Printable View
Anyone remember the Plane of Sky before Kunark came out?
That was the pinnacle of Everquest ubermobs.
TACTICS - Everyone Losing HP, doing their job, doing damage, and eventually killing the mobs at the last second.
I dont think I ever heard the word CH said there, and it was the most fun I ever remember having on raids.
"Uhm, Tilea, did you even read VI's thing? That is EXACTLY why they are doing the changes now, because PoP is coming out. They are not a beta test for how they want encounters however. Their reason for changing this stuff is because several things that were changed (mod rods especially) were basically handcuffing their ability to make encounters new and interesting."
Thanks for treating me like an idiot, Eomer. And yes I did read it. What I SAID was that they're not giving their changes enough time. They should have made these changes a long time ago to see how it affected encounters in the game today, instead of assuming that 2 weeks will be plenty of time to find out how these changes will affect the encounters they have planned for PoP. If they think they worked out everything with their internal testing, than everyone's in for a rough ride. (not me!)
Didn't mean to treat you like an idiot Tilea, sorry. What I meant was that, for me personally, after reading their letter it was pretty apparent why they were making the changes. You sounded like you figured it was some sort of conspiracy to leave these changes to the last second.
Quote:
Hehe, I'm not bitter It just seems that the timing of these nerfs is way too coincidental with PoP coming out very soon. It seems to me that the changes are a beta test for the encounters they want to have in PoP.
I guess I am misunderstanding your first post, but from where I am standing you didn't say they weren't giving changes enough time, it seemed that you were accusing them of using these changes to test PoP encounters.Quote:
What I SAID was that they're not giving their changes enough time
And chill a bit, I don't think you are anymore of an idiot than everyone else! :D
The only SoV fight that screams Mod Rod2 is AoW. Don't know about you, but hearkening back to the days of 'gee, he was killed pre-SoL' doesn't seem very exciting when you remember HOW he was killed pre-SoL.
Basically bind rushing, mass rezzing, total insanity.
Using ModRods quite often IS using strategy over brute force. To give strategy a fighting chance, some fights will need to be modified, AoW specifically comes to mind, but perhaps a few others.
In the end, tho, it will probably end up being those who have, the 'Ubers' gaining the most advantage over those behind. The guilds in the lead will be MORE in the lead, because they have more FT, more high Mana pool items, more HPs.
It's a lot easier to have enough mana for 'X' fight when you start with 750 more mana and regen an extra 10 a tick, no?
But at least a 60 cleric with gear and skills won't be replaceable by a 39 cleric with enough HP to rod twice and cast CH once.
So I actually like the change, but it will effect those not in the lead more than those who are. C'est la vie.
Gryfalia
AoW was killed by FoH and LoS the day before luclin was released, without modrod2. I doubt they had more than a handful deaths to accomplish that.Quote:
The only SoV fight that screams Mod Rod2 is AoW. Don't know about you, but hearkening back to the days of 'gee, he was killed pre-SoL' doesn't seem very exciting when you remember HOW he was killed pre-SoL.
Basically bind rushing, mass rezzing, total insanity.
2 guilds, decked out in an extreme amount of Vulak quality loot and with (I'm guessing) 60-70ish members each at the raid with little to no room for any error whatsoever. And the fights were still pretty damn long. your average uberguild won't be able to handle that, as was proven by the fact that only 2 guilds on all servers accomplished it before Luclin.
Well, you have to consider AA's and Luclin now as well.
I've said this before; using CH rotations and mod rods IS very strategic. I don't see it is boring as most people seem to. As a cleric, I actually like being relied upon to maintain a tedious but vital CH rotation while the rest of the classes contribute in their own unique ways to the defeat of the mob. The first time you beat a badass mob in a 40-minute fight you really feel like you accomplished something. CH rotations against mobs like Aten, Emp, and Seru require a huge amount of coordinated heals and guild-wide teamwork. These long encounters do get tedious the umpteenth time you engage in them, when you're farming loot though...
I just don't see how short fights like they're proposing could feel "epic" anymore after engaging in such long, difficult encounters like we've been doing for a year now. I like how flawless kills are possible now, although difficult on tough mobs currently, if you execute your strategy well. I really hope they don't make encounters require bind rushing, or zergish, chaotic fights in which strategy plays little part. I think Verant ran out of ideas on how to make boss mobs difficult. So instead of making the new PoP boss encounters totally unique and different than those in Luclin, they decided to just start totally over and nerf everyone; giving them different roles and powers.
you didnt had more then like FT2 on a person back then either.
no, AoW can be killed without modrod2 without zerging.
top end wars were close to 7k then now they have 8k.
your dps went up aswell with new weapons/spells.
I agree that having a modrod/ch rotation system in place does take strategy. However, that strategy wields way too much power. Because of that "strat" cleric mana is essentially infinite, and it will only get worse as clerics get more HP in PoP, making mod rodding even MORE efficient for clerics and mages alike.
I think the most obvious statement of how powerful mod rodding became is how many guilds suddenly could kill AoW within a few weeks of SoL's release. AA's may have had a hand in that, but modrods had a huge hand.
And while a 40 minute fight might feel epic purely because of the length, how fun are they really. In a lot of cases, once you get the fight down pat once, chances are that you will never fail it again, unless you totally fuck up. There is no risk in it anymore, it's just farming. A good 5 minute fight balanced so that you might lose 25% of the time would be awfully cool, especially if they don't put 3 hours of boring clearing in front of it. It's silly that with current design, you either win a fight with under a handful of deaths, or completely whipe out. What are the chances of say, the last two dozen people left in a fight finishing off the last 10% of Emp's hp? Not very good. You either win or lose by a landslide, there is no in betweens.
I both agree with your statement, and think that it's a good thing. Back when I still occasionally raided, we had just gotten the hang of the HP fight. Eomer didn't have any flowing thought or other innate mana regen, had close to 1.5K less mana and HP than our best equipped clerics, yet was every bit as effective rotation healing as all the decked out clerics. Hey great for Eomer, but it doesn't make any sense. If this change spreads guilds out because suddenly their healing ability has dropped off, great! That's the way it should be. It's ridiculous that clerics fully decked out in the best that EQ had to offer (pre-VT) were no more efficient at healing than a gimpily equipped cleric with like 400 mana in items. I mean shit, go look at my profile, I had a velium ruby fucking veil.Quote:
In the end, tho, it will probably end up being those who have, the 'Ubers' gaining the most advantage over those behind. The guilds in the lead will be MORE in the lead, because they have more FT, more high Mana pool items, more HPs.
Perhaps I missed it if someone mentioned it. The information I see is talking about Mod2. Regular Modrods are not mentioned. If this is the case I see the mage filling the same role just being worked much harder. Many may be pumping the old rods at the new game pace, while filling in the gaps with Mod2Rods as the nerf permits. Truth is nobody really knows what will happen untill the situation is at hand.
If they need to find a way to shorten the length of fights, and still make it challenging, maybe they'll bring back the good old DT!
The reason there is currently only one guild on this server that can do higher tier uber mobs, is that the ch rotation isn't the only part of the puzzle. I know a few guilds that had consistently flawless ch roations, but tanks were poorly placing mobs, other melee engaging too early, all manner of errors. The perfect rotation can't save a guild if half the dps drops during the first cycle due to poor attention to details.
For those who say AoW can be done both without ModRod2 and without some sort of 'zerg' method (be it stupid high numbers, massive rezzes or bind rushing somehow), with his current HP and current DPS, I say 'Do it'.
But having YOU do it (if you can) wouldn't even be the same as a guild who hasn't cleared VT a ton of times, isn't drenched in FT gear, or 125 HP/Mana gear.
Remember, I agree that ModRod 2 created a game that required, on the large scale, fights that were stupid long and stunningly boring. But to say 'well, 2 guilds killed him without ModRod 2, so you should too' also ignores the fact that those two guilds had obscene access to content that, for all practical purposes, isn't there any more. I hesitate to think of how many times FoH killed Vulak before he was changed. A lot of Vulak gear is still considered top of the line outside of VT/Emp.
And, from my recollection (and reading the LoS website), LoS did it with Shock of Swords and people did die a lot..hell, even Tigole died, so warriors must have been dropping. Actually, it says he died at 10%..hmm, sounds like warrior dies to enrage, spin, Tigole dies to enrage..;-) The FoH site is..down..for some reason (spam bombed by pissed off Monks? who knows). But I seem to recall that it wasn't in the same general neighborhood as clean. Doable, but clean.
But it ends up being a question of..
What is better? Needing to have 13 clerics in a rotation to have the mana to kill something or...needing 7 clerics and a lot of mod rods? I personally prefer needing 7 clerics with skill, some good gear and a guild working well together to pull it off. Both of the previous options (13 clerics or tons of rods) kinda sucked.
Gryfalia
If I remember correctly, the first few kills LoS did on the AoW were using charmed giants to tank the AoW since they had more hps than the tanks and were easier to keep a CH rotation on.
"I know a few guilds that had consistently flawless ch roations, but tanks were poorly placing mobs, other melee engaging too early, all manner of errors. The perfect rotation can't save a guild if half the dps drops during the first cycle due to poor attention to details."
Apparetly you're not familiar with Hoss Positioning :D
I think LoS killed him once that way, nerfed the next day.
The kills I am referring to is post-that change, the day before SoL came out.
I remember trying to help/hang with Hoss killing KT and a certain CLERIC training the raid, causing mass death of an epic proportion. *coughnonamesofcoursecough*
But hey, I trust Nwinn to position well, I mean damn, she's a midget too..
Gryfalia
Rodding other people is not my problem. They might make Luclin bosses a lot more fun for everyone. I'm glad they are trying to make things more fun / challenging.
But, this isn't all they are doing. With the limit to one rod charge per minute they have severely nerfed mages. Mages who have spent AA points on hp skills and quick summoning are finding these useless now. Loot choices have become bad, self rune items have become useless for mages. I WANT A NO DROP MOD ROD 2 ADDED!
Why would you need mod rod 2? AoW fight is short compared to some Luclin bosses and mod rod 1 and / or necro feeds did the job.
AoW was killed without charmed giants before SoL was released, the first kill ever was with charmed giants (by two guilds doing a joint raid, I believe)
Like I said, LoS with Shock of Swords..
And, like I said, by 2 different guilds (the ones without charmed giants) dripping in Vulak loot..
Gryfalia