Charm and balance

[Uber Uberest ~Rathe]

http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/metachar.html

[gegen]

Apparently some people don't play the same game the rest of us do...

Originally posted by Schezanna
Yes, LoneWar, that's precisely why you're getting nerfed. That attitude is *why* folks are raising hell, and it's perfectly valid. I hope that when the dust settles they make COD charm soloing about half the xp a mediocre group could get you at best, with some actual risk associated with it.

Some actual risk associated with it... please tell me why me fighting summoning mobs with my charmed frog has no actual risk? I don't know about enchanters, mages and necros but my charm breaks OFTEN (enchanters have that AA... forgot what it is called that makes charm last longer). when it breaks I have 3 options:

1) Run and pray I can get out of summoning range before I get summoned again

2) Use exodus because no way in hell I'm going to get egress off when a mob with speed and an unslowed mob is beating on me

3) Die

I don't know about other druids, but 5khp buffed definately doesn't keep me alive very long with mobs that double for 600 + bash and then another mob that tripples for 400 + bash. So, obviously you have NEVER used a charm spell in PoP to get XP.

Originally posted by Makata
Yep. It should. All classes should be able to solo or none.

I would LOVE to see you play a druid and complain about soloing. Verant way back when screwed up when they made the druid class in a way, we are the jack of all trades but masters of nothing. Sure we have snare, but who needs that... wizards can do it and they have our other class skill (if we even have any) succor or whatever they call it. Wizards also nuke better, but hey I know they have just as hard a time getting groups as I do, because who needs someone that runs out of mana if thye wanna keep up constant DPS and with a GY who the fuck cares about succor. Mages > wizards and druids. Clerics do fine healing, no need for a back up... an enchanter for CC and slow hey, why the heck invite your local druid? So please, go play a druid to the extent that I have and then tell me that I should never have beenable to solo in the first place.

Originally posted by Makata
Yep. It should. All classes should be able to solo or none. That's my view. Is that going to happen? Probably not. But step 1 would be to remove 4 of those classes because of charm.

Woah another gem by our resident retard Makata. Ummm... please refrain from saying stupid shit like this again, I don't know about you, but I would be very angry if my class was removed from the game. As much as charm is a bonus for playing a druid, that is not why I picked one 3 and a half years ago when I started. How would you feel if your cleric class was deleted, or whatever other shitty non-solocapable class you play. Probably not too sad since you wouldn't have anything to bitch about then huh? Oh yes, btw. Incase you have actually moved past tier 2 zones, you do realize that clerics used to solo in HoH for pretty good XP... then verant decided to nerf it by makeing the undead mobs summon. Why they did that I don't know, perhaps clerics are not ment to solo?

As for mages not being overpowered? Not really if you mean by how many zones they can use their charm in, then again... druids and necros aren't either then are they? In BoT though, I see them (mages) get some of the BEST pre-elemental XP you can get. And if you don't think I have no clue what I'm talking about, I am flagged for everything pre-elemental. Although I guess enchanters could do the same... except they're too busy in HoH farming specs faster than you can in BoT.

If PoP turned this game into a grouping game, why were people bitching about soloing before? Also, if it is a grouping game please give me something to bring to the table as a druid, and hell necro's too. Tell me the last time you activly sought out a druid/necro? That's right never, hell if you had an open slot in your group and a druid/necro was looking for a group, you'd probably wait for a rogue or something else because infact you believe druids and necros suck in groups, am I right? While I am not saying druids are worthless, infact it's the opposite I feel we are one of the most powerful classes in EQ.. and necros the same, we are just not given credit. 99.99999999% of the EQ community doesn't realize the full power of a druid or necro (ok so my % is a little flawed as like 25% of chars in EQ are druids and necros but owell). Once necros and druids actually get groups OUTSIDE their guild on a constant basis, I say sure take away my solo ability all you want (and mind you, even 75% of the time other classes get guild groups ahead of me).

I guess I'm starting to ramble, but people that think soloing should be removed from the game at this point are just stupid and continually piss me off. Oh, if you would like to bring up my low post count of like... 5 or whatever it is, I generally don't post because someone else says everything I say better, but I feel the need to post in this situation because well... maybe if us soloers unite here and other places it will make a difference.

[booperbustle]

The idea of Everquest has always been to encourage grouping. That's one of the reasons they tried to tweak group experience a while back. Wizards have always been soloing machines, but they have never been one of those NEEDED types of classes in a group. The fact that they could solo so well helped them out in the long run when they couldn't find a group. The same could be said for mages, necros, and such. They are all classes that for the most part don't play a huge role save just outputting damage and a few backup abilities. So no one really cares if wizards are solo fiends--it makes up for the problems for them finding a group.

Now take the enchanter. The enchanter class plays a HUGE role in groups as masters of crowd control, slowers, and unique buffers. Most groups in PoP can do without a wizard or easily replace that slot, but many will break when they lose the chanter. Shamans can partly take the place of them by providing slow and haste, but that's about it. One of the things that upsets me most about the power of post 61 charms is the fact that true "xp groups" are built around charmed pets. While generally you would have a tank in those groups with some amount of healing to keep that tank going, the enchanter didn't really need a group to solo mobs that no one else really has a chance of soloing. Wizards can quad kite and make uber experience, but that is still limited when you take into account how many mobs don't summon and are able to be quadded. Enchanters using charm aren't limited by what they can solo at all. They just find a good creature that doesn't summon and have a field day on the zone.

As a mage I will say that having a charm spell is really powerful, excepting the fact that I am restricted to one zone in the game with that I can use it for experience. So I can own Bastion of Thunder, but there aren't very many places there I can officially *solo* well using that charm spell without a group backing me up. Druid charm is restricted to animals, and necros are restricted to undead. In my opinion those classes should get a small debuff component in their charms, just because they are so restricted. Enchanters have no boundaries when it comes to their charm soloing. The rate of experience is so great that dying doesn't hamper the chanter very much.

You can get rid of the built in debuffs of charms, shorten the duration, or even put the experience gained from charmed xping but that will do little to affect enchanters getting uber experience via their pets. They have a 1.5k rune to soften the effects of charm breaking, mem blur to fix the "sliding xp" rule, and can still keep the mobs under stable control by debuffing and spending some AA points. The rate of xp might slow down a little bit, but I highly doubt the current changes will do what Sony is aiming for--to force grouping.

[LISeru]

Originally posted by gegen

Woah another gem by our resident retard Makata. Ummm... please refrain from saying stupid shit like this again, I don't know about you, but I would be very angry if my class was removed from the game. As much as charm is a bonus for playing a druid, that is not why I picked one 3 and a half years ago when I started. How would you feel if your cleric class was deleted, or whatever other shitty non-solocapable class you play. Probably not too sad since you wouldn't have anything to bitch about then huh? Oh yes, btw. Incase you have actually moved past tier 2 zones, you do realize that clerics used to solo in HoH for pretty good XP... then verant decided to nerf it by makeing the undead mobs summon. Why they did that I don't know, perhaps clerics are not ment to solo?

Mission Reading Comprehension: Getting some. Granted the person you are quoting phrased it badly, but (s)he was obviously referring to removing 4 classes from the list of those classes that are capable of soloing -- specifically those who can charm.

The fact that you could not figure out this glaringly obvious point causes me much distress. As much as I was hoping you were being sarcastic you give me no reason to come to that conclusion.

Now on to my point: Clerics really don't have any room to whine. They are THE most important class in PoP raids besides possibly one warrior. Soloing isn't something they need to be a viable class. Any guild doing anything of consequence will still need clerics and lots of them.

What does this mean? That clerics still have a place in EQ.

Enchanters, similarly, would survive without charm. A nerfed form of charm doesn't even remove it (although many enchanters like to claim that nerfing it will make it completely worthless, which I disagree with). However, enchanters are still a huge contribution to a raid. PoP fights are extremely crowd control intensive. Mana regen is still necessary. Haste still increases dps. Enchanters will not die off if they lose the ability to solo.

What does this mean? That enchanters would (this is a hypothetical statement in case you can't tell) still have a place in EQ without the ability to solo.

This gives those classes that don't have a reason to stay in EQ a reason to whine. Melee are fairly useless in raids.

Rogues are basically there for dps and corpse recovery. No one needs corpse recovery though because of GY, right? No, of course not, never.... So rogues are dedicated to dps. Well lets compare an enc to a rogue: 200-250ish dps on a rogue at the best. An enchanter with a pet can do 600 dps without even nuking. This means probably around a total of 750 dps available to an enchanter. Remind me again what the use for a rogue is?

No, I don't play a rogue, silly. I play a shaman. I have a similar gripe, except I can solo. I'm not really going to go there though because I've probably beaten that point into the ground in other posts.

What does this all mean? Allow me to state in simple terms: Any class which devalues a good portion of the classes in EQ deserves a nerf. Further, any class that can obtain experience faster than the classes it devalues deserves a nerf. So charm is overpowering on two levels. This doesn't even mention that its next to zero risk for an enchanter if (s)he selects the right targets for charm.

For example: Qhue (hypocrite numero uno of the enchanter community) used to go to tactics and get rediculous exp charming in the pit and then killing one mob, breaking charm, and then killing mob #2. Rinse, repeat: Easily an aa in 20 min, possibly less.

Then you are going to complain about the affliction haste nerf... Oh no! There's an easy fix and it involves zero risk. Think perm illusion. Don't really feel like stating more as its probably obvious enough as it is how to get exp. However if you are as obtuse as our druid friend above, feel free to die two or three times trying to figure it out. Compared to the average person you will still have it easy.

To address other issues:

Wizards' ability to get exp is probably overpowered. However, nothing in this expansion increased their ability to get exp beyond that of a normal exp group. Charming 600 dps mobs has a small (read: Huge) impact on Enchanters' ability to obtain exp. Also, wizards at least are in the same realm of dps as a rogue (approx. 50% higher for the short term) compared to the 200-300% increase that enchanters enjoy.

Druids' ability to charm isn't really all that useful on most raids (I can't think of any off the top of my head). It is inherantly risky (because of summon on all but possibly a few targets in PoStorms). Thus, it doesn't overpower the class. Enchanters are the target of this debate because they are simply overpowered.

Ok night.

Edit: Fixed a problem with the quote at the top.

[Schezanna]

Hey gegen, use some reading comprehension, moron. I specifically said CoD. Did you miss that part when you were quoting me? Does that shout out 'druid charm' to you? I don't really know what all zones druid charm is useful in, but if you have risk, then great. Enc charm doesn't for all intents and purposes. They can cherry pick what they want, and they can slow anything and mez/root adds if something goes wrong. They have runes and their mez is very fast casting, so when charm breaks they do recover most of the time.

[Makata]

Originally posted by gegen
when it breaks I have 3 options:

You'll have to forgive me for being ignorant, but where again is the 4th option:

d) Calmly stand up, notice which of the 2 has higher health, and cast charm on it, followed by /pet attack on the other.

You DO snare your pet, right..? You mentioned summoning. I personally have never fought a summoning mob, but hey I'm not the most well traveled guy in eq either. Why again can't you do trivial charming in PoN/V/S? Cuz it's sure as hell better exp than what I can do.

Woah another gem by our resident retard Makata. Ummm... please refrain from saying stupid shit like this again, I don't know about you, but I would be very angry if my class was removed from the game.

Jesus fucking christ, are you like 7? Can you not understand assumed continuation of subject matter from one sentence to the next? I said:

Yep. It should. All classes should be able to solo or none. That's my view. Is that going to happen? Probably not. But step 1 would be to remove 4 of those classes because of charm.

Notice the bold? That is predicate of that sentence, and is what is being referred to in the other sentence. Obviously druids should not be removed from the game, retard. They should be removed from the list of soloers.

Incase you have actually moved past tier 2 zones, you do realize that clerics used to solo in HoH for pretty good XP... then verant decided to nerf it by makeing the undead mobs summon. Why they did that I don't know, perhaps clerics are not ment to solo?

And yet, me asking for you not to be allowed to solo.. somehow.. wrong. I see. My apologies. Thanks for making my point just that much stronger, kthx.

Also, if it is a grouping game please give me something to bring to the table as a druid, and hell necro's too. Tell me the last time you activly sought out a druid/necro? That's right never, hell if you had an open slot in your group and a druid/necro was looking for a group, you'd probably wait for a rogue or something else because infact you believe druids and necros suck in groups, am I right?

After beastlords (because I <3 mind candy so much) necros are the second class I look for LFG when I need a DPS slot. So no, you're fucking wrong.

Second, druids are supposed to be healers. You are clerics, with not quite the same healing power, but quite a bit more of offensive power to take it's stead. Obviously if a group needs healing, they'll look for a cleric first. No shit sherlock. But if none avail, or if it's between 61 clr and 65 dru.. any person with 3.6 ounces or more of brain matter will pick the druid. I know I DO when I play my BST. If you'd know your own fucking class, you'd know you are more than capable healers in tier 1/2/3, and while as difficulty goes up, your ability to remain offensive goes down, is that not the point? There are extremly few EXP places in the game where I can heal ok but you cannot. Of course, you'd have to get off your high horse and look to be something more than wizards in leather to achieve that. And by your attitude and choice of game style.. I don't see that as happening.

I guess I'm starting to ramble

No, you were alrdy about 4 paragraphs into a ramble by this point. Instead of succumbing to diarrhea of the mouth, think of some rational points, lay them out in your mind, and spend a couple sentences on each. Mrs. Peterson, your first grade teacher, will be so impressed and might even give you a gold star!

Originally posted by LISeru
Now on to my point: Clerics really don't have any room to whine. They are THE most important class in PoP raids besides possibly one warrior. Soloing isn't something they need to be a viable class. Any guild doing anything of consequence will still need clerics and lots of them.

What the fuck does raiding have to do with soloing? Do you not understand how fundamentally different they are? That's about as intelligent as saying warriors are the best damn tanks, bar none, in the game because you always use one for raids. Why then, do people want knights in exp .. /ponder

But again, raiding != soloing. I do not give the slightest fucking care about raiding. Yes, it's my choice / loss / etc. But it's a part of the game I do not enjoy, and I'd rather spend the majority of my time exping. That being said, why the fuck would I care that my class is useful on raids? Did I make this class cuz I wanted to be useful on raids? No. I really had no preconceptions about the class to be honest, but I suppose somewhere in the back of my mind I figured I'd be good at smiting the wicked and undead.

Fast forward 3 years later, I smite as well as a warrior dual wielding, a trout in one hand, and cooked spaghetti, eloquently knotted to form a cat-o-nine tails in the other. Pre-kunark, I could solo with the best, and certianly better than any damn hybrid. That was part of the definition of being a caster, you could solo. Hybrids and melees were tied to groups. Now 3 of the 5 hybrids can solo far better than I, and all 6 of the casters make my solo abilities look like a fucking rogue solo in comparison. Yes, it's partly my own bitter resentment and longing for "the good ol days" but it's just as much a concern of balance.

I'm just as useful to a group as an enc. Bullshit to anyone who wants to whine otherwise. In every exp group you need a healer and a slower. From best to worse, in each category, you have CLR > DRU > SHM, and for slowing, SHM > ENC > BST. If there is no shaman lfg, or if you need slow and mana regen, you offer group to an ENC. If you need healing, you talk to me. How again, is either of our classes so fundamentally worse off than the other?

And yet you (ie encs) can solo. Again I say: BULLSHIT. I could (and have) formulate a similar argument to druids and necros.

Further, any class that can obtain experience faster than the classes it devalues deserves a nerf.

You don't even need that qualification. If the best one class can attain an AA by tier 3 is one / 75 min, and another class best by tier 3 is one / 45 min, there is a fundamental balance issue. I mention tier 3 not because that's where I am and want the world to conform around me, but because beyond that point, yes players can get exp, and often do, but a considerably smaller percentage will ever see that point, so it would be unfair to say, "Clerics can get 1 AA / 45 min in tier 4-5+ zone, and I can barely solo better, with risk, so viola we're balanced." I know I will never get an AA in under 75 minutes in my life.

[The Insider]

Hehe,thats the beauty of it Makata...its not gonna happen the way you want it to,no matter how many paragraphs you type out

Dont you love it?

[Ludor]

im just surprised the dps wasnt nerfed with the original 1percent slow. the exp/tanking nerf was expected, was really uncessary to change the resist tho.

[Makata]

Originally posted by The Insider
Hehe,thats the beauty of it Makata...its not gonna happen the way you want it to,no matter how many paragraphs you type out

Dont you love it?

Yup.. I know it. I know it all too well. If it involves druids, it generally is never hit hird hard with the nerf bat. I was never actually expecting VI to fix the problem. Airing the concerns and getting greedy elitists to argue with me? Priceless.