Faceless_Sentinel wrote: ↑
December 19th, 2024, 20:24
rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑
December 19th, 2024, 19:42
But that's the opposite of what it actually was, each class was unique and useful.
Hybrids kinda sucked because the main designers hated hybrids due to still being butthurt about EQ, but that's not an inherent issue.
You lying once again:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/arch ... 36736.html
1.) Are Clerics absolutely REQUIRED for groups at the later levels? It used to be that you HAD to have a Cleric or else you literally couldn't group. Non-Cleric heals were far too inefficient. In my opinion, Clerics should only be a requirement for bosses and possibly a select amount of other game content. Druids should be able to function perfectly fine as the main healer for a party outside of those limited exceptions. Looking at the p1999 Wiki skill list, it appears that Druids are far behind.
Druids were roundly considered one of the most useless classes once the expansions came along. They were called upon for teleports to certain areas to save time and that's it. They weren't able to do ANYTHING else of value and were completely outclassed by Shaman, who had the same level of healing + excellent self energy regen + the most powerful slow debuff in the game + they could do MORE damage (and for less energy expended) because of having a worthwhile Pet and good haste spells and comparable DoT's/DD's + they got other buffs/debuffs that were a bit better (+Attribute buffs of every kind and the Malaise debuffs) and they even got SoW!!!
2.) Is spellcaster damage (for the spellcasters who should actually be able to do great damage - Magicians, Wizards, and Necromancer) complete **** at the later levels in comparison to melee damage? After Kunark came out, these spellcasting classes took massive hit. Their spell progression became weak in comparison to earlier levels and melee classes got incredible new skills and equipment. Melee classes were doing something like 3x as much damage in comparison to a Magician (unless they had the epic pet, which is hardly a fair consideration and even then it was significantly lower) - a class that had the LEAST amount of utility out of all the casters and was dedicated to DPS! Being able to summon mod rods or perform the occasional Call of the Hero hardly makes a class equally viable.
Wizards had a more specific purpose of at least being able to provide burst damage against very difficult opponents but such a thing was only needed very occasionally. Their DPS over time was embarrassingly weak in comparison to a melee...about 1/5th of what a melee could do.
The problem with healing isn't that Druids and Shamans suck (though perhaps their heals don't scale as much as they should), but rather that Clerics are too good at it. This has the additional result, according to standard EQ class design, of the Cleric being pretty terrible for any job *except* healing, which results in a mandatory class that's pretty crummy outside its area of expertise.
The Warrior suffers the same issue--it dominates its raid main tank role, yet it's rubbish for everything else. Rogues have a little more flexibility thanks to hide/sneak, but not much, and are mostly sub-par for anything except sustained damage dealing.
Most modern MMORPG's have consequently eliminated the notion of the "pure" class that can only do a single job. It's just too inflexible. In the long run, the hybrids won out. It's easy to see why. Remove the 'pure' classes, and EQ's remaining classes are pretty well balanced within their roles. Shadow Knights and Paladins are pretty similar as tanks; Druids and Shamans are both about equal as healers (albeit with vastly different secondary functions), and most the remaining damage-dealers are pretty close, too. Exceptions exist of course--this post is strictly general--but overall the problem classes in EQ are and have always been the 'pure' classes.
https://thedruidsgrove.org/archive/eq/t-3855.html
Druids:
ITEM: Healing.
DESCRIPTION: There is a general consensus that clerics are the only useful healers past 50th level. Shamans and Druids are supposed to be secondary healers. But post 50 their spells are too inferior and fizzle too often to be effective as healers at all. Some suggestions are to move Superior Heal to level 51 (and reduce its fizzle rate) and/or add in a new one at 56th. Where shamans might be able to use Torpor to fulfill their healing needs, we may need to make a new spell for druids at that level. We also need to be careful not to make them too good at healing. That’s the cleric’s turf. Whatever is done here should also be done with shaman, in some similar fashion (though probably not the same way).
This guy (the poster you're quoting, that is) is a ******. His summary of class status may have been true in vanilla EQ (I suspect it wasn't, but I wasn't there for it), but from Kunark (the first expansion) onwards everything he's saying is complete and utter ********. We can use healing classes as an example.
Clerics were always the best healers in terms of throughput, having access from the beginning to the almighty Complete Heal (whose singular efficiency would never be matched, and only approached late into the sixth or seventh expansion), and had the best straight HP/AC buffs. They also had access to uniquely powerful rezzes. A party with a cleric would never die. If the party died, virtually no experience would be lost and the group could keep rolling with no problems.
Druids were always the best healers in terms of efficiency, and had the best HP/damage shield buffs. They could also teleport, cast a quick group-wide escape that would whisk the group to the zone line, deal decent damage with nukes and dots, and buff the party in a variety of unique ways (Spirit of Wolf, for instance). But Druids had no rezzes until much later, when they got a weaker version of Cleric rezzes. A party with a druid enjoyed immense ease and convenience in travel, and was much more efficient at killing mobs overall. The group never had to worry about being stuck in an unwinnable situation. But a group death would be a huge headache, and groups who picked on mobs outside their capabilities would begin melting like butter if they didn't pack up and run.
Shamans were always the most well-rounded healers in the game. Their throughput was the lowest of the three, but they had better efficiency than Clerics. They had no rezz, but they had access to a variety of buffs (including lower-powered versions of the druid's specialties of regeneration and damage shields), and uniquely among healers, could directly buff stats (STR, DEX etc) as opposed to buffing derived stats (HP, Attack etc). They were absolute masters of debuffing. A Shaman could turn a mob into a drooling child with ease, significantly slowing and weakening it. They also had access to a unique self-only mana-for-hp exchange spell that made them the most efficient mana regen class of the healers, especially in battle. The group with a Shaman never had to worry about being overpowered by a mob - every mob would always be significantly weaker in battle. Shaman-healed groups could keep pulling and killing with no stop, something normally not possible without either a Bard or Enchanter.
These examples also serve to illustrate what we've been talking about re: different roles (
functions) vs. different buttons to press (
mechanics). A group with a Cleric played and worked completely different to a group with a group with a Druid, compared to a group with a Shaman. Each healer also innately gravitated towards its own set of classes to fill other roles, as Xenich previously talked about. A Cleric group naturally gravitated towards a Warrior, where the Warrior's unmatched damage mitigation gave a slow, steady drop in HP over time that allowed the Cleric to take maximum advantage of his monstrous throughput - the Cleric could be confident the Warrior wouldn't suddenly lose 20% of his HP in one second, and could plan to pop the Warrior with infrequent, but massive heals. Contrast to a group with a Druid, where the desire was for the ability to avoid tons of damage altogether, allowing the Druid's regen and lower-throughput, faster casting heals to shine over time, while any attacks that landed heavily punished the target due to the Druid's damage shields. Contrast once again to the Shaman, who could generally work with anything because who cared? The mob was going to be a pathetic shadow of itself once the Shaman was finished with it.
Now compare to Wrath WoW. You're setting up a group. You need a healer. Pick one. You have a choice between a Disc Priest or a Holy Paladin. Who cares? Pick one, you just need heals, both are fine at it and neither brings anything else to the table. Grab X healing class and go to the dungeon.
Now I understand that you may have decided that massive sacrifice of uniqueness and variety of roles and ability for players to express skill in so many different ways was worth it for the sake of being able to pick-up and play at any time, with any class, and go steamroll a dungeon with friends. But we liked the former. The latter feels drab and flat to us.
