Incoming Nerf to Elegant and Last Blood?

[Abazagaroth]

The problem with the AC not changing on the Elegant from Elaborate is it would then be very weak on AC compared to the group level armor. Even with the Hit points and AC it has, it is still not as good as the Tier 3 group armor that it is supposed to be equivalent to.. even if you include a type 12 DoN aug on the Elegant and don't include a power source on the Tier 3.
One solution would be to add easily obtainable type 12 augments intended to be used by group geared people. And by easily, I mean as easily obtainable as the ones on the DoN vendors. So for example, if you want to take 30 ac and 50 hps off of Elegant/Sublime, then you would need a type 12 augment on a vendor with 30 ac/90 hp (to replace the 40 hp DoN augment that could be there now).
But really, the Dev proposed solution is better.
1. The end result is the same (people using last bloods with elegant/sublime lose the same stats in either scenario).
2. Tradeskillers get to sell a finished product to group geared players rather than requiring them to make an additional purchase.
3. The type 12 group aug required to maintain balance would be better than Chronal..and pretty close to Discordant level.

So you're a grouper or someone with an alt that you want to see the tradeskill armor better so you can get more out of it, is that it?

Because any sane person should quite quickly see that nerfing the ac on the armor and hp on the symbols, leaving the seals as is (or even bumping up the new ones), and putting new type 12 seals made from group drops in game would be the best solution.

You know, so that, groupers can put effort to loot and make a seal, just like raiders have to, in order to get a nicer piece of gear, rather than having it handed to them. You should not be able to buy elegant/sublime and don crystals or omen's tradeskill augs and call it a day with 500 hp gear (which is what is going to happen) when in order to get the 450 hp group gear you have to at least kill a tier 3 named mob for a drop.

[Hammaclar]

Negrath,

We all appreciate your exceptional communication with us and your genuine care for the game and the player base. Please pass back to the development Team that it is a bad decision to reduce the stats on the Lb/Bazu augs after they have been in game for 2 years and that based on the assurances from the development Team in beta that the stats on the cultural were as intended. Many playes devoted exceptionally large amounts of time and effort into obtaining components and made decisions on passing up and or destroying gear to move in the direction that the Team kept telling the player base the game was going. To change now after we have invested that time and or made those decisions for which we cannot or will not be compensated is nothing short of fraud on the part of the development Team.

We understand you don't support the decision and that it is a "company/team" decision, but it is patently wrong to treat the player base in this manner.

[Bobaten]

So you're a grouper or someone with an alt that you want to see the tradeskill armor better so you can get more out of it, is that it?

Nope, I am an Anguish Raider wearing 5 Bazu augs who suddenly has the third highest AC for my class on my server. It's fairly obvious to me that I really shouldn't be in that position.

Because any sane person should quite quickly see that nerfing the ac on the armor and hp on the symbols, leaving the seals as is (or even bumping up the new ones), and putting new type 12 seals made from group drops in game would be the best solution.

Which would be exactly why I made this very suggestion on this board last week. But that's not the way they are going to go.

You know, so that, groupers can put effort to loot and make a seal, just like raiders have to, in order to get a nicer piece of gear, rather than having it handed to them. You should not be able to buy elegant/sublime and don crystals or omen's tradeskill augs and call it a day with 500 hp gear (which is what is going to happen) when in order to get the 450 hp group gear you have to at least kill a tier 3 named mob for a drop.

Yep, killing those tier 3 named mobs is hard. You might need 2 groups of Anguish geared people. Or, maybe 4 anguish geared people and 4 bots. Though it's strictly bot loot, since the same group can kill Shyra twice a week for bazus.
Oh and in case you missed it.. the Tier 3 group gear is BETTER than Elegant+Sublime+DoN augs. It has more AC, more HP, more Mod 2's, and more Heroic stats. AND it can use a powersource to be even better still.

[Twistagain]

You know, so that, groupers can put effort to loot and make a seal, just like raiders have to, in order to get a nicer piece of gear, rather than having it handed to them.

Hahahah, oooh...hehe

Oh, wait...you were serious??

[gggrant]

So you're a grouper or someone with an alt that you want to see the tradeskill armor better so you can get more out of it, is that it?

Because any sane person should quite quickly see that nerfing the ac on the armor and hp on the symbols, leaving the seals as is (or even bumping up the new ones), and putting new type 12 seals made from group drops in game would be the best solution.

You know, so that, groupers can put effort to loot and make a seal, just like raiders have to, in order to get a nicer piece of gear, rather than having it handed to them. You should not be able to buy elegant/sublime and don crystals or omen's tradeskill augs and call it a day with 500 hp gear (which is what is going to happen) when in order to get the 450 hp group gear you have to at least kill a tier 3 named mob for a drop.

There is suppose to be a group Type 12 aug made from drops in Crystalos . This new group Seal is suppose to boost the Elegant/Sublime to be competative with the best dropped/quested group armor. It may not be in game yet. If this group seal isn't in game yet, it may never get into game as its stats will have to be reduced also. If it does make into game or already is in game, it may not be worth the effort. We won't really know until the actual numbers are given to us.

As for groupers should have to loot rather that just have someone hand it to them. The new Type 12 seal is exactly that. In reference to the armor. A single grouper is going to have a very difficult time getting the required quest done to make the Type 11 Symbols. Now if even a single raider starts selling these in the bazaar or the armor, then no raider has a right to complain about groupers having this gear handed to them. The solution is to not allow anyone with a raid flag to be able to make these things. That way, we know the groupers did all the work.

[wayshaper]

well if they are gonna nurf the stats on the RAID level augment, then the focus effects of the augment should be upgraded to RAID level focus effects of the content in which they drop.

[Kross]

other thread closed, reposting here:

Before people start flying of the handle, lets wait and see what the numbers will look like. The changes may not be as severe as you all fear.

I do hope that the Seals will not be decreased too much, so that Last Bloods will still be desireable RAID loot, as Last Bloods may be one of the stronger motivating factors for the mid-tiers to raid Demi at all...if they are nerfed to worthlessness then there will be that much less incentive to raid Demi.

it doesn't matter if they take off 40ac/200 hp or just 5ac/20hp, fact is we were reassured time and time again that they would NOT be changed and everything was working as intended.

i agree the gear is a bit over powered but so isn't the expansion. mobs slowed hit faster than unslowed mobs in AG. named in low tier instances hitting for 4-7k with ae's, then the higher tier zones like crystallos **** near quadding for 4k on trash mobs. golem overlords hitting for 10k+ on 4500ac.

the expansion is meant to last a year, and the cultural was a big leap i'll give folks that. however no one in demi plane gear is going to make the transition to be able to enjoy/experience the new content without a little help. even with the cultural it doesnt' mean anyone is going to march into AG/FC/solteris and start farming gear.

[Aldier]

A single grouper is going to have a very difficult time getting the required quest done to make the Type 11 Symbols.

What?

This is absolutely rediculous.

There are plenty of people in TBS group gear, Praetorian Energaeic, that can very easily handle the Exalted and Sublime tasks.

The issue here is that SoE is nerfing 2 year old content because it is making current armor too good. There are 2 differing groups of people that use the Bazu/LB. Those who are using them for focus effects they couldn't find on other gear and are using to supplement their armor choices. The tanks who are using them for their AC/Hp, which has been reported on the LB's as being higher than intended from the release. The result of this is that the serpent, sunshard, and faycite raid augs did NOT get an AC increase over LB. Because of the level increases, the people using them for focus effects are finding them less and less useful. Also, with the changes in SoF to mobs stats, a premium has shown up again on AC and ATK making the tanks NEED that increased AC/Hp to survive in some of the new content. The argument that the top end raiders will lose their edge of the mid tier raiders is a terrible reason for NERFING this because the top end raiders, once they get INTO the SoF raid armor will be way ahead again of the mid-tier raiders even using Elegant + Sublime + LB. 1000+ hp/mana gear vs 600s hp/mana gear is the edge they will have. Similar to the 300s vs 600s they currently have. Simply because the groupers and mid-tiers got their boost first has upset them.

Nerfing 5 expansion old content is a bad decision. Players have been using and are still using 5 expansion old raid content because that is what is available to them. Also, they recognized the scalability of these items. You loot a piece of DP loot and eventually you would need to upgrade it in TSS or TBS or SoF raid gear. You loot an LB and you are able to continue to utilize it through multiple levels of upgrades.

[Zopharr]

Ngrath,

We all appreciate your exceptional communication with us and your genuine care for the game and the player base. Please pass back to the development Team that it is a bad decision to reduce the stats on the Lb/Bazu augs after they have been in game for 2 years and that based on the assurances from the development Team in beta that the stats on the cultural were as intended. Many playes devoted exceptionally large amounts of time and effort into obtaining components and made decisions on passing up and or destroying gear to move in the direction that the Team kept telling the player base the game was going. To change now after we have invested that time and or made those decisions for which we cannot or will not be compensated is nothing short of fraud on the part of the development Team.

We understand you don't support the decision and that it is a "company/team" decision, but it is patently wrong to treat the player base in this manner.

I agree. We’ve had this happen before. Back when the ‘Blue Diamond’ cultural came out, shortly after Luclin was released (IIRC). Anyone remember that?

A full set of Skyshine warrior armor from Velious was 248 AC/330 HP. Fierce Heraldic for Zek worshipping warriors was a whopping 246 AC and 510 HP, over 54% more hp than the raid gear from the previous expansion. Ogres who decided not to go the Heraldic route got 261 AC and 395 HP. The advantage of the blue diamond cultural for AC/HP was even greater for other classes. Moreover, this gear was for all slots except jewelry and primary/secondary/range, replacing other drops as well. It basically made previous raid content optional and was a shortcut straight to high-end Luclin content.

Did it “break the game,” or destroy its “integrity?” I certainly don’t think so. I know that EQ seemed to have quite a few more players then. EQ was still adding servers then (rather than merging them), so it doesn’t seem to have broken it too much. (And ot wasn't due to lack of competition - UO, Asheron's Call, etc.)

Frankly, if the changes being proposed now had been part of the initial rollout, I would have had no problem with them. “We want to significantly increase the stats of the smithed armor, but in order to prevent imbalance when existing slot 12 augs are added to new armor, we’re going to move some of the AC and HP from last Bloods into the base armor. This will increase the value of the armor to groupers, maintain the value of completed elaborate/eminent/last blood pieces, and enable us to significantly increase stats on the new smithed armor without concern of it being overpowered when combined with existing last blood augs.” Everybody would have known what was going to happen in advance; everyone would have been happy.

Instead, though, we have the armor rolled out. Reps from SOE stating after rollout that yes, the stats are as intended, strong but considered balanced overall.

And then the @#%!storm hits… After multiple weeks of this, EQ decides to ‘relook’ what it had said was balanced before. The same stuff that developers had previously stated was balanced – that people had been told earlier was ‘good to go’ is now, in response to complaints from the top-tier guilds, suddenly no longer ‘good to go.’

Ngreth, I think that you are doing a fine job and the best you can. Regardless of what happens with the stats, I am pretty disgusted with SOE here. If this was like the old Blue Diamond cultural which went into every slot, I could see a *lot* more reason for concern. Instead I see SOE reps saying all is good to go - then three weeks later backing down in response to a (very) vocal minority. While this does help groupers – and I appreciate you pushing for a fix that at least helps them – I see a few very vocal people wagging the SOE doq. The way this has been handled has been an abomination.

Few things have made me throw down my smithing hammer in disgust. I’m considering giving my wife the Christmas present she’d like the most – deleting my EQ characters.

My apologies for posting here, but the ‘primal scream’ thread was locked.

[nazlith]

Nerfing is a very bad idea. It might take longer to implement, but the tier 3+ drops in SoF should be upgraded, with perhaps a similar upgrades to mobs.

[hyphnos]

Why is the fact that Solteris is no longer endgame being ignored?

I will preface by saying I have no last blood augs. At present, from what I have read posted by DEVs, I seem to stand to gain or at least remain level with my current standing on the cultural under the proposed changes.

What I fail to understand is in all the threads in all the places I've read is exactly WHY it is the end of the universe when it is POSSIBLE to make a lvl 80 piece of gear, augment it with an older aug and exceed SOME stats on what is now in now way end game gear.

I have friends in a Solteris guild, most of them could care less about Cultural + LBs and the small hp/ac/mana gains and vastly lesser mods. In fact, the first Solteris raid they did afterwards, they were rolling for the TBS 12 augs for alts.

Back when LBs were introduced and the same end game raiders were utilizing their power to plow forward, there may have been outcry but there was certainly no nerf. And let's not forget that Last Bloods drop in POR off mobs PRIOR to Deathknell and while I haven't looked at the stats, I suspect that 70 cultural + LB exceeded/equalled/or came very close to Deathknell dropped armors (again minus mods and stats though with a much lesser gap) Thus, right there you likely have precedent that old aug + OLD cultural could in some ways (in fact the very same ways) be moderately superior to what was then CURRENT endgame content as opposed to now when Solteris is not end game content regardless of whether 1 guild or 2000 have beaten it. Where was the outcry for nerf then, nonexistant, probably because the gear was still useful to the same people yelling nerf now?

REMINDER: Solteris gear is no longer top of the line raid gear and hasn't been since SoF went live. Therefore, I humbly ask why is Solteris the baseline for comparison to ANYTHING including 12 augs and cultural.

I think if you sit down and look at the release of any new expansion, you can find combinations of old augs and old raid content that could exceed in the same stats of concern (hp/mana/ac) the very best endgame gear of that expansion. Why is this expansion special?

I'm asking this because it seems that everyone is up in arms over the status of Solteris gear as if that lvl 75 armor is still the endgame raider gear. It's not. I think what's driving the upset more than anything is that the hypermudflation of SoF is hitting the low end first and end game raiders are not seeing where they will be as quickly.

It's 8 slots. If it's 8 slots x 50 or 60 or 70 hps or whatever, that's 500 to 800 hps* that someone willing to use FOUR expansion old focii could gain on a Solteris gear at most and that is only if the Solteris raider opted against using the 12 augs from there.
*note: that's roughly the same hps as you get from the not world wrecking naggy familar

I know raiders works hard to get where they are but in the 4 plus years I've been playing everquest, never have I seen people get so up agitated over the status of their "endgame" (that is no longer endgame) gear. The threat is very much overstated.

Ngreth, just want to say thanks for keeping the cultural option alive and bringing it in in the first place. I've loved the concept since DON and it made tradeskilling fun again for me and several of my friends. For all of us having the option to upgrade via tradeskills and for raiders to have focii flexibility is awesome. It's a shame you can't give us some decent tradeskilled weapons, but I know that would get you lynched. After all, the real difference between people in AG/FC/Solteris and the rest of is their weaponry and focii, not piddling amounts of hp/ac on visibles armors. (they know it too, but apparently having 3 x the dps of a DP character just isn't enough for some)

To the raiders here that aren't screaming bloody murder because you too know better, thanks and I hope this mess doesn't negate what might be a very useful tool for you guys to fill in gaps. And to you TSS/Solteris raiders who have been farming for months without 12 augs dropping, you've been prety sporting about guilds still doing that content getting extra augs you yourselves will likely not see after you get seriously into SOF and should by rights have piles of laying around from your months of farming.

I have tried to be balanced hope I haven't been harsh, just trying to put things in perspective with the past. Others have already addressed the issues with present droppables and whatnot so I will leave that to them.

What's truly sad is by the time January rolls around, this entire fiasco will probably be a non issue for the upset minority once they hit their new raid loots which will put LBs and Cultural to shame, I'm sure. (Pls don't take this as a concession that current Solteris gear doesn't put Cultural plus LBs to shame in every meaningful way, I don't feel that way nor did my non scientific poll of my Solteris geared friends point in that direction either)

[Zopharr]

it doesn't matter if they take off 40ac/200 hp or just 5ac/20hp, fact is we were reassured time and time again that they would NOT be changed and everything was working as intended.

i agree the gear is a bit over powered but so isn't the expansion. mobs slowed hit faster than unslowed mobs in AG. named in low tier instances hitting for 4-7k with ae's, then the higher tier zones like crystallos **** near quadding for 4k on trash mobs. golem overlords hitting for 10k+ on 4500ac.

the expansion is meant to last a year, and the cultural was a big leap i'll give folks that. however no one in demi plane gear is going to make the transition to be able to enjoy/experience the new content without a little help. even with the cultural it doesnt' mean anyone is going to march into AG/FC/solteris and start farming gear.

A wild and crazy idea:

- go with the changes currently being planned for January

- When the changes are made, convert existing Last Bloods, etc. to 'Ancient Last Bloods' with the current stats - so those who have acted based on assurances right after released that 'balanced due to older focii' and 'working as intended' do not lose out.

This helps groupers with the increases in strength of the elaborate armor and the level 75 armor; gives raiders warning of what is coming, so they can make informed choices (like many they thought they were after the assurances that all was working as intended); SOE keeps faith with those who have already acted based on what was put out earlier (like the four folks in the top two guilds on the server that I made armor for the last few days.

So - SOE can say that they fixed the problem for the future; but also has kept faith with those it told for weeks 'this is working as intended.

Somehow I doubt this will happen though.

[Kross]

they won't let any form of "ancient last bloods" or the such happen, and its because the end game raiders brought this nerf up in the first place. they want that gap, they need that gap, they must have that gap!

its a big leap with the cultural but its a big leap with the raid gear too. bmk raids drop beltron level loot, and much easier events heh. people just leap frogged over FC/AG omg! it must be the cultural! the focus effects blow for casters, no clicky or hate mods etc, no jewelry..come on too much else goes into this stuff.

elite raiders were only interested in their rankings. period. hell half of them use a avatar showing their buffed stats. "hey look at my e-peen!"

[Fudorf]

Just curious, since I have yet to see it mentioned.

Is Deathknell also considered a 'level 70' zone? If not, then please remove the last bloods that drop there for the appropriate level aug.

[Abazagaroth]

Last bloods don't drop in deathknell.