Just had a wild idea...

[Kaesorn]

No, this isn't a suggestion on how to "fix" warriors...this is simply the result of too much Dr. Pepper and way too much free time on my hands. In otherwords, I just had a wild idea on abilities that they could have given to pure melee to make them more desireable to others. Abilities given to pure melees at 61/63/65, no training/AA required (except maybe a short little very easy quest to activate it). I doubt they could possibly be added in at this point in time, but it's nice to dream. ^_^

New ability given to monk/rogue/warrior...Aura.
*The aura affect everyone in the group, from any range, EXCEPT the person who is using the aura.
*The aura does not give agro, unlike bard songs.
*They are buffs, and go in the Temp buff box (i.e. bard box) in slots 19-21, starting at 21 and going up.
*Can not overwrite any bard song, but can stack with them. Also stacks with everything else.
*Can only have one aura from each class at any one time, a warrior, monk and rogue.
*When activated, every person in group gains the buff in the last slot of the song box instantly (no cast time).
*When aura is deactivated, buff instantly is removed (no twisting). 10 second reuse time between deactivation and using same or different aura.

Aura, Rogue: Masters of Precise strikes (Backstab) and stealth, as well as causing his enemies to lose interest in him in favor of others. His high level gives him the ability to share this attunement with his group.

61 - The group has taken a liking to the Rogue's ability to sneak past his enemies, as they find their chances of not being found by enemies as they pass has been greatly increased in the company of the Rogue.
**Everyone in the group (except the rogue himself) has their agro range decreased, allowing them to move closer to the mob without getting proximity agro (kinda like how you can move closer to green KOS mobs than you can dark blue KOS mobs). This ability gets better as the rogue levels from 61 to 65.

63 - The group has learned that for the Rogue to aid them the most, the attention of the enemy must not be on him. They bolster their confidence and work harder to gain the attention of the enemy in order to keep it from noticing the Rogue.
**Everyone in the group (except the rogue himself) has their melee agro increased by 3% (5% for monks, warriors and other rogues), creating a difference in the level of agro from others vs the rogue, allowing him to evade less. This ability is upgraded at 65 to 5% (7% for pure melee).

65 - Imitation is the highest form of flattery. The Rogue's mastery of precision attacks has gained new interest from the group, and through his guidance they find they can land their attacks more often.
**Everyone in the group (except the rogue himself) has their accuracy increased, causing their attacks to hit more often. This one causes a downside tho, where his own attacks lose their accuracy, as he now guides their weapons from his talent.

Aura, Monk: The Monk has trained himself to the limits his body can go. His body is stronger, more solid than rock and faster than wind. His high level gives him the ability to share this attunement with his group.

61 - The group has noticed how the monk carries himself. He is light on his feet, always ready to protect his body against falls to large to safely land. The follow his example and his guidance eases their movements.
**Everyone in the group (except the monk himself) gains the equivalent of 40 skill in Safe Fall. In addition, they are 10% less affected by snares. This ability is raised every level until 65, where it is the equivalent of 80 safe fall and 30% less affected by snares.

63 - The group has noticed how the money defends himself, his body in mind working in unison against his tougher enemies. Through his guidance, the group has learned to steel themselves against the attack from enemies which still present a challenge to them.
**Everyone in the group (except the monk himself) has up to 30hp of melee damage absorbed from every hit they take from enemies who are dark blue or higher, as well as up to 25hp of spell damage. This ability raises to up to50hp per melee hit and up to 65hp per spell hit at 65.

65 - The group is starting to understand the monk's gift for his blindingly fast attacks. His guidance enables them to attempt to attack more often in the same amount of time.
**Everyone in group (except the monk himself) gains 5% to their attack speed, stackable with all forms of haste, in addition to having an extra 10% chance to an extra attack with their mainhand (this is only an increase if the class normally has a chance to gain an extra attack through AAs or level). This one causes a downside tho, where he loses the speed of his own attacks, as he now guides their attacks to move faster than before.

Aura, Warrior: Master of combat. Day in and day out he lives to fight, sharpening his skill beyond that of a normal person. As the Warrior reaches the height of skill that a mortal can reach, he realizes that his guidance can do more to help others than any further training could possibly hope to accomplish. His high level gives him the ability to share this attunement with his group.

61 - The group is amazed at the Warrior's knowledge of combat, his strategies and tactics echoing in their ears. The enemy has noticed this too. However, the Warrior spends much of his time guiding the group, he forgets to defend himself some of the time.
**5% of all melee damage done by members of the group is counted as done by the warrior. While this aura is active, Special Defense checks for the warrior are done with a small penalty. This ability goes improves with levels, up to 9% melee damage counted as the warrior and the penalty for special defenses goes down at 65.

63 - The group has always noticed how the Warrior defends himself against the enemy, reducing the damage to much less than normal. His guidance on defense hangs in their memory, and they find themselves following his advice when they are attacked.
**Everyone in the group (except the warrior himself) has their defense raised. They are harder to hit, and take 5% less damage. This ability goes up at 65 to 10%.

65 - The power and ferocity of the Warrior to fight energizes the group to increase the power of their attacks. They lose a bit of their fear of combat and dive into the fray! The Warrior pushes himself beyond his normal bounds to lead his group, almost beyond the assistance of magic-aided health.
**Everyone in the group (except the warrior himself) has their melee damage increased. In addition, their resistance to Fear-type spells increases by 15%. This one causes a downside tho, where he loses 30hp/tick from pushing himself further than is safe, and regen spells/abilities are only 1/3 as effective during this time.

Obviously I have way too much free time on my hands to think this stuff up. You guys like it? The ideas started to leave my mind around when I got to typing out the warrior's, if you can tell. Like I said at the beginning, this is just the ramblings of my mind and could most likely never be implemented in EQ. Kind of a fun idea tho, isn't it?
If you guys like it I'll post it on the Safehouse and maybe even the Monk boards for fun. ^_^ I'm going to sleep now, my head hurts.

*EDIT: changed the level 61 effects, after finally remembering what I originally had planned.

[Baadan]

i like it!

[GSW]

It certainly is a good idea, but there is just one problem. The idea of a person suddenly making the group more powerful doesn't make much sense. Melees don't have mental powers that allow them to enhance others abilities with spells or otherwise. The only ways of making someone a better fighter are spells and magical songs. But imagine a monk standing there screaming: "Ok, everyone watch how fast i attack and start attacking faster too. Got it? Ok, go go go! Faster, faster you damn n00bs!". That would actually make me attack slower, or attack faster with the monk as my target

[Kaldanm]

Well I don't know if this type of thing can be implemented for us considering the state of the game, but a thing is sure. Melees are the last specialists, and that's why we are left behind now.
SOE wanted to make EQ more group friendly, so he released us from the monopole of a lot of classes (mini CH for druids ans shammy, many mana regen spells, many possible tanks, many possible DPS...) but we melee are straigh forwarded, like 2 years before.
When SOE decided to add a new power to a class they add a spell (Aggro spells to sk, blessing of reverence line to clerics, pets for every class with a mana bar...). We have no spell, we need some useful ability. and not some small sponge on a huge bleeding injury like /shield was for our lack of aggro.

[Kaesorn]

Well, this was never intended as a suggestion to what to do. This is just me having little sleep and too much soda, as well as my brain working overdrive. I get that way every so often, and interesting ideas come out of it. This is one of them. I know it would be hard to implement this in EQ, so I didn't bother saying I wish it was.

As for the whole idea's accuracy...maybe it's just me, but I tend to do better at various things when I'm near a highly skilled person. I just naturally follow their example. If you have a warrior in the group who's level 65 (and is able to enter planes and fight the gods themselves)...don't you think fighting or just being near him would have a natural effect on the people around him? Same goes for a rogue or a monk. The whole Aura idea was just a way to represent the effect the pure melee would have on the rest of the group in the form of a buff to the rest of the group.

Or is everyone completely locked in the idea that pure melee shouldn't be able to do anything but kick, slash, and maybe use a /disc every half hour or so? That's really limiting any improvements, IMO, so hopefully I'm wrong about that. Lots of games have pure melee-type people that have innate abilities that rival spells (but that's just how the developers choose to represent those abilities).

[Gunrack]

MOther of god.... Kaesorn... you've had 2 implementation ideas already that kick so much ass I cannot believe you are an SK but anyways... on that note everyone here has had great ideas and I wanted to ask a question to all... do you guys EVER get acknowledgement from a dev? EVER? Anyone gotten an email?

I begin to understand the deep frustration if the answer is no...

[Kaesorn]

Technically I stopped playing my SK a few months ago...think I've logged in one hour of play time on her since. I play my Beastlord almost constantly now. I would play my warrior (Kaesorn is in fact a level 10 iksar warrior on my account), but I'm just having too much fun on the BST right now. ^_^ Big change from the SK.