. so now for the ranger to gain any advantage has to be in a situation of extreme risk of death to massive AEs, and in addition can now be stunned AND interrupted for two checks… are you proposing melee attacks can be interrupted on successful hits by the NPC as well? The total negatives far outweigh any positives.

4) The second advantage is Trueshot which gives us double damage to any shot for 2 minutes. Given that the one of the double damage bonuses have already been removed, this is essentially giving rangers the damage potential of shooting at point blank without the risk of AE’s, interrupts, stuns, etc. I guess that’s still an advantage, but since the damage bonus to archery scales everyone up to the same level in damage potential (same arrows, same skill, same bow), I question which would actually be more effective…. A warrior using Aggressive or a Ranger using Trueshot. Isn’t Aggressive 3 minutes? I suspect that extra minute of increased damage will outpace the 2 minutes of double damage. So, that makes Warriors now the master of the bow.

5) The last advantage is Endless Quiver…. See below.

-Rangers' Endless quiver has been changed to reflect archery's new power. Endless quiver will no longer shoot infinite rare arrows. Endless quiver will now summon (in .1 seconds) a LORE NO DROP quiver of the new style that has 200 arrows of a set magical arrow. This quiver will have haste as good as the best tailorable quiver. Rangers may use this ability once per 10 seconds.
Unless this new Endless Quiver uses 13 damage arrows, its only going to futher drop the archery potential of rangers. Somehow, I suspect you were thinking the new Endless Quiver would be like the mage spell and summon a quiver of 3 damage arrows. If that’s the case, the tally stands at:

1) 50% straight cut in DPS using the same bow/arrow combinations due to the removal the stationary target bonus against targets we already have LOS against (negates the LOS change).
2) An additional 20% reduction in our base damage if we use our EQ skill. Of course, now that quivers other than EQ are non-lore and hold 180 arrows, you can forgo that 20% loss by using the same quivers everyone else does, but at the waste of 9 AA points.
3) Nearly complete elimination of bow kiting due to changes in moving target/moving shooter code. Odd that there aren’t any proposals to eliminate SK aggro kiting soloing as well.
4) Increase bow damage potential due to damage bonuses. However, no matter how implemented, it elevates all other classes to the same level as rangers, yet at best keeps rangers the same, but more likely doesn’t compensate for the drop in DPS from other changes.
5) Removes the LOS issues, but since archery damage is now less than ranger melee damage all the time, it doesn’t matter if you can use archery, since to do the most damage, you are going to use melee anyway. There is still a very small situational use for archery against some AE targets, but since everyone now is at the same level, the niche rangers had is now gone and everyone is a carbon copy of the others. Difference between them is that warriors and knights have defensive skills as well (new mitigation tables, improved discs, new defense amour skills in shields, etc) and rogues and monks have considerably higher melee DPS.

From my perspective, this is an all out nerf to rangers.


-Monk/Beastlord Block skill is now applied to all arrows fired at them.
Its only applied to some arrows now? Not being a monk, I’m not sure what you mean… NPCs can already dodge, parry and riposte arrows… PC’s cant?

[Remf da Troll]

Brut-

You would have loved the guants of the bloodfiend... had a right click buff that added a 75hp proc to both primary and secondary weapons. Was nerfed from war/sk to sk only after much whining by the SKs. With the VP scimmy main hand and a mossy twig offhand (and max dex), soloing was a joy... for about a week until it got nerfed. :(

RdT.

[Remf da Troll]

doh, can't edit above- should say 75pt LIFETAP proc...

RdT.

[Gnimwit]

Solutions (General 2H)
-All PoP 2H-only AAXP abilities will now affect any weapon in the primary hand, be it 1H/Shield, Dual Wield, or 2H.No thanks, we don't need. There is only ONE PoP ability specifically for 2h's and it's fine only working for 2h's.

-2H weapons with delay lower than 28 will now have an appropriate 2H damage bonus which is ALWAYS better than the 1H counterparts.That would unbalance some high end low delay weapons currently out there like Crow Footed Lance and Ornate Greatblade. They are already doing as much DPS as BoWar & SEWS with the same high ATK (if you have low ATK the damage drops off faster than BoWar however). Adding any extra damage to these weapons would make them too powerful for no good reason.

-ALL 2H weapons have had their damage bonus scaled to be better than a 1H weapon of the same damage delay if it should happen to exist.This is already the case, you'll never get a 1h with a bonus over 13, and a 2h under 14.

Solutions (General 1H)
-1H weapons will now be more plentiful and more varied.. do not be surprised to find slower and higher damage 1H weapons.There are plenty of 1h weapons out there in pop, plenty. everywhere you turn. The problem is that they have shitty procs, it isnt their ratio. Put the Anger proc on a 1h somewhere and drop it somewhere like on Bertoxx as an alternative to that fist of his. Put out a couple weapons with a Taunting Blow + DD style proc on Agnaar and other easier encounters like MM.

-1H weapons will now have an appropriate damage bonus that scales with delay.It would be better if they adjusted the ratio to compensate for damage on 1 handers. basing this on the fact your minimum hit will never be lower than your damage bonus, we don't need guaranteed DPS on 1 handers, we already have 2 handers for this.

-1H weapons will sometimes be PRIMARY only. These weapons are too unwieldy to be swung in the off-hand. Weapons with higher delays and damage are more likely to be PRIMARY only. Most weapons that are wieldable in the off-hand are wieldable in PRIMARY hand as well.There are a few Primary-only weapons from Luclin/Velious era, and they all sucked. Lets not go back in time please. Unless the weapon is being spoecifically designed to work with a SHIELD ONLY, then there is no reason we should have to put up with primary-only weapons again.

Solutions (Dual Wield)
-Weapons wielded in the offhand will now have a scaling Damage Bonus that is the standard damage bonus halved (round down) for the offhand. A weapon that has a 13 damage bonus in the primary hand will have a 6 damage bonus in the offhand.We don't need a damage bonus in offhand, our dps is fine.

Solutions (Shields)
-Shields give an extra roll to both Parry and Riposte when wielded should you fail your first rolls. Shields allow your FULL parry and riposte rolls to be used against arrows. (riposte cannot hit, but does remove damage)Waste of a coders time to make shields ignore arrows, who gives a crap except for PvP servers? And don't try to say Tallon's attack is an 'arrow' you will be blocking. I'm not really interested in having a shield have an extra chance of blocking blows either, given the fact a good 50+ ac shield is adding dmg 2%+ standard mitigation all on it's own by default anyway and 5+% on /shield mitigation.

Solutions (Archery/Thrown)
-Quivers have had a change made to them.. they are now chargeable items (no longer containers) that are recharged in much the same way that the Minimizing Devices are, except in Fletching kits. Quivers can be loaded with up to 180 Arrows. (Must be the same type however) Quivers now fit in the AMMO slot.Would the 'charge' still use the fletching skill to suceed or fail or is iit just a free for all, or do you fletch the items you need for the final 'charge' combine? I don't think there is a big need for this change, put the coders on something else thats more important than trying to make an equipment slot hold a container and such.

-Wrist Pouches are now available for the throwing crowd, and serve the same purpose as quivers, except for thrown ammo. Appropriate new recipes are availble to make pouches that are comparable to tailored quivers.No opinion, who gives a crap about throwing weapons?

-Archery now works differently. The delay on the bow now refers to how long the bow takes to take a shot with it. Arrows are fired after the aim-time, NOT immediately.
You may begin a shot right after having let the last arrow go. Archery will now be similar to casting a fast spell and has a chance at being interrupted if you are hit during shooting.No No No NO NO NO NO!!!! NO!!!! NO!!!!!!

-Archery Line-of-sight is now fixed. If you can see part of the creature, you can hit it, in addition, the overall ban on archery at close range has been lifted.These are two different topics. Yes on the first, and of course no on the second. If they add something like 'close quarters combat' with a large penalty for using a bow in close combat, then fine.. but tell the person they are being screwed over for being too close, so they can move out where they should have been in the first place.

-The following issues make archery less likely to hit: You are moving (large hit, and might be interrupted), the target is moving (small hit), the target is within 50 range (medium hit).Can you stop trying to nerf my tagging.

-Archery Damage bonus is now similar to 2H weapons and applies to all arrows fired.Archery doesnt need a damage bonus. It's powerful enough for rangers as is, they don't need more archery damage. And putting this in for warriors wouldn't make sense to ignore rangers. Find another way to get archery working for us.

-Thrown weapons do not have a minimum range and have no penalty when up close for any class... they DO have penalties for target moving and thrower moving, however.There is a minimum range that would allow me to chuck a spear at your head before I am just stabbing you. Throwing weapons are meant to be thrown, they need to keep their minimum distance. And don't even try to bring up using them as a melee weapon when in close quarters, the throwing reatios are WAY off (in our favor) for that kind of thing. No good.

Solutions (Aggro)
-Spells and weapon effects that ONLY cause Hate will also cause a 0 second stunWhy? This isn't needed at all, in any way.

-Enraging Blow and similar spells cause slightly less numerical hate (to balance its new effect)No thanks. If I want stun aggro I'll use a BBoTE or some new PoP 0.0 stun weapon. But I dont. Stay away from my BoWar, I mean it, back the fuck up!

-Archery/Thrown deals hate as a melee weapon would... but that hate is modified by range... there is a cap to how much hate can be not looked at by the mob due to range.I dont care about hate from a distance. I dont care if rangers are ignored or summoned and killed. Coders should busy themselves on something important.. Like fixing scripted events and zones.

Warriors:
-ALL warrior weaponskills now cap at 250, this includes Piercing, Thrown, and Archery. Warriors are the undisputed master of weapons and their skill with weapons should reflect this.Piercing should be 250 without a doubt, bards are no way better with a iercing weapon than a warrior. This needs a fix. I don't care about archery, warriors are melee centric moreso than archers. Put it at 50 skill for all I care. I just want to pull or tag mobs.

-Warriors gain a new mitigation table at level 55, level 60 and then again at 65. These tables reduce average damage by up to 15% at level 65 with NO AAXP.15% damage reduction on top of our current capabilities, at no cost is WAY TOO MUCH.

-New "Greater Disciplines" have been added for Warriors. These are gained at level 62 (/stance defense) and 64 (/stance offense) Greater Discplines are PERMANENT until a new stance is chosen. Defense makes you harder to hit and take less damage, but hit less often and deal less damage. Offense does the opposite.Having a slider for avoidance/mitigation is fine with me as long as it doesnt touch my potential aggro hate. If I slide into a defensive position and mobs have been coded to start forgetting about me when in this position, they can forget the whole idea and keep us the way we are.

-/stance balanced is the default mode and is available at level 62 as well (you would use this to enable the old disciplines)Huh? There would be no reason to have a sliders and the old discs at the same time unless you're ignoring the precise/defensive/aggresive/evasive lines of discs or something and nerfing the rest to dissapear till 62 which is stupid.

-Greater disciplines' timers are separate from old disciplines, but only one discipline can be active at any one time.That would give us 20 seconds of ripostes 6 minutes of defensive/evasive. Hell we would be gods for 7-8 minutes at a time, just in time for evasive to be cycled again if we used it first giving us aruond 10 minutes of initial abilities.. They would have to play with refresh times, or limit the timers to only being separate between offensive and defensive abailities. We dont need all our defensive discs on their own separate refreshes. But keeping our offensive discs useable without interfereing with defensive discs is fine if they cant be used at the same time.

-Warriors gain /disc Battlemaster at level 65. For 20 seconds the warrior is affected by both FURIOUS and MIGHTYSTRIKEWould it still have that crappy hour long refresh?

-Warrior KICK now has a moderate hate modifier that applies to every KICK whether it hits or not. (if someone tried to kick you in the jimmy, you probably wouldn't appreciate them much either)If they ever get furious bash working right we can just use that.

[Varatho]

Some things:

Originally posted by Ladas Sindarin
-2H weapons with delay lower than 28 will now have an appropriate 2H damage bonus which is ALWAYS better than the 1H counterparts.
At high attack levels, the damage bonus is already compensated for with the low delay 2H weapons, such as the Ornate Greatsword and the Crowfooted Lance. Increasing this would mean re-tooling all 2H weapons to make sure the relative power scale is accurate. Sounds like another minor change to satisfy some perceived imbalance about how the damage bonus works. Again, this from a ranger perspective, a class for which its trivial to hit 1700+ attack in exp groups for Elemental able players.

-ALL 2H weapons have had their damage bonus scaled to be better than a 1H weapon of the same damage delay if it should happen to exist.
And again, I’m not sure what your aim here is, but something like the Crowfooted Lance and Ornate Greatblade already blow my ABH + Bonechiller combo away, and the CFL and OG have the same bonus as the ABH, they just have a substantially higher base damage. These couple changes would require a complete re-itemization of EQ. But, maybe I don’t understand your post… it sounds like you are proposing changes to the current game… this might be a good model for a future combat system.


Brik is a Shadowknight :eek: Think along those terms and the ideas should be more clear.


Solutions (Aggro)
-Spells and weapon effects that ONLY cause Hate will also cause a 0 second stun
-Enraging Blow and similar spells cause slightly less numerical hate (to balance its new effect)
If are decreasing the +hate effect on EB weapons so the taunt is the same with the stun as it was before, why make the change?

All spells other than the direct plus or minus hate ones modify their aggro generation based upon what mob you are fighting. It would just be a fix to make EB scale properly against whatever target you are going after in comparison to spell aggro.

Originally posted by BrikBludgaard
-New "Greater Disciplines" have been added for Warriors. These are gained at level 62 (/stance defense) and 64 (/stance offense) Greater Discplines are PERMANENT until a new stance is chosen. Defense makes you harder to hit and take less damage, but hit less often and deal less damage. Offense does the opposite.
-/stance balanced is the default mode and is available at level 62 as well (you would use this to enable the old disciplines)
-The new permanent disciplines can only be changed once a minute. once in a permanent discipline mode, you must stay there for 1 minute, after which you can choose a new permanent discipline.
-Greater disciplines' timers are separate from old disciplines, but only one discipline can be active at any one time.
-Warriors gain /disc Battlemaster at level 65. For 20 seconds the warrior is affected by both FURIOUS and MIGHTYSTRIKE


IMO: It would be much simpler to just unhook the existing /disc timers than write up new ones that use their own rules. We are talking about what SoE could do after all :p

[Kadah]

Ladas, nerfing rangers would be a bad thing? EQ AM 3 ranger in my guild using one of those evil disc's can get crits into the 4k mark. And not get aggro from it.. Yeah Rangers need a bit of a nerf, Hell they need to be beaten with the nerf bat by Joe Pessci.
Sorry but this is the warriors discussion area, take your lil tree loving butt and go play in the ranja down board.

Kadah
Overlord
Gameless

[Ladas Sindarin]

Varaho:

I know he's a Shadowknight, and realize some of the issues he is describing are relative to class differences, such as performance of weaopns at various attack levels. However, his proposal is a blanket change, and while it might solve the problem at the typical SK/Paly range (I cant comment whether it does or not), it will seriousl screw things up at the ranger attack range.

And thanks for the clarification on the Stun/EB point.


Kadah;

4K? Really now? You aren't joking with me? You aren't just showing your absolute and complete lack of any clue trying to make a point?

In order for a ranger to score a 4K crit on an NPC (and not dueling a warrior using aggressive), the ranger would have to be using a bow capable of hitting for 2286 damage non-crit (2286 x 1.7 = 4k). Since you said he was using Trueshot, that means the bow would have to be capable of a 1143 non-crit/non-disc hit. Using the highest damage bows available, which iirc is 45 base damage, your guild ranger would have to be using a base 50 arrow. I'm not aware of any arrows with higher damage than the Blessed Mith at 11 +4 fire.

Please, do tell where the rest of us rangers can find these 50 damage arrows.

[Superchum]

"Please, do tell where the rest of us rangers can find these 50 damage arrows."

What? They don't drop in KEDGE?

;-)

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Sylviania]

to continue with kadah : please tell me how your ranger don't generate aggro. Archery generate hate just like melee generate hate.


And please stop the class hate.
1)This is a warrior board but afaik there is no sign at entrance that say noone else is allowed.
2) if u hate other classes that much , go play with 5 others warriors in your group. u may not miss us rangers , but i am sure u will lack hp fast ... A cleric ! omg but no , they aren't warriors, I don't want them.

Sorry , I sometimes have to answer to hate posts with some hate.

More seriously, I saw a lot of interesting things here. Ladas did an interesting work in pointing out the problems he saw, and as a ranger I can completely understand he focused on archery problems.

I think some of the ideas said here would really be worth being checked by SoE for implementation. And some are prolly just too much work to be possible :/

good job all.

[BrikBludgaard]

I am not ignoring anyone btw...

I am parsing some stuff with a 300AAXP ranger atm to get some real numbers...

note, the new archery plan is not desinged as an overall nerf to rangers... its designed to make archery into a overall useful ability and make rangers the best at it... it must finally be addressed as a secondary method of dealing damage.... not as good as melee, but shouldnt be in the 12-40DPS catagory either for everyone but rangers. (note, that Shadowknights do not frankly care abvout archery, as we can do more damage with spells.)

yes, Brik is a Shadowknight.... but I am an ancient player with many characters... my MAIN is a shadowknight because I just like him best... I have always liked underdogs...

The changes were set up as an overall boost for EVERYONE who uses melee as a primary method of dealing damage.

That means certain changes are not for your class in particular. some of them benefit you more than others... some of them might seem worthless to people who have never played more than one class.

Lets say we add 6DB to the CFL to give it 20DB instead of 14... thats like what? 12DPS extra? (quick math, someone want to do the long way?) warriors do 150DPS-ish at the levels we see CFL.... so dealing 162DPS is really an issue?

Rogues in my guild dish 250DPS on PoEb named...

Monks in my guild are at 225DPS-ish on PoEb named...

God forbid warriors and knights get a 12DPS boost when using a low delay 2H.

Note, ALL of the weapon-styles are looking at an upgrade...

Still parsing with the ranger in order to see what he is capable of...

Brik

[Ladas Sindarin]

"note, the new archery plan is not desinged as an overall nerf to rangers... its designed to make archery into a overall useful ability and make rangers the best at it"

Except the plan you laid out is a direct and complete nerf to ranger archery. Right now I do roughly same damage with a SEWs at 1750 attack as I do with a Primoridal Driftwood Bow and Blessed Mith arrows. Your first changes to the melee system are going to put my melee damage higher than Archery non-disc already. Your archery changes, right off the bat drop my archery damage to half my melee damage with the removal of the non-moving bonus. Turning Endless Quiver into an insta-cast Tolans Bracer cuts my damage another 20%.

I do see where you are trying to make archery more of a viable alternative for all other melee, but what you are doing is simultaneously knocking rangers way down while bringing the others up, so everyone is at the same level.

You say you are tired of everyone being the same, but thats exactly what you are doing to archery.

And I dispute that rangers would still be the best at archery if both warriors and rangers have the same base skills with it, same base damage potential, are using the same bow and arrow combo, but the warriors get 3 minutes of Aggressive with the bow compared to 2 minutes of Trueshot. I suspect Aggressive wins.

If you want to boost the DPS of archery for eveyone else, fine, I have no problem with that, and it makes sense, but why cripple one classes' unique skill?

And BTW, when you get done using Locz for your testing, you are probably going to see that his archery DPS without disc is in the same range as you propose moving warriors to with the boost to the CFL.... 160 DPS.


"Lets say we add 6DB to the CFL to give it 20DB instead of 14... thats like what? 12DPS extra? (quick math, someone want to do the long way?) warriors do 150DPS-ish at the levels we see CFL.... so dealing 162DPS is really an issue?"

I have no problem with that what so ever, and I do think to some degree the balance between caster DPS and melee DPS needs to be adjusted. It was one thing when casters were constrained by their mana bar and excelled at short burst, high DPS... but now with focus items and the prevelence of FT/Mana regen, casters are just as consistant in their damage delivery over time as melee.

However, the change you proposed will skew the rankings of weapons that were already balanced in terms of damage potential. I think the better plan is something that targets the entire range of melee and weapons, not tries to fix what isnt really broken. Low delay weapons are already working well at the levels of attack most players can get, and if those skill changes you propose for knights is added, then every melee should be able to hit 1700+ attack easily at the POP raid levels.[/i]

[Solinar]

Rogues in my guild dish 250DPS on PoEb named...

Monks in my guild are at 225DPS-ish on PoEb named...


And warriors in my guild dish out 300 DPS on PoEB named.

Oh, but thats only very rarely, when they get extremely lucky rolls several times in a relatively short fight, the same as your numbers.

I doubt your monks are doing 225 DPS average on named, unless they have gotten a hold of weapons that are significantly better than the REBB / Zha's / Caens / Puresteel that our monks have. I would guess the 52/28 2hb that is as of yet undiscovered on live servers might do 225 "average" DPS on level 68+ boss mobs with maxxed ATK gear, and rizlonas.

[BrikBludgaard]

Believe it or not, there are other people besides you that understand how a parser works.

Yes, I understand the difference between burst and average damage.... this is for the whole fight... which aren't 30 second issues... of course you would know this if you'd been to PoEb.

note that since we were talking a number of rogues and monks, and a numebr of fights... If the results were all over the map, you could say it was luck... they weren't....

granted...the monks and rogues are wielding VERY nice weaponry... (isn't that obvious enough? PoEb??)

Of course, I am also not trying to hide what all the monks and rogues already know. Don't bother... every else knows too, as you tend to tell us every time we fight... the only time you guys are quiet about it (or deny it) is when its brought up when you fear a nerf.

relax.... my changes aren't a nerf for you... you can brag like you usually do.

Brik

[Wilhelmm_Lanys]

I'll be the first to admit, I didn't like your opinions much before. I still don't agree with some of them, but many of the ideas you propose are intriguing. I still think there is a better way to improve taunt on warriors by adding an additional taunt button with instant agro generation rather than changes specifically at only a hand-ful of weapons. But, some of the change you propose are interesting. Won't happend, but intersting nonetheless

[Stryph]

Leech Curse change=Something the SK community has been harping for years about, it aint gonna change anytime soon.

I still like my idea of warriors getting innate agro generation boosts at ceratin levels that work similar to the SK/Chanter percentage boosts (Level 20- 3% Level 30- 5% Level 40 7% etc etc up to 60 then increase 1% per level till 65).

I also think some lesser pure hate procing weapons are warrented for the warriors that can't afford a BoC or aren't in a raiding guild that can wipe their ass with everything up to Plane of Time. Would a 10/20 with a 150pt hate proc be so bad?

[Grimmlokk]

-Knights gain new mitigation tables similar to warriors at levels 60 and 65. Knights are always one table behind warriors, and will mitigate 10% at level 65.


No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

NO.

NOOOOOOOO!

If you want to give wars a real defensive advantage, FINALLY, then give it to wars only. A 5% mitigation advantage means jack shit to an exp group. Stop whoring out our abilities, even ones we don't have!

The proposed archery changes are silly and needless. Fix LoS, change nothing else. And give warriors/monks endless quiver.

Finally: Seriously, we all understand we need other classes to play the game. But we don't need to read their debates here, we have enough of our own stupid arguments.

[Tibis]

I also think some lesser pure hate procing weapons are warrented for the warriors that can't afford a BoC or aren't in a raiding guild that can wipe their ass with everything up to Plane of Time. Would a 10/20 with a 150pt hate proc be so bad?One came out in LoY, called Barnacle Covered Axe 9 / 22 1HS with a proc of Pique. Pique is +100 Hate, 50DD. War / all, Rec Level 36. Drops in Dulak.

[Viken]

I would like to see /disc resistant scale up as you level such that at level 65 it would add +50 to all saves and /disc fearless last for much longer then 6? seconds I think it is.

[BrikBludgaard]

Grimm,

note the changes to aggro as well...

Since you would be getting a method to actually control aggro better, the knights need to stay competitive in the absorb department.

the changes to mitigation change little for XP groups... true enough

the changes to hate generation are hugely in favor of the warrior.

As indeed the weapon changes, the discipline changes and even the archery changes...


Warriors and Knights should be direct replacements for each other. Certain benefits should follow grabbing either for XP groups, raids, or even small groups.

Brik

[Wilhelmm_Lanys]

"Warriors and Knights should be direct replacements for each other. Certain benefits should follow grabbing either for XP groups, raids, or even small groups."

I can agree with this. However, I am assuming you don't mean that since a hybrids currently can;t really replace a warrior on a raid, then a warrior can't replace a hybrid in a group.

[Arroe]

ok, that's a bs nerf to rangers.

and the max dmg a ranger can do with archery is slightly over 2k. no where near 4k.

the chances of hitting the max is rare anyways. don't forget half the time it's 10dmg, miss, 50dmg, 15dmg, then 569 dmg, 122dmg, miss, 1902dmg, miss, 480dmg, etc.

[Kaldanm]

-Warriors gain /disc Battlemaster at level 65. For 20 seconds the warrior is affected by both FURIOUS and MIGHTYSTRIKE

Eh ? I want /discipline OVERSTRIKE !

Fellstrike + mightystrike. :D