Lay on Hands and Shield Changes

[Kallirye]

<p>From Game Update #50 <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=436155" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=436155</a></p><p>"<span ><strong>Shield Block chance is no longer an </strong><strong>uncontested avoidance</strong>. It will now multiply your base chance to block with a shield rather than add."</span></p><p>"<span >Lay of hands has had its recast lowered but<strong> now consumes power.</strong>"</span></p><p>The EQ2 Development team thought they could <em>slip </em>these changes by us and the Paladins wouldn't notice or care?  I read the class forums and I am surprised by the apathy of the players here.  Why is no one outraged by these changes?  After 4 years, why does the development team change one of the fundamental abilities of our class, Lay on Hands?  Lay on Hands is not a spell that requires power to "cast" it is a unique class ability intrinsic to the Paladin class and not just in the EQ and EQ2 lore.</p><p>The uncontested avoidance of a shield was one of the best things they ever did for a frontline fighter and now that is trivialized as well.  Did they make this change in response to other classes complaining about a supposed "unfair advantage" of using a shield over simply high agility?</p>

[NANEEJE]

Hey bud... this was discussed in detail on the flames forum. Sorry you missed it <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Niou]

<p>There's a thread about the Lay Hands issue just a few posts down from this one I believe, yes it is a stupid change. As for the uncontested avoidance...its not just a Paladin issue, its an issue for all tanks. SoE decided that unconested avoidance was giving too much avoidance I guess. So, they've taken it out of the game. /shrug, what can ya do.</p>

[Kallirye]

<p>I dug through a couple of pages on the Paladin forum trying to figure out why my Lay on Hands cost power now and I didn't see any threads commenting on that here, so I started going through the past updates noted until I came across those two lines in LU50 which I quoted above.</p><p>To answer the question, "What can ya do" posed by Niou, I would voicing your opinion on these forums and submitting /feedback within the game is a good start.</p><p>Has anyone done the math or run some tests with the new combat change?  With the artifical hard cap imposed by the developers on most stats such as avoidance, is it even necessary to have a shield anymore or should we just focus on getting as high an agility as possible?  I would love to look at the numbers from the results.</p>

[Niou]

<p><cite>Kallirye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dug through a couple of pages on the Paladin forum trying to figure out why my Lay on Hands cost power now and I didn't see any threads commenting on that here, so I started going through the past updates noted until I came across those two lines in LU50 which I quoted above.</p><p>To answer the question, "What can ya do" posed by Niou, I would voicing your opinion on these forums and submitting /feedback within the game is a good start.</p><p>Has anyone done the math or run some tests with the new combat change?  With the artifical hard cap imposed by the developers on most stats such as avoidance, is it even necessary to have a shield anymore or should we just focus on getting as high an agility as possible?  I would love to look at the numbers from the results.</p></blockquote><p>/sigh</p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=437959" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=437959</a></p><p>That post is about 10 below this one at the moment. The thread is commentary on all the up's and down's of lay hands.</p><p>"What can ya do", was not a question. It was simply saying, they've decided to change how Block is going to work in their game. No amount of /feedback is going to change that. Thinking it can is naive at best and something else entirely at worst.</p><p>Uncontested avoidance is not the same type of issue, as say...adding a power cost to Lay Hands. They changed the way all tanks will perform in the game, it wasn't a decision made lightly I'm sure, because it affected a vast amount of items and adorns.</p><p>Feel free to /feedback and voice your opinion on the power cost of Lay Hands though. That has a possibility of changing, even if its a slight one.</p><p>If you want real number's on how the changes effected avoidance, I'd suggest going to the EQ2flames Paladin Forums.</p><p>PS: Yes, a shield is neccessary.</p>

[OrcSlayer96]

Just for clarification, shield protection(the large number on our tower or kite shield ie. 1388 or 1514 and so on) is still uncontested. One look at a ACT parse should be enough for a person to see that when in a TSO raid. The Shield Block is the Blue additives on a some pieces of gear like the Demonguard chest piece and the Shield of the Green Dragon that had +5 or +3 shield block. Before TSO changes it was a added uncontested block. If you had 20% block chance before and added a +5 shield block chest piece it would give you 25% block chance. With the additional gear later in ROK you had access to multiple versions of + block giving the best geared tanks out there close to 50% shield block chance. With the current change those items that had + block to them were changed to a multipler percentage, so the item that had 5 block on a native 20% block chance will now have 21% shield block chance(20 X .05 =21 versus 25 of before). All plate tanks have this issue, but they gave us shield effectiveness AA's or items to help boost us back some. The shield block/ shield protection /shield effectiveness changes really wont hinder a decently geared paladin, those that were heavily relying on Soulfire longsword or other +5 block items, just need to stack shield effectiveness items and AA's and they will be okay. On Lay on hands change, it is still instant cast and the recast is 1/3rd of what it was before TSO. I agree the 472 or so power is steep and should be either free or 150 or so power so it is nominal, but so far i havent been in a no power situation worrying about using the spell. Many of us have asked to have the power either eliminated or greatly reduced on the Lay on hands line, but have yet to see a yeah or nay on it...<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Kordran]

<p><cite>OrcSlayer96 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>On Lay on hands change, it is still instant cast and the recast is 1/3rd of what it was before TSO. I agree the 472 or so power is steep and should be either free or 150 or so power so it is nominal, but so far i havent been in a no power situation worrying about using the spell. Many of us have asked to have the power either eliminated or greatly reduced on the Lay on hands line, but have yet to see a yeah or nay on it...<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote><p>Not to mention that in any reasonable group, and certainly any raid, you're going to have power regen which pretty much makes it a non-issue. I don't think it would be out of line for them to reduce the power cost, but I don't see it as a game-breaker as it is now, either.</p>