EZ Server

Dimur nailed it in another thread. The epics are a bit scattered and ...well...not so epic.  :-[

I asked numerous others to start this thread, but no one has. So here it is. I am collecting a mass of feedback on how class epics should be handled. Some of them will stay as is, some need tweaking.

Goals of this thread:

• Uniform epic effects across epics ( i.e. cleric 3.5 has AbilityXYZ rank 1 and cleric 8.0 has AbilityXYZ rank 8 ).
• Effects that are useful in varying (preferably, all) stages of the game without being overpowered.
• Effects that are desirable enough to actually want to upgrade weapon instead of simply doing it because the game says so.

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Warrior - Simplify epics and clicks by unifying them.
Cleric - unsure currently
Paladin - nothing, pleased with state in game
Ranger - nothing, pleased with bow clicks
Shadow Knight - better damage/proc/etc on 2h to help the "dps stance"
Druid - get them out of melee range, refine click into a "floor trap" instead of single dot/snare
Monk - unsure currently
Bard - One Man Band across all epics, fix scaling, add chance for "harmony"
Rogue - slightly reduce click bonuses, half cooldown on hide/sneak
Shaman - nothing, content with them
Necromancer - pet
Wizard - unsure currently
Mage - pet
Enchanter - pet
Beastlord - pet
Berserker - nothing, content with them

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Ideas:

Cleric - AoE Massive heal on click, replace Holy Knight Strike with temporary HP buff (18s base). This way a cleric might give the players a larger health pool while in combat without overhealing and without so damn many cures firing off. An example might be T8 cleric's mace is proc'ing 75k hp buff, so long as he is in combat. (Theoretical numbers, no QQ yet)

Shadow Knight - Add various "chance" procs to 2h proc (similar to Trickshot) to allow a variety of DPS bonuses to occur.



-Hate

I'm happy to see the click on warrior 1 hander shares the same with 2hander now - was annoying with the 1 hander having a smaller defensive click with only 3 min duration over 2hander 30 minute. So +1 to whenever that change was made.

~48h ago. :-)


-Hate

Why not make the cleric epic a HP and mitigation type buff. Keep it in line with the shaman's epic since the "Big 3" buffs come from shaman, druid and cleric?

5.0 = 25k hp and 10% mitigation spell and melee

and go up from there?

maybe hp + spell mit

So the ranger pet isn't going back on?   

Wizard: Give it a 30 second gift of annihilation type buff with a 1 minute cool down.

Flip clerics to the 2.0 click maybe? divine arb + heal/cure effect?  Also, would be nice if rangers would get the bow click as a proc on 1h to avoid twisting.

While that would be awesome, I believe they're already high on the DPS ladder without a 50% uptime god mode.  

Or if we're going that route, let's treat it like franks red hot and  put that shit on everything.

(Note) - I will admit my bard is only in t6 currently so on end game I don't have collected information on things offered from the other tiers to benefit bard so anyone can chime in on this topic and tell me I'm stupid and isn't necessary if so be it. Nor do I know the current given spell damage boost offered from one man band outside of 6.0

If you don't mind me saying something for Bards , I personally boxed the hell out of one on live because they were so versatile it was ridiculous especially in offering more dps to the group as a whole outstandingly. ( and before the "EZ isn't live train rolls in ) I understand this, I am not asking for them or anything alike to be like live otherwise why would I be here? I think bards should get their one man band click turned into a proc for their epic that adds benefits based on the strike type.

My idea surrounding all of this is simple, or at least to me ; I am not master spell maker like Hate but it sounds decent in my mind

Magic spell damage boost, which I believe is War proc and Ninja at the regular rate of 150% but makes it so things that are say -1000 magic resist can be hit by Ninjastrike and such during that duration of the proc'd song

Fire give a boost of one man band to 200% to make the gimpy firestrike users a little boost in their dps for X time

Outside of this idea ; make a small % chance or whatever upon the proc of one man band to offer a Ninjastrike or similar damage song based off the tier of the epic as to what tier the NS would. If you are against making one man band a proc based song ; keep it click but still possibly consider the above as ideas to tweak it.

I could just be a rambling fool with too much time on my hands, but it sounds like a neat change to something already with bards that could make their benefits to the group for dps even more ferocious without being overpowering.

there is nothing wrong with bards, they are fine. bards get a song that debuffs resists, use it if you want that effect

On Clerics... if the Group Heal is replaced... I think that can happen, but only once the mob damage is decreased.  I still use that click in OMG situations.  After that... make their click a group aura/buff that boosts healing focus effects.

On Wars... I still like the idea of splitting up the click effect on the 1H/2H, but leave the 2H as is and replace stone skin on the 1H with a super taunt.

On Wiz... add a group aura/buff to their rune click that boosts fire and/or cold damage. 

Would be fun to have auras fixed as that would allow a ton of new possibilities for epic clicks

Monk epic - The component that procs the self cure is pretty cool, it gets negated by resists be high enough to not get hit with dots but it's still very useful for characters that aren't there yet.  The self buff click that reduces agro could be tweaked, we already have access to ninja click in the game so maybe they could get some sort of short duration, reward only ninja click proc buff with a little dmg component to address the role a monk has traditionally had in EQ...monks have always been a high dps melee class with agro shedding capabilities, they don't really offer much group utility.  I'm thinking a 3 tick buff, ninja proc fade effect with a direct damage component, starting possibly at epic 7.0 or 8.0 with the damage component being equivalent to a lesser tier Ninja proc that scales by epic level.  At 7.0, it could be on par with NSIV or NSV and scale to NSV or NSVI on the 8.0.  This would offer an easy upgrade path to the damage component as the epic increases in tiers in the future.

Beastlord epic - It's main function is the pet, but could be possible to have a chance to proc a self only kraken type buff since they are supposed to be a shaman type hybrid.  Make the buff short duration so the beast has to keep meleeing to keep it up, 3 ticks starting at 7.0 or so and on par with the same tier kraken spell, would overwrite normal kraken but for groups not rolling a shaman it could be a way to boost the dps of a bst.

Shaman epic - I know this gets brought up periodically, but could either the duration or cooldown of the shaman epic be looked at?  The buff itself is highly marginalized at the later stages of progression, so much so that I usually cast it at the outset of a clear and never bother keeping it up as it wears off.  The stats it provides are okay, the hp are pretty lackluster comparatively speaking and the duration on the buff is laughable when compared to cleric druid hp buffs.  If the duration is to offset the additional bonuses outside of hp the buff has, and to be honest I don't know what they are because I don't care enough to keep the buff up as is and don't notice any difference when it's up or not, then make the recast like 1 minute.  A druid or cleric can buff the shit out of various groups in short duration and not have to revisit casting it again unless a few people die, and even then their buffs are simple to mem and cast at will.  Even at 1 minute refresh, it'd take a shaman a lot longer to buff groups when MGB is down.

As far as the rest of the epics go...

Warrior - could use a good hp boost on the stonewall effect from 7.0 to 8.0, otherwise it's good...there are a shitload of direct and AE agro tools available already and this really doesn't need to be any more easy to afk tank than it already is

Cleric - Their group heal is decent enough for me to use for patch heals, maybe add some sort of chance for short duration self buff vie from meleeing to bring their mitigation up a bit while battle clericing?  Either way, I'm okay with where they are

Paladin - Love what you've done with melee stance and 1h and 2h options, their healing is way more than capable now...in a good position

Enchanter - Good where they are

Druid - They have a pretty big toolbox of capability already, happy with where they are with an AE click, could be better I guess if druid isn't an active target...possible to make the effect a cone type as opposed to AE?

Bards - Effect is still very powerful and gets clicked on refreshes, incrementally small increase in dmg boost would be cool but it's going to get used regardless

Other classes, I don't really play casters enough to know what mages or necros need nor do I play SK, rogue or ranger enough to have any kind of idea what they need/don't need so not going to speculate.

I like this idea. Maybe make it land on pet, too, since BST is the only real pet class that cannot use the mana neck. Yeah, I know.....NS augs :D But this would help keep them viable as dps and give a reason to actually cast the pet.


Adding the lvl 70 monk aura as a clicky buff to the epic would rock....maybe even as a song, short duration. Giving monks the ability to save themselves and a group from riposte would make them the most desirable class past T6 :D

If you really wanted to change cleric click, could bring back the 2.0 click (divine arb, small group heal, cure and threat reduction).  Was always a defining ability on live

Currently i am happy with the cleric epic click heal, with my pally and cleric firing off there epics, it's saved my butt countless times during my oh $#!^ moments.  If the heal click is taken away all clerics have left is the word of vivication group heal from level 69, which is 12k group heal, and with uc's V1 or V2 is nice but nothing like the 50k on the cleric 6.0.  Perhaps if the epic click heal were to be removed then we could see more appropriate level group heal spells implemented also?  If these spells are added then it would be nice to have the cleric epic do a combat proc hp buff with small mitigation boost, or divine arbitration returned and or things like marxist suggested.

I would also like to see the shaman epic click hp have the wunshi over the stat limit added, as you currently can't have the wunshi focus and shaman epic hp buff up at the same time.  Perhaps the the wunshi effect could be scaled by epic level also, like 2.5 roughly equal to the level 70 wunshi focus, and go up from there. I don't play my shaman much so if this is already the case just disregard.

New pally epics rock! great job there.

The monk epic could maybe be traded for small group melee increase, like extra crits, crit damage and flurry and such if your looking to remove the proc self cure from it, other wise it seems fine to me.

only suggestion for pet class epics is a faster cast time for the pets, but other than that you guys have done good work beefing the pets up with other things implemented recently. However, i still don't play pet classes enough to know much about them.

Bard epics are fine imo i click them when they refresh constantly, usually large pulls or namer mobs.

rogue epics seem fine as well although, i have seen talk that there BS numbers are messed up, like roll over damage?  i really don't know i rarely parse anything i just go by what i see.  I know its a bit lazy but that's my play style, i'm not huge into the numbers.

Zerkers are fine like you said.

I like the fact the warrior epics are the same one handed and two handed makes it less of a grind in the early game for those new and coming up.

Any other class i don't play enough of to really know.  Great job with all the recent updates, keep up the good work!!

I think bards are in a pretty good position right now but i just wanted to throw out an idea out there that's been on my mind a bit lately.

Is there a way to increase song duration by like 2-3 seconds through a focus effect or whatever else? that would allow a bard to twist in 1 extra song for each ~3 seconds added to duration. Just seems like something nice people can look forward to outside of typical damage/hp upgrades on the epics.

loving the changes so far :)

+1 if the heal was upped on the 2.0 it would actually be more useful than the current click.

How are T8+ mages doing with epic/new pet stuff/ornate and a high end spell necklace?  good?  still need work?  Would love to take him off the bench (been on it since T6)

Bumping this as it will become relevant soon.

Please please please post feedback on this.


-Hate

Been awhile since I played, but I seem to remember Mage pet, and I assume other pets as well, falling from grace the bigger and badder they were suppose to be. By the time they were T6 or T7 damage was not noticeable.  

Added epic resists to pet gear and pets in general helped them survive, and the mana neck changes made them viable(ish) dps again. My mage is a nice add to my group....for now. Pet classes atm imo are pretty solid, with the possible exception of BST. Bst epic pet is meh damage, meh hps, just meh. Only thing that makes bsts ok in group is UC+ and NS augs. But....I think that when you get a BST NS aug'd with UC and add pet to that their dps is pretty respectable. I like the idea of a kraken proc on their epic to bump them up in group desirability.

Will read and post more when I am more awake.

I will only comment on the 6 toons I play

Enchanter
Is Charm so broken or explotable that we cannot have it in the game?  I recall there might have been an issue with it way back when.

I woud love  to see this be viable on their Epic with the duration of the charm effect being dependent on level of Epic,

If that isn't possible, maybe a group Rune spell?

Monk
Since they offer little to no group utility can we add some kind of Group DPS boost to their click via either a resistance lowering effect or via significantly increasing the likelihood of tripping off dual weild and double attack effects for the group.

Cleric

I like the group heal proc and would not change it

Rogue, Warrior, Paladin

I like where they are at.

Could modify the monk ability fists of wu to add another component since its shared per group. Something like a repostle mod or dd effect.

Druid. Plz get rid of that click. How about an 18 sec group buff of regen / HP / mana and frosty feelings?

Rogues. I don't really use the click cuz its a pita. A temp. Buff of DMG mod would make me click that more..

I dunno.

Maybe all priests could get some sort of dps boost, the buffs as is are kinda of moot.

Maybe cleric click gives group a low level smite proc (18seconds up 45  CD) Maybe amplified on undead, and maybe a future zone could have undead in it.

Maybe druid click is some uber regen / ds (30seconds up 40 CD) still buff ish, maybe goes in song window

Shaman click could be group attack/over stat limit/poison proc(30 up 50 CD)

Just an idea, the shaman buff doesn't really do anything for me at 6.0.

Along with epics maybe augs could be revisited to not balloon at tier 7

Possibly more linear growth

First few the same to not punish new people

But maybe add in an extra metal, SLS, or essence as they grow, and only have 1 slot on all the epics.

Disperse the balloon at the end, and potentially give breaking in players a little more boost.

Same total cost just spread out.

Less plat spent would make me a happy fella. So like maybe add platinum blue diamonds as a random drop or reward for kill quests. 500 kills in zone x gives you the reward. Even SLS as a random drop on bosses?

i like the idea that SLS are random drops from bosses how about

Tacvi 1-5% per boss
T1 5-8%
T2-8-10 %
T3 10-12%
T4 12-15%
T5 15-20%
T6 - T9 20- 25%

and for lower farmers are Jaggedpine and Karana

Not to single you three out, but this has nothing to do with the epic effects. Not referring to augs or progression, but the actual effects (click/worn/focus) on the class epic weapons. :-)


-Hate

Would rather have those % chances of a new plat bag 200 or 250k

It's the same as the value of a SLS but wouldn't tank the market by dramatically increasing the supply and tanking the market.

RE to Hate's post, i only posted about the augs because would a good time to consolidate them at the same time as the other changes.

Sorry hate. I hijacked it. *kisses*

Can we do something with the ranger epics? I have all 3 4.0s on mine and Well.. tbh I never use the bow, Which is sad cause the epic arrow 2 is pretty nice. She quads for 4k+ each hit crits 12k+ with swords.. 3k avg damage on bow once in a blue moon with max AAs does she get a double damage, triple attack.

I'm working on consistent plat gains throughout tiers today. :-)


-Hate

Sounds good Hate.  Have had no time to play, musical season.  Look forward to checking out server changes in a week or 2.

Chanters right now are perhaps the biggest DPS add you can make to a group, once you consider VT, GoA, haste (caster haste for players, melee for pets), their own nukes and dots, wail of tash and their pet especially if the chanter has a mana neck. I'd say we should leave chanters as is....maybe management can find a way to make chanters dupe safe, but why bother? No real need for charm. Was limited use live anyway.



Fists of Wu disc increases double attack for the group. I use it all the time on my monk...but unsure whether or not is stacks with grudge or Huntmaster, which I also use as much as I can. We already have plenty of ways to increase double attack chance with shammy and ranger.

 If I was to see anything added to monks it'd be what became a class defining ability for them live: their aura, which as I recall tremendously reduced chance that mobs would riposte on the group. HUGE help.....though with melee changes here unsure how deep of an impact it'd have here....but similar to what Keeze said. Perhaps added to Wu.


Agree 100%! Clerics as they are in my opinion are amazing.


Agreed, except rogue backstab is still really screwy. I sometimes get as much as 80% of the backstabs in the 300 hp damage range, just with 6.0 epic. I'd also say bard, zerk, cleric, SK epics all fine as is. See my previous post for ideas on bst epic.

Which brings me to rangers. I just now noticed that the click on the ranger blade is gone....which shows you just how much I used that :P I'm unsure what the new effect does exactly....looks like a damage mod? But....this wouldnt stack with UC, would it? If not, whats the point? Ranger epic could use a lil something, I think. Maybe a group jolt click? Dunno.

Oh, along those lines.....is it possible to make masked strength spell line group instead of single? Perhaps blocked by Irrational Irritation? Would be great!!


The only priest with dps issues is cleric. Shammy adds a ton of dps to the group with grudge and kraken, and their dots could be better if mobs didnt die so fast. Maybe a better nuke. Also shammy should definitely drop a pet IMO....the dps on the pet isnt stellar, but it can add up with kraken, TB3, huntmaster 2, etc. I dont know that I'd necessarily increase cleric dps....but I wouldnt be adverse to seeing ideas. Oh, and I'd hardly call oak 3 moot :D HP add from that spell is massive compared to any other buff. Along that same line, shammy hp buff is damned nice when oak 3 is added.....shammy buff adds to the scale up. But....I'll admit the epic buff needs more. Maybe make the stat increase go over cap....right now the stat increase is worthless unless its on a naked newbie. Maybe make the buff to stats over cap and add some attack.....would really make it a powerful add.

As for the druid epic....please dont change this. Druids already have amazing regen. Adding it back to the epic is a step back, not forward. Their click is decent dps add.....no idea why people dont like it. If its a matter of hitting yourself, there are 2 easy solutions: moveback in stick to put them at a distance, or do what I did and get druid resists to 1600+. Anyway, I'm getting 144K a tick non crit, 288K crit every round on my target, plus initial damage, with 6.0 epic. This in a heal class. I dont see why you'd remove that.....especially to add a spell that the class already has anyway. Druid are fine, please do not muck with them.

Chanter, necro, mage epic pets are all fine. MORE than fine....they're a ton better since the mana neck change. It'd be nice to get chanter pet DT back, though :D.

Wiz epic IMO needs some work. I dont know what....but it I think it needs something extra. I like the idea of a short term, longish cooldown GoA type ability....but unsure what that'd do to balancing.

Will post more as I think on stuff.

My ranger melees, which atm is the best dps....but also clicks the bow all the time. Bow click works....ish. Word is it will be fixed completely eventually :D But....still nice add to damage.

I like the group jolt clicky on rangers, that is a cool idea

I still don't have oak 3 yet Chunka :P

Maybe add a very low IS/NS proc to early epic melee weapons such as monk.  I remember them being pretty useless until augged..  and when peeps are in T2-T5ish, most of their chars won't be augged out.  When I was farming T4 for the first time, for example, my monk did more damage than the rest of my group combined, because he was the only character with a decent ninja aug. 

I have a mage that I never use because the dps is so low.  How are mage pets better (dps wise) with mana neck? I would love to see maxxed epic pets being comparable in dps to melee classes...maybe having mana neck giving pets the comparable ninja strike proc...but not the ninja strike proc (since that is melee) ya know something x caster pet proc........but only with the neck that way peeps cant roll pet classes to counter the expense of melee classes....but that way I could unshelf my mage....and then maybe pet classes could be a more viable option again (post T5)

I agree with the kraken-type Bst buff, maybe self/pet until 4.0, group after, just something should change.  I dont have much experience with any of the other classes, im happy with my war/pally/bard/rog/zerkers for the most part

With mana neck on, when pet classes cast offensive spells it can proc a buff on the pet that pretty much is Ninjastrike at the same level as the mana neck. No damage bonuses from UC, but it adds to dps....substantially.