Incoming Nerf to Elegant and Last Blood?

[Catweazel]

I would like to think that any (nerf) changes to Cultural could be minimized by considering the possibility of adding in new Power Sources which are tradeskilled for those raiders with Solteris armor. Although this might be a separate timetable, many of the complaints relating to the current over powered nature of certain Cultural Armor combinations are driven by concerns that "I bypassed a Serpent Loot in favour of a Rugged Loot, and now I am stuck with a limited path forward".

[mulleteer]

Its am guessing its true that not everyone does get a powersource from each raid. However, I am guessing the tanks, who incedently are the people complaining the most get powersources.

Plus another reason they may not include ps data as it does not reflect in eqplayers data. They are concerened with there rankings on the leader boards.


Mulleteer Combover

[Aaneras]

Its am guessing its true that not everyone does get a powersource from each raid. However, I am guessing the tanks, who incedently are the people complaining the most get powersources.

Plus another reason they may not include ps data as it does not reflect in eqplayers data. They are concerened with there rankings on the leader boards.


Mulleteer Combover

Your ranking are impacted by powersources, but not by food, drink, spells, etc. Try it if you have infusable armor; you'll see your ranking go up and down depending on whether a snapshot was taken with them in or out. If you care about your rankings you choose "in".

[Bobaten]

I got my last bloods before SoF. IF the changes go in (and they may not now), I will login one day and the Last Blood will have lesser stats than it had the day before. So, yes, I WILL have lost something on the gear I got before SoF.

No, your stats on the total armor that you had before SoF will be unchanged.
If Last bloods were to lose 44 ac and 209 hp...then your elaborate armor+eminent symbols would gain 44 ac and 209 hp. Obviously no change will be that dramatic (since it would give Elaborate+Eminent close to the stats of Elegant+Sublime and make Last bloods completely useless). What's up in the air is not whether or not Elegant+Sublime+Lastblood will be a decent upgrade over Elaborate+Eminent+Last Blood(pre and post SoF), it's whether it will just be a decent upgrade, or if it will be the dramatic upgrade it is currently.

[Roanne]

No, your stats on the total armor that you had before SoF will be unchanged.
If Last bloods were to lose 44 ac and 209 hp...then your elaborate armor+eminent symbols would gain 44 ac and 209 hp. Obviously no change will be that dramatic (since it would give Elaborate+Eminent close to the stats of Elegant+Sublime and make Last bloods completely useless). What's up in the air is not whether or not Elegant+Sublime+Lastblood will be a decent upgrade over Elaborate+Eminent+Last Blood(pre and post SoF), it's whether it will just be a decent upgrade, or if it will be the dramatic upgrade it is currently.

This may not be entirely true.

While probably true in the case of chest and legs slots, the language involving the other slots has been vague and pointed at the possibility that even though something will be added to the lesser slot armors and symbols it may not necessarily be the entire amount removed from the last blood augmentation.

I realize the initial statement generalized that the entire armor set would remain equal but one of Ngreths later comments hinted not necessarily every slot would remain equal (I dont care to go searching for the exact citation right now).

If they were to add the exact amount removed from the last blood augmentations to every armor/symbol combo regardless of slot, the very real possibility of those lesser slots becoming better than equivalent raid dropped gear is introduced which is what led to the "problem" of reassigning last blood aug stats in the first place (just at a different level).

The devs have shown a fickle tendency for justifying the means after the end and spinning general statements as warning to specific changes even after theyve specifically said they wouldnt be changing it.

Since we arent being given in-the-ballpark figures to comment on before the changes are decided we work with speculation and rumor. By the time we get any specific information, the changes will already be decided.

They should just leave the entire thing alone for a change. They've already drawn the anger the end game Soltaris raiders and these changes arent going to fix that. Theyre just going to draw the anger of everyone else.

[Zopharr]

Your existing lastblood + grandmaster armour/seal are all as good as before, ands will be as good as before. You have lost nothing on the gear you got before SoF

That is assuming that they up each piece of armor by the full amount they nerf the Last Bloods.

But you will have lost on any new gear you bought after SOF, after the developers stated 'powerful but balanced; working as intended.'

Considering the difficulty of acquiring the materials for the new armors - especially now that drop locations and rates seem to have been corrected - that is potentially a lot of resoruces down the tubes after two developer have said it's all ok as is. I know I've spent a lot of resources in-game that I would have waited on if I'd known they were going to do this.

[Leana]

No, your stats on the total armor that you had before SoF will be unchanged.
If Last bloods were to lose 44 ac and 209 hp...then your elaborate armor+eminent symbols would gain 44 ac and 209 hp. Obviously no change will be that dramatic (since it would give Elaborate+Eminent close to the stats of Elegant+Sublime and make Last bloods completely useless). What's up in the air is not whether or not Elegant+Sublime+Lastblood will be a decent upgrade over Elaborate+Eminent+Last Blood(pre and post SoF), it's whether it will just be a decent upgrade, or if it will be the dramatic upgrade it is currently.

You are wrong. There is a significant change, because the stats have been moved from a configurable part of the armor to the throw away part of the armor. While you are technically correct, in spirit you are wrong, and I think you know that.

The last blood will always be put in the best armor you can socket it in. Therefore, after the releast, the 70 armor becomes worthless and the only thing of value is the last blood aug. Any nerf to the last blood aug is a nerf to the value that way paid for that aug.

[Aldier]

You are wrong. There is a significant change, because the stats have been moved from a configurable part of the armor to the throw away part of the armor. While you are technically correct, in spirit you are wrong, and I think you know that.

The last blood will always be put in the best armor you can socket it in. Therefore, after the releast, the 70 armor becomes worthless and the only thing of value is the last blood aug. Any nerf to the last blood aug is a nerf to the value that way paid for that aug.

Because of the rarity of some of the parts, I do know several people that are using Elaborate armor they already had with a LB aug and upgraded just the symbol to Sublime or Exalted.

The benefit of going from Elaborate to Elegant (for non tanks) is no where near as big as going from Eminent to Exalted/Sublime. This is still a nerf, because the quality of the items that are over 2 years and 5 expansions old are being reduced. The "balance" that they are proposing to provide as a compensation for the nerf will not be seen by those that have upgraded to elegant and sublime armor, but would be seen by those that are still in elaborate and eminent armor. It is almost suggesting that the developers would want us to go BACK to the lower level armor because it "goes with the set" for the LB aug.

[Archus]

No, your stats on the total armor that you had before SoF will be unchanged.
If Last bloods were to lose 44 ac and 209 hp...then your elaborate armor+eminent symbols would gain 44 ac and 209 hp. Obviously no change will be that dramatic (since it would give Elaborate+Eminent close to the stats of Elegant+Sublime and make Last bloods completely useless). What's up in the air is not whether or not Elegant+Sublime+Lastblood will be a decent upgrade over Elaborate+Eminent+Last Blood(pre and post SoF), it's whether it will just be a decent upgrade, or if it will be the dramatic upgrade it is currently.

I'm not talking about a "set". A "set" is an arbitrary thing that the devs are trying to come up with to make this nerf palatable. My Last Blood Aug (one piece of gear) WILL lose stats compared to what it had Pre-SoF. What happens to other parts of the "set" that have already been destroyed is irrelevant to me.

[solithan]

New items are upgraded and deemed to massive of an upgrade so they are going to nerf the old seals?

What kind of logic is that?

The most amusing kind of logic heheh funny isn't it.
I supose we should be lucky they didn't just make the Seals have a specific slot type and only fit in the armor they wanted it to fit in. Then there wouldn't be any need to balance them.

SOE has a history of continuing to nerf items when it is shown to them that an old item can be used in a new way to become unbalacing, so its not suprising that they are nerfing an old item. This doesn't mean that it doesn't suck and isn't unfair, its simply the way it works. They thought it was balanced at the time and perhapse it was. Then they saw the way it was being used after some new stuff was introduced, rather then alter the new stuff they chose to alter the old item. If I had to hazard a guess as to why, I'd probably come to the conclusion it was simply easier.

So, whats the impact? I mean what exactly are we talking here? No one thinks they will reduce the item to 0 and everyone is sadly aware a change is coming so the field is 0-210 right? Assuming a "Drastic" change would be 50% thats 100? Following the logic a "reasonable" change would be 50?
I supose my guess is a 50hp/50mana reduction in value. If you got 8 slots that adds up but otherwise its not earth shattering IMO.

[daw4888]

Considering the difficulty of acquiring the materials for the new armors - especially now that drop locations and rates seem to have been corrected - that is potentially a lot of resoruces down the tubes after two developer have said it's all ok as is. I know I've spent a lot of resources in-game that I would have waited on if I'd known they were going to do this.

Ya Zopharr, but the problem is the drops were screwed up to begin with, and the armor/sublimes have alrdy flooded the market. I wish they could go back and fix the droprates before launch, its pretty clear that they had the numbers messed up somewhere since they dorped more in thalliuss then crystallos. But they cant go back, so they have to nerf lastbloods to make up for that. I hate it, and i am just hopeful after the nerf it wont take long for SoE to restore the TSS armor I destroyed when i made my new armor =I.

[daw4888]

SOE has a history of continuing to nerf items when it is shown to them that an old item can be used in a new way to become unbalacing, so its not suprising that they are nerfing an old item.

If you read it all you will see they arnt really nerfing the Old items, just the new incarnations of it. Lastblood + elaborate + eminate will still be the exact same. Yes they are decreasing stats on lastblood, but you couldnt use a lastblood by itself, so you really have to look at the whole peice of armor, and if you do, they are just moving stats around not nerfing it. Now the nerf comes with the new Elegant + sublime + lastblood, which is a new combination.

[Catweazel]

So, whats the impact? I mean what exactly are we talking here? No one thinks they will reduce the item to 0 and everyone is sadly aware a change is coming so the field is 0-210 right? Assuming a "Drastic" change would be 50% thats 100? Following the logic a "reasonable" change would be 50?
I supose my guess is a 50hp/50mana reduction in value. If you got 8 slots that adds up but otherwise its not earth shattering IMO.

The problem is that it is nowhere near as simple as you imply.

Firstly, the AC on the Last Bloods is what was considered "wrong", not the HP. The outcry initially was from Warriors and hybrid tanks who saw vastly higher levels of AC on cultural compared to gear that they had looted in raids well after the DoDH expansion.

Secondly, the group available upgrades in SOF are already close to various combinations of Cultural that include a raid drop. Nerfing one in isolation of the other could create a snowball effect of complaints and broken itemisation.

Combine the issues and you have the very real probability that individual players see no reason to play their current game (why should I raid when I can loot better in groups - or conversely, why should I group when I need AC designed within cultural/raids to survive any content for better upgrades).

The "issue" is that an overall design decision that has taken many months to implement in terms of content balance is now having the stuffing pulled out of it which could create a house of cards in terms of design integrity. Which change will make it all come tumbling down?

The knock on effect from the "issue" is that many many players are frustrated and annoyed at a time when EverQuest needs everyone to be happy and engaged. The customer service fall out from the way this has been handled up to this point is potentially very damaging.

[Aldier]

The "overpower" in my opinion, and from what I remember reading from dev posts is not just hp but also the AC. For tanks, this is very important. With the increased mob difficulties in SoF, AC is playing a much greater role in a tanks ability to handle content.

So if they nerf 50 hp off the LB augs and 15ac (so they can do 15 off LB, 10 off serpent, and 5 off sunshard to show an increase in ac for those augs) that is the equivalent of a 140hp nerf per LB aug. Way above even your "drastic" change level.

Also, they said Elegant + Sublime + Faycite is balanced against SoF raid gear and will not see a change. However, the new 75 armor they are adding and exalted symbols will see an increase, narrowing the gap between Exalted and Sublime.

That gap (on chest) is currently 65 hp/mana. So if they take 50 hp off of the Serpent/Sunshard augs and put it on the Exalted symbol (the appropriate symbol in their artificial "sets") then you now only have a 15 hp difference. Also, they have said they are going to potentially move stats off of the Sublime symbol and put it on the Elegant armor. Potentially making Elegant + Sublime WORSE than Elegant + Exalted. Now they could potentially put the 50 hp from the Serpent/Sunshard augs on the new 75 armor, in which we have no stats to compare start with as a base.

On the AC side of things, if they took 15 ac off the LB aug and put it on the Elaborate armor, that would cut the difference between Elaborate and Elegant IN HALF. That does not leave much room for the new set of armor to go, considering it also is supposed to be getting an ac bump from the ac taken from the Serpent/Sunshard augs. Symbols do not have AC so all of the AC has to go to the armor. The numbers I used for armor are for plate, where AC matters the most.

The end result when you look at it, is the amount they can adjust the LB, Serpent, and Sunshard augs DOWN without overpowering the lower "sets" is so minimal that is it actually a WASTE of developer resources to change all these different items than it would be to leave them alone and work on IMPORTANT issues/bugs. They are devoting a TON of time to a very small change that HURTS more people than it helps and contradicts their own previous statements.

[Archus]

If you read it all you will see they arnt really nerfing the Old items, just the new incarnations of it. Lastblood + elaborate + eminate will still be the exact same. Yes they are decreasing stats on lastblood, but you couldnt use a lastblood by itself, so you really have to look at the whole peice of armor, and if you do, they are just moving stats around not nerfing it. Now the nerf comes with the new Elegant + sublime + lastblood, which is a new combination.

The "sets" are dev's attempt to try to make the nerf palatable and appear not to be a nerf. Let me put it simply. Last Blood = an old item. The plan is to make it less powerful one day than it is now. That is a nerf of "an old item". "Sets" ..... never existed until Ngreth made them up in his initial post about the possible incoming nerf. If you don't believe that, then consider that there was NEVER any intention to make level 75 armor until it had to be CREATED (and still has yet to be created actually) to fit this 'new concept' of 'sets'. Don't drink the Kool-aid.