Grouping

[Zukt]

[quote="jezer":2i6glo2v]I DO NOT support pthiefing...

But just because people have or are pthief's doesn't mean I hate them with everything within me.

I try to find things about people that I like, even though they might really annoy me from time to time.[/quote:2i6glo2v]
I generally hate pthieving in general because the way the mud works is such that it dispraportionately targetted players with little experience and offered little in the way of extra fun for the mud. This generally either attracted rather worthless cretins who's idea of fun was egging my house or driving away new players that just had their first jjd stolen.

I don't get an extra rush out of parking my car in the lot where my window has a chance of getting smashed in, and were I to catch the vandal I'd actually have to deal with him. Righteous vengence may look apetizing on the menu, but savoring its flavor leaves an anticlimactic boquet of dissapointment.

[jezer]

[quote="Zukt":1gza6h8i]I generally hate pthieving in general because the way the mud works is such that it dispraportionately targetted players with little experience and offered little in the way of extra fun for the mud. This generally either attracted rather worthless cretins who's idea of fun was egging my house or driving away new players that just had their first jjd stolen.

I don't get an extra rush out of parking my car in the lot where my window has a chance of getting smashed in, and were I to catch the vandal I'd actually have to deal with him. Righteous vengence may look apetizing on the menu, but savoring its flavor leaves an anticlimactic boquet of dissapointment.[/quote:1gza6h8i]

You crack me up Zukt! +1 to Vocabulary!

[Toxis]

I've been trying to think on this subject, about why it's hard to find a good tank...

It seems hard to find a good -9 tank with over 900 hp with a good link with good scripts. You'd think it'd be easy, but a lot of people do not play tanks. If they do play tanks, they don't group. Lately the only tanks I've seen on often that run xp are Toxis and Rodek.

Things I hate about tanking: You are at the mercy of the group and a lot of people aren't top notch healers, you can't flee and come back to blind or anything, you can't do a lot to lag your whiner especially in hard hitting mobs, your mana regen is 25 per tick standing 41 sleeping (and this is at 40 avatar with 17 wisdom), you have to web 95% of the time and that lags whiner at start of fight so be careful...

Things I like about tanking: It sure can be exciting at times heh, riposte was a great idea because it doesn't lag you and you feel like you're doing damage, being able to defy at the right time is awesome, 1222 hp -12 ac is awesome even though it takes 5 rounds to kill a splork mob, point xp offlyme rocks, being the only one alive while rest of the wusies in the group are dyin hehe...

Do we need more hp eq for lower level warriors with perhaps minus damage and mana? Do we need to make it so more people can tank instead of just warriors? Just looking for some reasons why more people don't play tank characters except to do epics.

-Tox

[13]

I leike teh TANKINGZ job

[Leaf]

Most of the larger tanks like urself over shadow the little ones.

Bomb and Sa currently comes to mind.

I've also seen Zukt, Rub, Rodek and Bombard tank some exp groups.


Since yesterday in our little exp group, the better questions are ... Where r
teh Monks!!! I only see myself and Lugnutz as higher monks. Still most
ppl doesn't know that Monk "gripping" in groups rock, since they can help
reduce a mob's chance on hitting the tank. This to me is one hell of a bonus!

We need more LOVE for Monks!

P.S. Reduce the Grip Lag Rescue!!! (Akasha )

[jezer]

Sounds interesting Leaf, I'll give that a try sometime soon. I died at skeletal night in Drakuun Forest. I think I was fumbling with the gate when he hit me for a surprise 700hp round when I was in a shift eq mode. Ouch!

I am REALLY looking forward to exploring... which brings me to a question, how do I stay alive exploring? I know I can ferret, I can have fly, waterbreath and a spell shield up... if I have those 4 things, is there still ways I could die exploring? Which area's have those dangers on AH?

[Rynquald]

You'll run across the odd mob that doesn't like ferrets, the only two on AH that i can think of atm are the dog (or hellhound or whatever) in Sheol and Ryzen in Mercurial. Ryzen won't actually attack, but you'll get his death proc.

You could also possibly die if you run out of mvs at something dangerous and have to unshift to refresh or recall, but that's not normally a problem if you carry scrolls.

[13]

I know where the notorious monk is.

[banedon]

[quote="Leaf":fpd87e7x]=

Since yesterday in our little exp group, the better questions are ... Where r
teh Monks!!! ..... [/quote:fpd87e7x]

Well I dunno how many ppl are gonna like hearing this, but Ive just found out about a couple upcoming changes at my job that will free up alot of time for me, so I may be dusting Banedon off and coming back sometime soon

[Leaf]

Well Banedon, hopefully you will get more time to mud due to "good"
changes at your job and not bad ones.

Also I was addressing the fact that we do have tanks on Sloth. I would say
we have more Ma/Dr because they can solo big mobs all by themselves.
Do a Who, and u will see the number of class are Ma>Th>Ne>Wa>Cl>Ba>Dr>Mo

[Roadrunr]

[quote="Toxis":d22x5tnc]I've been trying to think on this subject, about why it's hard to find a good tank...

It seems hard to find a good -9 tank with over 900 hp with a good link with good scripts. You'd think it'd be easy, but a lot of people do not play tanks. If they do play tanks, they don't group. Lately the only tanks I've seen on often that run xp are Toxis and Rodek.

-Tox[/quote:d22x5tnc]

you know, I dont tank all that often because I'm not on for very long (usually 1 or 2 runs max) and, all you guys want is a -11 tank but since I solo so much and do so in -10, I keep my -11 gear in my vault unless I really need it (that and at some point I broke my -11 eq change and havent gotten around to fixing it).

My newbie tank (thump) only runs -9 and 17 con at a whopping 786hp (or something like that) and, in general, no one wants to run with a -9 tank anyway (almost none like a -10 anymore either). I dont see -10 in his immediate future since I'm not on that much, I tend to not bother with autoquests or forges as much as I should and looking at the eq thats out there, I just dont see -10 (current eq plus a cuirass only puts me at -9.7, add holy sceptre and it's -9.9 but the amount I play I'm a long way away from getting a cuirass).

Oh, and I dont auto-rescue on double whiff (and for all I know, all my other rescue triggers (besides rescuing on successful stab) are screwed)

[**Jake**]

Just got caught up on this thread. Lots of great discussion - and many topics related (but not to the root) of my concern at the time. The concern was: "Why is off-lyme/non-epic grouping so boring".

When I originally posed this question, it seemed like the groups only needed debuffs at the start, 1 tank and 1 healer. That dynamic is way different in the groups I've watched lately.

The bot issue is so very related - but I think the group dynamic was partly to blame for some of the real botting.

I think the weaken bug (where it incorrectly removed 13 strength points on mobs - but worked right on players) had a pretty big impact on this whole debate.

[Jag]

Debuffs could be made better to improve group play.

Most of the newbies I have started over the years were pretty useless in groups (no comments about my general uselessness please). The one thing most of my newbies could do was hit an occasional blind or curse (on a demon) or a weaken.

The last newbie I started, Switcher has been useless for blinds in groups. I don't know if it was something about druids or that blinds were made harder to get, but a regular blind spell never happened in groups. With acid and 2x40 he finally is getting some blinds.

So here is my suggestion, make debuffs easier for newbies to hit in groups, make then really worthwhile, and make them much shorter lasting. This would give newbies something worthwhile to do in groups and any longish fight means that the mob needs a second or even a third round of debuffs. This would be an excellent reason not to bot.

I would not suggest changing the system for non-grouped debuffs.

[Leaf]

That wouldn't be a great idea Jag. Tanks need blinds/weaken to stick and
for the full amount 1-2 ticks (acid/blind). If the time was shorten to .5/1
ticks then think about how many times a person would need to debuff the
mob while the tank is getting hit even harder?! This would mean the tank
needs more heals, so more mana is burned.

Jake, this would all be resolved if Monk's rescue lag grip is fixed

[Alberich]

speaking of rescue lag

there should be some kinda prime skill for avatar warriors similar to thieves sleight of hand that would allow them to have a chance of a 'fast rescue'.

I usually don't run in groups because you can get more xp 2man and frankly, groups are usually pretty lame, but i've been stabbing for some biggish ones lately, and i have to say, between rescue lag and apply lag, you really can't do a damn thing. I realize that a 100% fast rescue would probably create some balance problems, but if it's made a skill with an 85% max and wa-prime only, would make thieves at least (and presumably monks) that much more grateful to have a 'real' warrior tanking (and might encourage some of us reluctant types to run in groups more often if we know we'll actually get to chat a little instead of being perma-lagged)