Probably the biggest concern for us min / maxers, apart from not knowing what stacks, is not knowing what the actual caps are. I would hope that this could be simplified under the new system, and provide an acurate cap for each and every stat in game.
Pffft, everyone knows that Hayatets have the best fire resist buffs in game. You can stick with your see invis. On a more useful note than the above sledging, it would be cool for a sorc to heavily buff Spell ID and Countering.
I think it was said earlier that the idea is to remove hard caps, so that the 'cap' of the system is naturally defined by the elements of the system. That's a cool idea.
After spending so much time with the Devs on this at SoE Live, I can only say, lets get started, faster they get it done faster they focus on more of the game to fix, and more time to making Pankor Zi a reality.
sharing some of the ideas that the devs want to implement with the best buff, with a eq2 raider. He sorta laughed at it. While i understand the need for change I still am not seeing the need for such a system as best buff. I just feel this is going to make some classes less desirable to have and that is a bad thing. any enlightment from soe live with more detail on this?. Maybe you should talk with the eq2 dev team about buffs with group and raid sorta like how that is set up and stops a bunch of casting it over and over.
If he laughed at it, he doesn't even understand EQ2's buff system. Effecively the current system and eq2's system are best buff systems already. This will just take it to a more organized level and actually ought to allow for much more customization and stacking overall.
I like the idea, but it should be accompanied by a full buff revamp, I don’t mean changing the values to accommodate them to a BBO system. What I mean is a full reevaluation of the buffs from all classes, spreading out a little better the effects in order to avoid situations like we have now with disciples and sorcerers whose buffs are pretty much useless. All classes should have useful buffs, even melee classes, some of those buffs should be auras while other would be regular buffs but all classes should bring some utility to a group besides their main role. Given that you are going to spend a lot of time tinkering with buffs I think it’s time to reevaluate the utility that the different classes bring to a group/raid.
My Ranger has a fork, my monk has a spoon, anyone got a plate to bring to the table? No plate? No food (raid)! I just hope however they do the buffs that it all makes sense in the end.
I can't help but wonder what impact that will have on classes that were previously considered buff specialists. Will clerics, shamans, and psionicists still have that edge, or will everyone be considered equally desirable for buffing in their own way?
Good question, but I asume thats who they are talking about, they are not just going to add the best STR buff to a warrior because they feel like it or the best AC buff to m,onks to curry favor with Harvey. I am sure the idea is to keep the general "look and feel" of each classes buffs we see now, just making sure the class that currently has the best STR buff, still has the best STR buff once revamped, and youcan associate that ideal accross shaman, cleric, etc.
So as long as they don't make class buff useless like ranger buffs. Rangers in the past have had it really bad in Telon, only utility we have is stance pushing, then stance pushing was put on many other classes making us expendable, I don't want to only be put in a raid cause I push stances, don't have to worry about that now but why would they use rangers at all. Bugs come out and actually balance the class, the biggest fear is some of the stuff that is actually broken balances the game. Right now there is a lot of balance where there is plenty of gear in the game to make average players good but great players that much better. This is for rangers, we all know melee epic proc is what some would consider overpowered, this is only a particular part of our proc ramp, then again 9 times out of 10 a sorc or monk will still out parse a ranger, ranger 5 piece gives ranged rangers 36% ranged damage while leaving melee damage at 0 when using Griffon Talisman, which I'm sure both will be fixed but at what cost. I'm not saying ranger should be the most powerful class in game but please keep it viable to play all classes, not fix things then leave players with no reason to play. Crap DPS, crappy stance pushing rangers will all but force rangers to quit or play another class. Please don't let this happen. I personally think that any class with proper gear and skill should be equal to other classes or the game would be in their arch-type, having 2x Sorc, Monk, Pally, Bard, Shaman a staple setup would erase the diversity in the game. Right now all classes are viable in their own way. I know I'm speaking from ranger perspective and melee arch-type for the most part as it is what I know most. But the way I see things is Monks, highest DPS, most survivability, and can feign death great burst damage why would you play another melee class knowing this. Rogues, great burst damage, good dps, can escape battles also pretty survivable. Bards, with proper use of spells and melee and what they bring to the whole group, even I get outparsed by a bard (Merit) on occasion, thing is everyone wants a bard, they are always included. Rangers, best sustained dps with dots and finishers, most who utilize both melee and ranged whichever stance you prefer will do good dps (because bugged), but we are nowhere close to burst damage, and actually get negatives to dodge and evade while in an offensive form (the only reason I use evasion stance is to fix my stance when it is bugged, and no means of escaping battle other than z axis or recalling. I remember sitting out on many raids in APW because my class wasn't going to get the job done, I had to watch the mobs die over and over. So to summarize, don't screw up rangers, keep us viable, and because it's not all about me think about every class the same way. Try to find weaknesses in classes and improve their worth, I don't want to level a monk because ranger is useless once again.
You may well be right. Of course, that would give a considerable increase in solo power to classes with many buffs while leaving nonbuffing classes where they currently stand (assuming a 'vacuum' scenario without buffbot armies, anyway). Then again, solo balance clearly isn't a subject given much consideration in VG so perhaps that's not an issue. Personally, I wonder about the shaman spell haste buff. Currently it's 20%, and the cap is 20%, meaning spell haste gear I find is worthless, if I understand correctly. Under the new system, the devs want the caps to be defined by what's available rather than by fiat, which would seem to suggest that either I'll be able to achieve more than 20% spell haste (insert massive class balance discussion here), or that my buff will be getting weaker so as to reach a total of 20% when combined with whatever hypothetical gear is considered.
I don't feel it will cause a major class imbalance. For DPS casters, the biggest effect will be on sorcs. They're #1 already. Druid and PSI have a lot of instants, The druid mainstay spell is a longer duration, but .3s off ought not create a discrepancy. Necros.. I have no hate for them getting any bonus they can. As their primary mainstay are DoTs... making any nukes faster.. I see no immediate contention with. For healers... it would mean that healers would get more use from their group heals and energy efficient heals. I feel that many/most would find that agreeable. The largest impact I see would be on a blood mage. And there again, I can't hate much. They've been left wanting on gear since 0 day. I don't see it OPing them off the bat, though they will "jump" up into the caster DPS ranks if played well. If you want to see the effects.... get +10 spell haste off of gear. Not an EE with spell haste, the hard stat. To my knowledge, that has only been capped by less than a handful of players, only for testing purposes. It is one of the rarest stats in game on good items.
It would have to be considerable haste for me to use a non insta-cast spell. The only spell I currently use that isnt instant is Comet which is .8s. I would need a large haste jump to use other spells. I'd really like to see this thing on paper so I could get a grasp of it. Some classes like Psi's and shaman's bring so much with buffs where as sorcs dont hardly bring anything. I'm afraid of the power jump that will insue when bringing some class buffs up in power to be meaningful when lacking a psi or shaman.
So Blood Mages dpsing like sorcs? Can someone say Tank, Bard, Blood Mage, Blood Mage, Blood Mage, Blood Mage groups? Will we really see balance? Is Vanguard going the route of Rift or EQ Next? No mention of melee arch-types. One thing I liked about Vanguard was that a class is unique, when classes start jumping arch-types they are overpowered. A well geared monk can tank well, killer dps, and can wipe all hate with feign death. What about the class balancing is going to make me not want to leave the ranger class when we can't tank, can't feign death and will likely lose a huge chunk of our dps while already lower dps than the monk, for most encounters. We can play ranged, but have to use crappy warbow of magic, this is not a benefit this is a curse, the BFG was supposed to have a soul slot as per Silius, it seems with the Finch boxes the answer from dev's is give every ranger a Finch bow +3, yay P2W FTW. What I'm concerned with is rangers seem to be a gimmick to dev's, just because we want a bow doesn't mean every ranger plays ranged we just have a crappy selection, a good ranger utilizes both melee and ranged or you can't maximize your classes potential. Ranger buffs could use a looking at to, we could use a single "level 55" buff like all the other buffing classes got to during the level increase many years ago. Perhaps something to lower global cooldowns or decrease the ammount of time needed to use ability again, because every frigin ranger ability is on a global cooldown basically something that would really help the class, but benefit others greatly as well so our buff isn't useless at raids. Rangers over the years have had to endure the bugs and work through them just to be a viable dps class in the game, boned for 5 years with crappy chicken bow. Things being fixed is a matter of perception, only reason we are viable is due to the class being broken in so many ways. Class balancing is always a risky business I'm not against it, just saying some people are going to get better, some worse.
[quote="TLoch, post: 768780, member: 27"]I think it was said earlier that the idea is to remove hard caps, so that the 'cap' of the system is naturally defined by the elements of the system.[/quote] Just jumping back to this one but let me attack this on two fronts: I think I get what you're meaning but your predecessors did you no favors with creating a system of player power progression that made sense. There are augments and equipped effects dropping from raid mobs that are better than some pure drops that came from level 53 mobs. The curve is broken. How you all plan to marginalize the God mode that Silius and Crew created is beyond me.
