Let's see how I can phrase this so as to not have a bunch of retarded replies. I've been noticing that for many zones (notice I didn't say all zones), having a hitter in the group is almost a luxury. Most of the time, I've been noticing that I'm usually the only hitter in the group, with occasions of having a rogue in the group. The other day we did Brass with me as the only hitter.
Before, this would never have happened.
Now, what am I getting at? Well, think for a moment before replying too hastily. I'm not talking about having hitters, but about really NEEDING them. Sure it's 100% better to have 2 rangers or rogues in the group, but most of the time I've noticed it's not really necessary. More than 2 hitters? Rare has been the time I've seen it. And please, by hitters I mean rangers and rogues, period.
My underlining question is: have invokers replaced the need for more hitters in groups?
I'm not suggesting anything, honestly. I'm just curious as to if this has just been MY experience or if it's the same across the mud. Can a group with 3 tanks (warriors/paladins) and casters be enough for MOST zones?
I'm just curious. I've always tried to spread my experience on the mud across the guilds, but I wanted to double check. Let me know. IT'S JUST A QUESTION.
And please, don't bring up Tiamat.
Would love to hear some real input!
Adriorn Darkcloak
Warder of The Company
Are hitters really needed?
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kiryan
- Sojourner
- Posts: 7275
- Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2001 5:01 am
- Location: Los Angeles, CA and Flagstaff, AZ
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you are asking if we need melee damage? basically no. force missiles is effective enough on shrugging mobs with rare exception. rarely are fights long enough to run an invoker out of spells or unsafe enough to prevent them from fleeing and rememming during fight.
do we need rogues, they have some excellent utility such as sneak drag and escape tag, and when hasn't a well timed assassinate made things a hell of a lot easier. not to mention their critical strike, garrote, and trip. only reason why you'd really need one is to pick a lock/disarm a trap (i think) or to tag in a !teleport zone like sf.
do we need rangers? im guessing not at the expense of additional invokers or rogues. they might be better taggers atm (!rogue range), but escape tag is rather effective. also, according to miax rangers are the most death prone. why bring someone you going to have to ress? so you dont have to globe them, i guess thats useful fighting all of 5 mobs that you cant spell to death or bash in 3 minutes and are permshield (imix and yan come to mind).
ranger rescue? id bring a second enchanter and scale the whole group every fight instead.
does that leave rangers sol in groups. yep, but i dont think they were ever considered essential. what would it take to make rangers essential? first, some rangers that know how to not die. second, either a significant group oriented skill or at least equal to invoker dam output over the course of a 3 minute fight. (even then, id have to be going to a shrugging zone, because invokers still got area while rangers still got...)
invoker rant:
are invokers monks in disguise yep, cept worse, they can area, but sometimes they get all their attacks in a round dodged/blocked (shruged) or fizzle underwater.
ponder this, where is the distinction and balance between melee damange and spell damage? why is the uber single target damage class also the uber area damage class. why are 10th circle spells at 50 with a high int race memmable in 8 game minutes or 8 rl seconds with no prep time, flee out and back in combat with another scale/inferno/forcemissle/fheal/gheal in 5 rounds? it takes longer to type prioritize spellname than it does to mem the whole list. why is every zone designed around the idea that the group has to be able to mem after every fight (with roots being the exception?) or rather what causes every group to approach every zone with a mem after every fight? do you really need 4 10th and 5 9th circle spells, 11 1st? can invokers maintain their group slot with a significant downgrade to their single target spells? Do rogues have to many uber and relatively dependable skills? if you make ranger an essential class how will evil races get along without them, how will elementalists, bards, and bchanters feel?
[This message has been edited by kiryan (edited 04-04-2002).]
do we need rogues, they have some excellent utility such as sneak drag and escape tag, and when hasn't a well timed assassinate made things a hell of a lot easier. not to mention their critical strike, garrote, and trip. only reason why you'd really need one is to pick a lock/disarm a trap (i think) or to tag in a !teleport zone like sf.
do we need rangers? im guessing not at the expense of additional invokers or rogues. they might be better taggers atm (!rogue range), but escape tag is rather effective. also, according to miax rangers are the most death prone. why bring someone you going to have to ress? so you dont have to globe them, i guess thats useful fighting all of 5 mobs that you cant spell to death or bash in 3 minutes and are permshield (imix and yan come to mind).
ranger rescue? id bring a second enchanter and scale the whole group every fight instead.
does that leave rangers sol in groups. yep, but i dont think they were ever considered essential. what would it take to make rangers essential? first, some rangers that know how to not die. second, either a significant group oriented skill or at least equal to invoker dam output over the course of a 3 minute fight. (even then, id have to be going to a shrugging zone, because invokers still got area while rangers still got...)
invoker rant:
are invokers monks in disguise yep, cept worse, they can area, but sometimes they get all their attacks in a round dodged/blocked (shruged) or fizzle underwater.
ponder this, where is the distinction and balance between melee damange and spell damage? why is the uber single target damage class also the uber area damage class. why are 10th circle spells at 50 with a high int race memmable in 8 game minutes or 8 rl seconds with no prep time, flee out and back in combat with another scale/inferno/forcemissle/fheal/gheal in 5 rounds? it takes longer to type prioritize spellname than it does to mem the whole list. why is every zone designed around the idea that the group has to be able to mem after every fight (with roots being the exception?) or rather what causes every group to approach every zone with a mem after every fight? do you really need 4 10th and 5 9th circle spells, 11 1st? can invokers maintain their group slot with a significant downgrade to their single target spells? Do rogues have to many uber and relatively dependable skills? if you make ranger an essential class how will evil races get along without them, how will elementalists, bards, and bchanters feel?
[This message has been edited by kiryan (edited 04-04-2002).]
The groups I'm in are almost always hitter/melee heavy. Having an invoker along is a rare treat. For xp purposes I wouldn't care if I didn't have hitters as long as we had spell damage output. For zones, I'm gonna want lots of hitter power, since there are plenty of things that have magic resistance, or places where you can't mem out of the fight.
The goodies groups are almost always hitter dominated. It might be different on the evil side but its a rare group where I am the only ranger (usually 2-3 rangers + 1-2 rogues). Rogues are almost vital to many zones.
1) Rangers have been and will ALWAYS be a luxury, it should never be any other way.
2) Rangers usually are grouped because of how they play the game/who they know, NOT because of the class they play.
3) If you want to be needed, play a primary class.
4) Invokers are a pain, they must mem, enough said? Zones are also highly MR, In the last 200 zones runs I can't think of more than 5 times we've had an invoker along, so they certainly aren't required (during the same strech 400+ rangers zoned)
We are a viable class, we've been upgraded this wipe more than ever before, if you aren't happy with the class try another.
Belle
Can the Rangers STOP the whining now..please...
1) Rangers have been and will ALWAYS be a luxury, it should never be any other way.
2) Rangers usually are grouped because of how they play the game/who they know, NOT because of the class they play.
3) If you want to be needed, play a primary class.
4) Invokers are a pain, they must mem, enough said? Zones are also highly MR, In the last 200 zones runs I can't think of more than 5 times we've had an invoker along, so they certainly aren't required (during the same strech 400+ rangers zoned)
We are a viable class, we've been upgraded this wipe more than ever before, if you aren't happy with the class try another.
Belle
Can the Rangers STOP the whining now..please...
I don't believe Adriorn's question was if Rangers are necessary, I think it was asking if Melee damage itself is. I would have to say that melee is very important in almost every zone. Can things be done without melee damage, sure. Does melee make a lot of fights easier, yes. Think about mobs with high MR: Dragons and demons. You can flux/hex/banshee wail/curse/pray and still have difficulty casting on them. However, with a few rogues or rangers you can quickly knock down that mobs hitpoints. I remember talking to a leader who I greatly respect and complaining to him about Rangers lack of usefullness. While we were chatting, our group was spanked to Alphabet Dragon. I'm thinking that fight is impossible it went through a bunch of decently equipped higher level people like they were butter. I asked my friend, "How on earth do we do this fight!" He laughed and just said, "More rangers..." It is easy to feel underpowered and useless as a melee class (especially ranger for lack of rogue's special skills). But you have to remember not all fights should/have to be done with area attacks even if there are other mobs in the room. In a Jabber fight Id take Melee over para'd vokers any days.
Aderon
Aderon
This thread is just funny. 
(Following is more for Kiryan.....)
Invokers NEED a downgrade? Hrm....
1) I don't get groups nearly the way you seem to think, most choose a good rogue/ranger over us because it's quite doable and that's how most ppl learned to do zones, with hitters. I've been in multiple-voker groups while zoning maybe 3 times and that's 2 or 3 nukers in a group of 15.
2) If invokers were so uber, why are there 10-12 level 41+ who play for the goodies? How many evils, 5 or 6? How many are not alts who pleveled with great eq? 3 or 4 of the goodies? I see many more of almost every other class than that and we invokers all seem to play at different times, so it's not overcrowded.....hrm, we just must be too good.....
3) We're better than monks? Rofl, we only get 5 casts of force missiles before needing to mem them, not 800 hp damage every round bashed or naked.....also, my 11 1st circles have _zero_ damage.....magic missiles on a level 50 mob, ROFL....I di and dm the group to help the enchanters with 1st circle. :P
4) Bash an invoker sometime......you have a speedbump on the road to death. We don't get reduce to help us not get bashed either like enchanters. OH WAIT, my 412 hp, -21 ac, and dodge skill of 15 will save me! :P
Invokers also don't need an upgrade unless it'd add effects to our offense or add more utility to our spell list to help the group so we don't die of boredom...I'd love to take some pressure off the enchanters I know in group spellups, it's getting ridiculous and we will never be able to twink anything...(or add some to necros?), but we aren't uber with not enough defense to ward off a spitwad and no utility spells/skills (hrm, don't think they'll let me get rescue skill anytime soon either), so our *only* qualification is damage in a short amount of time. We don't even get PWB, and PWstun and PWkill are useless (can't pwkill a shady smuggler for a spell opposite force missiles, rofl)
We're more a luxury than most other classes unless you're doing something like Azountil in crypts and need to get rid of an !bash caster or two asap or a zone that allows lots of area spells that might matter in a fight. That's our only real niche.
Basically, try soloing an invoker up without level 50 eq sometime and you'll see how great our xp tables and skills are...especially when you cannot solo anything past level 30-34 mobs without luck. You'll see how uber we are soon enough. :P
[This message has been edited by torkur (edited 04-04-2002).]
(Following is more for Kiryan.....)
Invokers NEED a downgrade? Hrm....
1) I don't get groups nearly the way you seem to think, most choose a good rogue/ranger over us because it's quite doable and that's how most ppl learned to do zones, with hitters. I've been in multiple-voker groups while zoning maybe 3 times and that's 2 or 3 nukers in a group of 15.
2) If invokers were so uber, why are there 10-12 level 41+ who play for the goodies? How many evils, 5 or 6? How many are not alts who pleveled with great eq? 3 or 4 of the goodies? I see many more of almost every other class than that and we invokers all seem to play at different times, so it's not overcrowded.....hrm, we just must be too good.....
3) We're better than monks? Rofl, we only get 5 casts of force missiles before needing to mem them, not 800 hp damage every round bashed or naked.....also, my 11 1st circles have _zero_ damage.....magic missiles on a level 50 mob, ROFL....I di and dm the group to help the enchanters with 1st circle. :P
4) Bash an invoker sometime......you have a speedbump on the road to death. We don't get reduce to help us not get bashed either like enchanters. OH WAIT, my 412 hp, -21 ac, and dodge skill of 15 will save me! :P
Invokers also don't need an upgrade unless it'd add effects to our offense or add more utility to our spell list to help the group so we don't die of boredom...I'd love to take some pressure off the enchanters I know in group spellups, it's getting ridiculous and we will never be able to twink anything...(or add some to necros?), but we aren't uber with not enough defense to ward off a spitwad and no utility spells/skills (hrm, don't think they'll let me get rescue skill anytime soon either), so our *only* qualification is damage in a short amount of time. We don't even get PWB, and PWstun and PWkill are useless (can't pwkill a shady smuggler for a spell opposite force missiles, rofl)
We're more a luxury than most other classes unless you're doing something like Azountil in crypts and need to get rid of an !bash caster or two asap or a zone that allows lots of area spells that might matter in a fight. That's our only real niche.
Basically, try soloing an invoker up without level 50 eq sometime and you'll see how great our xp tables and skills are...especially when you cannot solo anything past level 30-34 mobs without luck. You'll see how uber we are soon enough. :P
[This message has been edited by torkur (edited 04-04-2002).]
I'm fairly happy with what I've seen of the invoker class so far but big fights should be a combination of melee and nuking power. On sojourn we had monks and there was verry little nuking. I remember asking around at lvl 20 and being told to specialize fire for damage. Little did I know at the time that by 44 my contribution to a group was casting globe, then sitting down while the melee's did all the work.
I've only been back a short time but I've already seen what appears to be a rather high reduction in hit/dam from weapons and such. I'd hate to see melee's put into the same boat I was once in.
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Zissar, Grand Poobah of the Holy Church of Hello Kitty
Lord of all things Dark and Evil.
I've only been back a short time but I've already seen what appears to be a rather high reduction in hit/dam from weapons and such. I'd hate to see melee's put into the same boat I was once in.
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Zissar, Grand Poobah of the Holy Church of Hello Kitty
Lord of all things Dark and Evil.
Thank you Aderon for re-clarifying my original post. This isn't about Rangers Belleshel, it's about hitters. Are we needed? Or more of what Belleshel stated, a luxury? (which is what I'm getting at)
Couple of people have answered sorta in what I had in mind. Looking for more specific instance examples than anything else.
Thanks as always.
Couple of people have answered sorta in what I had in mind. Looking for more specific instance examples than anything else.
Thanks as always.
"Let's see how I can phrase this so as to not have a bunch of retarded replies."
Nope, that's impossible. Someone's always gonna assume that anything we post is a whine. Now that that's out of the way . . .
"My underlining question is: have invokers replaced the need for more hitters in groups?"
This is hard to say. I asked this about a year ago on the bbs but there wasn't any hard experience to provide relevant replies. And it's not just invokers that do spell damage now so it's not just invokers that may be affecting the need for hitters. Every caster class other than clerics and enchanters has some form of high level area. The caveat is that they have to mem, but then again hitters need to be hasted and globed, meaning that an enchanter's mem time goes up while each hitter taken. Of course, certain mobs in zones aren't that strong and aren't shielded so unhasted and unglobed hitters do fine against them. So ultimately I think it depends on the zone. The more non-shielded fodder mobs there are in a zone, the more useful hitters are going to be. The more shielded and high hit point mobs, the less useful hitters are going to be. Brass doesn't have that many fodder mobs you have to fight on the way to keys and equipment and many if not most of the fodder mobs are mages and hence shielded. On the other extreme, Jot has tons of fodder mobs for hitters to safely beat on so hitters are more useful. How useful they are compared to a skilled and knowledgable invoker I can't really say. There still aren't that many high level invokers on the goodie side and the majority that played during Sojourn 2 aren't playing anymore or as much for various reasons so my experience with them is limited.
I'm not gonna touch the issue of magic resistant mobs. I think they're akin to a soccer mom saying that you need to have the fat kid on your team to be nice . . .
------------------
"Maybe I should stop and ask for directions . . ."
Nope, that's impossible. Someone's always gonna assume that anything we post is a whine. Now that that's out of the way . . .
"My underlining question is: have invokers replaced the need for more hitters in groups?"
This is hard to say. I asked this about a year ago on the bbs but there wasn't any hard experience to provide relevant replies. And it's not just invokers that do spell damage now so it's not just invokers that may be affecting the need for hitters. Every caster class other than clerics and enchanters has some form of high level area. The caveat is that they have to mem, but then again hitters need to be hasted and globed, meaning that an enchanter's mem time goes up while each hitter taken. Of course, certain mobs in zones aren't that strong and aren't shielded so unhasted and unglobed hitters do fine against them. So ultimately I think it depends on the zone. The more non-shielded fodder mobs there are in a zone, the more useful hitters are going to be. The more shielded and high hit point mobs, the less useful hitters are going to be. Brass doesn't have that many fodder mobs you have to fight on the way to keys and equipment and many if not most of the fodder mobs are mages and hence shielded. On the other extreme, Jot has tons of fodder mobs for hitters to safely beat on so hitters are more useful. How useful they are compared to a skilled and knowledgable invoker I can't really say. There still aren't that many high level invokers on the goodie side and the majority that played during Sojourn 2 aren't playing anymore or as much for various reasons so my experience with them is limited.
I'm not gonna touch the issue of magic resistant mobs. I think they're akin to a soccer mom saying that you need to have the fat kid on your team to be nice . . .
------------------
"Maybe I should stop and ask for directions . . ."
-
kiryan
- Sojourner
- Posts: 7275
- Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2001 5:01 am
- Location: Los Angeles, CA and Flagstaff, AZ
- Contact:
if your invokers are dieing your warriors are worthless. getting into an exp group and blowing up zones is different. who cares how invokers solo or cant solo, that wasnt really the question. by your analysis, ranger must be the most powerful class because there are more numerous than any other cept the uber powerful warrior class. just because we havent seent the 5 invoker force missiles of death group yet, doesnt mean that we wont and doesnt mean that invokers arent all that.
ok so they not quite monks, but the force missiles does what 1500 per every 3 rounds unless you get bashed shrugged or run out of spells? and like i said its 10 seconds and you got another one memd. on the area side you can have 4 infernos, 5 swarms. thats a lot of area damage. monks couldnt touch that. monks also got riposted, died when globe dropped, and did crap damage on wraith mobs.
anyhow if your looking for niches, invokers own area and non-shrugging single target dam. perhaps it could be split up or shared. as long as invokers have massive area dam they arent going to be hurting for zone invites. when they stop sucking all the dam exp out of mobs, they wont be hurting for exp groups.
ok so they not quite monks, but the force missiles does what 1500 per every 3 rounds unless you get bashed shrugged or run out of spells? and like i said its 10 seconds and you got another one memd. on the area side you can have 4 infernos, 5 swarms. thats a lot of area damage. monks couldnt touch that. monks also got riposted, died when globe dropped, and did crap damage on wraith mobs.
anyhow if your looking for niches, invokers own area and non-shrugging single target dam. perhaps it could be split up or shared. as long as invokers have massive area dam they arent going to be hurting for zone invites. when they stop sucking all the dam exp out of mobs, they wont be hurting for exp groups.
Lol goodie warriors suck? Are you kidding me? You've obviously never played with the ones I have.....I have great respect for many of them.....sometimes they just can't save you though. Happens.
Are you honestly arguing that my summoning the ultimate magical offensive spell and creating a room full of fire should actually do near what your toothpicks can? That is balance? How much damage in a fight do you do per circle? How useful is trip? Would you be willing to downgrade Assassinate and these in return for this "balance" ?
Force missiles do 800 or so from my calculations, not 1500 and it takes until level 46 to get them that high.
Whatever you're smoking, please pass me some. This is a fantasy world, not a retarded world. We balance versus enchanters, not against you, mages die MUCH more than rogues, and we have harder xp tables. Get over it or change classes. You don't even have rangers to balance against.
Try playing the class before you whine we do too much damage. I have played rogues and you shouldn't be bitching about downgrades unless you want one as well, which is just dumb and doesn't help anyone on the mud.
Are you honestly arguing that my summoning the ultimate magical offensive spell and creating a room full of fire should actually do near what your toothpicks can? That is balance? How much damage in a fight do you do per circle? How useful is trip? Would you be willing to downgrade Assassinate and these in return for this "balance" ?
Force missiles do 800 or so from my calculations, not 1500 and it takes until level 46 to get them that high.
Whatever you're smoking, please pass me some. This is a fantasy world, not a retarded world. We balance versus enchanters, not against you, mages die MUCH more than rogues, and we have harder xp tables. Get over it or change classes. You don't even have rangers to balance against.
Try playing the class before you whine we do too much damage. I have played rogues and you shouldn't be bitching about downgrades unless you want one as well, which is just dumb and doesn't help anyone on the mud.
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