mid tier raider

[Eggborn]

We raid demi and DK.

I am max in Tradeskills

I am a shadowknight.

Oh well. Thanks anyway.

And again.. Matching sets.... how candle party of you. lol

[Cerpicio]

What?

[Woland]

Eggborn,

Demi/DK guild at level 80 should have little trouble punching thru Vergalid/Odeen.

They should be able to do Tier 1 SoF raids with ease.

Good group of Demi/DK raiders should be able to handle Crystallos np.

Your opportunities have expanded BIG TIME.

There is little doubt that SOF is much better for Mid Tier than anyone else.

[Wyvernwill]

Why would I bother with TSS progression when I can obtain better group gear drops by following the group gear progression through to Solteris level hitpoints?

The simple fact remains, the cultural is being targeted because it's the most visible point of the entire problem. TSS raiding and Demi are worthless now compared to group gear. Now cultural is being hit, but it does nothing to fix anything but the leaderboard numbers for those to whom it matters.

[Aaneras]

Why would I bother with TSS progression when I can obtain better group gear drops by following the group gear progression through to Solteris level hitpoints?

The simple fact remains, the cultural is being targeted because it's the most visible point of the entire problem. TSS raiding and Demi are worthless now compared to group gear. Now cultural is being hit, but it does nothing to fix anything but the leaderboard numbers for those to whom it matters.

The more I look at it, the more I conclude that further raiding is simply a waste of time. We're not set up for Solteris and it's useless to raid anything earlier. Thanks for killing off a fun pastime...and, no, it ain't the cultural argument. That was the only ingredient that I could point to as remaining useful, that's all, and it's targetted.

On the bright side, my wife will thank you. SoE accountants? Not so much.

[Twistagain]

We're not set up for Solteris and it's useless to raid anything earlier.

Ok...I don't understand this. If you aren't set up for Solteris...how WOULD you have been set up for Solteris? By raiding earlier content? If so, then why is it now "useless"?

I'm assuming the arguement is that you need to raid the older content for focuses and weapons...if so, that hasn't changed. So, it's not "useless", it's just that some of the armor drops aren't better than what you can get by shelling out 8 million plat.

If you are concerned not only by cultural, but also by group drops in SoF, then the Solteris arguement gets lessened even more. If the weapons that you NEED to do Solteris are better than the new stuff, then you still have to raid old content. It's not useless. It's preparation (like it has ALWAYS been.)

[Wyvernwill]

The problem is this... It's not just visible armor that drops in the group game that's 400-500hp/mana, it's most every slot. It almost all crushes Demi and TSS raid gear. Atleast the cultural gear gave a reason to go back to demi beyond just weapons, DMG augs.

That's what people don't really understand. This is a huge issue with the entire group game, and this was brought up repeatedly in beta, encompassing all group loot and was shoved off as "working as intended".

I was fine when praetorian gear came out. Why? It was marginal obsoletion of anguish loot. Why does this entire expansions itemization bother me? It isn't marginal Demi loot obsoletion as normal, it obsoletes everything up to TSS, and even encroaches on Solteris (this is ignoring 80cult+ LB).

People fail to realize that the Last Blood Cultural option only retained a 100hp advantage at best (before factoring in power sources) over the top of the line group gear. With Elegant/Sublime/Last Blood, it made it so that demi visible gear was atleast worth it in the respect that it was not completely dominated by group loot. It also made it so that Serp/Sunshard maintained a healthy edge on group loot.

The visible loots are what suffered in this change from all of those zones, for better or worse. This game changed massively, but instead of the developers standing up to those against the change, they are caving in rapidly. You guys wanted this change, you are leaving the majority of this change alive regardless of what you are doing to cultural. This only looks like caving and catering to solteris guilds so that they don't have to face the facts that those of us in the rest of the game have to.

[Twistagain]

That still doesn't answer my question.

If the new gear is good enough that EVERYTHING pre-Solteris is obsolete...then don't raid the old stuff.

But what I'm hearing is that gearing up in the new stuff STILL doesn't allow you to raid Solteris, as it doesn't increase your DPS to the requisite level.

If that is true, then the old raid content isn't "obsolete"...it's just less useful, as some (most?) of the armor is no longer as good as gear you can get while grouping.

Either way, you still have access to the new stuff just like everyone else (more so, in fact...as you are raiders who can more easily handle the group mobs.) If you need weapons/dmg augs/etc out of older raid content, then that hasn't changed for you...it's just that you can get better armor.

[Wyvernwill]

Twist, you are missing the point.

According to "solteris" raiders on EQlive, the Ac/Hp is too high which obsoletes their raid gear. That being the case, why is it my raid still has a difficult time moving through progression mobs?

You're right, DPS matters. But the simple fact is, dps is purely weapons... and I dispise going to kill OMM and Tunat and Demi just for damage augs and weapons, why should I continue to do it into AG as well?

So I can continue to sit and wait for progression to move for our raid force to what I've already obtained with gear?

Besides, you overestimate the overall impact of "group gear being lower dps". My zerker holds his own on group obtained equipment against raid geared dps classes. Kind of rules out his necessity to raid or any other zerker at that level. Last I remember, Wizard focii are a big part of their DPS... so Hp/Mana are just fuel and survival. Why do they need to raid?

Why would a cleric downgrade from a 40% level 80 focus with 500hp/mana to a 400hp piece of gear with a 65% focus?

The only people that need to raid to progress are tanks. This finally made it easier on everyone to progress forward to the Solteris+ level because it made it possible for tanks to gear to a point that the content is not a huge challenge for them to handle. The less burden on purely keeping the tank up, the easier it makes the content and the faster people can progress.

But yeah, it can't be made so that old content is made considerably easier for people to progress faster because those whom had to walk up hill both ways will feel offended that their efforts are no longer what everyone has to suffer.

Never mind there was guilds whom got past a very gimp form of Vergalid, and were able to farm AG, even though Vergalid was created too easy. Were they nerfed and forced back to have to redo that content to move forward? No. What's the difference? They got past content that was too easy, and for those following behind, it was considerably harder than those whom went through first. Why were those guilds allowed to keep their illgotten gains and their forward progression? Obviously, they didn't work harder to get there... it was given to them on a silver platter.

[Twistagain]

Twist, you are missing the point.

According to "solteris" raiders on EQlive, the Ac/Hp is too high which obsoletes their raid gear. That being the case, why is it my raid still has a difficult time moving through progression mobs?

Ok...I might be missing something, that is true. I am not a raider.

But, what I am failing to understand is this:

If you are having difficulty moving through progression mobs, then what exactly is it that would help you? Other people have done it before SoF came out, so apparently it is one of the following:
1) More people
2) Better strategy
3) Better equipment

I'm going to assume, since we are discussing gear issues that 1 and 2 are not the problems. Therefore, there MUST exist better gear pre-SoF (because other guilds did it pre-SoF)...and therefore, it is NOT obsolete.

If it is only the tanks that have to be geared up, then it shouldn't take you very long, right?

So, if I am missing something, please explain to me what it is.


Edit: I'm going to clarify my opinions on the situation, because I don't want it to seem that I am arguing in my best interest only. Frankly, "nerf" or not is not a big issue to me except that I'd like to be able to sell the Elegant gear so that I can make enough money to make it for myself.

1) I don't believe that the stats of the gear as/is is a problem. If old gear IS obsolete, so what?
2) I don't think that the "nerf" is a problem, either. The majority of players are not affected negatively by it. Most are unaffected at all. Some of the affected are affected positively (those who have no LB/Bazu/etc augs.)

[thrashette]

Twist, you are missing the point.

According to "solteris" raiders on EQlive, the Ac/Hp is too high which obsoletes their raid gear. That being the case, why is it my raid still has a difficult time moving through progression mobs?

You're right, DPS matters. But the simple fact is, dps is purely weapons... and I dispise going to kill OMM and Tunat and Demi just for damage augs and weapons, why should I continue to do it into AG as well?

Because ashengate and frostcrypt, unlike Demiplane, are fun to play.

[GrimwoodCT]

Sigfile made it pretty clear from early on:

"Your ridiculous little
opinion has been noted."

'Nuff said I posit.

[Wyvernwill]

The funny part Twist, is your questions seem more like you agree with my position on why this nerf is bull vs the overall solteris raiders crying their gear is obsolete.

I don't care if there is better gear available than Solteris. I don't much care that there is groupable gear better than anything I am currently raiding, or the whole next expansion that I need to drudge through just to get to Solteris. I do care that Cultural is being nerfed and not the group gear, because it's like taking the tip off an Iceberg and expecting to get by it just fine.

If cultural is a problem, why is the group gear not a problem? I can obtain the group gear far faster than I can dream to obtain the requirements to obtain Solteris gear (that is better, barely than group gear). I don't care how fast or how long it will take joe casual to obtain something, for two reasons:

I can obtain it and I know it's doable.
If cultural being a powerhouse when factoring in an old raid drop (that still requires raiding to obtain), group gear that surpasses all but the last raid expansion has no business being in game. Atleast the cultural requires a raid drop to be made powerful. The groupable stuff requires a few groupable quests to get access which are not hard, then killing named that have no lock out timers or limiting factors.

What I mean by gearing tanks is a huge limiting factor to raids is this: Overall, you can have two or three sub current geared clerics and not notice a major difference (unless you are in extreme duration fights, and even then player skill and using the proper spells is far more important than gear and mana pools to an extent).
An enchanter can still mez if they aren't geared to the teeth in an expansion. A wizard can still do solid dps with lower gear. A zerker can dps but needs a solid weapon as a primary qualifier. Same with other melee dps.

Can an undergeared Warrior tank current mobs? No. They may be able to survive using defensive, but in the overall, the chances of spike damage killing the tank are a lot more likely. That is a factor that no amount of clerics and slowers and debuffers can overcome.

Even in DK it was apparent to us. On many attempts, we had 3 tanks standing strong, but the weakest link dropped meaning one of the other tanks had to pick up. Most demi loot pre SoF was going for dirt cheap, yet we were still having issues come the next expansion in terms of progression. Tanks are one of your most necessary links that have to be extremely strong. A weak link tank will kill raids faster than anything unless you can gimp carry them through content until they can handle their own.

[Twistagain]

I don't care how fast or how long it will take joe casual to obtain something, for two reasons:

And this is the sticking point. "Joe Casual" doesn't care how fast or how long it takes you to get geared up to do Solteris and/or SoF. Wanna know why? Because the gear you CURRENTLY have is better than EVERYTHING that he can obtain without becoming a raider...something that most people can't/won't do because:

1) Raiding guilds generally aren't inviting "casual" players.
2) People don't want to listen to some drill sergeant wanna-be bark orders at them, often including vulgarities and other offensive language.
3) They don't have a schedule that allows it. I play nearly everyday, usually for multiple hours...but I'm not going to commit specific times to EQ above RL because of a threat to de-guild anyone who doesn't have an 80% attendance rate for a 4-day-a-week raiding schedule.
4) Some people don't want to be associated with organizations who repeatedly and intentionally step on the foots of those that are less fortunate, often going so far as to laugh at those victims.

Maybe your server is different than mine. /shrug

I have some good RL friends that are officers in the highest guilds on our server...I still have problems with some of their guildmates' attitudes/actions. Sadly, though...the mid-tier guilds are generally even worse to us "casual" players.

[KyrosKrane]

If cultural is a problem, why is the group gear not a problem? I can obtain the group gear far faster than I can dream to obtain the requirements to obtain Solteris gear (that is better, barely than group gear).

This is not correct, and sadly, this fact tends to get lost in the noise.

The combined stats of elegant/sublime will likely not be changing. If anything, it may get a slight boost.

The combined stats of elaborate/eminent will be getting a major boost. This is inevitable if stats are moved off last bloods and onto the base armor/symbol.

In short, the group version of cultural armors will stay the same or improve. It is NOT getting nerfed.

Now, the raid-dropped type 12 seals are getting changed. Last bloods, Serpents, and Sunshard seals are getting reduced stats. Some of that reduction is moving to the base armor (which improves the group version, as I noted). LB stats are moving to elaborate/eminent, and sunshard/serpents stats are moving to the new level 75 armor and exalted augs. Faycite stats are moving to the elegant/sublime; however, the devs have stated they're pretty happy with where the level 80 set is (elegant/sublime/faycite), so I wouldn't expect much change.

As a result, the only combination that will be "nerfed" AND currently exists is elegant/sublime/last blood -- and to a lesser extent, elegant/sublime and both sunshard and serpents, but the devs have stated from the beginning that those two combos are overpowered compared to dropped gear. The main fix for that is the new level 75 armor.

The only question is, then, what is "just right" for the stats on the elegant/sublime/last blood combination? Note that this ONLY affects the raid version of the cultural armors, not the group version.