Two issues with new weapons

[Galn]

<p>I was dabbling on test today checking out the new weapons and at first glance they look great, however after delving into the depths of the mechanics behind the scenes two issues show their ugly head.</p><p>First is the delay on the new weapons. Only a select few weapons have a delay of 1.6 seconds (Dirks and Falchions for an exmaple) but most 1H slashing weapons have a delay of 3, 5, or 6 seconds. This really blows realism out the window when you consider that a parrying blade or sai, which had to be fast to parry your opponent are now 3.0 seconds and the Karabela is a 6.0 delay. This matches the delay of the 2H weapons. I would love to see the delays looked into and rebalanced, keeping in mind that a dagger or sai is much faster than a falchion and a Karabela swings a lot faster than a War Hammer.</p><p>Second is the Gleaming Strike that now adds hate or removes hate depending on whether you are in front of or behind a mob. At first this sounded neat but then I realized characters like my Swashbuckler spends some time in front of and some time behind the mobs, even has some front-only attacks. Even my melee specced Warden will have to beg the tanks to turn the mobs now, and even then not all of them will turn the mobs away every time. Perhaps there is a better way to handle this, like archetype determining gain/loss, but this would leave scouts who occassionally tank in a quandry. Yes I tank with my Swashbuckler, not very often but he can do it. </p>

[Rashaak]

<p>Two things:</p><p>1) The delays on weapons were discussed heavily not only in the Tradeskill forum, but also in class discussion forums. The general concensus is slower the delay the better! However a couple weapons were left in that did give a faster delay. Overall, the delay's on weapons were generalized to be more consistent through tiers, where previoulsy they jumped around through tiers they were given a standardized delay. </p><p>Here is the list of Weapons Domino updated before sending it off to Test</p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=195&topic_id=409681#4629587" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...=409681#4629587</a></p><p>One of the biggest issues on crafted weapons was they devalued as you went up in tier. Changes were made to make them more desirable at the lower end of each tier, until players obtained better weapons at the higher end of each tier (legendary/fabled). Like I said though...slower delays were a very welcome change, as well as damage rating.</p><p>2) A lot of discussion went into the Aggro/Deaggro proc on Gleaming Strike, some for it, some against, some on the fence. Overall though, the proc rate for this Gleaming Strike to go off at the wrong time was around a 1% chance. I'd suggest taking it out on your Melee Warden and testing it in groups and solo. Right now...your feedback seems to be a bit pre-mature.</p><p>Also, the rate at which Aggro is gained won't out weigh overall damage done to the target. </p><p>Example:</p><p>Weapons procs Gleaming Strike doing the DD element attack and does a Deaggro of 900 because your player is behind the target, but you damage the target for 1800, your aggro actually went up 900. However in tier 8, 900 aggro is like 9 aggro at tier 1, so it should not be a detriment to any class that uses it.  </p><p>Like I said though...there is/will be that 1% chance it doesn't work as intended and you steal aggro, but is no different than a nuker with an itchy trigger finger trying to one shot a ^^^ 5 level's above him. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Fatuus]

<cite>Ahkz@Butcherblock wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I was dabbling on test today checking out the new weapons and at first glance they look great, however after delving into the depths of the mechanics behind the scenes two issues show their ugly head.</p><p>First is the delay on the new weapons. Only a select few weapons have a delay of 1.6 seconds (Dirks and Falchions for an exmaple) but most 1H slashing weapons have a delay of 3, 5, or 6 seconds. This really blows realism out the window when you consider that a parrying blade or sai, which had to be fast to parry your opponent are now 3.0 seconds and the Karabela is a 6.0 delay. This matches the delay of the 2H weapons. I would love to see the delays looked into and rebalanced, keeping in mind that a dagger or sai is much faster than a falchion and a Karabela swings a lot faster than a War Hammer.</p><p>Second is the Gleaming Strike that now adds hate or removes hate depending on whether you are in front of or behind a mob. At first this sounded neat but then I realized characters like my Swashbuckler spends some time in front of and some time behind the mobs, even has some front-only attacks. Even my melee specced Warden will have to beg the tanks to turn the mobs now, and even then not all of them will turn the mobs away every time. Perhaps there is a better way to handle this, like archetype determining gain/loss, but this would leave scouts who occassionally tank in a quandry. Yes I tank with my Swashbuckler, not very often but he can do it. </p></blockquote><p>As an SK, if you are good, about 40% of your dps will come from your autoattack. Having a longer delay weapon means you still hit for the same amount (overall) as you would with a lower delay weapon...but you can get more Combat Arts and Spells in thus increasing your overall dps.</p><p>Example.</p><p>An 80 damage rated weapon with a 2 second delay hits for 400 damage.</p><p>An 80 damage rated weapon with a 4 second delay hits for 800 damage.</p><p>The net result is the same amount of damage. Parry is NOT affected by the speed of your weapon (I have no idea how you thought it was) only by your parry skill. Since you must "pause" your Combat Art and Spell cast "spam" in order for your autoattack to hit...you can frequently "miss" the window for an autoattack to hit. If you spam Combat Arts for 6 seconds, pause, and another 6 seconds You would have done this kind of damage</p><p>Assuming autoattack hit initially.</p><p>2 second delay weapon = 3 X 400 = 1200 damage</p><p>4 second delay weapon = 3 X 800 = 2400 damage</p><p>Hope this helps your understanding of why delay on weapons is so important. Keep in mind that haste dramatically affects the timing of your Combat arts/Spell casts so that if you are at 100% haste with a 2 second delay weapon (As an SK) your autoattack will hit every second versus every 2 seconds with a 4 second delay weapon...thus making it easier to time your autoattacks with a higher delay weapon. </p>

[seamus]

<p>Rashaak is correct. Folks that know how the mechanics of this game work wanted much higher delays. Gameplay mechanics always trump 'realism' or should at least. These changes will actually make crafted weapons a decent choice in a tier until a player gets legendary or better in an instance.</p><p>The plethora of haste abilities and items in the game today make it such that even casual non-raid players have a decent amount of haste available to them which has a direct impact on the relationship between CA and Spell casts and auto-attack dps.</p><p>Oh, Fatuus' explaination is much better then mine. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>As for the threat proc, its a choice to use it or not. The design for the threat proc means it can be more powerful then it would be otherwise. If it didn't have the 'negative' side to it, (positioning), it would have to be toned down, probably to the point of being useless. A good tank will adjust for this new mechanic, if the tank won't adjust you probably don't want him being your tank anyway <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Galn]

<p>Typical replies to my posts.. you both completely missed the point of my post. A dagger is a fast weapon in real life, a Sai and Parrying Dagger are also fast. The Karabela is simialr to a Katana that is really fast in combat. A War Hammer is a HUGE chunk or metal attached to a stick, and takes a long time to swing and get ready to swing again. Same thing with a huge Battle Axe. I could care less about all weapons having a really long delay, and even though I prefer a long delay weapon on my SK, I actually have been using fast delay weapons on my Swashbuckler and a couple other melee types, and even my warden has a few abilities that are niceer with a fast delay weapon. Bottom line is I simply want a full spread of delays so we have a choice. If you want a slow weapon then you can have it and if I want a 1.2 delay weapon on my melee-sepc warden I too can have that choice. Since there should be a full range of delays it is simple to just make the historically fast weapon the fastest ones for realism, and let the big bulky chunks of iron be the slower delay weapons.</p><p>Edit- Just to add... not everyone in theis game is here to maximize their characters and squezze out every last point of dmage for dps. I play for fun, and who cares if my weapon doesnt have the optimal delay, if I want 2 fast swinging weapons on my swashy I chould have the right to pick these, and I am really saddened that I only have 2 to pick from and they are not exactly swashbuckler type weapons (Dirk and Falchion). </p>

[Galn]

<cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Rashaak is correct. Folks that know how the mechanics of this game work wanted much higher delays. <b><u>Gameplay mechanics always trump 'realism' or should at least.</u></b> These changes will actually make crafted weapons a decent choice in a tier until a player gets legendary or better in an instance.</p><p>The plethora of haste abilities and items in the game today make it such that even casual non-raid players have a decent amount of haste available to them which has a direct impact on the relationship between CA and Spell casts and auto-attack dps.</p><p>Oh, Fatuus' explaination is much better then mine. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />" width="15" height="15"></p><p>As for the threat proc, its a choice to use it or not. The design for the threat proc means it can be more powerful then it would be otherwise. If it didn't have the 'negative' side to it, (positioning), it would have to be toned down, probably to the point of being useless. A good tank will adjust for this new mechanic, if the tank won't adjust you probably don't want him being your tank anyway <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></p></blockquote>I had to reply to this seperately... This is your opinion, not mine. It's a good thing we both have choices in this. I play Eq because it is one of the most realistic MMORPG's out there. I do NOT like game mechanics taking front seat to realism and never will. I want the choice to ahve a fast delay weapon and really would like to have more than 2 to choose from. Long delay lovers get 90% of them to chose from. This doesnt seem fair to me.

[Jrral]

<cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>2) A lot of discussion went into the Aggro/Deaggro proc on Gleaming Strike, some for it, some against, some on the fence. Overall though, the proc rate for this Gleaming Strike to go off at the wrong time was around a 1% chance. I'd suggest taking it out on your Melee Warden and testing it in groups and solo. Right now...your feedback seems to be a bit pre-mature. </p></blockquote>I think the amplitude may be pre-mature, but the principle behind the feedback isn't. I play a berserker tank. I position the mobs and turn them so their backs are to the group. That means that if anyone (like a mage) pulls aggro the mob's going to turn it's back to me to face them. I want that, it gives me as tank a good visual indication of which mob I need to give immediate attention to. The proper sequence at this point is that the mage who pulled aggro hits the mob with their (melee-based) dethreat art while I hit the mob with my (melee-based) threat increase attack and a taunt. And by design, your imbue change works directly counter to proper tactics in that situation.And I'd disagree that the 1% chance is negligible. I have Gleaming Strike proccing all the time, I want it proccing all the time to maximize damage and hate. And if my scouts and mages are doing <i>their</i> jobs right, they're giving me a close race for aggro. If they aren't, they're not doing as much damage as they could and the mob isn't dying as fast as it ought to be. That's slowing us down, and making life harder for the healer who's got to heal more damage. If everybody's doing their job right it won't take a lot of change in threat/dethreat to shift the balance, and as soon as that balance shifts the imbue change works to <i>keep</i> it shifted and against most of the proper tactics to get aggro back where it belongs.Something that causes bad tactics to be worse, that I don't have a problem with. I might even enjoy watching it happen. But I don't think permanent parts of equipment should be set up to <i>by design</i> work against what even the devs describe as the right tactics.

[Andric_D]

<div > <span class="genmed"><b><span style="color: #3333ff;">Ahkz</span></b></span> </div> - daggers and sai's are not fast or slow delay in reality. in general weapons are limited by the persons skill and ability to wield them over some inherent 'delay' as well as factors like balance and if one edged, two edge, spring steel, stiff steel etc.A game or simulation will always have compromises/mechanics which are unrealistic, delays are part of this one and maybe should be considered like balance in real life weapons - maybe short delays are under balance, long delays over and the 3-4 sec delay perfect balance?

[Aneova]

It's not the weapons that are being used that are fast. It is the person using the weapon.

[Brook]

/agree with Jrral, when a mob gets peeled (and it will happen), the new mechanics work against the tank. Maybe if along with these changes they could actually make taunts more worthwhile than they are, it wouldn't be so bad.

[Prrasha]

As I said in the other thread about the "problem" of "once the mob turns on the DPS, the procs work backwards..."If the proc firing once at the mob's back (as a tank) is enough deaggro to keep you from getting control back, then that <i><b>very same</b></i> proc firing once earlier in the combat would have given you enough extra threat to keep it on you in the first place, since it's the same amount of threat either  way. So, if you spend over half your time with the mob under control, the proc works to your benefit, in general.  If you spend over half your time chasing down peeled mobs, it works to your detriment (and you need a new group.)  The tiny chance of a mob peeling <b>and</b> the deaggro proc firing for the tank <b>and</b> that 900 (or however much for lower tiers) threat being the difference between taking aggro back and not taking it back... I'll take the new procs, thanks.Also, if it's <i>that</i> big an issue, just make sure your overnuking friends know it's <i>their</i> job to help reposition a mob they peeled, to limit deaggro procs for the tank.  (But I think you'll find it won't matter.)  That's a decent thing to teach them anyway... would you rather have the peeled mob pointing his directional AE's at (a) one tank and one overnuking wizard, or (b) everyone except the tank...

[Prrasha]

As for "daggers are faster than longswords"... yes, against a practice dummy.  But if your opponent has more reach than you, I bet he swings more often.  Think about a dagger-vs-rapier fight--one-foot-long thrusting weapon versus three-foot-long thrusting weapon--how's the dagger going to land hits more often?  If he throws daggers, maybe, but now he has the reach advantage.(This is my first and last post on the "delay" subject... go read 200,000 Usenet posts in rec.games.frp.dnd during the second-edition AD&D era, discussing weapon initiative modifiers.  Everything that could possibly be said on the subject has been said there, at least 200 times each.)

[Rashaak]

<cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>2) A lot of discussion went into the Aggro/Deaggro proc on Gleaming Strike, some for it, some against, some on the fence. Overall though, the proc rate for this Gleaming Strike to go off at the wrong time was around a 1% chance. I'd suggest taking it out on your Melee Warden and testing it in groups and solo. Right now...your feedback seems to be a bit pre-mature. </p></blockquote><p>I think the amplitude may be pre-mature, but the principle behind the feedback isn't. I play a berserker tank. I position the mobs and turn them so their backs are to the group. That means that if anyone (like a mage) pulls aggro the mob's going to turn it's back to me to face them. I want that, it gives me as tank a good visual indication of which mob I need to give immediate attention to. The proper sequence at this point is that the mage who pulled aggro hits the mob with their (melee-based) dethreat art while I hit the mob with my (melee-based) threat increase attack and a taunt. And by design, your imbue change works directly counter to proper tactics in that situation.</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">The proc rate is nominal...and if it proc's during a time that another in your group/raid took aggro, then it would only be common sense to move in front of the mob. But the way aggro is added up, loosing a small bit of aggro because of the weapon doesn't really mean much, since you should be doing far more damage and taunting than what this will proc to reduce it.</span>And I'd disagree that the 1% chance is negligible. I have Gleaming Strike proccing all the time, I want it proccing all the time to maximize damage and hate. And if my scouts and mages are doing <i>their</i> jobs right, they're giving me a close race for aggro. If they aren't, they're not doing as much damage as they could and the mob isn't dying as fast as it ought to be. That's slowing us down, and making life harder for the healer who's got to heal more damage. If everybody's doing their job right it won't take a lot of change in threat/dethreat to shift the balance, and as soon as that balance shifts the imbue change works to <i>keep</i> it shifted and against most of the proper tactics to get aggro back where it belongs.</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">Please post logs showing how often each fight this is going off. I want it in sequence, time stamped....or maybe even video. I guarantee your comment of it going off all the time is a bit exaggerated.</span>Something that causes bad tactics to be worse, that I don't have a problem with. I might even enjoy watching it happen. But I don't think permanent parts of equipment should be set up to <i>by design</i> work against what even the devs describe as the right tactics.</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">Do you know this for sure? Have you tested it? Have you done a parse on it? And what exactly do you think the dev's think are 'right tactics'?</span></p></blockquote>

[Galn]

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote>As for "daggers are faster than longswords"... yes, against a practice dummy.  But if your opponent has more reach than you, I bet he swings more often.  Think about a dagger-vs-rapier fight--one-foot-long thrusting weapon versus three-foot-long thrusting weapon--how's the dagger going to land hits more often?  If he throws daggers, maybe, but now he has the reach advantage.(This is my first and last post on the "delay" subject... go read 200,000 Usenet posts in rec.games.frp.dnd during the second-edition AD&D era, discussing weapon initiative modifiers.  Everything that could possibly be said on the subject has been said there, at least 200 times each.)</blockquote><p>Even against a live opponent you will have the chance to swing a dagger a lot more often than a longsword due to simple physics. A 8 ounce dagger will be a lot faster than a 3 lb longsword any day... Reach isnt the issue, soe has given all melee a 5m range anyways. But still everyone is dancing around the real problem here.. so let me bold it and underline it...</p><p> <b><u><span style="font-size: small;">We need weapons covering the full range of delays, not 85% of them with a horrendously long delay and only 2 one-handed lsashing weapons with a 1.6 second delay.</span></u></b> </p><p>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</p>

[Jrral]

<cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><span style="color: #ff9900;">The proc rate is nominal...and if it proc's during a time that another in your group/raid took aggro, then it would only be common sense to move in front of the mob. But the way aggro is added up, loosing a small bit of aggro because of the weapon doesn't really mean much, since you should be doing far more damage and taunting than what this will proc to reduce it.</span></blockquote>Maybe I'm just being a paranoid tank. But then again, it's my <i>job</i> to be paranoid about aggro management. I want everything working to keep aggro where it belongs: on me, and off the scouts/mages/healers. There's enough things that can go wrong in a fight already, from mobs memwiping to me getting hit with a stun just as the wizard pops off their big nuke, that I don't need or want equipment that'll suddenly start proccing hate gain on the people who need dethreats instead. And I sure don't want any equipment in my hands that'll pop a dethreat ever. I'm a tank, dethreat is <i>not</i> in the job description.As far as amount, if it's proccing so little aggro change that it won't cause a problem getting it backwards, then it's proccing so little aggro change that it won't contribute significantly when it's working right. But judging by Domino's description it won't be insignificant, and if it is significant then it'll be adding significant hate to the scouts and significant dethreat to the tank just when the opposite's most needed. Murphy contributes enough as it is without me handing him tools.

[Jrral]

<cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>Please post logs showing how often each fight this is going off. I want it in sequence, time stamped....or maybe even video. I guarantee your comment of it going off all the time is a bit exaggerated.</blockquote>Just scanned the logs for a run through Chelsith. 90% of the normal fights I'd proc Gleaming Strike at least once, and twice on the majority. That's on fights lasting no more than about 10 seconds. Nameds the proc rate's lower, fights would last 30-40 seconds and I'd proc the same consistent 1-2 times a fight. Which seems consistent with the advertised average of 2 procs a minute and the major haste boost I've got giving it more chances than normal to proc. I should see if ACT can give me an actual average zone-wide rate on it.

[Captain_Xpendab]

Well as a swashbuckler who isn't an uber elite player and makes plenty of mistakes, the last thing I need is for something else to go wrong. As mentioned before, we have both front and back attacks and I really don't need a weapon that will screw me up by procing at the wrong time. Fortunately, I have enough money right now to buy all the current MC weapons at each tier that I'll need. I don't care if the new imbue is more powerful, the taunt/de-taunt stuff just makes it too complicated.

[Theren]

<cite>Brook wrote:</cite><blockquote>/agree with Jrral, when a mob gets peeled (and it will happen), the new mechanics work against the tank. Maybe if along with these changes they could actually make taunts more worthwhile than they are, it wouldn't be so bad.</blockquote>I would agree that they are counter-productive with the **positional proc, but this has 2 sides.1) This is not a 100% proc rate weapon. As such when the melee monsters take aggro they have a chance to back off and use detaunts/other methods to help the tank get the aggro back. If you pull aggro and keep going nuts dps wise, you really need to rethink your play style.2) To me this will help the button masher in all of us. I have played every single class in EQ2 and every class has it's balances. Swashies get a hate transfer and other ways to avoid aggro, Brig's have detaunts that drop them entire hate positions. Assassins in higher levels don't have much to counter that T1 dps so they have to behave. What I'm getting at is this will help people realize the skill in playing their class they can not just go psycho and hit every button w/o consequence. The new threat procs will help to keep the game interesting. If you take aggro too much either kick your tank in the head or just adapt.**Another thought that crossed my mind was that tanks as well as dps classes will have these procing for them...

[Jrral]

<cite>Andurious@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>1) This is not a 100% proc rate weapon. As such when the melee monsters take aggro they have a chance to back off and use detaunts/other methods to help the tank get the aggro back. If you pull aggro and keep going nuts dps wise, you really need to rethink your play style.2) To me this will help the button masher in all of us. I have played every single class in EQ2 and every class has it's balances. Swashies get a hate transfer and other ways to avoid aggro, Brig's have detaunts that drop them entire hate positions. Assassins in higher levels don't have much to counter that T1 dps so they have to behave. What I'm getting at is this will help people realize the skill in playing their class they can not just go psycho and hit every button w/o consequence. </blockquote>On #1, you can't always do that. I know my wizard has 2 dethreats, one of which (AA line ability) is a <i>melee attack</i> which with this change now may proc a hate increase.  Rangers and assassins get a similar ability. With this proc on a weapon you can't safely use those dethreats without risking them increasing your threat level instead. And the non-tank backing off is of course only half of the equation. The tank has to at the same time do something to gain aggro with the errant mob, and for several tank classes their most effective aggro-gaining tools involve melee attacks. In that situation, trying to get control back, this effect <i>reduces</i> the effectiveness of those tools. Not a great thing in my book.And then of course there's off-tanks. They want to be behind the mob to deal the most damage to it, but they want if anything to be gaining hate, not losing it, so they stay solidly ahead of the squishies if the MT goes down.And of course you have encounters where positioning doesn't work the way Domino describes. The final fight against Fyst in DFC, for example. Any smart group will pull him back into the stairwell so his knockback won't send the tank flying down into the courtyard, and in that tight space there's no way under the sun that even the best group's going to maintain proper positioning. There isn't room for a "behind", you'll be lucky if you aren't <i>inside</i> someone else. In Crypt of Valdoon, for the final named you <i>do not want</i> ANYBODY behind the mob. Period. If they're behind him, they're going to pull a continuous stream of fast-spawning mobs that'll wipe the group in a matter of seconds. Your only chance there is to have everybody against the back wall, in front of the mob, where they'll be out of aggro range of the trash. Or the Keeper of Nightmares in VoES. His leash ends at the doorway, the tank can't pull him out of the room without breaking the encounter. But in the room are multiple waves of nasty spawns you don't want to pull while you're dealing with him. So again nobody should try to get behind him, just pull him to the door and keep everybody in front of him, out in the hallway where they can unload on him without pulling any adds. Any effect based on "proper" positioning is going to run aground on these encounters where the right positioning to survive it best is the exact opposite of "proper".On #2, I have to differ with you. Recall the tank Domino was describing in <a rel="nofollow" href="http://eq2dev.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/pick-up-groups/" target="_blank">her blog post</a>. IMHO this imbue wouldn't help teach that tank proper technique. If anything it'd teach him that proper technique isn't as important as laying into the mob. If someone does pull aggro from him the proc makes the mob stick tighter to the wrong target and makes the tank's tools for getting control back less effective. What will work, however, is skipping proper pulling technique and building up as much hate as quickly as possible so nobody gets a chance to pull aggro. Don't waste time turning the mob, don't waste effort on the best sequence of knock-downs or stuns/stifles, just get as many high-hate-gain attacks and other tricks in as quickly as possible to build an unassailable aggro lead, because if you don't you're more likely to lose aggro to someone else and once that happens you'll have a harder time getting control back.And overall, effects that change on me during the fight, especially when they change because of things I don't do directly, are the bane of my existence. It's one more thing whose changing state I have to keep track of, and I'm already keeping a lot of balls in the air.Yes, I'm a touch peeved. In the background of this effect I see a lot of the attitude of "Well, there's one and only one right way to do things. We're not going to make allowances for any other way, and we're not going to make allowances for things not going exactly perfectly and according to (our) plan.". I don't like that attitude. I've seen it get too many groups wiped. And I don't like wiping.

[Rashaak]

<cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><span style="color: #ff9900;">The proc rate is nominal...and if it proc's during a time that another in your group/raid took aggro, then it would only be common sense to move in front of the mob. But the way aggro is added up, loosing a small bit of aggro because of the weapon doesn't really mean much, since you should be doing far more damage and taunting than what this will proc to reduce it.</span></blockquote>Maybe I'm just being a paranoid tank. But then again, it's my <i>job</i> to be paranoid about aggro management. I want everything working to keep aggro where it belongs: on me, and off the scouts/mages/healers. There's enough things that can go wrong in a fight already, from mobs memwiping to me getting hit with a stun just as the wizard pops off their big nuke, that I don't need or want equipment that'll suddenly start proccing hate gain on the people who need dethreats instead. And I sure don't want any equipment in my hands that'll pop a dethreat ever. I'm a tank, dethreat is <i>not</i> in the job description.As far as amount, if it's proccing so little aggro change that it won't cause a problem getting it backwards, then it's proccing so little aggro change that it won't contribute significantly when it's working right. But judging by Domino's description it won't be insignificant, and if it is significant then it'll be adding significant hate to the scouts and significant dethreat to the tank just when the opposite's most needed. Murphy contributes enough as it is without me handing him tools.</blockquote>A paranoid tank? meh  If you know your job, then you know about aggro and how it is gained. But any tank who even knows half of what they need to do, know adjusting tactics is always a necessary. I seriously doubt this will be detrimental to any class performing as they should...

[Rashaak]

<cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>Please post logs showing how often each fight this is going off. I want it in sequence, time stamped....or maybe even video. I guarantee your comment of it going off all the time is a bit exaggerated.</blockquote>Just scanned the logs for a run through Chelsith. 90% of the normal fights I'd proc Gleaming Strike at least once, and twice on the majority. That's on fights lasting no more than about 10 seconds. Nameds the proc rate's lower, fights would last 30-40 seconds and I'd proc the same consistent 1-2 times a fight. Which seems consistent with the advertised average of 2 procs a minute and the major haste boost I've got giving it more chances than normal to proc. I should see if ACT can give me an actual average zone-wide rate on it.</blockquote>Lets see the logs.

[Noaani]

<cite>Galn wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</blockquote><p>One of the reasons it was suggested to Domino to put few short delay weapons in the game was that, even though some people want them, and think they are good for their class, there is very few times in game when a short delay weapon is as good or better than a long delay weapon.</p><p>Even though you mau think they are better for you, they are not.</p><p>Now please, attempt to give me a single reasonable example of when a person expected to be using mastercrafted weapons would find a short delay weapon better than a long delay weapon. I need a good laugh.</p>

[Noaani]

<p><cite><a href="mailto:Jrral@Unrest" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jrral@Unrest</a> wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>On #1, you can't always do that. I know my wizard has 2 dethreats, one of which (AA line ability) is a <i>melee attack</i> which with this change now may proc a hate increase.  Rangers and assassins get a similar ability. With this proc on a weapon you can't safely use those dethreats without risking them increasing your threat level instead. And the non-tank backing off is of course only half of the equation. The tank has to at the same time do something to gain aggro with the errant mob, and for several tank classes their most effective aggro-gaining tools involve melee attacks. In that situation, trying to get control back, this effect <i>reduces</i> the effectiveness of those tools. Not a great thing in my book.</blockquote><p>Since you seem to have some real concerns about these weapons, I'll see what I can do to help...</p><p>First, if you spec'd down the Int line as a wizard, you have 3 detaunts, not 2. You have Confounding from the sorcerer tree, Concussive which is a level 25 spell that increases with level, and will interrrupt and detaunt against a whole group, and you have the Blip line (Tongue Twist > Benub > Enfeeblement > Lapse > Cease > Blip), which is a single target stifle/detaunt.</p><p>Second, if you did use your melee detaunt on a mob, your weapon would only proc a taunt if the mob as facing you. If everyone in the group knows what they are doing, this will only happen if you have aggro (which the proc on your weapon would have helped prevent up to this point). If you have aggro as a wizard, the correct thing to do is NOT to use your melee detaunt (even now it is not hte first thing you should be doing, even less so after these weapons go live if you get one of them). The correct course of action for you is to cast whatever spell is current for you in the Tongue Twist line to stifle the mob, followed 5 seconds later (if you still have aggro) with concussive, as the mob will likly be mid spellcast 1 second after he stifle occures, so interrupting is a good thing to be doing. The melee attack/detaunt is something you should be using before you get aggro (as are concussive and the Tongue Twist line). The are for aggro prevention, not for aggro dropping.</p><p>As for rangers and assassins, they will be behind the mob 99% of the time so their backstab type attacks work, this means that the weapons will be proc'ing a detaunt, not a taunt. All this time, the tank is using a weapon with a taunt proc on it, so should be building up slightly more aggro than he would be now.</p><p>As for most tanks having melee attacks that gain hate back, while true, most of these tools effect hate position, not threat level. If a tank has built up a total of 100 points of hate, and a wizard just manaburned for 80k, and no one else is on the mobs hate list at all, if the tank uses an ability that increases hate position by 3 and threat by 5k (rescue), then he will suddenly have 85k hate against that particular mob, reguardless of what weapons may have proc'd.</p><p>So, not only are these weapons going to prevent the case of tanks losing aggro (when the tank is proc'ing more hate and the DPS are proc'ing less hate, the tank should be able to hold aggro well), but when the tank does lose aggro, his main abality to regain said aggro is not at all affected by these weapons. </p><blockquote>And then of course there's off-tanks. They want to be behind the mob to deal the most damage to it, but they want if anything to be gaining hate, not losing it, so they stay solidly ahead of the squishies if the MT goes down.</blockquote><p>I can not think of a single time I have seen an offtank used for any encounter short of raiding. Tanks on raids do not use mastercrafted weapons, so this is not an issue.</p><p>However, I'll humour your concern and say that should an offtank want to have a reasonable amount of aggro on a mob, they can simply stand in front of said mob. Tanks do not have positional attacks, so position means nothing in terms of the amount of damage they are able to deal.</p><blockquote>And of course you have encounters where positioning doesn't work the way Domino describes. The final fight against Fyst in DFC, for example. Any smart group will pull him back into the stairwell so his knockback won't send the tank flying down into the courtyard, and in that tight space there's no way under the sun that even the best group's going to maintain proper positioning. There isn't room for a "behind", you'll be lucky if you aren't <i>inside</i> someone else. In Crypt of Valdoon, for the final named you <i>do not want</i> ANYBODY behind the mob. Period. If they're behind him, they're going to pull a continuous stream of fast-spawning mobs that'll wipe the group in a matter of seconds. Your only chance there is to have everybody against the back wall, in front of the mob, where they'll be out of aggro range of the trash. Or the Keeper of Nightmares in VoES. His leash ends at the doorway, the tank can't pull him out of the room without breaking the encounter. But in the room are multiple waves of nasty spawns you don't want to pull while you're dealing with him. So again nobody should try to get behind him, just pull him to the door and keep everybody in front of him, out in the hallway where they can unload on him without pulling any adds. Any effect based on "proper" positioning is going to run aground on these encounters where the right positioning to survive it best is the exact opposite of "proper".</blockquote><p>All three of these fights have ways for players to get behind the mob, assuming the tank pulls propperly. What you do is have everyone but the tank in one corner, and the tank in the middle of the back wall. The tank pulls, waits for the mob to get to him, then moves himself to the corner opposite the rest of the group. Suddenly you have a tank in one corner, the rest of the group in another, and the mob in the middle facing the tank and with his back to the group. </p><p>Easy.</p><p>And... crafted weapons have been the catalyst to tanks learning better pulling technique.</p><blockquote>On #2, I have to differ with you. Recall the tank Domino was describing in <a rel="nofollow" href="http://eq2dev.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/pick-up-groups/" target="_blank">her blog post</a>. IMHO this imbue wouldn't help teach that tank proper technique. If anything it'd teach him that proper technique isn't as important as laying into the mob. If someone does pull aggro from him the proc makes the mob stick tighter to the wrong target and makes the tank's tools for getting control back less effective. What will work, however, is skipping proper pulling technique and building up as much hate as quickly as possible so nobody gets a chance to pull aggro. Don't waste time turning the mob, don't waste effort on the best sequence of knock-downs or stuns/stifles, just get as many high-hate-gain attacks and other tricks in as quickly as possible to build an unassailable aggro lead, because if you don't you're more likely to lose aggro to someone else and once that happens you'll have a harder time getting control back.</blockquote><p>While true that some people will never learn, it is also important to not that propper pulling technique actually does involve generating as much hate as quickly as possible. These weapons may well make the bad tanks stand out even more so than they do now, but is that a bad thing?</p><p>What they will do without a doubt is make it so the times when a tank does not have aggro will be less common, this is common sence. What also needs to be remembered is that every tanks main tool for regainingaggro (rescue) is not at all effected by the procs on these weapons. Most tanks also have abilities that are either not effected by them, or the effect of these weapons is so miniscule compaired to what the tank can do that they are insignificant.</p><blockquote>And overall, effects that change on me during the fight, especially when they change because of things I don't do directly, are the bane of my existence. It's one more thing whose changing state I have to keep track of, and I'm already keeping a lot of balls in the air.Yes, I'm a touch peeved. In the background of this effect I see a lot of the attitude of "Well, there's one and only one right way to do things. We're not going to make allowances for any other way, and we're not going to make allowances for things not going exactly perfectly and according to (our) plan.". I don't like that attitude. I've seen it get too many groups wiped. And I don't like wiping.</blockquote><p>I think you are overestimating the effects of these weapons.</p><p>The procs on them will asist a tank in holding aggro, and again this will reduce the number of occurances of a tank loosing aggro. However, you need to put it in to perspective. The T8 mastercrafted weapons have what, a 900 point taunt/detaunt? That is about as much hate as I generate on my wizard in one third of a second (2.7k DPS is rather average for a T8 wizard), and it is on a 1.6 times a minute proc rate.</p><p>This means that while I am generating 2700 hate per second, and the tank is producing more than that in order to hold aggro from me, these weapons are removing from me a grand total of 24 points of hate every second, and adding 24 points of hate to the tank every second (obviously this number will change based on buffs and haste/cating haste, but whatever).</p><p>Its not a huge deal...</p>

[Troubor]

<cite>Galn wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote>As for "daggers are faster than longswords"... yes, against a practice dummy.  But if your opponent has more reach than you, I bet he swings more often.  Think about a dagger-vs-rapier fight--one-foot-long thrusting weapon versus three-foot-long thrusting weapon--how's the dagger going to land hits more often?  If he throws daggers, maybe, but now he has the reach advantage.(This is my first and last post on the "delay" subject... go read 200,000 Usenet posts in rec.games.frp.dnd during the second-edition AD&D era, discussing weapon initiative modifiers.  Everything that could possibly be said on the subject has been said there, at least 200 times each.)</blockquote><p>Even against a live opponent you will have the chance to swing a dagger a lot more often than a longsword due to simple physics. A 8 ounce dagger will be a lot faster than a 3 lb longsword any day... Reach isnt the issue, soe has given all melee a 5m range anyways. But still everyone is dancing around the real problem here.. so let me bold it and underline it...</p><p> <b><u><span style="font-size: small;">We need weapons covering the full range of delays, not 85% of them with a horrendously long delay and only 2 one-handed lsashing weapons with a 1.6 second delay.</span></u></b> </p><p>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</p></blockquote><p>I understand what you are thinking.  I am on a roleplay preferred server.  I won't say I'm a heavy roleplayer, but I do roleplay some of the time, one of the reasons I picked my server.  And I do like to try to preserve some in game immersion.  Having said that, you oddly use "simple physics" to show that an 8 ounce dagger is faster then a 3 pound sword, thus wanting to preserve realism apparently.  But then notes that SOE gives all melee weapons a 5 meter range..thus showing that the combat is being simplified for game mechanic purposes.</p><p>Otherwise, you're trying to plug perhaps a bit too much realism into a combat system that quite frankly isn't all that realistic.</p><p>Also consider..yes, someone with an 8 ounce dagger might be able to swing it fast.  But how accurate will he be if he's just flaying away with it?  Said person, even the real world equivelent of a "level 80th" character might need to slow down, at least vrs an opponent of equal or greater skill, just in order to stay accurate with said weapon.</p><p>Guess my point is even when you're someone wanting a certain level of realism to help with the immersion, which I am..one also has to back up and understand that there will be times when the "realism" just can't be found, and you have to just accept.</p><p>Finally, I think (I could be wrong on this, feel free to correct me...I may misunderstand or I may be going off of something old that has been changed) that there might be a "delay cap", a point where no matter how much haste is pumped into someone, the delay can no longer get any faster.  Otherwise, in actual game stats and also in appearance when watching your character fight, a delay of 1.6 won't look or be any faster then one of 3 or so if you're hasted past a certain point.  That and to be honest, unless I truly take the time to watch, it's not like I ever really notice "Oh, I'm using one of my slow weapons, and I don't have a lot of haste on me..gee, that weapon sure does look slow" or "Oh...I'm using a fast weapon, and hey my haste is kind of up there, that weapon sure does look almost absurdly fast".  I do sometimes watch myself swing if I'm fighting something easy and thus just go to auto attack to watch the weapon swings for a tiny bit, but even then I don't really think "Gee I'm slow" or "gee I'm fast" when I watch them.  And again, I am someone who at least to some degree values immersion.  Guess my point with this is well..do you really notice weapon swings?  Nothing wrong if you do, but I guess I don't..they never feel "way too slow" or "way too fast" regardless of weapon to me.</p>

[Illine]

<cite>Troubor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote>As for "daggers are faster than longswords"... yes, against a practice dummy.  But if your opponent has more reach than you, I bet he swings more often.  Think about a dagger-vs-rapier fight--one-foot-long thrusting weapon versus three-foot-long thrusting weapon--how's the dagger going to land hits more often?  If he throws daggers, maybe, but now he has the reach advantage.(This is my first and last post on the "delay" subject... go read 200,000 Usenet posts in rec.games.frp.dnd during the second-edition AD&D era, discussing weapon initiative modifiers.  Everything that could possibly be said on the subject has been said there, at least 200 times each.)</blockquote><p>Even against a live opponent you will have the chance to swing a dagger a lot more often than a longsword due to simple physics. A 8 ounce dagger will be a lot faster than a 3 lb longsword any day... Reach isnt the issue, soe has given all melee a 5m range anyways. But still everyone is dancing around the real problem here.. so let me bold it and underline it...</p><p> <b><u><span style="font-size: small;">We need weapons covering the full range of delays, not 85% of them with a horrendously long delay and only 2 one-handed lsashing weapons with a 1.6 second delay.</span></u></b> </p><p>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</p></blockquote><p>I understand what you are thinking.  I am on a roleplay preferred server.  I won't say I'm a heavy roleplayer, but I do roleplay some of the time, one of the reasons I picked my server.  And I do like to try to preserve some in game immersion.  Having said that, you oddly use "simple physics" to show that an 8 ounce dagger is faster then a 3 pound sword, thus wanting to preserve realism apparently.  But then notes that SOE gives all melee weapons a 5 meter range..thus showing that the combat is being simplified for game mechanic purposes.</p><p>Otherwise, you're trying to plug perhaps a bit too much realism into a combat system that quite frankly isn't all that realistic.</p><p>Also consider..yes, someone with an 8 ounce dagger might be able to swing it fast.  But how accurate will he be if he's just flaying away with it?  Said person, even the real world equivelent of a "level 80th" character might need to slow down, at least vrs an opponent of equal or greater skill, just in order to stay accurate with said weapon.</p><p>Guess my point is even when you're someone wanting a certain level of realism to help with the immersion, which I am..one also has to back up and understand that there will be times when the "realism" just can't be found, and you have to just accept.</p><p>Finally, I think (I could be wrong on this, feel free to correct me...I may misunderstand or I may be going off of something old that has been changed) that there might be a "delay cap", a point where no matter how much haste is pumped into someone, the delay can no longer get any faster.  Otherwise, in actual game stats and also in appearance when watching your character fight, a delay of 1.6 won't look or be any faster then one of 3 or so if you're hasted past a certain point.  That and to be honest, unless I truly take the time to watch, it's not like I ever really notice "Oh, I'm using one of my slow weapons, and I don't have a lot of haste on me..gee, that weapon sure does look slow" or "Oh...I'm using a fast weapon, and hey my haste is kind of up there, that weapon sure does look almost absurdly fast".  I do sometimes watch myself swing if I'm fighting something easy and thus just go to auto attack to watch the weapon swings for a tiny bit, but even then I don't really think "Gee I'm slow" or "gee I'm fast" when I watch them.  And again, I am someone who at least to some degree values immersion.  Guess my point with this is well..do you really notice weapon swings?  Nothing wrong if you do, but I guess I don't..they never feel "way too slow" or "way too fast" regardless of weapon to me.</p></blockquote><p>you can swing a dagguer as slow as a big 2H warhammer but the amount of damage will not be the same.</p><p>A dagger is usually used to do fast attacks, plus it's small so can be hidden easily. and the accuracy is better because it's light. A warhammer or a maul are not accurate, you swig it and if it hits your opponent it will do a lot of damage. Break bones and stuff. But piercing weapons are fast ones, because they are light and that's the purpose. You don't fight the same way with a 2H greatsword and a rapier. Have you ever done fencing? It's fast.</p><p>Now you take one fighter you give him a maul and a dagger, the rate will not be the same. The rate depends on the fighter ability to hit fast but also the weight of the weapon. same goes for the amount of damage on one hit. A 2H greatsword will do more damage on one hit than a sai ou katar. Even more than a fist.</p><p>so yeah, maybe for game mechanism it's better, but not for realism ...</p>

[Rashaak]

<cite>Earar wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>so yeah, maybe for game mechanism it's better, but not for realism ...</p></blockquote><p>Guess it's a good thing this is actually a video 'game' then, eh? I mean...ya know...cause it's a game it's like not real and stuff, has no bearing on r/l, and therefore because of such...immersion level can only go so far, because...it is a game and isn't 'real'. </p><p>whew! crisis averted!!! <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p>

[Noaani]

<cite>Earar wrote:</cite> <blockquote>so yeah, maybe for game mechanism it's better, but not for realism ...</blockquote><p>Realism?</p><p>If you want realism, why are you not complaining that a crushing weapon should do a miniscule amount of damage to someone in plate armour, but after a few good hits they should be rendered almost totally imobile.</p><p>Why are you not asking for it to take 2 hours to equip a full set of armour? or 4 weeks to produce said armour?</p><p>Why are you not asking for piercing weapons to have next to no effect on anyone in plate armour, but be incredibly effective against someone in chain?</p><p>I could go on... but needless to say, reguardless of what you THINK you want, you do not want realism in this game.</p>

[Prrasha]

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</blockquote>Now please, attempt to give me a single reasonable example of when a person expected to be using mastercrafted weapons would find a short delay weapon better than a long delay weapon. I need a good laugh.</blockquote>Dirge.  100% proc rate on Cacophony of Blades.  Faster weapon = more procs = more damage + more interrupts.

[Troubor]

<cite>Earar wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>you can swing a dagguer as slow as a big 2H warhammer but the amount of damage will not be the same.</p><p>A dagger is usually used to do fast attacks, plus it's small so can be hidden easily. and the accuracy is better because it's light. A warhammer or a maul are not accurate, you swig it and if it hits your opponent it will do a lot of damage. Break bones and stuff. But piercing weapons are fast ones, because they are light and that's the purpose. You don't fight the same way with a 2H greatsword and a rapier. Have you ever done fencing? It's fast.</p><p>Now you take one fighter you give him a maul and a dagger, the rate will not be the same. The rate depends on the fighter ability to hit fast but also the weight of the weapon. same goes for the amount of damage on one hit. A 2H greatsword will do more damage on one hit than a sai ou katar. Even more than a fist.</p><p>so yeah, maybe for game mechanism it's better, but not for realism ...</p></blockquote><p>Maybe I worded my last reply badly, but you missed the point of my post possibly.</p><p>As for my IRL world experience, I haven't done modern sport fencing no.  But I've done some "heavy" SCA fighting about 10 years ago, and at least watched the SCA style of fencing.  If that is closer to IRL fighting then modern fencing or not, I don't know, although people claimed that SCA "fencing" was a bit more realistic then modern sports fencing..but I never was concerned with if it truly was or not.  But I do have that experience.</p><p>But, if you want to get into "IRL"..a rapier might be fast, but it would probably just deflect off of plate armor too, or the tip would break.  Vrs thick plate armor, you'd want a heavy slow crushing weapon..even a big sword gets dulled to the point of being an oddly shaped club vrs something like plate mail or what the game calls "Vanguard" armor.  So if you want realism, I'll trump that with "Fine.  A rapier is faster, but I don't expect a rapier to do much to my paladin if he's in his full suit of armor then.  With rare exception of the blade tip working into a seam, the tip will either glance off the armor or just break.  A rapier wasn't designed for fighting people in heavy armor".</p><p>Now, I've seen tabletop roleplaying games where penetration of a weapon vrs various forms of armor did factor into play.  I don't know if there is such, but their might be a MMO ruleset with such too.  But EQ2 is obviously not one of those rulesets...a swashy or bard using a rapier can still hurt my paladin using just his auto attack even though he's in heavy armor most would call "vanguard" using EQ2 definitions of armor.</p><p>Going away from weapons, why does my Paladin at 80th level have roughly a 800 strength or so, self buffed in defensive stance?  He can get a lot higher if I swap to offensive stance too.  Yes, a large percentage of that is from his gear giving strength boosts, but at least in his full combat/adventuring gear, why can my character, just based on encumberance weight, lug around let's say a really big cow or a normal sized modern car and still be able to walk about town?  That's realistic?  He's a Koada'Dal..so let's say he's 6 foot tall..160 to 170 pounds.  Maybe he'd be slightly shorter, but I always just RPed he about 6 foot.  Okay..walk up to someone IRL, even the best "fighter" in the world, make him even 6'6" or so, and ask him to carry around a full sized adult cow around the block just to amuse you, see what reply you get.</p><p>I think if we can accept 80th level characters with enough strength, at least going by encumberance that they can bench press large herd animals without too much effort, we can handle weapon delays set more for game mechanics purposes then realism.</p>

[Lasai]

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</blockquote>Now please, attempt to give me a single reasonable example of when a person expected to be using mastercrafted weapons would find a short delay weapon better than a long delay weapon. I need a good laugh.</blockquote>Dirge.  100% proc rate on Cacophony of Blades.  Faster weapon = more procs = more damage + more interrupts.</blockquote><p>Your statement is only correct with no haste, no use of spells/combat arts, using default attack only.  Actual gameplay is rarely, if ever, that.  A hasted slow weapon will be doing more damage and allow more time between default swings for both spell and CA usage for far more damage than any 1.6 swinger. </p><p>We begged for something besides 7 tiers of cookie cutter 1.6 swing, and thank goodness for Domino listening, we got it.  I'm incredulous that people are complaining.</p><p>The new weapons are far better than I personally had hoped for.  My crusaders on test are extremely happy to say the least, my newb Pally is using a 6 sec STR/INT pike lol, a weapon I have NEVER bothered with previously, and it is very effective.</p><p>As far as "realism" goes, I had to laugh, that went out the window with Epic Weapons graphics, Kunark graphics in general and LON card tripe.  At least with this update we have a number of realistic looking weapons back in game, Flamberge, parrying daggers, small hand axes, two hand flails, etc etc.</p>

[BigChiefJJ]

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</blockquote><p>One of the reasons it was suggested to Domino to put few short delay weapons in the game was that, even though some people want them, and think they are good for their class, there is very few times in game when a short delay weapon is as good or better than a long delay weapon.</p><p>Even though you mau think they are better for you, they are not.</p><p>Now please, attempt to give me a single reasonable example of when a person expected to be using mastercrafted weapons would find a short delay weapon better than a long delay weapon. I need a good laugh.</p></blockquote>When people start getting haste items the longer delay weapons will be great - but for characters without access to haste or attacks speed increase the shorter delay weapons will be better - most scouts before lvl 40 I would think would be better off with a short delay weapon over a 4-6 second delay weapon.  I will agree though that longer dealy weapons are better for characters that do have haste.

[Rashaak]

<cite>Wodreaux@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</blockquote><p>One of the reasons it was suggested to Domino to put few short delay weapons in the game was that, even though some people want them, and think they are good for their class, there is very few times in game when a short delay weapon is as good or better than a long delay weapon.</p><p>Even though you mau think they are better for you, they are not.</p><p>Now please, attempt to give me a single reasonable example of when a person expected to be using mastercrafted weapons would find a short delay weapon better than a long delay weapon. I need a good laugh.</p></blockquote>When people start getting haste items the longer delay weapons will be great - but for characters without access to haste or attacks speed increase the shorter delay weapons will be better - most scouts before lvl 40 I would think would be better off with a short delay weapon over a 4-6 second delay weapon.  I will agree though that longer dealy weapons are better for characters that do have haste.</blockquote><p>Thats not entirely true.... </p><p>Longer delay weapons for melee class's is very beneficial except for maybe tier 1 and 2 when skills and utility aren't as abundant. However within tier 3 every class gets almost 2 hotbars (some more, some less) full of skills to be utilized. All CA's are insta-used so timing your melee hit with your weapon is crucial. If you want to button mash...sure faster delay is great, but in order to maximize damage amount, the longer delay weapon is the only way to go.</p>

[Theren]

<cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wodreaux@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn </cite></blockquote></blockquote><p> in order to maximize damage amount, the longer delay weapon is the only way to go.**chopped to get to the point**</p></blockquote>QFEOh so true. On every single one of my characters I will gladly drop what ever half decent weapon they are sporting for a new high delay weapon. Even though some of them have 0 natural haste the overall DPS gain out weighs the fast swings

[Jrral]

<cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>Lets see the logs. </blockquote>You really want to parse a 4-megabyte log file? Be my guest. It's up at <a href="http://www.silverglass.org/EQ2/chelsith.log" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.silverglass.org/EQ2/chelsith.log</a> (note that player names other than mine have been changed to Player1-5 and everything not neccesary for combat parsing has been stripped out).I'll give you one quick set of numbers: 110 encounters, 105 procs of Gleaming Strike attributed to me. That's a pretty high proc rate considering that, aside from the half-dozen nameds, in-combat time is about 10 seconds per encounter.

[Jrral]

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>First, if you spec'd down the Int line as a wizard, you have 3 detaunts, not 2. You have Confounding from the sorcerer tree, Concussive which is a level 25 spell that increases with level, and will interrrupt and detaunt against a whole group, and you have the Blip line (Tongue Twist > Benub > Enfeeblement > Lapse > Cease > Blip), which is a single target stifle/detaunt.</blockquote><p>Technically 4, counting Concussive and Concussive Blasts. But Concussive Blasts only procs dethreat when you cast a hostile spell, and you're going to stop doing that when you're trying to drop aggro, and I normally have that running if possible as I ramp up to my bigger nukes to try and offset aggro gain. Tongue Twist line's also used as a normal part of combat, I drop it on casters who can mess up the tank or on healers and trust the dethreat component to keep me off the radar, so it's not dependably up if I need to shed aggro fast. That leaves Concussive and Confounding Staff as the tools to reach for in a hurry, and both of them count as hostile spells to trigger the Gleaming Strike proc. And of course, if you've pulled aggro then the mob <i>will</i> be facing you, and if it started out with the tank properly positioning it then it's back is to the tank as well.</p><blockquote>Second, if you did use your melee detaunt on a mob, your weapon would only proc a taunt if the mob as facing you. If everyone in the group knows what they are doing, this will only happen if you have aggro (which the proc on your weapon would have helped prevent up to this point).</blockquote>Yep, but then if everything were going right I'm not pulling aggro. First rule of combat: nothing goes right all the time. Which is my concern as a tank. I'm going to try and keep everything perfect, but I'm also assuming it won't go perfectly and I'm going to need to plan how to recover when somebody pulls aggro who shouldn't. As I said, if the damage types aren't close to pulling aggro then they're doing less damage than they could, and that's not good.Oh, and berserkers only have one threat increase that affects hate position directly: Rescue. And I never ever use that as my first option. It's on too long a recast timer, and it's better reserved for named fights or emergencies when things have gone way too wrong too quickly for anything else. I'm talking about the Raging Blow line that deals damage plus a threat increase. That and my taunts are my usual first tools for getting aggro back when someone's pulled it (along with them backing off and hitting their dethreats if any, and having the sense to run <i>towards</i> me to get things back in range). As a berserker most of my aggro control comes from pure direct damage CAs, not taunts or hate gain effects. That's what makes the GS imbue particularly nasty for me: it procs a dethreat on the very things I most need to use to increase threat, at the exact time I most need to increase threat.<blockquote>I can not think of a single time I have seen an offtank used for any encounter short of raiding. Tanks on raids do not use mastercrafted weapons, so this is not an issue.<p>However, I'll humour your concern and say that should an offtank want to have a reasonable amount of aggro on a mob, they can simply stand in front of said mob. Tanks do not have positional attacks, so position means nothing in terms of the amount of damage they are able to deal.</p></blockquote>You may not need an off-tank, but a lot of the groups I run with we've got two tank types along. Common setup is a paladin and a berserker. And in RoK instances it's not exactly uncommon for a tank to go down if things go badly wrong. More than once running VoES that's turned a guaranteed wipe into a barely-squeaked-by win, and one repair bill's better than 6. We won't even discuss Maiden's and that blasted teleporting named. Having someone to grab it when the tank's 'ported is a godsend.A<blockquote>All three of these fights have ways for players to get behind the mob, assuming the tank pulls propperly. What you do is have everyone but the tank in one corner, and the tank in the middle of the back wall. The tank pulls, waits for the mob to get to him, then moves himself to the corner opposite the rest of the group. Suddenly you have a tank in one corner, the rest of the group in another, and the mob in the middle facing the tank and with his back to the group.</blockquote>I think you're thinking of the wrong fight in DFC. That's a good way to handle the Champion, but in the stairwell there's not enough room between the door and the opposite wall to drag Fyst far enough to have any "behind him" to get back into. And if everyone's far enough down the stairs for that, they'll get that nasty "Can't see target" message because line-of-sight on him's blocked. CoV and VoES Nightmare same thing, there isn't any accessible space behind the mob for either the group or the tank to be that won't result in an instant and unavoidable overpull and subsequent wipe.<blockquote>I think you are overestimating the effects of these weapons.</blockquote>Possibly I am. But I'd rather be careful than needing a repair kit. I follow the old Shin'ain proverb: "If you've found yourself in a fair fight, you obviously screwed up your planning somewhere.". I want every advantage I can get to keep the fight going as planned, and then I assume it's not going to go as planned and go for every advantage I can get to catch it and get things back on track.

[Dwergux]

<cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote>Second, if you did use your melee detaunt on a mob, your weapon would only proc a taunt if the mob as facing you. If everyone in the group knows what they are doing, this will only happen if you have aggro (which the proc on your weapon would have helped prevent up to this point).</blockquote>Yep, but then if everything were going right I'm not pulling aggro. First rule of combat: nothing goes right all the time. Which is my concern as a tank. I'm going to try and keep everything perfect, but I'm also assuming it won't go perfectly and I'm going to need to plan how to recover when somebody pulls aggro who shouldn't. As I said, if the damage types aren't close to pulling aggro then they're doing less damage than they could, and that's not good.</blockquote>To add to this, I don't see why a wizard would be wielding a weapon with a melee proc on it, isn't the blessed proc  better? (Unless I overlooked it, the blessed proc doesn't have a positional hate gain or loss on it)

[Meirril]

<cite>Earar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Troubor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote>As for "daggers are faster than longswords"... yes, against a practice dummy.  But if your opponent has more reach than you, I bet he swings more often.  Think about a dagger-vs-rapier fight--one-foot-long thrusting weapon versus three-foot-long thrusting weapon--how's the dagger going to land hits more often?  If he throws daggers, maybe, but now he has the reach advantage.(This is my first and last post on the "delay" subject... go read 200,000 Usenet posts in rec.games.frp.dnd during the second-edition AD&D era, discussing weapon initiative modifiers.  Everything that could possibly be said on the subject has been said there, at least 200 times each.)</blockquote><p>Even against a live opponent you will have the chance to swing a dagger a lot more often than a longsword due to simple physics. A 8 ounce dagger will be a lot faster than a 3 lb longsword any day... Reach isnt the issue, soe has given all melee a 5m range anyways. But still everyone is dancing around the real problem here.. so let me bold it and underline it...</p><p> <b><u><span style="font-size: small;">We need weapons covering the full range of delays, not 85% of them with a horrendously long delay and only 2 one-handed lsashing weapons with a 1.6 second delay.</span></u></b> </p><p>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</p></blockquote><p>I understand what you are thinking.  I am on a roleplay preferred server.  I won't say I'm a heavy roleplayer, but I do roleplay some of the time, one of the reasons I picked my server.  And I do like to try to preserve some in game immersion.  Having said that, you oddly use "simple physics" to show that an 8 ounce dagger is faster then a 3 pound sword, thus wanting to preserve realism apparently.  But then notes that SOE gives all melee weapons a 5 meter range..thus showing that the combat is being simplified for game mechanic purposes.</p><p>Otherwise, you're trying to plug perhaps a bit too much realism into a combat system that quite frankly isn't all that realistic.</p><p>Also consider..yes, someone with an 8 ounce dagger might be able to swing it fast.  But how accurate will he be if he's just flaying away with it?  Said person, even the real world equivelent of a "level 80th" character might need to slow down, at least vrs an opponent of equal or greater skill, just in order to stay accurate with said weapon.</p><p>Guess my point is even when you're someone wanting a certain level of realism to help with the immersion, which I am..one also has to back up and understand that there will be times when the "realism" just can't be found, and you have to just accept.</p><p>Finally, I think (I could be wrong on this, feel free to correct me...I may misunderstand or I may be going off of something old that has been changed) that there might be a "delay cap", a point where no matter how much haste is pumped into someone, the delay can no longer get any faster.  Otherwise, in actual game stats and also in appearance when watching your character fight, a delay of 1.6 won't look or be any faster then one of 3 or so if you're hasted past a certain point.  That and to be honest, unless I truly take the time to watch, it's not like I ever really notice "Oh, I'm using one of my slow weapons, and I don't have a lot of haste on me..gee, that weapon sure does look slow" or "Oh...I'm using a fast weapon, and hey my haste is kind of up there, that weapon sure does look almost absurdly fast".  I do sometimes watch myself swing if I'm fighting something easy and thus just go to auto attack to watch the weapon swings for a tiny bit, but even then I don't really think "Gee I'm slow" or "gee I'm fast" when I watch them.  And again, I am someone who at least to some degree values immersion.  Guess my point with this is well..do you really notice weapon swings?  Nothing wrong if you do, but I guess I don't..they never feel "way too slow" or "way too fast" regardless of weapon to me.</p></blockquote><p>you can swing a dagguer as slow as a big 2H warhammer but the amount of damage will not be the same.</p><p>A dagger is usually used to do fast attacks, plus it's small so can be hidden easily. and the accuracy is better because it's light. A warhammer or a maul are not accurate, you swig it and if it hits your opponent it will do a lot of damage. Break bones and stuff. But piercing weapons are fast ones, because they are light and that's the purpose. You don't fight the same way with a 2H greatsword and a rapier. Have you ever done fencing? It's fast.</p><p>Now you take one fighter you give him a maul and a dagger, the rate will not be the same. The rate depends on the fighter ability to hit fast but also the weight of the weapon. same goes for the amount of damage on one hit. A 2H greatsword will do more damage on one hit than a sai ou katar. Even more than a fist.</p><p>so yeah, maybe for game mechanism it's better, but not for realism ...</p></blockquote><p>I've done fencing. I've also done SCA style heavy fighting. I also do live steel entertainment fighting. I've also done full speed foam weapon fighting (nothing produced by nerf thank you, made from PVC pipes covered in foam pipe insulation with duct tape holding everything together). I've used just about every melee weapon you can imagine. Well, nothing involving a chain actually. People that use those are only asking for it to hit them.</p><p>Nothing in sports fencing resembles a real fencing weapon. A real rapier is a bloody heavy pointy peice of metal that has absolutely no give when it pokes into something. With a sharpened point on it, you could penetrate soft armor (i.e. buff coats, not chainmail). Even a small sword is about 5 times as heavy as a regulation foil. And while the tip of a fencing weapon can be repositioned fast, you arn't going to be able to effectively draw the weapon back and take a second poke at someone wearing any kind of protective gear (even something as simple as a jeans jacket) before someone with a two handed sword finishes swinging.</p><p>That is, if they wern't swinging a full second before your charge got close enough that the swordsman would feel threatened. If the swordsman connects...game over. Fencers generally don't cary shields. Bucklers would block one blow, but you'd probably break your wrist if you held on to it. Most fencers wouldn't wear heavy armor like chainmail (typical suit weighs between 40 and 60 pounds). Fencing in plate armor looks really silly, but technically possible. Then again, if you are expecting plate...why are you carrying around weapons that you would ignore?</p><p>Daggers, only dangerous against someone that isn't armed or you've managed to start wrestling with them. Knights traditionally carried strong daggers called dirks so they could kill immobalized opponents by sticking them in a joint or through the visor. Generally, they never saw any use as most people would just bash their opponent in the head again if they wern't going to hold them for ransom.</p><p>Realistically speaking, if your standing behind someone you want a weapon you can swing and get a lot of momentum on it crushed into a very small striking surface. Swords are great for that because the blade is very narrow so all of your force is concentrated into a small point without you having to worry about aiming too much. Picks would be great weapons if you were guarenteed to hit with the point every time. That pesky handle gets in the way a lot. Same goes for axes. For the same weight, a sword performs better than a mace.</p><p>So, if we really wanted realism we wouldn't have any knives, daggers, or hand weapons in game. We would have weapons that start off at about 2 and a half feet long and go up from there. We'd also see a lot more shields. We don't want realism, we want a good story/look/game/atmosphere. The look of these weapons are right. The people wielding them is what we want. </p><p>So the delay is longer than you personally like. It isn't like the weapon will actually perform worse for you. The only situation I can think of where one of these would perform worse than a fast weapon is if your facing a multi-mob encounter that you can kill each mob in 1 second over the modified delay of the weapon. In this case, you arn't going to swing again for the delay of the weapon. Of course, if you had a 1.6 delay weapon you'd usually loose a swing anyways because you have to retarget.</p><p>All in all, I think its a lot of complaining over an extremely small issue.</p>

[Fatuus]

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</blockquote>Now please, attempt to give me a single reasonable example of when a person expected to be using mastercrafted weapons would find a short delay weapon better than a long delay weapon. I need a good laugh.</blockquote>Dirge.  100% proc rate on Cacophony of Blades.  Faster weapon = more procs = more damage + more interrupts.</blockquote>CoB procs off of Combat arts too, so getting a "fast" weapon that only will work better for 1/6th of the timer is just silly.

[Prrasha]

<cite>Fatuus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</blockquote>Now please, attempt to give me a single reasonable example of when a person expected to be using mastercrafted weapons would find a short delay weapon better than a long delay weapon. I need a good laugh.</blockquote>Dirge.  100% proc rate on Cacophony of Blades.  Faster weapon = more procs = more damage + more interrupts.</blockquote>CoB procs off of Combat arts too, so getting a "fast" weapon that only will work better for 1/6th of the timer is just silly.</blockquote>Noaani didn't ask about more than "1/6 of the time".  The question was "a single reasonable example [...where...] short delay [...is better than...] long delay."Even though, allow me to amend my answer slightly to "Soloing dirge".  Unlikely to ever be hasted below 1.0s delay with a 1.6s weapon (haste item + Bravo's Dance up + AGI ring proc is about the only way, that's, what, 5% of the time?  If that?)  And, with a limited array of stuns and stifles and non-stellar personal DPS, being able to launch a near-constant stream of interrupts against a healer mob at the end of a fight is a Good Thing.So, I think one or two "fast" weapons in the mix is still a perfectly good idea.  (I wasn't the one complaining that "only" two such weapons existed, mind you.)

[Rashaak]

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fatuus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</blockquote>Now please, attempt to give me a single reasonable example of when a person expected to be using mastercrafted weapons would find a short delay weapon better than a long delay weapon. I need a good laugh.</blockquote>Dirge.  100% proc rate on Cacophony of Blades.  Faster weapon = more procs = more damage + more interrupts.</blockquote>CoB procs off of Combat arts too, so getting a "fast" weapon that only will work better for 1/6th of the timer is just silly.</blockquote>Noaani didn't ask about more than "1/6 of the time".  The question was "a single reasonable example [...where...] short delay [...is better than...] long delay."Even though, allow me to amend my answer slightly to "Soloing dirge".  Unlikely to ever be hasted below 1.0s delay with a 1.6s weapon (haste item + Bravo's Dance up + AGI ring proc is about the only way, that's, what, 5% of the time?  If that?)  And, with a limited array of stuns and stifles and non-stellar personal DPS, being able to launch a near-constant stream of interrupts against a healer mob at the end of a fight is a Good Thing.So, I think one or two "fast" weapons in the mix is still a perfectly good idea.  (I wasn't the one complaining that "only" two such weapons existed, mind you.)</blockquote>Since haste is capped, having a 1.6 delay will hinder even a dirge more than help. Your better off with a 3 sec delay weapon tbh...

[evilgamer]

<cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><span style="color: #ff9900;">The proc rate is nominal...and if it proc's during a time that another in your group/raid took aggro, then it would only be common sense to move in front of the mob. But the way aggro is added up, loosing a small bit of aggro because of the weapon doesn't really mean much, since you should be doing far more damage and taunting than what this will proc to reduce it.</span></blockquote>Maybe I'm just being a paranoid tank. But then again, it's my <i>job</i> to be paranoid about aggro management. I want everything working to keep aggro where it belongs: on me, and off the scouts/mages/healers. There's enough things that can go wrong in a fight already, from mobs memwiping to me getting hit with a stun just as the wizard pops off their big nuke, that I don't need or want equipment that'll suddenly start proccing hate gain on the people who need dethreats instead. And I sure don't want any equipment in my hands that'll pop a dethreat ever. I'm a tank, dethreat is <i>not</i> in the job description.As far as amount, if it's proccing so little aggro change that it won't cause a problem getting it backwards, then it's proccing so little aggro change that it won't contribute significantly when it's working right. But judging by Domino's description it won't be insignificant, and if it is significant then it'll be adding significant hate to the scouts and significant dethreat to the tank just when the opposite's most needed. Murphy contributes enough as it is without me handing him tools.</blockquote><p>I hear you 100% I posted the exact same thing in the TS forum when these changes were being discussed.</p><p>My point was, that all of these changes are being done to make WS more viable as a trade skill.</p><p>The problem with MC weapons in their current form wasnt GS, it was itemization and cost compared to wood weapons, not gleaming strike.</p><p>Now we are getting a tweak on gleaming strike that many have voiced concern over.  How is going from something that everyone wanted to something less then that exactly a "fix"?</p>

[Prrasha]

<cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote>Since haste is capped, </blockquote>A) there is no minimum weapon speed (which is what I assume "haste is capped" means in this context.)  The dev post on the subject was apparently before the message board revamp, so the links I've found to this statement are dead.  But <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=15&topic_id=199908𚰺" target="_blank">here's the location of one of the dead links</a>, and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=15&topic_id=348442��" target="_blank">here's one where someone claims a verified 0.4 delay with a raid-gained weapon</a>, so you know I'm not just blowing smoke.B) a soloing character without a haste-buffing spell isn't going to be spending much time at 100-or-greater haste anyway (which, if the fabled 0.8 minimum delay existed, is what you'd need to overhaste a 1.6 weapon).So, anyway, with the falchion and dirk (1.6 delay, +STR/INT, 1HS-sword and 1HP-dagger) or the flamberge and stiletto (4.0 delay, +STR/INT, 1HS-sword and 1HP-dagger) all in the game, what's the problem? If you, personally, don't want fast weapons, use the flamberge and/or stiletto. The existence of the falchion and dirk isn't hurting anyone's game at all, and apparently there are people who want them (and I did show a case where they'd be useful, even if I, personally, probably wouldn't use them.  Tho that 2nd link is in a thread about raiding swashbucklers using min-delay weapons to maximize procs from Inspiration and Cacophony, and how any CA usage would cost them DPS.  Maybe no longer a useful strategy in T8, but I'm not in a raid guild, so I wouldn't know.)

[Jrral]

<cite>Quadich@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>To add to this, I don't see why a wizard would be wielding a weapon with a melee proc on it, isn't the blessed proc  better? (Unless I overlooked it, the blessed proc doesn't have a positional hate gain or loss on it)</blockquote>According to what Domino said in her blog, Gleaming Strike will also proc on spells. A caster might want to use it for the hate-decrease proc, if they aren't aware that it can turn into a hate-gain proc at just the wrong time.

[seamus]

<cite>Galn wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Rashaak is correct. Folks that know how the mechanics of this game work wanted much higher delays. <b><u>Gameplay mechanics always trump 'realism' or should at least.</u></b> These changes will actually make crafted weapons a decent choice in a tier until a player gets legendary or better in an instance.</p><p>The plethora of haste abilities and items in the game today make it such that even casual non-raid players have a decent amount of haste available to them which has a direct impact on the relationship between CA and Spell casts and auto-attack dps.</p><p>Oh, Fatuus' explaination is much better then mine. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>As for the threat proc, its a choice to use it or not. The design for the threat proc means it can be more powerful then it would be otherwise. If it didn't have the 'negative' side to it, (positioning), it would have to be toned down, probably to the point of being useless. A good tank will adjust for this new mechanic, if the tank won't adjust you probably don't want him being your tank anyway <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /></p></blockquote>I had to reply to this seperately... This is your opinion, not mine. It's a good thing we both have choices in this. I play Eq because it is one of the most realistic MMORPG's out there. I do NOT like game mechanics taking front seat to realism and never will. I want the choice to ahve a fast delay weapon and really would like to have more than 2 to choose from. Long delay lovers get 90% of them to chose from. This doesnt seem fair to me.</blockquote><p>Fortunately for me and I imagine 90+ percent of the melee that play the game we're getting the longer delay weapons. BTW the weapons you'd want to have faster delay, rogues and predator's would want to have longer delays. As someone else mentioned, with all the haste available in the game at minimum you'd want a 3 second delay. You are not gaining anything with a delay faster then 3 seconds. Check out your personal screen and get the tooltip indicating the effective speed of your weapon.</p><p>We are not talking about a minor boost for min/maxers, many classes will have a very significant boost to dps. </p><p>Lets be clear here: These changes were put into the game in order to make weapon-smithed items desirable. Beyond level 40 or so Treasured or Legendary weapons selling for a few gold are superior to MC'd weapons. These changes will dramatically improve the quality of the weapons and their desirability, they will make great 'filler' weapons until a legendary or fabled can be picked up. As a Weaponsmith I wouldn't make a single 1.6 delay weapon, they don't sell, unless commisioned and even then I would discourage it.</p><p>If you really want a crappy 1.6 delay weapon there will still be plenty dropping from mobs. Of course Domino could double the recipes and provide a low delay version, which would be great. More recipes to get a bonus on. However, considering I've sold close to 0 weapons post 42ish precisely because of the delay it simply has no bearing from a weaponsmith's perspective. BTW the only weapons I've been commisioned on had ... you guessed it ... 2.5 delay.</p><p>As for this game being more realistic then any other, you have got to be kidding me. When was the last time you saw someone throw a fireball? When was the last time you went to a city of only good people (classes) vs a city of only evil people? (Yeah its an RP pet peeve of mine.) This game is just as unrealistic as any other, its a fantasy world.</p>

[Noaani]

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</blockquote>Now please, attempt to give me a single reasonable example of when a person expected to be using mastercrafted weapons would find a short delay weapon better than a long delay weapon. I need a good laugh.</blockquote>Dirge.  100% proc rate on Cacophony of Blades.  Faster weapon = more procs = more damage + more interrupts.</blockquote><p>this is the only actual answer I expected to get to that question... so I had an answer ready!</p><p>Anyone that is concerned enough about DPS to have a faster swinging weapon to equip when CoB is up simply would not be expected to be using mastercrafted weapons. They would have better.</p><p>Its really that simple.</p>

[Noaani]

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote>Noaani didn't ask about more than "1/6 of the time".  The question was "a single reasonable example [...where...] short delay [...is better than...] long delay."</blockquote><p>You cut out the most important part of the question. The part where I said "expected to use mastercrafted'.</p><p>its an increadibly important part of that question, and an increadibly important part of desinging mastercrafted weapons.</p><p>Would you want the devs to make mastercrafted weapons based around the needs of people that will not be using mastercrafted weapons?</p>

[Prrasha]

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote>Noaani didn't ask about more than "1/6 of the time".  The question was "a single reasonable example [...where...] short delay [...is better than...] long delay."</blockquote><p>You cut out the most important part of the question. The part where I said "expected to use mastercrafted'.</p><p>its an increadibly important part of that question, and an increadibly important part of desinging mastercrafted weapons.</p><p>Would you want the devs to make mastercrafted weapons based around the needs of people that will not be using mastercrafted weapons?</p></blockquote> And you cut out... just about everything. My initial comment was about a dirge in no particular situation. When my logic was questioned, I reduced it to a soloing dirge.  When further questioned, I brought up a swashbuckler/dirge combo, specifically posts from raiders who said they intentionally used fast weapons for the double Cacophony/Inspiration proc.If at least one situation on the spectrum of "solo dirge" <-> "dirge/swash duo" <-> "melee DPS group on a raid with both a dirge and a swash" isn't where you are "expected to use mastercrafted," then... um... who's supposed to use mastercrafted?  I'm pretty sure I've got it in there somewhere...

[Prrasha]

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Galn wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I want to pick up fast weapons on some of my toons and some of mine love long delay. As this system is setup now only my long delay toons will have much of a choice.</blockquote>Now please, attempt to give me a single reasonable example of when a person expected to be using mastercrafted weapons would find a short delay weapon better than a long delay weapon. I need a good laugh.</blockquote>Dirge.  100% proc rate on Cacophony of Blades.  Faster weapon = more procs = more damage + more interrupts.</blockquote><p>this is the only actual answer I expected to get to that question... so I had an answer ready!</p><p>Anyone that is concerned enough about DPS to have a faster swinging weapon to equip when CoB is up simply would not be expected to be using mastercrafted weapons. They would have better.</p><p>Its really that simple.</p></blockquote> 1) Who said "only when CoB is up"? A solo dirge only has 2 long-casting abilities that he might use in melee which would interrupt a 1.0s delay, really. You could use the 1.6 weapon all the time with the amount of haste a dirge would be expected to have, solo.2) I would certainly be concerned enough. Why can't soloers play the game well? My paladin carried a set of Incarnadine DPS/tank gear, and a set of Incarnadine healer gear, just in case. If he had the choice of incarnadine weapons before he got Jade Reaver, he might have more than one of those, too.

[Antryg Mistrose]

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite> 1) Who said "only when CoB is up"? A solo dirge only has 2 long-casting abilities that he might use in melee which would interrupt a 1.0s delay, really. You could use the 1.6 weapon all the time with the amount of haste a dirge would be expected to have, solo.</blockquote>Interesting assertion.  Not one I agree with  having actually tried and parsed Hopeshredder.

[Noaani]

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote>1) Who said "only when CoB is up"? A solo dirge only has 2 long-casting abilities that he might use in melee which would interrupt a 1.0s delay, really. You could use the 1.6 weapon all the time with the amount of haste a dirge would be expected to have, solo.2) I would certainly be concerned enough. Why can't soloers play the game well? My paladin carried a set of Incarnadine DPS/tank gear, and a set of Incarnadine healer gear, just in case. If he had the choice of incarnadine weapons before he got Jade Reaver, he might have more than one of those, too.</blockquote><p>Using a short delay weapon as a dirge would be detrimental to your DPS if for no reason other than the missed out extra damage from higher crit hits.</p><p>So, in order for it to be a means to gain DPS, yes, it has to be only when CoB is up, otherwise they are likely to be losing DPS.</p><p>If nothing else, you fulfilled exactly what I though anyone attempting to answer that question would, I did have a good laugh.</p><p>Thanks.</p>

[Prrasha]

<cite>Noaani wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote>1) Who said "only when CoB is up"? A solo dirge only has 2 long-casting abilities that he might use in melee which would interrupt a 1.0s delay, really. You could use the 1.6 weapon all the time with the amount of haste a dirge would be expected to have, solo.2) I would certainly be concerned enough. Why can't soloers play the game well? My paladin carried a set of Incarnadine DPS/tank gear, and a set of Incarnadine healer gear, just in case. If he had the choice of incarnadine weapons before he got Jade Reaver, he might have more than one of those, too.</blockquote><p>Using a short delay weapon as a dirge would be detrimental to your DPS if for no reason other than the missed out extra damage from higher crit hits.</p><p>So, in order for it to be a means to gain DPS, yes, it has to be only when CoB is up, otherwise they are likely to be losing DPS.</p><p>If nothing else, you fulfilled exactly what I though anyone attempting to answer that question would, I did have a good laugh.</p><p>Thanks.</p></blockquote>You're confusing delay with damage spread.  It's true that most non-crafted weapons follow the "longer delay = wider min-max spread" rule, but every crafted weapon (on Test) is exactly 1:4, and will gain exactly the same advantage from critical hits.  Do the math.But, um, thanks for the "good laugh," I guess.And before you think your "logical" trap was that cunning, go ponder<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman</a>.  And ponder your logic of "no player would use these." "This player would use these." "well, no GOOD player would use these."/shrug.  Guess I'm done here if you're just out to play gotcha.