Wondering

Kalifen · Post by **Kalifen** » August 27, 2003, 11:52 pm

The other day me and a freind where talking about loots and what would be cool and a little different.
I sort of came up with the idea of a quiver that would be something like.
10 slots, add 10 more haste to arrows than that fleeting quiver thing and with a focus effect on "wrath of Tallon Zek" that grants you a 3% or so chanse to score doubble damage with that arrow (after all other calculations).
Well this would of course be considred a ranger item but I think all classes that can use bow should also be able to use this.
To make it even more whanted from other classes you can add endless quiver to it thereby making a lot of ppl happy. This might take away the "ranger" feeling on it tho.
Dropps of like Tallon/Vallon in time.

Well my freind said it was bad idea a realy bad idea, he then whent LD and when he came back we dident continue the talking.

So im wondering is it a good idea ? Is this something rangers (and others) would whant ?

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » August 27, 2003, 11:57 pm

yup, because we all know rangers need a dmg boost

Deneve · Post by **Deneve** » August 28, 2003, 12:16 am

if SoE does any more ninja upgrades on other classes without fixing monks first im going to quit mine and make a SK or bst
refer to this thread for monk/bst comparisons in exp groups: http://pub147.ezboard.com/fmonklybusine ... 1118.topic

Breagen · Post by **Breagen** » August 28, 2003, 5:42 am

In the majority of highend guilds the DPS curve for melee only is generally:

Rogue->Monk->Ranger->Warrior->Beastlords->Knights->etc...

Ranger DPS is generally highly over-rated due to the Trueshot disc. Considering TS is usable once every 72 minutes and only works on mobs with perfect LoS as compared to a rogue's dualist disc where they just need the side/back of the mob with a much shorter refreash its not a very fair comparison.

As to the quiver idea...its not really needed in my opinion although it is interesting. SoE has said in the past they really don't like the Endless Quiver AA and would not give an equivilent AA to monk/rogue etc in the future. I'd rather if they would just fix DW...

Jice Virago · Post by **Jice Virago** » August 28, 2003, 6:15 am

Id say more like:

Rogue > Beastlord with pet > Ranger > Monk > SK > Bard doing DPS > Warrior > Bard doing buffs > Paladin > Beastlord no pet

Paladins move ahead of SKs if the mob is undead and SKs move ahead of the monk if the mob has horrifically high AC/Mitigation. Ranger with a descent 2h is still going to outhit just about anyone short of a rogue though. Also if the mob has a brutal AE, the BST DPS takes a massive dick in the ass due to the pet not being feasable. If the BST can keep a pet up long term, though, they rack up some incredible numbers. Also, an SK can really crank their DPS in short fights and/or in the presence of a bard. Bard DPS is quite ridiculous if you count their DSing and what they add to other classes with Rizonas.

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » August 28, 2003, 9:06 am

I've got to agree with Jice..
Tbh, I'd like to see the damage comparrision on the same mob by a paladin and sk in a short fight, then a long one.. SK damage doesn't come primiarily from a /disc, whearas if the paladin wants to see OMGIAMRETARDEDCAUSEALOTISTWOWORDS of /slays (or more than just 3, 4 on a boss fight) we end up tossing a 6min disc with a 62 min reuse.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » August 28, 2003, 9:12 am

Heh, most of the info posted on that thread isn't valid. Just the normal monkly business whinefest. I wondered how long it would take before bsts made it into the rotation. They made it into the mage rotation months ago

That's not to say monks don't need work, and there's a number of situations that can turn a bst into a meleing, non-singing bard...

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » August 28, 2003, 9:41 am

While I am a monk, i hardly agree with anyone in that place at all, most of the monk community on there is pretty sad, but i do agree monks got shafted hard in pop

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » August 28, 2003, 9:46 am

Sionistic wrote:monks got shafted hard in pop

You should have played an enchanter through SoV and to a lesser extent SoL, talk about getting boned....

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » August 28, 2003, 11:31 am

rangers only are high on DPS when they can use archery. there are tons of raids where i cant use archery without endangering the raid. Dual wield is currently totally fucked, so a SK or War with a high end 2h weapon dramatically outdamages me in melee.

I dont have the greatest melee lineup, but i was in an xp group once, and a warrior w/ a BoW was outdamaging me by 50 DPS. thats fucked up. granted if i had equiavalent level weapons that gap would probably approach zero. but guess what, i'm not the one w/ 7k unbuffed hps and 1600 AC

and that damage gap is *with* me probably having a 200+ atk advantage.

sure yeah on a good TS i can do crazy damage. with raid lag, even with a gamepad, arrows poof. arrows poof all the time for no real reason.

I dont think archery damage needs to be tuned at all.

Dual wield does BIG TIME. cause obviously, SEW and other top end 2h weps are going to go to warriors and knights long before rangers (rightfully so). What would your tanks do in Time if a ranger tried to buy Vanizar. haha can you say blow all their arteries?

exactly...so anyways, the characterization of ranger DPS on this thread is not accurate.

Lexien · Post by **Lexien** » August 28, 2003, 11:59 am

The rogue discipline lasts 12 seconds, in that 12 seconds you have a chance to hit 3 backstabs wich have chances to miss and do so fairly often. The refresh rate at 65 is of about 25 minutes.

Jice Virago · Post by **Jice Virago** » August 28, 2003, 10:24 pm

I think the ranger characterization is pretty fair, but a ranger forced into DW will probably sit equal with an SK in short duration fights, slightly better in long duration fights. My pecking order was under the assumtion of equal access to gear (most guilds on our server are now DKP) and relatively equal AAs offensively. I don't think it is unrealistic that a long established ranger would have something like an Emp sword, or a top end POP 2hander (other than the super rare Vaznirs) and a ranger with an equal 2h is going to put out a lot more damage than a knight due to superior skills and ATK, if all other factors are equal.

It gets a little more fuzzy in the middle of the progression food chain, it gets a little screwy for some classes. Descent bows are a hell of a lot easier for a Velious/Luclin era Ranger to obtain than any kind of respectable ratio mele weapon, outside of perhaps a Windblade, so they are essentially are in an upgrade black hole weapon wise from the middle of Luclin until the end of POP. Warriors are insanely expensive to gear up and need far more situational weapons than any other class. Bards drain the coffers pretty good too. Rogues lower in the food chain are better off now thanks to mid range BS mod daggers in BOT, Veksar, and Droga. Spell wise, an SK can massively pump their DPS just by buying/camping a War Crested Ring in tactics and dumping 12AA into spell crits. Knight 2h kind of stagnate from the end of Velious all the way to Elementals, however but we finally got out of the doghouse in POP thanks to tanking AA. I am pretty certain my root blade of Ranger Aggravation will be the last weapon I ever get, for example, since I will never see elemental access. Monks are incredibly cheap to build up for minimum effectiveness, but stall out due to poor gear and mediocre AA once you hiit POP.

Its all relative, I guess, but I know when the weapons are equal (in my guild all our mele have these 45/40 2h we farmed and all of our rangers have descent haste items) and the ranger picks the right offensive weapon for the situation, they massively out damage everyone except the rogues. If they are going to fix rangers in a way that scales, I think they need to make ripostes scale off delay like weapon procs do and return the offhand damage bonus to dual weild like it was shortly before Kunark came out. This would fix a lot of class balance problems out there since most of the balance issues existing in the game are related to dual weild being worthless right now.

Much as the monks whine though, I think Beastlords are the second most overpowered class in EQ atm until they hit Elementals or so, where their pets vaporize in most fights. Being able to buff almost as well as a shaman and having their other little tricks makes a huge difference. If all a BST did at a raid was cast SD, they would still be making an enourmous contribution to the overal power of the force and every BST on your raidforce is one extra chance to sneak in an early slow. Thing about monk DPS is that it is always good, but I think if I were going to "fix" monks I would make them immune to riposte damage (wouldn't really affect much in terms of inter-class balance) and give them an AA option to reduce the amount of assrape they sustain from AEs, either through innate shielding or resists, or maybe even the rogue evasion ability (or perhaps a short duration immunity to non mele damage and debuffs on a long recycle). I am not sure how it is in the Uber realms, but the principle problem our monks are having is dumping agro against mobs with brutal AEs. More often than not, FD gets broken by an AE that also puts a monk in low health range, resulting in intant gibbage as you suddenly have a monk in low health agro lying on the ground at the top of the hate list. It wouldnt kill them to put more and better midrange 2h in for monks.

Oh well, off my soapbox.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » August 29, 2003, 11:43 am

well i dont play a monk, but i have pulled in ToV some with one, and i would say if your FD is getting broken by AEs then you are timing it wrong. but i'm not an expert on that =).

i dont think you can make any class immune to riposte damage. that is simple too overpowering. you could then totally control a mobs push by sticking 4-5 monks in front of it, and they wouldnt have to risk 3k ripostes.

i think retuning dual wield damage a bit would help monks get back to where they want to be.

anyways, i dont think a major problem exists with rangers, i'm not trying to say that. i think overall they are a well tuned awesome class, that can do insane burst damage situationally.

Jice Virago · Post by **Jice Virago** » August 29, 2003, 3:16 pm

I wasn't talking about pulling, I was saying in the fights themselves a monks primary agro dumping mechanism is disrupted by mob AEs. Basically, they momentarily gain agro and get chewed down to 50%, then FD on reflex, then mob AEs them down to low health range breaking FD in the process so now you have a monk on low health agro, with sit agro, and sitting mitigation. If a rogue botches an evade, they are never worse off for trying.

Also, the whole monk push thing assumes you have 4-5 monks well coordinated to do that, which if they can then why not? It gives them a purpose beyond simple DPS and it is a lot more immersive to have a mob surrounded by your raid force instead of sandwiched into a corner, anyhow.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » August 29, 2003, 3:28 pm

immunity to riposte is totally overpowering. i'm not sure what the mob level you are fighting right now is, and i'm not trying to be condescending, but when you fight mobs that do it for 3k, you'll see why that is totally overpowering. I'm not sure there is any real problem with monks on the defensive side. Ours don't die excessively during pulls in hard zones, which for me is kind of the measure. They should die some. Pulling should not be easy when you are talking about a raid situation.

in my opinion, your monks need to FD before they get agro instead of worrying about it after. just like jolting or evading for rangers and rogues. so how that applies to AE mobs, most AE mobs have a predictable interval, 30s or whatever. you can time your agro cleaning to that without a problem. Rangers have to do it with silencing mobs like Lady Nev or Tunare.

on raid mobs nobody should be taking agro from your main tank. yeah it happens from time to time, and that person is dead 2 seconds later. why should monks be any different in this regard?

Breagen · Post by **Breagen** » August 30, 2003, 3:30 am

Ok first off its not a accurate comparison of DPS when you factor in all kinds of random factors that affect each class diferently. If you talk about an undead mob than yeah a paladin with SU3 + max crits will gain a ton of damage, but thats not a accurate representation of their DPS. Just like a ranger TS'ing on a mob with low AC in a open room with no LoS issues is not a accurate representation of their usual DPS.

Anyway; the DPS curve I stated is based on elementals +. The reason is that once you hit elementals the vast majority of your melee even out on ATK and you don't have some classes with way more ATK than everyone else. Every single melee gets +ATK on their elemental armor and there are tons of items with ATK on them as well so its not very hard to get near the cap just on the visable armor pieces alone.

When you consider that almost all melee have very close ATK values, differing usually based on buffs, IE tanks will get BSS over SoT etc, than it really comes down to who gets the better weapons and melee caps. Pretty much every melee but knights caps the main weapon skils; 1hs, 1hb, 2hs, 2hb; at the same point so for all of them its really just the weapon that matters.

At this point in the game duel wield is seriously fucked up and two-handers will out DPS the majority of duel wield combos unless your sporting a pair of end-PoTime swords. Thats why rangers do less DPS than most other melee...rogues have very good ratio daggers + backstab to push their DPS up. Monks get very very good ratio weapons before even PoTime (Xegony fist for one, or various 2hb's) warriors can get either BoW or SEWS both of which will out-DPS elemental duel wield combos.

The reason rangers are attributed to doing so much DPS is either because of archery pre-PoP where it can do much better than most any weapon and/or the ranger hit TS and people see a couple 2k crits and think 'omfg unbalanced' and because ramgers get innate ATK boosts between 55-60 which means until you start getting lots of vengence items your rangers will have more ATK than a lot of other melee classes.

Jice Virago · Post by **Jice Virago** » August 30, 2003, 6:32 am

Rangers innate Attack bonus puts them ahead of Knights and Warriors permanently. If you had a ranger and a Knight at worn ATK cap, the ranger would still have vastly superior ATK just from raw skill camps (Knight Offense and weapons skills cap lower than Rangers) and the innate ATK rangers get. Knights also miss with their weapons a great deal simply because their weapon skill caps are so low (typically a knight will miss 40% or more of their swings). Rangers also have some buff advantages in ATK over other classes. I maintain that if you give a ranger and a Knight the exact same 2h and the exact same worn ATK, the ranger is always going to smoke the knight (and he is going to edge the warrior in raw mele). I support this with parses Sean and Sylvos posted on the glade that demonstrated that mele and archery are close in DPS at the elemental level of gear and beyond. Monks close the gap thanks to superior skill caps, tripple attack, and their own damage table. Consider also that once you reach the every mob has brutal AE or AE rampage stage, rangers are going to be the only class able to (relatively) consistantly deliver their DPS, as others will be darting in and out / keeping safe distance.

Voronwe: We are still late velious / early luclin, mob wise, but here is my point. Monks don't really need any kind of boost for pulling, it just seems stupid that they are inferior to rogues DPS wise, inferior damage mitigation wise, AND their primary means of dumping excess agro is disrupted by AEs which, coincidentally, nearly every mob from elementals on have fairly brutal AEs (certainly by anything pre pop standards). Monks should, imo, have a way of dumping agro that is at least as reliable as rogues OR be a slightly more durable than rogues, as part of the tradeoff for having lesser DPS (which Rogues should always be number one in mele DPS). As it is, with Bards being the uber end all be all of pulling and super FD, monks are kind of lacking a niche. They are also hurting from the jailhouse broomsticking they got from the nerf bat at the tail end of Luclin, which in standard SOE fashion, went too far. But now that you mention it, yeah you are probably right, monks ignoring riposte would be overpowered at the "I one round your tank if I get lucky" level. Even the wimpy shit we fight I often find when Im tanking that I turn off attack all together and just cast just to avoid getting riposted, so I conceed your point there. It just seems like, with all their POP AA centered around defensive abilities, if they are going to tweak monks it should be done on the defensive side. Pulling doesn't really need to be made any easier than it already is in POP (especially when you factor in the existance of Fading Memories), so it makes no sense to toss them a bone there.

However this is all just mental masterbation anyhow. The real problem for all mele vs hybrids is that for the first time ever the fact that hybrids are part caster gives them a huge edge, since caster power is at an all time high right now. I blame most of this on the proliferation of mana regen in the game. The fact that I can, without having ever set foot in either Vex Thal or Elementals, regenerate the equivalant of 60-90 mana per tic in a typical raid situation is pretty outrageous. UNless a boss fight somehow drags on for longer than 8 minutes, I have no chance of ooming out in a fight and I can't remember the last time I sat down to med when it wasnt because I had res effects on me. And my gear is substandard, at best, compared to what any elemental hybrid is likely to be wearing.

Rangers don't benefit from this as much because they are in the boat SKs were pre POP, in that they really dont have a lot to do with their mana, at least not compared to other hybrids. SKs and BSTs, however, can crank their DPS up with all that extra mana. Paladins can sustain groups under the most brutal AEs with that kind of mana regen. In fact, in fights where a BST or SK has no mele, they can still do descent DPS purely by casting (or chaining warders/ chain healing warders) and a ranger in that same situation can sit back in uzi mode. If a Paladin never attacked once, he would still be a valuable group and spot healer. Warriors get Disc Def, Rogues get to SOS drag slack asses to raids (or pray for a wipeout so they might get to CR), and monks get to maybe mend and hope they can outrun the 300 range AE to safely FD when the shit hits the fan. Not sure how they are going to fix it, but all the needy classes have one thing in common the others don't have, Dual Weild. So, thats where I would do my balance tweaking.

Sorry about the length of the post, but Im drunk and its late.

Fovol · Post by **Fovol** » August 30, 2003, 6:15 pm

Somehow, fix fucking ripostes. It's completely stupid that I tank worse than my shaman when I'm near 5k base HP, over 1350 base AC, and all defensive AAs and he is at 3.2k HP, 1200 AC, and no defensive AAs.

It's hard, I know, because of balancing push and such, but it needs to be done.

Also, I think, pure melee especially, need more AA. There's something wrong when I'm at 200 AAs and am out of AAs to get, while hybrids in particular still have a good 100 AAs worth of useful things to get.