hiyas

[sauruman]

Hello guys,
SoE offered me the class correspondent position after I submitted them a brief statement, so I accepted this offer yesterday. I visit this forum, eqnecro, and Everquest forums a few times a day, so I want to emphasize if you post something, I probably have already read it.

I play a high end toon with a raiding guild. I believe currently the highend necromancer is stronger then we have ever been, but there are certainly a number of things I would like to address as correspondent. To do this, I will need your help as the community.

This doesn't mean I can't stand up for everyones interests however. I wasn't always in a hardcore raiding guild, I've been in family guilds myself and I've even played guildless for a time. I know the difficulties faced by these part time necros, since Everquest is such a time intensive game and difficult to pick up for just short periods. I believe the task system and shrouds have provided a nice quick fix to these problems, but I believe a lot more can be done.

How I got selected:
There was a sticky in the necrotomb over at Everquest forums. One day I figured what the hell, I KNOW every inch of the necro class, what could be the harm. So I wrote a killer two page essay, sent it, and awaited word. Easier this week, I received an invitation from KY, so here I am off rolling.

Who I am:
I am a raider. For the last two years I've been a member of one of the top guilds on my server, Dark Bane. We only raid three nights a week so its organized and to a military style purpose, but I find this gives me the time to explore the game in the way it was meant to be explored. I have done pretty much every quest of consequence, including the 10th ring, shawl, BiC, and the dodh TS quests (almost done with those). I have over 200 in every tradeskill and near 300 in a few of them, so I know those more then I care to admit. I lead frequent offnight raiding through anguish and DoN, which is the most fun I have playing EQ now a days. I know the mechanics of every encounter we tackle the best I can muster, from the amount of healing required, the amount of tanking, what is required to win, and adapting our strategies to make them work on future attempts. In short, I know the game pretty intimately, and I hope I can use this knowledge to help convey to you guys here, and SoE, some of the myths and the problems I have certainly noticed.

While I play a high end toon, that isn't necessarilly my only concern. I came from humble family guild roots, and I distinctly remember those weekend long pofear and pohate clearings. I remember what it was like to have no gear at all, and feel like I was lost in a sea of ignorance. The necromancer in particular I feel requires more knowledge to play then any other, from soloing to grouping to raiding there is literally no overlap between these other then do not die, and with the massive amount of spells we have its sometimes difficult to understand our role in situations. Just because the majority of my posts are going to be tailored to the high end player, don't think your out of the conversation. I'll endeavor to read every post I can, and please let me know any inconsistancies, bugs, or problems you might be having, and I'll do my best to help you out.

The necromancer class:
We aren't broken at all. In fact I believe we are at our prime. Dread Pyre and Corath Venom in particular have been stellar increases in our damage per second output, which is how I evaluate our effectiveness change per expansion. Sure, there are other things too which need a serious looking at
1) our pets are retarded. There is limited control at best with them and survivability sucks
2) dots resist too damn much. And the trend of even more resistant mobs persists
3) raids mobs seem to be designed for endurance fights, which means we get to twitch. I believe this spell should be deleted from the game, and to do that, these fights need to be balanced. A few that come to mind through the ages: Xegony, Endurance trial, Jelvan, CoT9.
4) How come we didn't get the cool utility aa's that other classes got this expansion? Channeling mastery, run speed increases, pull utility aa's (that work at a decent %). Which brings us to the next one:
5) Necros ability to pull has been stolen by other classes over time. I enjoy pulling and can do it with the limited abilities I have, but having more utility to this end would be nice, such as Willful Death that fired at a much higher frequency.
6) Blood magic is flat broke or worthless. A 2200 dot /tick I can't even survive through without a cleric for long, unless I want to chain lifetap, and then I'm doing minimal DPS.
7) ST upgrade- where is it? And I don't want it if it can't mez effectively, otherwise I'd rather just kite the adds or tank them like usual.

For more specific information I want to refer you to the thread I already have going over at eqnecro. http://www.eqnecro.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=2028 I believe both these two communities have an amazing amount of material to offer, and that is the reason I want to keep the discussion going at both ends. While eqnecro is blunt and vulgur yet honest, I like the more diplomatic tone of these forums. Please let me know how I can help you as a necromancer and as part of a greater necromancer community. ;t saryrn sauruman or PM me on this, everquest forums, or eqnecro and I'll be glad to respond.

Thx,

[Nefarious]

Hey there, glad to see someone who has SoE's ear browsing around.

Now, let them know we need a new Pet Graphic. The Specter is a little out dated, and very tired to boot.

:P

[Tryal Anderror]

If your first post here is trying to refer everyone to another forum site, especially one with such a bad history with alot of the people here, then I don't think you're off to the best start.

It'd be one thing if you referred people to EQ Live or something, but this isn't exactly the best first step for you, especially coming in as a virtual unknown to the community.

[Felicite]

Originally posted by Tryal Anderror@Nov 9 2005, 04:32 PM
If your first post here is trying to refer everyone to another forum site, especially one with such a bad history with alot of the people here, then I don't think you're off to the best start.

It'd be one thing if you referred people to EQ Live or something, but this isn't exactly the best first step for you, especially coming in as a virtual unknown to the community.
If discussion points will only be available over there.. I guess I need to approach the fascist moderators over there and see if I can get un IP banned. Maybe if I promise to be sweet? On the other hand, one less board to check this way.

But I don't hold that against you personally!

Good luck Sauruman, hope the thankless job does not suck you dry.

[sauruman]

While my post count isn't the highest here, I know I'm not an unknown to the community here :P . I've posted solo tactics in particular in threads that still stand, and provided some advise. My idea is NOT to steal away your audience, but simply to unite it. I browse more then a dozen forums per day, and I see the inherant strengths and weaknesses within each crowd and approach, and won't limit myself to one particular forum as I felt has been done in the past. Once I posted this thread, I also linked this one to the eqnecro crowd, to remind them how cool ya'all are. Don't take offense as I'm not trying to do anything sinister, but simply out of laziness not repeat the same post in a bunch of different places! Editing my original post to add in some specifics.

[Tryal Anderror]

Laziness is an excuse I can accept, thank you for correcting it =)

[sauruman]

hahahaha ;)

[Aryse Andenter]

Thnaks for the post amendment. While it may seem a bit silly posting the same thing in multiple places, with these communities it is unfortunately necessary.

If you want to keep things to a single thread, I'd suggest referring both communities to eqlive instead as that is at least neutral terrority and those boards could use some rejuvenation.

[Nefarious]

Originally posted by Felicite@Nov 9 2005, 11:40 PM
...suck you dry.
:unsure:

:lol:

[sauruman]

I'm am certainly debating that. There is an inherant problem with that setup. Its linked to Everquest THE company that pulls the strings. For instance, I won't post my dps in threads on eqlive because I am certain we would be nerfed instantly if our true power were revealed. I am looking for frank and honest discussion, and that would present a problem. I like the homely environment that exists here and at eqnecro, that is the reason you see a general acceptance on their forums, yet a more broad approach on these player maintained sites.

I'll consider it for consolidation, but otherwise I see no appeal. Its like there is a freaking war between you two! So who is the nawth?

[Drazzminius]

Super Gratz Sauruman! :P

[GnekroeGnomicon]

Indeed Congratulations - after having read your posts for a while now - I am happy that you have been chosen! Good luck!

[FCseven]

Grats!

[UsulDaNeriak]

OMG!, sony did something right. how could that happen?

congratz sauruman and welcome to your new challenge.

Usul

PS: copy and paste from eqnecro. i feel your pain bro ;)
however, discussing on both free nec boards would perhaps be the best option including crosslinks. i also dont like the idea to discuss too much details on necrotomb. this is more the place to go with results and integrate the latest necs, who are just watching sony boards. :blink:

[Rijak]

Originally posted by Felicite@Nov 9 2005, 06:40 PM
If discussion points will only be available over there.. I guess I need to approach the fascist moderators over there and see if I can get un IP banned. Maybe if I promise to be sweet? On the other hand, one less board to check this way.
they banned you over there? how is that possible? losers <_<

anyway, grats sauruman!

and as far as checking multiple boards, isn't that exactly what your job description is :P

/tease

i like your idea, except twitch... "just say no" is always an option, and it has other situational uses... even in raid zones

[Dranul]

Originally posted by Rijak+Nov 10 2005, 02:25 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Rijak @ Nov 10 2005, 02:25 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Felicite@Nov 9 2005, 06:40 PM
If discussion points will only be available over there.. I guess I need to approach the fascist moderators over there and see if I can get un IP banned.* Maybe if I promise to be sweet?* On the other hand, one less board to check this way.
they banned you over there? how is that possible? losers <_< [/b][/quote]
I'm curious as to how that happened too. It's like some crazy Bizarro world over at eqnecro where Feli is evil and Brahman is king.

Edit - Oh yeah, grats on the whole class rep thingy, Sauruman. Proud to see a good ol' boy from Mith Marr got the position, not to mention a Dark Bane member. Don't spin down into a black hole from all the shit you'll catch, bro.

[UsulDaNeriak]

this entire felicite thingie sounds strange to me :rolleyes:

Usul

[Felicite]

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak@Nov 10 2005, 07:45 AM
this entire felicite thingie sounds strange to me :rolleyes:

Usul
I was bad.. I am sure earned it.

Critical Information

You have been banned from this forum.
Please contact the webmaster or board administrator for more information.

/rerail

I wish SOE would consider some simple but not game breaking changes like muting our pet.. how hard could that be.

Or, a command /pet mute. Hell, make it an AA.. give Usul something to work on.

*giggle*

When we were 65ish, I remember our MA would not let me Night Dark Terror him anymore.. could NOT take the endless cackling. Bad enough when you are just in range of the Dire pet now and then.. imagine being one of the two or three NDTs on each and every mob.

[Rijak]

1) our pets are retarded. There is limited control at best with them and survivability sucks

i'd leave 'em alone... i don't even use pets on raids anymore... simply not worth the effort... and any big change would be unbalancing in non-raid situations

2) dots resist too damn much. And the trend of even more resistant mobs persists

that's how SOE balances the game and makes some encounters more difficult... bottom line, the mobs get killed... don't worry so much about how... if all your DoTs always landed even more stuff would be trivial

3) raids mobs seem to be designed for endurance fights, which means we get to twitch. I believe this spell should be deleted from the game, and to do that, these fights need to be balanced. A few that come to mind through the ages: Xegony, Endurance trial, Jelvan, CoT9.

any decision on whether to cast a spell lies directly with the player... if it bothers you that much, don't cast it... and find a new guild with raid leaders that don't depend on it

4) How come we didn't get the cool utility aa's that other classes got this expansion? Channeling mastery, run speed increases, pull utility aa's (that work at a decent %). Which brings us to the next one:

i agree 100%

5) Necros ability to pull has been stolen by other classes over time. I enjoy pulling and can do it with the limited abilities I have, but having more utility to this end would be nice, such as Willful Death that fired at a much higher frequency.

i agree 100%

6) Blood magic is flat broke or worthless. A 2200 dot /tick I can't even survive through without a cleric for long, unless I want to chain lifetap, and then I'm doing minimal DPS.

don't really care... every class has a host of marginal to useless AAs... no point in spending time on fixes

7) ST upgrade- where is it? And I don't want it if it can't mez effectively, otherwise I'd rather just kite the adds or tank them like usual.

if you mean add an upgrade to mez that lets it effect higher level mobs, i agree... but it should not last any longer... we are emergency mez, not chanters... ST lets you mez 2-3 mobs at a time, that's more than good enough for a necro

[Nadori]

Grats on getting the position :D

You seem like you know what youre doing and im glad to see we'll be in good hands.



...........i didn't know the other site even existed...see ya guys
haha kidding... i don't think there is competition since this is the best comunity . :P

Grats once more and i hope you don't start pulling your hair out (at least not the first few months)

[Brahman]

If you maybee took a look before you started complaining about every little thing, you would realize he linked this thread on our forums as well.

Way to back up every statement I ever made about this "friendly" community.

[Aryse Andenter]

Originally posted by Brahman@Nov 10 2005, 05:37 PM
If you maybee took a look before you started complaining about every little thing, you would realize he linked this thread on our forums as well.

Way to back up every statement I ever made about this "friendly" community.
Brahman, he didn't initially. First he didn't link over there and posted a shorter post over here linking to eqnecro. He kindly fixed it almost immediately.

[Felicite]

Originally posted by Brahman@Nov 10 2005, 10:37 AM
If you maybee took a look before you started complaining about every little thing, you would realize he linked this thread on our forums as well.

Way to back up every statement I ever made about this "friendly" community.

Admin at www.eqnecro.net, the only necro boards.
Eh? *reads back.. finds no "complaints".. other than the need to post thrice*

I am totally boggled.. who is backing up your statements.. and would that include the "so gay, I hate those nazis" statements?

Please help.. write that again in english!

[Brahman]

Originally posted by Tryal Anderror@Nov 9 2005, 07:32 PM
If your first post here is trying to refer everyone to another forum site, especially one with such a bad history with alot of the people here, then I don't think you're off to the best start.

It'd be one thing if you referred people to EQ Live or something, but this isn't exactly the best first step for you, especially coming in as a virtual unknown to the community.
this one.

[lesk]

And if you keep reading you'll see that saur copped to being lazy, edited his post to have more than a link to eqnecro and tryal said that's cool with him. It was worked out peacefully without any drama ... why start some?

[Brahman]

well then i'll admit to being lazy too :)

moving along then.

[lesk]

Is that reason?! OMG WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DID YOU DO WITH BRAHMAN?! :lol:

No, I'm kidding .... sorry.

[Brahman]

I'm the first person to conceed a point when i'm actually pointed out wrong.

Just because it takes a strong well backed arguement for me to agree that you have proven me wrong doesn't mean i wont do it hehe

[Tryal Anderror]

1) our pets are retarded. There is limited control at best with them and survivability sucks

i'd leave 'em alone... i don't even use pets on raids anymore... simply not worth the effort... and any big change would be unbalancing in non-raid situations

I think that comes down to being kind of the point. I don't use my pet on raids either 'cause he's a gimpy little thing who I can't properly control. But the solution isn't just to forget we have one, things can be done with resists and such to increase its defensive abilities without unbalancing it in solo and group situations.

In the places I solo if the mobs turn on my pet he has 1 or 2 rounds of combat to live, unless he gets lucky and enrages. Extending his defense to make that 3 or 4 rounds is no big deal, I still can't tank with him or anything, but maybe it's enough that he can eat an AE Rampage on a raid and not die instantly.

People have also mentioned pets having the resists of the owner when it comes to checking for things like AEs. I also think it's be helpful if the pet had the Special focuses of the owner to increase surviveability. By this I mean Spell Shielding, Shielding and DoT Shielding. Some AEs are pretty rough, As high as 11k on a fight like the Hive Queen, but with my worn SS it's reduced to 7150hp...still high, but with my SS applied to him, along with other buffs, the pet has a chance to live.

I don't want a pet as good as Mages or BSTs, but I think it could do with a fairly big defensive upgrade even if the offense is not touched.

2) dots resist too damn much. And the trend of even more resistant mobs persists

that's how SOE balances the game and makes some encounters more difficult... bottom line, the mobs get killed... don't worry so much about how... if all your DoTs always landed even more stuff would be trivial

This odd resistance balancing affects us far more than other classes is the problem. If a Mob is resistant to Fire and Magic, we lose like 8 spells that stack...but a Wizard just switches to Ice. We can handle One of our Big 3 being taken out (Poison, Magic, Fire) But if 2 or all 3 are knocked out there's not a lot we can do.
It causes guilds to look to Melees primarily as their source of DPS and casters secondarily, since casters occasionally run into places we are useless.
Sure a fight Can be balanced by simply removing some classes as a factor, but it just doesn't seem like that's the best game design, especially when you encounter mobs that are almost 100% immune.

3) raids mobs seem to be designed for endurance fights, which means we get to twitch. I believe this spell should be deleted from the game, and to do that, these fights need to be balanced. A few that come to mind through the ages: Xegony, Endurance trial, Jelvan, CoT9.

any decision on whether to cast a spell lies directly with the player... if it bothers you that much, don't cast it... and find a new guild with raid leaders that don't depend on it

There arn't That many guilds, you can't just find a new guild if they make you twitch. You pick a guild with people you like, in the right time zone, doing the right content, on the server you're on. That's usually just 1 possible choice.

I liked the idea of simply adding a zone block on twitching for any newly designed encounters. Certain zones we know block levitate, corpse summoning, CoH etc.. therefore in any new encounters, the Devs should block out twitch. They've said they'll never upgrade it, and it is totally defunct at this point, so its time to phase it out.
I know also of people like it to help get raids started, or get a cleric going after a rez in a group etc... so by simply blocking it on new high end content, we wouldn't take away the ability to do those things, merely remove this obsolete spell from high end raiding. The new disaster of an encounter is the HiVe Queen, where I've twitched for literally an hour and 20 minutes to keep clerics full despite the fact that the task involved killing 60 Undead Mobs, none of which I was able to help on.
The fight is an endurance thing, and seems like it was designed with our participation as DPS included, but that will never come true as long as the twitch line is able to be used.

4) How come we didn't get the cool utility aa's that other classes got this expansion? Channeling mastery, run speed increases, pull utility aa's (that work at a decent %). Which brings us to the next one:

i agree 100%
Definately agree here, Channeling mastery for sure, I do get hit alot in both raiding grouping , and soloing, any aggressive necro probably does. As for Pulling, it would be nice, I'd accept a 'Wllful Death' that was actually worth a damn..like allowed us to FD through all resisted spells as mentioned in point #5.
I'd also like to see some AA whereby we can temporarily increase our DPS for a short period of time akin to Melee discs or AA like the wizard's Frenzied Devestation.
If they insist on limiting ressits on fights as well, I'd also like looking into something that allowed us to pick a resist and temporarily focus it only, similar to the GoD AA for wizards that allows their familiars to focus Magic, Ice or Fire or the Mage AA 'Heart of ...' allowing increased damage to Fire, reduced damage from spells or melee.



6) Blood magic is flat broke or worthless. A 2200 dot /tick I can't even survive through without a cleric for long, unless I want to chain lifetap, and then I'm doing minimal DPS.

don't really care... every class has a host of marginal to useless AAs... no point in spending time on fixes


This AA is not only broken in that is has very little use...it's actually broken. It's supposed to last a minute, but in reality it puts a buff on you, then as you cast there's a chance of it upgrading itself. But when it upgrades itself to the higher percentage, it adds another buff, starting over at a full minute again. So you can actually get stuck with this thing on for 5 minutes. Also, the calculation of hp it's taking can be higher than it suggests. the percentages are supposed to be 200%, 250%, 300, 350% and 400% at maximum. However, I'm field tests, I've noticed the thing often taking up to 600% of the mana cost in hp. I'm not sure if this is somehow due to the different levels stacking, but it seems unintentional.

A good fix would be to actually reduce Bloodmagic to 1 or 2 minutes flat, no extension and reduce the recast time from 36 minutes to something more like 12 or 15 and fix it so that under no circumstances does it take more than the 400% hp it suggests. Would also be nice if our mana preservation and so on applied to the number it took.
The AA would still be only marginally useful, but atleast it wouldn't be totally useless. As it sits now, BloodMagic is more dangerous than it is worth to use. It wouldn't be hard to fix though.

7) ST upgrade- where is it? And I don't want it if it can't mez effectively, otherwise I'd rather just kite the adds or tank them like usual.

if you mean add an upgrade to mez that lets it effect higher level mobs, i agree... but it should not last any longer... we are emergency mez, not chanters... ST lets you mez 2-3 mobs at a time, that's more than good enough for a necro

I think that an 18 second mez would be nice, though my focus on it is with a different goal in mind. I don't really care about crowd control, though that'd be ok. I like the idea of a short mez upgrade simply as a way to give me an interupt.
Raise your hand if you've even blown an entire mana bar because 'An Annoy Templar begins to Cast Complete Heal' 500 times or 'A Cowardly Shilliskin Begins to cast Gate'
It sucks having no way to actually interupt these guys, and it's not really a good solution to try and use what are basically line of sight exploits to stop them.

In order to be of any use really it'd have to be wffective up to lvl 73 or higher though, since that's what a lot of xp mobs and missions include. And I'm not sure they intend to give us one that high. A lvl 70 cap would not be very helpful, my bard can mez to 70 and she's just not gonna be of any use until she gets the 73 version.

I think these are a good jumping off point for what we need.
Another issue I might bring up is the difficulty we encounter in getting all our foci.
I can't think off the top of my head any class that uses as many different focuses as we do.
We Need:
Nuke Damage focusx2
DoT Damage focusx4 (These both now seem to come sorted by resist...so we need 4)
Detremental Haste
Beneficial Haste (Again these are usually seperated now)
Detremental Efficiency
Beneficial Efficiency (Mana Pres also tends to be seperated)
Casting Range Focus
DoT Duration Focus
Pet Focus

That's a lot of stuff to try and put together on your gear, especially given the abnormal rarity of some....like DoT Duration focus, which has no tribute replacement option either. I'd like to see pet focus and Duration particularily added to a couple more items due to their current abnormal rarity or single-slot focus.

In closing, I think we've got to be a little more active and specific with our requests to the Devs, and stop all this 'Let's not waste time fixing it' and 'I don't care, every class has something broken' attitude.

Every time necros try to come up with good solutions someone gives some dumb cop out like 'Join another guild if you don't like it' that doesn't help to address the problem.


We should decide what we WANT and then have the DEVs decide if its too powerful or not.

[Nefarious]

There are a bunch of things that currently bother me, but the main one I can think of at the moment is, I don't like the fact that our liche spell wears off any time we zone. Even if they take away the illusion (which I could care less about) it would be nice to not have to cast liche every time I zone (if I do indeed zone with it on). Granted, it has a small cast time, but it's so damn inconvenient.

[Xislaben]

Originally posted by Rijak@Nov 10 2005, 05:25 PM
1) our pets are retarded. There is limited control at best with them and survivability sucks

i'd leave 'em alone... i don't even use pets on raids anymore... simply not worth the effort... and any big change would be unbalancing in non-raid situations
What are you raiding that they're not worth the effort?

I'm in inktuta and still using my pet. Though I definitely need suspend minion as my raidbuffed pet won't survive kelatrix's trigger's ae's, and it just gets worse on in from there. Pet survivability on raids is becoming more and more dificult, and soe dev's have stated in the past that they intend pets to be used on raids, now if only they'd make some changes that make this more possible in the end game. More HP and better resists would be nice, with maybe shielding and spell and dot shielding, perhaps inheritted from their master somehow...

[Nefarious]

...More HP and better resists would be nice, with maybe shielding and spell and dot shielding, perhaps inheritted from their master somehow...
Interesting idea. Pets already inherit resists from their masters in PvP, correct? So it's a similar concept.

[Jebasiz]

Pets get shredded on raids. After replineshment companion is down...soon to follow is little Jabeker.

Wanton destruction..if it lands, and you can't loh your pet, and it's not getting group healed..it's gone. AE rampage..you can keep him alive if you're timing is good.

Pretty much any ae in anguish, most in tacvi..is gonna kill him. I want even mention sendaii...

[Tryal Anderror]

Originally posted by Nefarious@Nov 11 2005, 10:40 PM
...More HP and better resists would be nice, with maybe shielding and spell and dot shielding, perhaps inheritted from their master somehow...
Interesting idea. Pets already inherit resists from their masters in PvP, correct? So it's a similar concept.
Yes, that is correct, so the coding should already be in the game.

[Aryse Andenter]

Originally posted by sauruman@Nov 9 2005, 11:24 PM

1) our pets are retarded. There is limited control at best with them and survivability sucks


Aye. Pets need to be way more controllable. Suspending a pet twice to get it to drop a target? Please! We shouldn't have to be resorting to tricks like this. Tryal had some good ideas there about the spell shielding, etc.

If a mob I am kiting on my normal xp spots so much as breathes on my pet he keels over dead. Pets just don't seem to be tuned for a necro's typical xping.

2) dots resist too damn much. And the trend of even more resistant mobs persists

As long as two of my 3 major lines land I'm still doing respectable DPS. This wouldn't bother me if melee had the same kind of issues, but its pretty much casters who are running into not doing their full damage, and sometimes into totally resistant mobs. I don't want to hear another rogue tell me how much better he is because his DPS is 100% consistent and mine varies by mob. It was nice to get SoM, it'd be nicer to have spell resists adjusted. Or a magic debuff. Or melee resistant raid mobs more frequently.

3) raids mobs seem to be designed for endurance fights, which means we get to twitch. I believe this spell should be deleted from the game, and to do that, these fights need to be balanced. A few that come to mind through the ages: Xegony, Endurance trial, Jelvan, CoT9.

Yes. Get rid of this spell, block it from raid zones, block it while in combat or when no rez effects present, just anything. Oddly enough, of the fights you mentioned, Jelvan and CoT9 were done by my extremely twitch dependent guild without twitching. I am sure it is easier to design good raid encounters if you don't have to calculate and accomodate for something like twitch. Right now guilds can skip clouds in Vish if they are relying on necros, and this is just silly.

4) How come we didn't get the cool utility aa's that other classes got this expansion? Channeling mastery, run speed increases, pull utility aa's (that work at a decent %).

We didn't get cool utility AAs because we didn't scream enough we wanted them, and because too many ideas are shot down (we're all guilty). Those AA sucked. we're a cool and versatile class, there's got to be a ton of fun and useful stuff they can come up with for us. They owe us twice as many cool AA in the next expansion, for screwing up our DoDH AA so badly.

5) Necros ability to pull has been stolen by other classes over time. I enjoy pulling and can do it with the limited abilities I have, but having more utility to this end would be nice, such as Willful Death that fired at a much higher frequency.

Apart from soloing I've never been much of a puller, though it was fun to do some pet pulling in DoDH spell missions. Even with that there's a kazillion times I want a useful Willful Death AA in what I am doing. There've been a few good sugestions on how to make it worthwhile (higher percentage of success, or 100% chance of it not breaking on a resisted spell). Once again I'm not picky about the fix, but it needs something done with it.

6) Blood magic is flat broke or worthless. A 2200 dot /tick I can't even survive through without a cleric for long, unless I want to chain lifetap, and then I'm doing minimal DPS.

I watched Tryal get hit for 2k damage casting twitch (which shouldn't be possible based on my understanding of the way this works). The AA is worthless and probably broken. Plus, it involves such a huge mentality change from us supporting healers to them supporting us. And if you have any doubts about healers not being ready for this... please refer to the necessity of twitch being removed. They're not ready to support us.

7) ST upgrade- where is it? And I don't want it if it can't mez effectively, otherwise I'd rather just kite the adds or tank them like usual.

This is not a big priority for me, but it would be a nice little tool to have in the spellbook.


There was a suggestion that intrigued me a while ago, that necros should have some sort of RGC type spell or AA. As a self -only deal, I think this has real merit. We're a self-sufficient class in every other way, to the point of often being in raid groups with no healers. Why does this stop with cures?


Tryal had a good point with the sheer number of 'must have focii' we are stuck with - probably because the two of us are competing for the same ones on raids (I got the belt first! :lol: ). I'm often stuck wearing an old piece of gear for weeks after I got an upgrade because it takes me that long to also upgrade the focii that was on the old piece. And it just makes too much difference in our capabilities to go without. These days we're seeing spell focii of 60% - this is not something you can pass up on, it becomes a necessary part of our damage. As an alternate, a few more added tributes would at least tide over some of the gaps.


Other things that aren't quite top ten material to me but that I'd love looked into at some point are:

- lich models, pet models, pet sound toggles, and the whole assorted aesthetics deal

- lifeburn and tap DoTs not working in PvP on blue servers. Manaburn, HT, potions, etc all do and not having these spells puts us at a huge disadvantage. Since they do work on Zek, it's not a coding or a balance issue. So fix this.

[Rijak]

good counterpoints to some of mine... though i still stick with a few:

on pets... there are many reasons i don't use them on raids, and sometimes do not allow others to:

1) i'm RL, assist-RL, or looter and i'm simply too busy (my issue)

2) they are not necessary or even a hinderance... many encounters are much more about strats than DPS, and poorly controlled pets can often blow a raid... especially where mob positioning comes into play... i require pet hold, but i can't know if people actually have it and i can't make people remember to use it... one stray pet on a mob, or excessive pet push can blow positioning and in nine cases out of ten, i'd much rather it take an extra minute or two to take a mob down without pet-DPS... though i admit there are exceptions where every last drop of DPS may make or break an encounter

here's a solution... give raid leaders the ability to insta-kill any attendee's pet, and you can make 'em as strong as you like :P

on spell resists... i think it only makes sense that some encounters depend upon certain classes... if you are saying that in 60-70% of endgame encounters necros are basically useless on DPS, i agree there is an issue... but if it's only 10-20% where melees outshine casters, or a certain caster class out-DPSes another caster class by a bit for a change, i say keep it... maybe i'm alone in this, but i enjoy the imbalance of EQ... i like the fact that necros are basically the most powerful class in the most situations... but if we were 20-30% more effective than each and every other class in every situation, it just simply wouldn't be fun anymore... competition is enjoyable, constantly blowing the competition out of the water is not... and even coming in second or third on occassion has it's own benefits

on twitch... blocking it for specific encounters is fine, but i would suggest an extremely specific list of zones/encounters be proposed with valid reasoning attached... if we want specific changes, they are more likely to come about if we do the footwork

Every time necros try to come up with good solutions someone gives some dumb cop out like 'Join another guild if you don't like it' that doesn't help to address the problem.

i completely disagree because i don't think forcing change by going to SOE is ever a good solution... any good raid leader should be open to suggestion and experimentation... and they should listen to their fellow raid attendees... if that is not the case, then they have a lot bigger issues than whether or not they insist on twitch

in my mind it is a cop out to not push for something you feel is that important within your raid leadership, as long as you have a viable alternative

that said, if there are encounters, like the ones you mentioned, that practically necessitate twitch, then they should be pointed out to SOE and rectified in one way or another... especially if SOE did not intend that to be an available tactic

[Aryse Andenter]

Originally posted by Rijak@Nov 12 2005, 08:51 PM

i completely disagree because i don't think forcing change by going to SOE is ever a good solution... any good raid leader should be open to suggestion and experimentation... and they should listen to their fellow raid attendees... if that is not the case, then they have a lot bigger issues than whether or not they insist on twitch

in my mind it is a cop out to not push for something you feel is that important within your raid leadership, as long as you have a viable alternative

that said, if there are encounters, like the ones you mentioned, that practically necessitate twitch, then they should be pointed out to SOE and rectified in one way or another... especially if SOE did not intend that to be an available tactic
Not all raid leaders are good raid leaders, even at high levels. And even the best raid leader is human, therefore not perfect and not all-knowing.

Even a basically good raid leader can have a few gaps in knowledge or some stubborn points. For whatever reason he may have no knowledge and no interest in knowledge of a certain class and still do fine leading raids - there's a reason there are multiple strats for any encounter.

Often there are only 1-2 raiding necros and 6+ clerics. Whether or not the clerics know what they are talking about they're in a position to get listened to first.

No matter what the figures presented, some RL still refuse to believe that not twitching is a viable alternative.

A lot of guilds require a lot of seniority and demonstrated capability to take any strat advice you have. This can take months, and when you're stuck twitching all the time, it can be hard to demonstrate real capability while you are at it.

This is not saying that we don't push for the change. But I don't think that this should be an issue necros should have to be booted out of guilds over.

If twitch is still being used in end game content (which it is) then clearly this problem is not going anywhere and is completely out of hand. If you said back in PoP that it was a problem that needed to be addressed by guild leadership rather than SOE, I might have gone along with you. We are waaaaaaay past that now.

As I mentioned, of the encounters mentioned, all but Xegony can be done without twitch by even the most dependent guild. Xegony needs to be retuned or allow twitch on that raid, that's the only exception that is necessary imo, although others can be made.

Its not that people aren't pushing for this within their guilds. It's not that raid leaders who rely on twitch are necessarily bad raid leaders. But there are quite a lot of situations where the guild or RL, for whatever reason, are unable/refusing to listen.



When mod rods were changed to be no drop with a timer, people thought it was the end of the world. But in the end it didn't even seem to slow down raids - people simply adapted. In the same way, while right now twitch seems necessary in some encounters and to speed things up, a good raid leader would quickly adapt and find something productive to do instead and ways to accomodate for it.


---


Quite apart from the reliance of this spell by RLs, new enounters like Vish and Queen Sendaii have built in mana regen. The devs are clearly accounting for mana issues in new and creative ways. Twtich has become basically an exploit in the game, and actually prevents the devs from continuing to develop strats with cool devices for mana regen, as it becomes too hard for them to calculate in things like twitch.

I do firmly believe that without twitch in the game we could be seeing even more creative encounters by the devs. This alone is worth a change to twitch.

[Rijak]

Originally posted by Aryse Andenter+Nov 12 2005, 04:44 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Aryse Andenter @ Nov 12 2005, 04:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Often there are only 1-2 raiding necros and 6+ clerics. Whether or not the clerics know what they are talking about they're in a position to get listened to first.[/b]
that's the part that confuses me the most... i look at high-end raiding guild rosters and it's 3-1, 4-1 or 5-1 cleric to necro... 1-1 on twitch is inefficient enough... i can't see how one necro could possibly twitch 3 clerics and even put a drop in the bucket... which is why the idea that someone raiding end-game content and actually using it baffles me

<!--QuoteBegin-Aryse Andenter@Nov 12 2005, 04:44 PM
When mod rods were changed to be no drop with a timer, people thought it was the end of the world. But in the end it didn't even seem to slow down raids - people simply adapted. In the same way, while right now twitch seems necessary in some encounters and to speed things up, a good raid leader would quickly adapt and find something productive to do instead and ways to accomodate for it.[/quote]
good point, while i don't think it has to be removed, i could definitely survive without it

[Dranul]

Originally posted by Rijak@Nov 12 2005, 10:34 PM
that's the part that confuses me the most... i look at high-end raiding guild rosters and it's 3-1, 4-1 or 5-1 cleric to necro... 1-1 on twitch is inefficient enough... i can't see how one necro could possibly twitch 3 clerics and even put a drop in the bucket... which is why the idea that someone raiding end-game content and actually using it baffles me
You'd be surprised at how many people, high end or not, do not know how much mana twitch gives, they just know it gives mana.

[Rijak]

Originally posted by Dranul+Nov 12 2005, 05:53 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Dranul @ Nov 12 2005, 05:53 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-Rijak@Nov 12 2005, 10:34 PM
that's the part that confuses me the most... i look at high-end raiding guild rosters and it's 3-1, 4-1 or 5-1 cleric to necro... 1-1 on twitch is inefficient enough... i can't see how one necro could possibly twitch 3 clerics and even put a drop in the bucket... which is why the idea that someone raiding end-game content and actually using it baffles me
You'd be surprised at how many people, high end or not, do not know how much mana twitch gives, they just know it gives mana.[/b][/quote]
well maybe i'm being unreasonable then... take it away! they'll learn B)