You'll be able to go far, but you're losing a tremendous amount of efficiency due to the loss in tanking ability.  You'll take 50 hours to do what a warrior tank group can do in 20-30.  You'll probably have it rough in Loping Plains with the respawn time and you'll be pulling small in ToV.  T10 will break you in half. 

T8 can't be crafted, you need T12

Ok, so I have come to understand that Alcarmaba's level requirement for the Circlet of Shadows was changed at some point years ago to allow higher level players to grab the circlet.  I probably did this quest a few years ago, and I have no idea what I did with the circlet (I'm assuming I must have deleted it?  Been too long ago to have any idea).  It doesn't allow me to re-do the quest, he just sends me off to the next quest guy.  Any chance of making this quest repeatable?  I had no use for the circlet at any point but now I do and can't get it currently.  Thanks for considering.  

Kathina
78 Warr

No, you'd gain more LPs by killing bosses faster and offset that with less LPs from trash mobs is what I'm saying. Trying to keep the overall rate the same.

I'm not looking for LP farming to be easier, just less irritating.  If you added the porters and reduced the trash mob drop rate of LPs by 50%, I think the zone would be more enjoyable and the rate of LPs would be around the same as it is now.

Not asking for T7, or anything else, to be easier.  If anything, I'm asking for most places to be harder.

Asking for a mechanic that causes unnecessary frustration to be altered.  If you want to slightly reduce the drop rate of LP essences to compensate for the ease of traveling the zone, go for it.  Having to run around the zone doesn't make it harder in any way.  There's nothing challenging about it in its current state.  I generally alt-tab to chrome as I run across the zone, or look at the internet on my phone.  Whatever the original intention is, it doesn't work anymore because nobody is cooperating in the zone. 

I'm all for you guys honoring Hunter but I think it goes a bit overboard sometimes.  Hunter wouldn't have wanted outdated mechanics to stay in place.  I think by keeping something unchanged that could make the server better, you're dishonoring him, instead.  Food for thought.

To reiterate:  I want nothing to be made easier.  Make every tier more challenging and I'd find that an improvement.  I hate trivial snorefests.

My idea was making each boss type spawn very close to each other, that way you could keep them on the same spawn intentionally and round them all up at once.  Worst case you criss-cross the zone 7 or 8 times or whatever, instead of 20-30+.

There's a thread ongoing regarding the difficulty of T9 and a handful of mentions of the steps it takes towards getting a player prepped for the slap in the face that T10 entails for an unprepared player.  I think this issue exists, to a smaller extent, in lower tiers as well.  Here's my feeling on the difficulty of tiers as you progress:

PoTime:  Just right for a fresh 70.  

Terrorantula:  Probably a bit on the tougher side but it's ok.

LDoN:  Just right without higher player buffs.  I think to make this just right for new players, you remove higher tier buffs and let the buff bot give you about 10-15k hp worth of buffs for a small cost (maybe 20k plat)

Qvic:  See LDoN.  Breaking into Qvic without buffs is actually a lot of fun.  Difficult and rewarding.

CT:  Could probably use a 10-20% increase in mob damage and would like to see an emphasis on boss mobs being useful.  Just killing trash for molds makes this zone feel unfinished.

T1/T2:  Both a boring and unchallenging zone.  I don't think just increasing mob damage will help.  A re-working of the overall mechanics would be nice.

T3/T4:  I'm ok with it.  Difficulty is fine.  I'd probably up the outgoing DPS of the boss mobs and add some AE damage to them to encourage players to work on oracle charms and active healing in preparation for T5.  Mob/boss HP are fine, though.

T5:  Just right.  I'm actually ok with T5 overall. The corals are a bit punishing for a first timer.  That's the only part I found very annoying my first time through.

T6:  A well-developed zone.  Difficulty is good.  I'd probably increase boss difficulty a bit (more HP/more outgoing DPS)

T7:  Another good zone.  Shadowmane AOE damage can really hurt a lot which I'm ok with.  I actively worked on heroic resists again to counter it a bit.  The mechanics of chasing bosses all around the zone is fairly awful, though. It needs to be addressed, in my opinion.

T8:  Another zone that has a bit of challenge as it relates to pulling mob packs. Mobs have good amount of health and put out enough damage to be dangerous, particularly late roaming guardians which can crush your DPS from behind.

T9:  See the other thread: way too easy and boring overall zone mechanics.  BP is impossible to spawn unless you deliberately slow down your kill rate and AFK between undead respawns/befallen respawn.  I can spawn BP with 2 full undead clears and 1 befallen undead clear.  If I kill things in between those undead respawns I'll get an HG spawn instead.  Would like to see things hit harder and would like to see armor upgrades in zone be more meaningful to allow you to increase your viability in the zone. As it currently stands, the only meaningful power increase in the zone is level'ing up.

Kathina
78 Warr

Just spent another 60 minutes in T9 and finished it on Kathina.  Yeah, that was way too fast.

I support the guardians being removed, but I agree with Gell here.  Why remove the banker/epic vendor/merchants?  Surely nobody wants to do anything to encourage even more players to be in Nexus/SH for any reason.  They'll be more likely to go there to AFK and make the zones even laggier than they already are.  When my toons get an epic book I like to turn it in when it's convenient to do so, after a repop, or after a succor, for the extra dps/heals/etc.  If I were constantly turning in epic books or things like that in Nexus/SH then I'm more likely to do those things and then take my AFK immediately after or whatever.

Guardians.. yeah, just stupid annoying and lacking in any purpose.  Byebye.

I agree with Maslow on this one.

I broke into T9 recently.  Playing a group of 12 with all UC2s.  T9 is too easy.  I would have been done with it on Kathina days ago but my playtime has been very limited the last 3-4 days.  I've probably spent a total of 9-10 hours there and have spawned BP 3x and HG 2x.  I've opened up all of the faction except for the BP already, with 2 turn-ins of a faction item.  I might even be ally already, I didn't check last night before I logged off.  I probably lost two or three hours just messing around learning the zone, chasing obliteration mobs for Zerka, and being otherwise cautious and ramping up my pulling.  

I was pulling 12-15 mobs pretty much from the start, with a pally in group, druid for drake skin, cleric for vie and druid/cleric/sham for spot heals.  Mobs die a lot faster in t9 than they did when I first zoned into t8.  Granted, I didn't have full UC2s when I first zoned into t8, but I think having UC2s on at least half-75% of your group of 12, if not more, should be basically required for t9.  I'm maxxed out currently pulling 25-30 mobs until I level up and grab my last 1% stonewall with the OC Shield.  

My ideas for the zone, among other changes:

1)  Make faction matter.  You're going to max your faction out before you get your item drops needed for the combines, especially if you have a decent strategy for popping HG.

2)  Increase the spawn chance on BP.  A player with large pulls can't spawn BP with consistent killing because there's not enough undead in the zone to do so.  They end up popping HG, instead, and killing their BP counter.  To combat this, I've been killing all of the undead and shadowmen, timing my AFKs, and then clearing the undead again 1-2 more times and/or clearing the Befallen undead army in order to spawn BP.  Why do I want BP?  For spells.  If BP spawns more, increase the counter for HG to spawn a bit less to compensate.

3)  Increase mob DPS about 20-30%, add a moderate AE rampage (not too punishing, but within reason) to prepare us for T10, and increase their HPs by about 30%.  Also, double their respawn time and make 3-4 more safe camps.  On the AE damage note, I don't think most players have too many active AE heals going on and just rely on their pallies.  They need to have active AE heals added into their keybindings to prepare for T10.  

4) Increase the strength of the armor upgrades in the zone by about 20-30% (they're a laughably small upgrade currently over T8 armor).  I've combined half of my gear already and I've gained like less than a 5% upgrade over the previous tier.  Why is this gear such a minimal increase?  The zone should become easier as you gear up through it.  I feel like the only thing that's going to make it any easier right now is level'ing up, and not the last few pieces of gear that I'm combining.

5)  Allow for an alternate use for faction items?  Maybe turn in 4 or 8 or something and it spawns Zerka or BP or something along those lines?  This would help with spell farming and people wanting Zerka.  

I think T8 is in a good place, as far as pulling large pulls on tier.  Sure, it's easy for the T10 geared folks, but when you're in T8 it's not as trivial, particularly when dealing with the mechanics of the larger mobs like the guardians and how they can eat at your team with poor positioning.  I couldn't pull more than 15 mobs or so when I was still in T8.  

I only wiped twice in T9 so far:  once because I tested my limits of pulls early on, and the second because I pulled too many eyes with BP and wiped 11/12 toons when they nuked my team to death in a millisecond.  


Kathina

Agreed.

However, in the other thread, there was discussion about level req'ing UWs or something similar in order to encourage players to tier advance and not farm UWs while they're still in low tiers.  It seemed to be a well-supported argument by other posters in the thread.

Should someone follow that path, forced by development or not, that means they would go an awfully long time without being excited about a weapon upgrade for their warrior or any other box. 

It's not as easy to be excited about finally getting your hands on 2 SLS to combine your next tier strike aug.  A rare weapon drop would be much more fun.

I know you're talking to Gell, but let me clarify my positon which may or not be consistent with his:  I don't want overall dps to increase here.  I just want weapon skins to feel meaningful as upgrades and have them be a greater part of your overall damage, with a small reduction to strike aug damage to compensate.

Parses could make the argument stronger, and I admit I have none at the moment, but I can still say with certainty that my box dps is increasing 10-15% on average per tier by upgrading strikes while new weapon skins are negligible.   The gap between the skins and strikes also increases drastically. T4 skin base wep damage is 6% of gmajor ninja strike while T7 skin base damage is 1% of LP ninja strike.

I would love if non-UW weapons were like 30-40% of the box's overall damage instead of the paltry amount it feels like it is right now.  Getting weapon upgrades should be at least somewhat exciting. It always has been in every RPG I've ever played.  Didn't it feel great getting your broad sword in Dragon Warrior?

I have UW8, I'm just referring to that missing feeling we all got back in live EQ every time we got a weapon upgrade as a melee class.  I hate that weapon skins don't have that excitement to them except for when you get your T1 weapon skins in Dragons.  That was the only meaningful weapon skin upgrade that I've noticed from any tier, particularly because of how much damage we get from strikes and UW.

I noticed something recently that I found a bit frustrating:  from tier 4 to about tier 8, the weapon skin upgrades are practically worthless, as far as their contribution to overall DPS assuming you're doing a good job with your strike augs.  I'm cleaning up the last few boxes in T8, and when a weapon drops that's usable by one of my DPS, it doesn't excite me at all because I know it's a negligible upgrade as far as DPS is concerned, and it's more for the HPs and heroics and whatnot. 

Is there any reason it was designed this way?   I don't think weapon skins should be a replacement for strike augs, or give people a reason to slack off on them, but it feels like it's gone too far in the other direction where equipping a full team with the next tier's weapons probably affects your overall damage less than 5%.  Just feels off, to me.