Quote:
Originally Posted by The Hiram Key  Stuff |
Ok, I admit I came out quite rude and apologize for that, sincerely, it's not my style, guess it just escaped me, including the buffbot comment, but I wasn't trying to defend my server because honestly I couldn't care less as long as I have friends to play with and someone who buys and sells stuff on the broker.
I was pointing out that your remarks on server population are at the very least incorrect ("graveyard server"), although I have no difficulty believing that AB has a higher population, I can assure you that LDL one is healthy enough at all level ranges (after all, how many groups do you need at the same time?), not that for guilded people this should matter, but at times it does, cause most of the guilds are shitty and don't care about their members at all. You can't imagine how many people ask for groups or at least 1-2 partners to kill a mob, still they show a guildtag above their names.
Anyway, I solo when no one else is online, because I play more than I sleep aside from working every weekday for 9 hours. Because of this I do some quest steps solo or just go and join a random pickup group. I had no issues finding groups in any tier, but this is because if needed I'm good at forming them myself after watching the chat for a few minutes and putting together some sort of killing machine that works fine enough for a certain zone.
AB may be packed with people, but LDL is packed enough to frustrate me on off-hours (I'm from EU) for leapfrogging groups jumping mine on a named after we cleared all the trash. I couldn't live with more than this, guess to each his own.
I'd also like to address the spell/ca quality point from a more detailed point of view.
Take for example my conjurer which is basically master/adept3 only, currently level 57 and has been like that from level 15 and over. Being also a sage I craft my own adept 3s from the rares I harvest or buy rares by selling other rares I don't need.
My earth pet tanked for groups for about 45 levels, when I pull out the mage pet, my tank sure must be good or he won't hold agro often, my scout pet packs a punch and can even take a couple hits so I use it if my tanks are either crappy or our pulls would scare the average pickup for the number of encounters we face on each tank charge (our zerker is a crazy gnome) or in zones where the tank has little room to play with AE CAs.
I have this old EQ1 sickness that pushes me to fight everything with a proper name without any specific reason: it's a named and it has to die, so if I spot one when traveling somewhere...this is when I solo.
Thanks to this maniacal gearing up and crafting/upgrading trend, our guild groups can clear a place up to two times faster than the average app4 pickup group, it's in the numbers, it's all math: more damage, more power, faster kills, less downtime. And we don't even rush places, still no pickup can hold a candle to this kill rythm. So, when I read on a board where people is usually obsessed with killing speed, such as the kill-rate of wow cash farming (admitelly don't remember if you are/were among this crowd) and see "app4 are enough", at the very least I feel obliged to correct the sentence in "app4 are enough if you dont care about X and Y and Z", where the variables represent the level of the mobs you can kill, the speed at which you kill them and the "oh shit" situations you can come out of.
I'll be even more clear: we trio or 4-men epicx2 mobs that are 4-5 levels below us (high greens, even some blues). I duoed (SK+inquisitor) a lvl 40 epicx2 at level 47. It's about the challenge sometimes, or just because the mob was there. We gave at level 55 about 7 seconds of life to the final mob for the carpet quest a 57^^^ with a 2k AoE and a 3,5k dd proc on the tank. We fight yellow and orange cons without breaking a sweat. We do things in 3-4 that a pickup wiped on with 6. It's a matter of dedication, not of e-peen waving, because I think this is the first time I say this publicly.
I think it's better to invest in my characters all I can, and gear them as best as I can for each level they ding. It's about having more options, it's being able to use a tank pet for a fight to help a person instead of having to wait for a real tank and possibly a healer to move and join us and stuff like that.
Of course there are spells/ca that are shitty enough, so that app4/adeptI will do (just think to some buffs and their horrible scaling or semi-useless long cooldown abilities), but for others it's a world of difference, especially damage spells, taunts or heals.
It's also literally impossible for a non app4/adept1 tank to hold agro over an adept3/mastered dps'er, no chance in hell, unless of course the dps does only autoattack, which in a way limits my choices for pickup groups (a rare occurence anyway) but on the other hands show me which players do care enough about their toons and makes me want to group with them again.
Onto the following: I don't understand your point of view on the game. You advocate the appIV theory and go on defending the role of a bard in a group and all the cool and useful buffs/debuffs you do, but I can honestly tell you that if the other group members would be geared with mastercrafted/legendary and adept3s/masters, the utility of a bard would be quite lower (raid situation nonwithstanding, there bards are just godly).
So, pick one: do I need a bard to buff me up or should I just buff up myself and look for any class as a filler? I prefer to have a choice, if I get a bard on top of what I have, it's even better, but still is far from being a overly-desiderable class in any group situations I can think about on the fly.
To your last question: I played a guardian for ages, abandoned it, deleted it, rerolled several characters (I tried all the 24 classes to at least mid level, also to learn how they work). I prefer to heal (I have a druid) but I let others do it since they want to, I often dps (currently as a conjurer, I love pet classes), I sometimes tank (as shadowknight), all depending on guild needs and to accomodate for other people wanting to play an alt. I have also a 22 dirge which is a sort of experiment, but to me it's not that fun honestly, at least for now, by lvl 45 I should decide if I'll trash it or keep it.