While I know Lucy isn't a guarantee...IF that goes live, mages will be absolutely obsolete

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Falaanla Marr spewed forth this undeniable truth:
I just checked and said AA is showing on Lucy -- name is "Advanced Dire Charm".

While I know Lucy isn't a guarantee...IF that goes live, mages will be absolutely obsolete

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...Which pretty much guarantees it's going live.

CotH and shut the hell up, please. Oh wait, that doesn't work in a lot of zones either.

Too bad I gave my zerker up to sell all his gear and make a fungi-twinked monk.

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JooJooFlop had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
Apparently berserkers will finally get their AAs with the OOW patch.

Too bad I gave my zerker up to sell all his gear and make a fungi-twinked monk.

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How are 'zerkers, by the way? It seems like they're supposed to be more like Rogues, only they don't get backstab.

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Ruvyen had this to say about John Romero:
When's Luclin supposed to blow up, anyway?

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In about 485 to 490 years from the current time in EQ1.

First off, raise your hand if you think this will be for any chanter earlier than, say, 60. Keep in mind the expansion is raising the level cap to 70. Right now, Melisande (Lyinar's 65 Chanter) can Dire Charm critters no higher than 46. She can charm critters of a higher level via spell rather than AA ability, but there's reason to believe the TD3 discipline is bugged right now; there's no appreciable difference in duration of charm since she bought TD3 from when she had TD2. Other chanters have noticed the same problem. Three or four of them on our server. So while Melisande can in theory charm, say, the Tier One chests in Hate or a snake in Storms, they break charm. Constantly. Likewise, Melisande can't find anything to DC in most zones, and if she can they're usually nestled in amongst fifty other things too difficult to work her way through effectively. So in zones with 60+ level mobs, who cares if you charm a 55? How does that threaten a mage? Mages, correct me if I'm wrong, have pets up into the sixties, yes? Right up to sixty-five, yes? And there's every likelihood that mages will continue to have pets into the sixties right up to seventy, correct? With bags of gear that ups stats and what not, right? Because a buffed Shaman pet, for instance, would still probably get smacked around by a mage pet, right? Right. Chanters can buff their pet how? A crappy damage shield? A spell from the berserker strength line that they have to keep putting on it constantly (which eats up mana, which means the chanter isn't doing crowd control, which is what Chanters do most of the time anyway)? Really. How much of a threat is a chanter to a mage pet? If I LDoN in the sixties or look at a plane, I still want a mage or a beastlord there for DPS beyond the main tank.

Secondly, let's review what mages have bitched about in the past. They take a sound bite, that mages are supposed to be the elemental masters, and they build this long-ass theory that they should nuke every bit as well as a wizard. Okay. Then what would be the point to wizards if the guy with the GREAT AND MIGHTY, VERSATILE COLLECTION OF PETS could nuke as well as them? Give me a break. I get sick and fucking tired of hearing mages bitch about the nuke thing. And eventually, I gather they got tired of howling into the abyss over something they knew they were never going to get because they didn't need it. Want nuke power, play a wizard.

Now there ARE arguments mages make that are valid. They're the best anti-summoned mob targets in the game (likewise, I wouldn't mind seeing more undead for paladins and clerics to play with). There need to be more summoned mobs to take advantage of that. The Monster Summoning line could use some upgrades (though frankly every spell-casting class has some spells that people playing them think are jokes).

But bitching about a CHANTER'S charmed pet? please. If you're envious of a pet that's ten levels lower than your current pet, you've got issues. My summoned monster I (34th level)bixie took out a beastlord pet ten levels higher than me when I was 39, also racked a necro pet. And unless the game transforms massively in the 60+ game, Mages have it easy. Buff the pet with whatever, send it in, sit down, wait, wait, stand and nuke, re-buff pet if necessry, send the pet in, sit, wait, wait...see? Easy.

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Ruvyen stopped staring at Deedlit long enough to write:
How are 'zerkers, by the way? It seems like they're supposed to be more like Rogues, only they don't get backstab.

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They built a class around what they perceived to be underutilized combat skills (2hs and Throwing). I played one for a while, wasn't impressed, remade the character as a paladin.

That's what chanters will be charming.

And not ALL mages whined about that. But just because you are fairly powerful at 40...that doesn't mean mages are balanced at all As much as I hate to say it, mages really don't have issues till post 60. Mages are probably the best DPS class till 55 or so.

The level 55 Dire Charm will make a difference. It'll be far easier to find a level 55 mob to charm...with a charm that will not ever ever break no matter what. Normal charming a higher level mob than this doesn't matter to me -- there is a risk factor involved there. My BIG issue with dire charm is that it is a risk free pet -- the powerful risk free pet should be firmly in the realm of mages.

And yes, the mage pet will have 5 levels on the ENC pet (post 60 mage pets summon at level 60, not 65...at least I'm pretty sure on that). The enchanter pet won't have a problem whooping am age pet. And even with OoW...mage pets are getting around a 25% boost in effectiveness.

Yes, I'm a bit upset about that. The class that is supposed to be the best pet class in the game will be outclasses by a dire charmed pet. By a class who also has buffs, mezzes, and other very useful spells. The mages have nukes and craptacular pet heals. You do realize that druids have pretty much carbon copies of mage nukes that can hit 3 different resists, right? And they are getting an animal DC up to level 55?

As for wizards: The more sensible mages DON'T want those kinds of nukes. They want more power through their pets -- where they should have it. Don't say that all mages whine like that -- they don't. The ones that are more vocal are the ones like that. The ones that actually have SoE's ear are the sensible ones though. Trust me on that, I'm in contact with these mages daily.

There is a reason mages are the least played class in EQ currently.

And Deth -- no reason to get hostile, I wasn't attacking anyone. Simply pointing out that I felt a level 55 DC would be overpowering and push mages farther towards being obsolete.

Falaanla Marr fucked around with this message on 08-18-2004 at 06:28 PM.

As Deth explained, I've been having A LOT of trouble maintaining a charmed pet, even with TD3. I've bugged and feedbacked about it, and as he also said, other enchanters on my server have been having issues as well. With TD3, Command of Druzzil is supposed to last the full duration, about 8 minutes, reliably. I've charmed in Hate, in Storms, in TORGIRAN MINES, and gotten four, five, six charm breaks in a row. My mana's been sucked away trying to stun and recharm, and many times I've just given up and gotten Shiny Bob the Useless out and used my piddly nuke, or DC'd a pitiful pet just so I can do *something* against the mobs.

A mage will always reliably have a powerful pet. Plus you get the Turd Herd. Giving my class the ability to charm a bit higher of a pet is in no way going to make a mage obsolete. Given all else that a mage can do, pet toys, the best damage shield in the game, superior nukes, damage against the elements, no one in their right mind is going to choose an enchanter over a mage. They'll do what they do now-look for both

If I wanted a permanent pet, I'd go play a mage, beastmaster (beastlord? Too much FFXI), or necromancer. Not an enchanter. Even with total domination AAs, charm will STILL be a risk. An enchanter will always deal with a string of bad luck at times. This new dire charm is just breaking the class even more.

Addy fucked around with this message on 08-18-2004 at 07:40 PM.

Mez and stuns however were broken by something completely unrelated to enchanters at first glance, the utterly retarded amounts of damage xp mobs put out nowadays. It used to be that an enchanter could stop a train of 4 by stunning them, picking off two with mez, restunning the two and finishing the lock, if somewhere along the line a mob hit the cleric once or twice due to a resist it was not a tragedy, the cleric could live through it since the mob didn't hit for twice the cleric's HP per round and a tank at full health could take a few hits even if a heal got delayed.

Today pulling 4 mobs into a camp is sheer suicide, 4 guards in fire will rip your group, they put out enough dps to kill your group in about 3-4 seconds, your cleric would most likely be dead before the enchanter's frist stun finished casting since to keep a warrior up against that kind of pull he'd have start casting the first heal before the mobs were even in camp. Crowd control, in today's EQ, must be done out-of-camp whenever possible, this is where bards shine, combined with their limited ability to in-camp CC when things go wrong they are far better suited to the post-pop arena than enchanters are.

EQ should never had more than 4-5 classes, this is something that CoH has done absolutely right. You have class a, class a tanks, there is no question about whose role damage prevention through migitation is. You have class b, class b does damage, there is no question about whose damage output will be the highest. You have class c, class c controls, split-pulls and debuffs adds, there is no question about whose role dealing with adds in whatever fashion will be. You have class d, class d heals, there is no question about whose role it will be to regenerate the group's hit points. EQ just burdened itself with a lot of extra classes it wanted for rp reasons that created a tremendous gameplay problem, they even added to it later by throwing more and more classes into the already overflowing pool.

Mod fucked around with this message on 08-18-2004 at 08:17 PM.

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Addy attempted to be funny by writing:
Charm was always about risk. Not guarantees. Risk.

If I wanted a permanent pet, I'd go play a mage, beastmaster (beastlord? Too much FFXI), or necromancer. Not an enchanter. Even with total domination AAs, charm will STILL be a risk. An enchanter will always deal with a string of bad luck at times. This new dire charm is just breaking the class even more.

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It's only level 55, Addy. Right now, we can only dire charm up to 46. That will be 24 levels below the high level in OoW. Meaning there would be absolutely no point to DCing, and as I mentioned, with the recent nerfs to charming, plus the addition of unmezzable and uncharmable mobs (especially in GoD and I'm sure we'll see it in Omens), enchanters are becoming less and less desireable to group with.

All other caster classes already get a self mana regen that stacks with our VoQ, and you can swing by PoK or have another account with a box for that. So at any given time, any other caster except the ones who are supposed to be the "kings" of mana regen, can be regening mana for nukes, dots, etc much faster than an enchanter, making them a lot more desireable for DPS for a group. Mages and necromancers have a superior risk-free pet, that they can command at will. There is a lot more that other casters are currently bringing to the table than an enchanter does, and what an enchanter DOES bring is just being made smaller and smaller and smaller. Giving us a boost isn't going to break our class, or any other class. It's going to put us back into the running instead of making us fall behind and become nothing but KEI bots in PoK. Or send us running to alts.

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Mod was listening to Cher while typing:
Oh and about the actual topic of the discussion, Dire Charm was a bad idea in the first place but now that it's in it really needs a buff because it's pretty damn worthless at lvl 65, let alone lvl 70.

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Yeah, I use it for farming stuff or faction. Like DCing one of the named greenies in Kael and razing the place to the ground when I needed CoV faction

I think DC makes sense story wise, too. It's not impossible to think that a class that are the masters of bending minions to their will would gain the ability to completely dominate minions of a certain strength lower than them.

But yes, DC is basically useless right now, and charm is badly broken. So at least throwing us this bone will give something of a boost, although it won't fix all the problems.

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There was much rejoicing when Lyinar Ka`Bael said this:
My role as chief mezzer is being taken over by tank mezzing, or BARDS (I HATE BARDS IN MY GROUP) and pretty much all we can contribute DPS wise without a charmed pet is a piddle 1k nuke, tash (which I might remind, both shamans AND mages can lower magic resist BETTER than the supposed masters of it, the enchanter) and maybe that horrible, insignificant dot we have.

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That depends. Many mobs in GoD were unmezzable, but bards are certainly unable to mez them, at best we can possibly off-tank them, though I hear this is impossible in the end-game since knights can't even do it. In any case you shouldn't complain about bards who save chanters asses half the time. We don't mez for you, we mez mobs that are beating on you, or even if we mez something coming into a camp, I don't expect to have to keep twisting the mez. The chanter should always pick up mezzes simply because it is much easier for them.

But hay, instead of bitching lets talk about what chanters can do. They have the best haste, best charms, best mezzes, decent stuns (though not so much at high levels), second best slows, decent nukes, best mana increase spells, damage mitigation, combat illusions, and lets not forget gate! I dunno, doesn't seem like there's much to complain about. Are there other classes that can do these things? Yes. Can most of them do it as well as chanters? No.

(Oh, Night's Dark Terror was a boost to attack though, and that great scream everytime I FD'ed.)

Everquest has come a long way from the time where everyone was expected to be the master of something.

As it stands right now the only truely narrowly defined classes in the game are Warriors and Clerics. Everyone else has a utility purpose that goes beyond their specialty. Even Clerics have broken out of the mold a little, but due to the way the game has to be played today, they are not allowed to explore their depth. They either fall into line, or well, solo. =P

The problem is that SoE has blurred the lines so much that instead of groups looking for Enchanters, they now look for either an Enchanter, Shaman, Beastlord, or Bard. They are not looking for crowd control, they are really looking for slow. In casual groups people don't look for Warriors, they look for Tanks, and while doing anything below the Elemental Planes you might be surprised as what would qualify as a tank. Without a clearly defined role people will always feel obsolete.

Personally I like it this way. It is far better than when classes were defined by the single thing they could do better than everyone else. It created a barrier to the casual player in how they were allowed to progress upwards, which was not at all fair.

So for Enchanters getting a level increase on DC, as long as they are willing to accept the mob balancing that will go with it, I'm ok with it. Spread the wealth and let everyone have fun, after all it is just a game.

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This insanity brought to you by Addy:
Charm was always about risk. Not guarantees. Risk.

If I wanted a permanent pet, I'd go play a mage, beastmaster (beastlord? Too much FFXI), or necromancer. Not an enchanter. Even with total domination AAs, charm will STILL be a risk. An enchanter will always deal with a string of bad luck at times. This new dire charm is just breaking the class even more.

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I concur.

I notice all the "wah wah eq isn't getting trivialized, it's getting more fun!" are the only ones approving of this change too.

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Nina was naked while typing this:
I concur.

I notice all the "wah wah eq isn't getting trivialized, it's getting more fun!" are the only ones approving of this change too.

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Wait, you accused them of whining? They're the ones that are comfortable with its current state.

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Noxhil stopped staring at Deedlit long enough to write:
That depends. Many mobs in GoD were unmezzable, but bards are certainly unable to mez them, at best we can possibly off-tank them, though I hear this is impossible in the end-game since knights can't even do it. In any case you shouldn't complain about bards who save chanters asses half the time. We don't mez for you, we mez mobs that are beating on you, or even if we mez something coming into a camp, I don't expect to have to keep twisting the mez. The chanter should always pick up mezzes simply because it is much easier for them.

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You are supposed to split pull the mobs or fade them off out of camp not play enchanter / warrior camp.

Mod fucked around with this message on 08-19-2004 at 03:38 AM.

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Noxhil painfully thought these words up:
In any case you shouldn't complain about bards who save chanters asses half the time. We don't mez for you, we mez mobs that are beating on you, or even if we mez something coming into a camp, I don't expect to have to keep twisting the mez. The chanter should always pick up mezzes simply because it is much easier for them.

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I've only ever grouped with a single bard who actually did something to save my life in a group. Otherwise, they've been nothing but a bunch of nuisances who temporarily charm what I'm trying to mez, overwrite my mezzes (I don't know if they still can, but I know it happened before cause mez wore off WAY too early), and pull massive amounts of mobs into the camp that they run off and leave me to handle when I'm trying already to control the ten they already have there.

I like bards on my other characters, but man, I hate them when playing Melisande. Give me a good shammy to compliment me any day.