Is EQ2 a balanced game in regards to class contribution?

[Bauglir]

<p>My questions for those that care to answer with their opinions:</p><p>1.  Are classes balanced in this game in regards to their group and raid contributions?</p><p>2.  Should class balance be a goal?</p><p>My opinion:</p><p>1.  No classes are not balanced and really have not been at all from the begining of the game.</p><p>2.  I think there should be more of an effort to balance classes and define them better in the online documentation.</p>

[Lempo]

<p>You know where this thread is headed and the intent of it, I do not think you will find support here for the cause you are 'championing' either, Let's see how this one goes.</p>

[Mohee]

<p>With 25 classes in EQ2, of course they are not all balanced.</p><p>However, I personally think they've come a long way, and for the most part, all classes do pretty good (assuming you are a skilled player that knows how to learn your class and get the most out of it)</p><p>There's lots of games out there that have only 4-8 classes and a lot of those games are far more unbalanced than most EQ2 classes.</p><p>I think a lot of the discrepency you'll find in EQ2 is people will say "oh, this healer class is not as balanced because it can't do the DPS of this other healer class." Which to me are quite humorous arguments.</p><p>Some classes are easier to play than others. Some play more of a "support" role. They have different skill sets and takes a skilled player to utilize the maximum potential of a class. It's hard to even compare most classes because of their different varying abilities that they come with, and how each player uses them.</p><p>The two main classes I play (Conjuror and Guardian), I see a lot of people complain about both. A lot of people will tell you Conjuror's lack DPS in comparrison to other mage DPS, yet I don't see it. My whole life as a Conjuror i've always been able to bring top DPS as well as utility at the same time to groups and raids at all levels. Same thing with the Guardian, you'll see a lot of people complain about their tanking/aggro ability compared to other tanks nowadays, yet in the meantime, I never seem to have a problem holding aggro and mitigating damage when I play mine. Sure... my dps as a guardian is garbage compared to all other tank classes, but somehow I still manage to hold aggro very well and please every group/raid I join.</p><p>Thats my 2cp.</p>

[Illmarr]

<p>Sure, I'll let you troll me since it's obvious to anyone who reads the entire forum why and how this thread comes to be.</p><p>In general Classes are more balanced than they have been in some time. For most people, given equal levels of skill/gear/buffs the classes historicallyexpected to top parses (Wiz/War/Assassin/Ran/) do so, but now are competing with Conjy (and perhaps Beastlords and Necros, don't raid with either class to know) While some tank classes arwe better equipped to tank some things than others, it's not like all of them cannot do any content, just takes a little more from some. Massive numbers of cures and lack of content that absolutely requires max HPS has made Inq/Mystic the min/max choices, but again it's not as if you cannot kill stuff using others. This is true no matter what level of difficulty you play at. Raid. EoW level Heroic content/Pools/Ascent Heroic content. </p><p>Of course class balance should be a goal. It's the one aspect of development that is currently in a good place.</p>

[General_Info]

<p><cite>Mohee wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>With 25 classes in EQ2, of course they are not all balanced.</p><p>However, I personally think they've come a long way, and for the most part, all classes do pretty good (assuming you are a skilled player that knows how to learn your class and get the most out of it)</p><p>There's lots of games out there that have only 4-8 classes and a lot of those games are far more unbalanced than most EQ2 classes.</p><p>I think a lot of the discrepency you'll find in EQ2 is people will say "oh, this healer class is not as balanced because it can't do the DPS of this other healer class." Which to me are quite humorous arguments.</p><p>Some classes are easier to play than others. Some play more of a "support" role. They have different skill sets and takes a skilled player to utilize the maximum potential of a class. It's hard to even compare most classes because of their different varying abilities that they come with, and how each player uses them.</p></blockquote><p>I'd sum it up as every class has a different mixture of roles and abilities some do better at certain things then others but fall short in other departments for example (from my experiance) mystics are more a mixture of debuffing, warding and less in the healing department then the other priests and are a good suppliment when you have another priest.</p><p>Personally i think the charater creation screen could use updating to stress more the pros and cons of each class as well as the sliders in the apperance interface having a percentage tooltip so you can adjust it to precisely what you want if you want a slider consistancy between toons while having them look different.(currently if you save an apperance then ether modify an existing char or create a new one and then lock every slider except the one you want to change and then load the saved apperance it modifies everything as per the file rather then just the unlocked slider)</p>

[The_Cheeseman]

<p>It is my opinion that class balance and progression are two ends of a spectrum--a sliding scale. Each class has strengths and weaknesses, and each one does its job in a different way. There will always be certain encounters that favor one class over another, and the more difficult those encounters become, the wider the performance gap grows. Since there is only ever a finite amount of relevant content in the game, there is bound to be a set of classes for whom more encounters favor them, and a set of classes for whom more encounters punish them.</p><p>You can have perfectly balanced classes as long as everything is so easy that no class really has a significant advantage, but that won't appeal to progression-centric players. On the other hand, you can have perfectly balanced progression, as long as everybody starts with exactly the same capabilities, but then you wouldn't have meaningful differences between classes. The trick is finding the sweet spot somewhere in the middle where the majority of your players are happy.</p><p>So basically, you can have progression or you can have class balance, but never both at the same time. There will always be certain classes that work best in the relevant content, and other classes that get the shaft.</p>

[Raknid]

<p>Will be more balanced once BLs get the LU13 Guardian treatment, but otherwise isn't too horribly bad, and is probably at a spot where it is as good as it has been in a while.</p>

[Nrgy]

<p>Just ask yourself, is you have a solid group of 5 people and want to fill out the last spot ... /1_9 Group looking to fill last spot then gtg ...ANY CLASS WILL DO...  So, which class would you not put in that slot?  If the answer is truely any then you have balance.</p><p>Class balance is only relevant at two points in the game... when you roll a level 1 toon and when you get your last piece of HM gear.  Everything in the middle is subject to too many variables ... the most prevalent being Player Skill.</p>

[ceester]

I agree with Nrgy. I think there are too many variables between the beginning and end every truly say classes are balanced or not. Player skill has a whole lot to do with it. I cannot play an SK for example with identical, gear, AA's, etc. as well as others but then again, some people will not be able to play the bruiser as well as I do. Again, that playing "well" comment is only relevant in whatever situation you choose to use.

[Bruener]

<p>End Game Raid content - Fighter balance is terrible currently</p>

[Finora]

<p><cite>Nrgy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Just ask yourself, is you have a solid group of 5 people and want to fill out the last spot ... /1_9 Group looking to fill last spot then gtg ...ANY CLASS WILL DO...  So, which class would you not put in that slot?  If the answer is truely any then you have balance.</p><p>Class balance is only relevant at two points in the game... when you roll a level 1 toon and when you get your last piece of HM gear.  Everything in the middle is subject to too many variables ... the most prevalent being Player Skill.</p></blockquote><p>Well put.</p><p>And really, the only way to ever achieve complete class balance is have only one class. And I don't think anyone really wants that.</p>

[Bauglir]

<p>Too many variables?  Possibly. </p><p>Gear is one of the issues, the itemization currently (at least for mages) makes the distance between full Rygorr and full EM Raid substantial.  Basiclly without raid gear DoV content, even for 6 man groups is painfully slow..</p><p>But this has been dabated for ages it seems.</p>

[Odys]

<p>As many said all classes can play but balance is far from existing.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Compare templar and inquisitor, for high end raids ?</span></p><p>I will take the Inqui, because he can cure twice more often, he can cure while KB/stillfed or anything. He also bring much mpre dps buf to pass the dps checks.</p><p>My templar friend will never betray and she may be the last  90 templar on my server, currently they are still like 3 for 100 inquisitors).</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Compare furies and wardens ?</span></p><p>Furies have higher dps, moreover this dps is 90% of magical nature (not hybrid like wardens), the design of the aa allow to get the best out ranged dps. Ironically furies do more damage but don't need to position themselves to do it, they can also stay safely afar.</p><p>Furies have better curing abilities, not much better since their raid cure is on a superlong timer but still. Warden tranquility is almost useless -- unless someone announce aoe with a 1second precision and you happen to know what is the inter tick interval <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />) and shattered infection is not a reactive cure.</p><p>But furies do proc a big heal on cure and warden don't (even with cure aa the side effect heal is pathetic with a warden).</p><p>Furies have a much better death prevent spell, it's called hibernate. It's amusing since warden do have AA for anti death, the result is that hibernate makes tunare watch ridiculous.</p><p>Furies do protect their raid better, porcupine is an amazing tool.</p><p>Furies do also bring feast, and a st haste buf  that is much much better than instinct .......</p><p>Warden bring defensive outdated spell, they raise defense/block and tanks are gentle enough to not tell the warden :</p><p>- you know my block is capped and my hate is so high than your sanstorm is useless.</p><p>- hum indeed nobody in group needs more crit mit ;-(</p><p>- No no not a single unit of elemental damage on my parse ...</p><p>The only advantage of warden over furies remain the warden mana regen, so in raids as long as your coercer is not asleep healers are going to be feeded.</p><p><strong>We raided with 1 fury 2 wardens 1 templar, we would have done way better with 3 furies and 1 inquisitor. </strong></p><p>The crit mit bonus was usefull, but since requirement have been decreased making the warden buf useless.</p>

[SacDaddy420]

<p>DPS classes arent balanced at all.</p>

[Mohee]

<p><cite>Sacdaddicus@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>DPS classes arent balanced at all.</p></blockquote><p>Well don't bother to elaborate or anything on your statement <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Mermut]

<p>The biggest determiner of how useful a class is, is the person playing it. Gorock would have you beleive that all furies are better then all wardens. I've seen furies out heal and out dps a warden, I've seen wardens out heal and out dps a fury. I've been a heal specced warden out healing and out dpsing a fury that is mostly dps specced. In equal gear, how well a particular class does is dependant on the player know how to get the most out of the class. Some classes are easier, which makes them seem more powerful because more people can play them well, some classes are harder, making them appear weaker because fewer people know how to get the most out of them. Is claass balance perfect? Certainly not. It is very difficult to measure though, as the player behind the toon makes more of a difference then anything else.</p>

[Bruener]

<p><cite>Mohee wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Sacdaddicus@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>DPS classes arent balanced at all.</p></blockquote><p>Well don't bother to elaborate or anything on your statement <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>DPS tiers aren't balanced against each other.</p><p>And I will add that DPS in general is not balanced with the big gap T1 DPS has over everybody.  Its too large.</p>

[Elskidor]

<p>Bstlord way OP, Brawler and Inq slightly OP, and Zerkers are just fail. Conj and Warden will soon become in the same shape as the Zerkers if certain someones doesn't quit spamming as bad Talathion, and forcing the devs to ignore the classes altogether to avoid him/her/them.</p>

[Mohee]

<p>Most people claim Guardians to be a fail tank.</p><p>Yet I hardly ever have a problem with mine.</p><p>*/shrugs</p><p>95%+ of the cases people talk about unbalanced classes usually have never played that class, or don't play it well, or have played with a lot of people who can't play that class well. So they're left thinking that class isn't as good as another.</p><p>I've seen every DPS class beat other DPS classes. Dependant on the player skill (and of course gear/aa's play a small role too). The situation, and group make up, and teamwork of the group depends on this heavily as well. So trying to use the argument of "this class is more dps than this class because I saw it in a raid parse." That argument means absolutely nothing because there is just waaaay to many factors in raids such as group set up, and your fellow players skills that can boost your own DPS. Timing is usually a key factor as well. Because my conj in our mage group, I can achieve huge amounts of DPS while working with the Troub, Illy, and Fury to time things right to do incredible numbers. Switch me to a different group, now I'm not anywhere near the top of the parse. Same goes for all the melee DPS classes, they can do incredible DPS and do a great job fighting for the top of the parse, switching who is on top almost every fight, and the numbers are so close. Thats my experience in raids, usually the result of a well put together raid force, with excellent maximized group set-ups, with nothing but smart leaders, and SMART players who know how to work together.</p><p>I've seen every tank class tank better than another tank class. Therefore its dependant on the players skill and knowledge of their class and how they utilize their full potential. As some have mentioned before, some classes are easier to play, some are harder. But to say a particular class is "fail" or "sucks" because of the majority of players they run into playing that class can't play it well, is no reason to automatically blame the class. Or just because you can't play a particular class as well as you'd except, doesn't mean you should blame the class, in most cases, it is your fault. Hard to accept...</p><p>I can say the same thing about every type of class in the game. Tanks, Healers, DPS, Utility.</p><p>Not all classes are balanced. But not all classes have the same skill sets. Everyone plays a character differently, leaving to many variables and making it impossible to really say wether or not one if better than the other.</p><p>In the end, if you have a good group of people, that consist of smart players that know how to play their class, you should never have any problems. If you have a problem with a class your playing and think they're unbalanced, the best thing you can do is /feedback it. If enough people have the same problem and send in the same feedback, its bound to change. Lots of classes have been beefed up from people doing this. There's a difference between legitimate feedback, and feedback from a player that just doesn't quite grasp the class they're trying to play.</p>

[Aneova]

<p><cite>Gorock@Storms wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>As many said all classes can play but balance is far from existing.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Compare templar and inquisitor, for high end raids ?</span></p><p>I will take the Inqui, because he can cure twice more often, he can cure while KB/stillfed or anything. He also bring much mpre dps buf to pass the dps checks.</p><p>My templar friend will never betray and she may be the last  90 templar on my server, currently they are still like 3 for 100 inquisitors).</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Compare furies and wardens ?</span></p><p>Furies have higher dps, moreover this dps is 90% of magical nature (not hybrid like wardens), the design of the aa allow to get the best out ranged dps. Ironically furies do more damage but don't need to position themselves to do it, they can also stay safely afar.</p><p>Furies have better curing abilities, not much better since their raid cure is on a superlong timer but still. Warden tranquility is almost useless -- unless someone announce aoe with a 1second precision and you happen to know what is the inter tick interval <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />) and shattered infection is not a reactive cure.</p><p><span style="color: #339966;">You don't need an announcement, there's a macro you can make and press 1 time every time you log into game that will display a large mob cast bar on your screen. </span></p><p>But furies do proc a big heal on cure and warden don't (even with cure aa the side effect heal is pathetic with a warden).</p><p><span style="color: #339966;">Warden cures get: A heal over time effect, a damage shield, a second heal over time proc if the target is under 30% health, AND wardens also get to modify their cure curse cast speed.</span></p><p><span style="color: #339966;">Furies get: a heal over time effect...</span></p><p><span style="color: #339966;">Yep it's just not fair</span></p><p>Furies have a much better death prevent spell, it's called hibernate. It's amusing since warden do have AA for anti death, the result is that hibernate makes tunare watch ridiculous.</p><p><span style="color: #339966;">Hibernate is not a death prevention, it's a group heal that has a 10 second delay that the Dev team keeps trying to shorten. The AA for it does add in a supposed trigger if health drops below 15% however, I have better chances of winning the lottery then for the trigger to hit before death.</span></p><p>Furies do protect their raid better, porcupine is an amazing tool.</p><p><span style="color: #339966;">I'll argue that one spell only helps the other healers, it's a team effort, but yes Porcupine is a great spell since it was changed to no longer stiffle and turned into a raid spell instead of a single target.</span></p><p>Furies do also bring feast, and a st haste buf  that is much much better than instinct .......</p><p><span style="color: #339966;">Feast is still garbage and won't ever hit my hotbar until it regens Power or an amount of health that is higher then a lvl 20 group heal (comparing it to a group heal is being generous). Primal Fury on the other hand is not just for Scouts anymore I'd be more inclined to put it on a caster if I didn't so jealously keep it all to myself.</span></p><p>Warden bring defensive outdated spell, they raise defense/block and tanks are gentle enough to not tell the warden :</p><p>- you know my block is capped and my hate is so high than your sanstorm is useless.</p><p>- hum indeed nobody in group needs more crit mit ;-(</p><p>- No no not a single unit of elemental damage on my parse ...</p><p><span style="color: #339966;">Block isn't just for tanks, if you have a cleric they, I believe, give tanks a second chance at blocking. You could always get rid of your Crit mit buff and pick up something else, wardens have a far better and flexible AA selection then Furies. As for not a single unit of elemental damage that's just B S looking at my warden, his 3 damage spells are all elemental based.</span></p><p>The only advantage of warden over furies remain the warden mana regen, so in raids as long as your coercer is not asleep healers are going to be feeded.</p><p><strong>We raided with 1 fury 2 wardens 1 templar, we would have done way better with 3 furies and 1 inquisitor. </strong></p><p>The crit mit bonus was usefull, but since requirement have been decreased making the warden buf useless.</p></blockquote><p>so when you're done complaining, maybe you should try to learn your class and about the classes you play with while in a group and raid.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Bauglir wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My questions for those that care to answer with their opinions:</p><p>1.  Are classes balanced in this game in regards to their group and raid contributions?</p><p>2.  Should class balance be a goal?</p></blockquote><p>No</p><p>and</p><p>No</p>

[Solarax]

<p>i being a raider with access to some of the best gear and playing a lot i have a LOT of alts nearly all are dps . My main is a necro in which i now find myself loosing out to lesser equiped beastlords that have like 5 different attacks boosting them over 300kdps. i also have 2 conjis a warlock ( not yet raid geared past some EM) wizard , illy ,assassin, brig , and SK (EM only except weapons are HM).</p><p>so for mage classes all i need is a coercer , not that , that is important or anything.</p><p>what is important is that i have never to this day ever asked for any class to be nerfed since eq1 beta</p><p>now i can say bst need to be.</p><p>im not realy interested in playing a bst but soon i may have to just to keep up with dps if they are not brought in line with other classes.</p><p>I parse slightly higher than a bst in his defencive stance  on raids but once they go feral. come on 45 second timers for multiple high damage hits and some of those hits hitting for over 1 mill.</p><p>things were just starting to even out with int class dps  ( im not adressing the ranger assassin issues here , save that balance talk for after they have done something about this ).</p>

[HBP]

<p><cite>Mohee wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Sacdaddicus@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>DPS classes arent balanced at all.</p></blockquote><p>Well don't bother to elaborate or anything on your statement <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Don't need more elaboration.  For people who have played this game since like RoK, class balance has always been off.  The gear in this game has more or less defined the classes.  </p><p>So to answer the OP's questions:  Yes, classes are not balanced and, no, class balance should not be a goal because it'll never be possible with this dev team.</p>

[Zyek]

<p>This is more a QQ Thread ;p Stop whinning or they will nerf you !</p>

[Odys]

<p><cite>Mermut wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The biggest determiner of how useful a class is, is the person playing it. Gorock would have you beleive that all furies are better then all wardens. I've seen furies out heal and out dps a warden, I've seen wardens out heal and out dps a fury. I've been a heal specced warden out healing and out dpsing a fury that is mostly dps specced. In equal gear, how well a particular class does is dependant on the player know how to get the most out of the class. Some classes are easier, which makes them seem more powerful because more people can play them well, some classes are harder, making them appear weaker because fewer people know how to get the most out of them. Is claass balance perfect? Certainly not. It is very difficult to measure though, as the player behind the toon makes more of a difference then anything else.</p></blockquote><p>In the raid i was my warden was doing better than our furie even for dps (i mean cure and heals). But know what my warden will win as a fury :</p><p>She would bring porcupine.</p><p>She would bring massive side effect heals on cure.</p><p>She would get a 9 second recast anti death called hibernate.</p><p>She would be able to get full benefit from a ranged dps spec (I  often run her with the int line due to low recast on nukes, i also have battlepriest stance it depends).</p><p>She would bring an awesome buf (primal furie).</p><p>She would protect mages better (animal form).</p><p>Being a tinkerer with manastone i can even coer some mana issues, but yes i will need a feed from time too time.</p><p>Raid cure is more likely to save the raid than cyclone.</p><p>She will loose :</p><p>Elemental ward, that's the main loss but with aoe blocker and a HPS that is twice or three time what is required it's not so important. In our first trial on Ebaine it was essential due to our crappy gear but now those mobs don't do anything. In the hard mode i did no massive healing was required, it was more about obnoxious fail conditions and preventing stuns/stiffle and blocking aoe.</p><p>Crit mit buf : Was nice to keep a crappy new raider alive, crit mit is removed so. I still cast it but we all over the requirement => so it's useless.</p><p>Hierophantic genesis: It does to prevent spike damage to kill. Without it my hps is enough to bring back a tank in the green in 2 seconds. I still love that spell, the mana regen on it is nice too. But in raid i quite often use it on a lifeburn necro or to manafeed my co-heal. Mana regen is the dutie of enchanters. I can live without it.Anyway back in the fray is a better tool to cover spike damage.</p><p>Tunare watch (improved one) : Hibernate recast is like 10 time less.</p><p>Various AA/spell improving block, defense, hate etc .... (sandstorm, instinct aas, aa on group buf etc ...):</p><p>Actually since i started to play and tank and read the tank forums i found out that most of those abilities were capped and that most tanks are hitting the cap.</p><p>For raid it will be 100% win, for heroic content it will be different. I may need to run with an echanter on my side. But indeed that's already the case, most group include an enchanter : for AA buf (dps or haste) and mana regen. My warden don't need regen mana and she can also feed her tank but she rarely run withoutthem simply because other people do need mana. I m aware that  in some situations in which my warden won a fury will loose .... As example in vigiltant instance the following happened often : warden get the curse, tranquility does not tick in time, noone cure her (either because noone can or because mages are silly), she almost killed and down to zero mana, she click manastone and mana comes back ... There a fury will have issues, especially when this happen almost each pull (so tinkered manastone will be timed after a while).</p><p>I consider that there much more to win than to loose.</p><p>I was stopped in my betrayal process a year ago, and now with my gear being tagged with "warden" and no armor exchange system i m locked into my class.</p><p>As soon as some extension comes out i may betray, i have all the furie master in bank and my AA choices are already decided.</p><p>I m currently testing a babay furies and the class works as expected : massive heal, great bufs, amazing porcupine, fantastic hibernate, nice back into the fray, etc ....</p><p>A good move could be to merge warden and furies both can solo heal and cure (unlike templar and mystics), brig an aoe blocker, have some anti stiffle trick (unlike mystics) and can be specced for range dps.</p>

[Gravy]

<p><cite>Bauglir wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My questions for those that care to answer with their opinions:</p><p>1.  Are classes balanced in this game in regards to their group and raid contributions?</p><p>2.  Should class balance be a goal?</p><p>My opinion:</p><p>1.  No classes are not balanced and really have not been at all from the begining of the game.</p><p>2.  I think there should be more of an effort to balance classes and define them better in the online documentation.</p></blockquote><p>How do you define balance?</p><p>If by balance you mean that each class should bring something valuable to a group / raid setting, then yes they should be balanced.</p><p>If by balance you mean that a SK should be able to taunt as well as a Guardian, then no, they should not be balanced.</p>

[Torri]

<p><cite>Gorock@Storms wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Mermut wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The biggest determiner of how useful a class is, is the person playing it. Gorock would have you beleive that all furies are better then all wardens. I've seen furies out heal and out dps a warden, I've seen wardens out heal and out dps a fury. I've been a heal specced warden out healing and out dpsing a fury that is mostly dps specced. In equal gear, how well a particular class does is dependant on the player know how to get the most out of the class. Some classes are easier, which makes them seem more powerful because more people can play them well, some classes are harder, making them appear weaker because fewer people know how to get the most out of them. Is claass balance perfect? Certainly not. It is very difficult to measure though, as the player behind the toon makes more of a difference then anything else.</p></blockquote><p>*Snipped a lot of junk*</p><p>A good move could be to merge warden and furies both can solo heal and cure (unlike templar and mystics), brig an aoe blocker, have some anti stiffle trick (unlike mystics) and can be specced for range dps.</p><p>  </p></blockquote><p>Please stop posting nonsense. No one but seemingly you wants classes merged. If I'd wanted to be a  Fury I'd be a Fury</p>

[thewarriorpoet]

<p>Kind of a pointless thread. Through this games history various classes have been more needed or less needed as the mechanics of the game change. This is too be expected, honestly.</p><p>Though it does erk me that casters have lost their glass cannon feel and just feel like glass compared to the melee dps. The melee and ranged auto attack have gotten out of control.</p>

[S_M_I_T_E]

<p><cite>thewarriorpoet wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Kind of a pointless thread. Through this games history various classes have been more needed or less needed as the mechanics of the game change. This is too be expected, honestly.</p><p>Though it does erk me that casters have lost their glass cannon feel and just feel like glass compared to the melee dps. <span style="color: #ff00ff;">The melee and ranged auto attack have gotten out of control.</span></p></blockquote><p>I think they'll have to fix that 600MA on scouts by altering their autoattack mod like they did with the Inq STA ability that was changed from 100% crit to Autoattack mod in SF (I think it was).</p><p>It would go a long way to reduce the load of data back and forth on their data lines server side.</p><p>200% MA should be the ceiling.</p><p>25% MA should be a juicy floor.</p><p>600 is just plain crazy unless characters start getting blur animations along the lines of Baldur's gate II Displacement spell.</p>

[Raffir]

<p>Parity always ruins a game. Be it football or ....video games.  The challenge is to achieve balance on your own..in group or raid.</p><p>Raf</p>

[Talathion]

<p>No.</p><p>Brawlers are the best Tanks</p><p>Beastlords are the best DPS.</p><p>Nothing else compares, by far.</p>

[Odys]

<p><cite>Torri@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gorock@Storms wrote</cite></p><blockquote></blockquote><p>Please stop posting nonsense. No one but seemingly you wants classes merged. If I'd wanted to be a  Fury I'd be a Fury</p></blockquote><p>The warden is currently simply a furie missing some abiltiies, if you don't understand that i m sorry for you. Some people  are stupid and bad at maths. Indeed most people are stupid and terrible at maths.</p><p>Warden and furies were acutally almost merged when they were given similar heroic AAs and similar gear.</p><p> I m laughing each time i hear that furies cannot solo heal as well as wardens, there must be quite a lot of abyssal fures around.</p><p>SK/Paladin are quite differents but furies and warden are not.</p>

[Odys]

<p><cite>Talathion@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Brawlers are the best Tanks</p></blockquote><p>I m not saying you are wrong but explain me why leather tanks are so rare ?</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Because to be a GOOD Brawler you have to be, well, not a terrible player.</p><p>Because too many people roll Brawlers because of their ability to FD flop and farm names. </p><p>Because too many Brawlers think they are DPS.</p><p>There are dozens of reasons why there are so few Brawler tanks, but so many Brawlers.  There are barely a handful of decent Brawler tanks in the game.</p>

[Vitriol]

<p><cite>Gorock@Storms wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>A good move could be to merge warden and furies both can solo heal and cure (unlike templar and mystics), brig an aoe blocker, have some anti stiffle trick (unlike mystics) and can be specced for range dps.</p></blockquote><p>Please stop playing a warden immediately.  You are possibly the stupidest person I've ever seen make comments about wardens</p>

[Freejazzlive]

<p><cite>Bauglir wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>1.  Are classes balanced in this game in regards to their group and raid contributions?</p></blockquote><p>Define what you mean by "contributions," please. Are you talking strictly about DPS/HPS, or do you mean the "full Monty" of abilities?</p>

[Rageincarnate]

<p>Revmp heroic ops !! put some good abilities in the ho's !!</p><p>Stoneskins, hit rate mods, dps increases, whatever.. make em work for it rather then a button push or roll x class!</p><p>Apply balance to the combat system since class balance seems so difficult!</p>

[Oakum]

<p><cite>Mohee wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think a lot of the discrepency you'll find in EQ2 is people will say "oh, this healer class is not as balanced because it can't do the DPS of this other healer class." Which to me are quite humorous arguments.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, that just shows a lack of knowledge of the healer classes and sub classes or possibly, you are in one of the flavor of year for the last 4 years healer classes.</p><p>While dps is not as important to the three healer classes as a T1 or T2 dps, it affects soloabilty and lvling initially so is important to all classes and not just healers either. I guess you were not around when trying to lvl a temp or defiler or bard before the buffed up their dps to kill more quickly. Leveling those classes was pretty much a group only option due to dps being so low.</p><p>Let me educate you a little, lol.</p><p>All healers are supposed to be relatively equal in their ability to heal a group. That is the primary side of any priest subclass.</p><p>Now there are secondary sides of pretty much all classes inclding priests.</p><p>For clerics, its temp buffs. Templers tend to buff for group survivablity and inquisitors for upping group dps.</p><p>Shaman its debuffs. One debuffs the mob to do less damage and one debuffs the mob to take more damage.</p><p>Druids secondary is DPS. Wardens, with the intro of melee priest, tend to be melee, single target orientated and furys spell with more aoe's.</p><p>This is easy to verifiy if you look at their quck casting non heal spells/abilities, ones with less then a minute recast. See who has the most temp buffs, debuffs, and damage.</p><p>Now with that in mind, any other priest sub class being able to out dps an equally geared/skilled druid is severely unbalanced as that is the main secondary side of being a druid. How did it happen? It happened when they upped the dps of all priest and utility classes (bard and chanter too) to make soloing easier but they never raised druid dps as nearly as much as they needed to bring the secondary side of priest classes back into "balance" meaning druids significantly out dps cleric and shaman.  </p><p>Most priest that post in the forums focus on raids though for balance issues and not overall class abilities and  secondary sides for all content, probably just like you seem to be doing. Balance is not making the classes cookie cutter though. Druids trade dps for having a lot of buffs and debuffs like clerics and shaman.</p><p>Druids, and especially wardens, have the issue of what do they bring to raids. Clerics and shaman, with, their buffs and debuffs as well as their primary heal types tend to be more useful. Fury's seem to be okay for mage groups but the inquisitor, from some posts i read, may be more and more the prefered choice for it and other groups too, even taking the place of the templer in the MT group.</p><p>The devs have a tough time balancing the classes and have been unable to find a way to not only fix wardens to be wanted in raids as more then the a third healer for the MT group if needed and from what I read about raid mobs not doing nearly as much single target as aoe orientated, three healer MT groups are probably not very common now anyway so its worse then before. GU-13, the last big class balance attempt, was the start of the "wanted for raid" inequality of classes with some classes becoming leapfrogging each other in desirability from one lvl change to another although it did fix a lot of other class issues at the time for a lot of classes.</p><p>Class mergers are not the answer though, lol. I too guessed this threads purpose.</p>

[Oakum]

<p><cite>Gorock@Storms wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Torri@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gorock@Storms wrote</cite></p><blockquote></blockquote><p>Please stop posting nonsense. No one but seemingly you wants classes merged. If I'd wanted to be a  Fury I'd be a Fury</p></blockquote><p>The warden is currently simply a furie missing some abiltiies, if you don't understand that i m sorry for you. Some people  are stupid and bad at maths. Indeed most people are stupid and terrible at maths.</p><p>Warden and furies were acutally almost merged when they were given similar heroic AAs and similar gear.</p><p> I m laughing each time i hear that furies cannot solo heal as well as wardens, there must be quite a lot of abyssal fures around.</p><p>SK/Paladin are quite differents but furies and warden are not.</p></blockquote><p>You have to love someone (its good for a laugh, like a 3 year old explaining how the goverment works, lol) who has only played, according to his info, for a little over 3 years and thinks he/she knows enough about all 25 classes to say they should be merged and which ones. I have 18 classes at lvl 90 between my two accounts and I do not see any class as being exactly the same like you do. When you get all classes to lvl 92 now, with max aa and prestigege aa's too, and play them significantly in solo, group and raid. Then I might be more inclined to take  a little more serious yours and anyone else who makes these "SOE should merge classes" posts. lol.</p>