Out-of-era spells on PoK merchants

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Pithy, Jul 12, 2016.

  1. Pithy

    Pithy I Feel Loved

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    I'm posting this in general discussion rather than a bugs forum because I don't know if it's a bug or not that some PoK merchants sell Luclin- and PoP-era spells. I know TAKP isn't a progression server. We have all sorts of out-of-era zones and mechanics, so I don't think out-of-era spells are necessarily bad. I've noticed, however, that the Bazaar and East Commonlands merchants who sell Luclin-era spells have been disabled. I'm just curious about whether there's a policy at play here, or if this is an accidental consequence of faithful reproduction of AK's PoK. Either way, it seems to help some classes way more than others.

    For example, my cleric bought her PoP-era line of spell haste buffs from Vicar Ceraen. 10% faster spells is hardly game-breaking, but it's pretty nice. As a more extreme example, paladins have access to class-defining abilities that don't really exist with in-era spells:
    • Healing Wave of Prexus, a big, efficient group heal
    • Quellious' Word of Tranquility, a max-duration stun that works on mobs up to level 61 (without this spell, paladins would only be able to stun mobs up to level 55 until Luclin)
    • Cease and Desist, cheap/fast low-level stuns that generate good threat
    • Brell's Mountainous Barrier (quite a lot of hp in this era; only drops from Luclin raid bosses)
    Anyway, I'm not saying nerf paladins (I'm sure some other classes get nice out-of-era bumps too; anyone have examples?), I just think out-of-era spells being sold in PoK has big implications for class balance and might be worth discussing. Apologies if it's already been discussed. I searched around the forums a bit but didn't find much.
     
  2. Bum

    Bum I Feel Loved

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    This goes both ways.

    Devs don't want to have to disable stuff, and then enable stuff later

    Same with they don't want to enable stuff(lower level bst crack to PoK merchs) then disable it when luclin comes
     
  3. Darchon

    Darchon I Feel Loved

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    The EC Vendor is selling Velious spells, which I don't think is a huge deal considering Velious is looming.

    Also another paladin spell you neglected to mention is Instrument of the Nife. For a soloing or undead grouping paladin, that + Ghoulbane is incredible.

    A few other classes do get the spells in PoK, but I don't think any of it is too exceptionally game breaking.

    Bard - Tuyen's Disease/Poison Chants. Allows a bard to chant 4 Single DoTs rather than 2 on a mob and Debuff these resists. Meh, not many bards are chant kiting anyways.
    Clerics - 2 Spell Haste spells (19,39) 10% Spell Haste, meh.
    Druids - Spirit of Ash, crappy tree form
    Enchanter's - Entrancing Lights, PBAE Mez like WoM useful for charm breaks but Color Slant line is an equivalent replacement, meh.

    I'd go through more but I'd have to refresh my memory beyond that. Basically all the spells are somewhat unique and have their niche, but it's nothing incredible.

    My honest (super 100% biased) opinion is Shadowhaven should be opened up... For Harmony of Nature and Tunares Renewal! Mm Luclin spells, so delicious.

    I think the amount of people who already have all these spells scribed though means that ship has sailed. Not really fair to remove them when the long term members of the server have been scribbing and using them for a year and a half now.
     
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  4. surron

    surron People Like Me

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    Darchon is right, the ship has sailed. The only way to balance this out now is to open up SH so other classes can get most of their Luclin spells. Perhaps we'll see that in Velious.
     
  5. MikayahEQ

    MikayahEQ Well-Known Member

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    OMG Luclin spells. My body is ready.
     
  6. Haynar

    Haynar Administrator

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    Devs are working on bugs, other game play affecting issues, and getting Velious finished up.

    There is no ongoing evaluation of what future expansion spells to add or remove from merchants. Such an evaluation at the current time would provide no value added.

    H
     
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  7. Pithy

    Pithy I Feel Loved

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    Fair enough! Thanks for weighing in, Haynar.
     
  8. Jugo!

    Jugo! People Like Me

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    I suspect their reasoning was that it was easier to turn off 2-3 vendors with a wide array of out of era spells than hunting down all the spells on the individual XYZ vendors. Easier for bookkeeping, as well.
    I just realized: even with how good Paladins have it currently, how many are there versus SK's? We have Pouky, Duncann and that's all I really see running around on a daily basis. Sorry, I know you played one on AK, Torven!
     
  9. Bum

    Bum I Feel Loved

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    Why aren't you an iksar warrior?????????
     
  10. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    I didn't even realize the EC vendor was disabled.

    We don't spend a ton of time thinking about or editing the database for disabled items. Because we don't want to. P99 wants to be a true progression server, we don't. We make a handful of decisions to disable stuff that could be really overpowered for the era, but it's not a long list. We won't be in Velious for 4 years.

    Paladins have their uber 1h sword disabled (was mostly my idea actually) and SKs don't. Searching for every single spell or item that's out-of-area would take more time than disabling it, really. I'm sure some of you would know that stuff without needing to research as much as I or Rob would, but when we ask people to sign up for dev work, we get turned down.
     
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  11. robregen

    robregen Administrator Staff Member

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    I spent hours on end for the last two weeks of AK life to organized the vendor list in the order that was in. Unlike the vendor listing in Titanium+ and even live, it isn't the same. On live you can list them in anyway you want whether in alpha order or not. Our client does not have that option.

    One of the reason, I don't like to go through those vendor listing and add / edit/ disabled items on the list is that I think it would mess up the order list. And frankly, I would rather disabled the NPC itself rather the items in the list. As far as I'm concern, it doesn't really matter in the long run because eventually everything will be enabled.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2016
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  12. Haynar

    Haynar Administrator

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    And the truth!

    Shall set you free!!
     
  13. Lenas

    Lenas I Feel Loved

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    I bitch about harmony of nature not being available but warders protection on a merchant kinda makes up for it ;)
     
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  14. Darchon

    Darchon I Feel Loved

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    Yea... For rangers.

    For Druids though the only consolation prize we get is a stupid tree form spell that doesn't even stack with protection of the glades.

    I dream of a Velious experience where my top heal can do more than 20% of a tanks life.
     
  15. Pithy

    Pithy I Feel Loved

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    Thanks Torven and Rob for chiming in. I get that TAKP's not a progression server, and I agree that it's more important to have a working, accurate PoK than to fiddle around with temporary class-balancing while there's more important dev work to do.

    Knowing that out-of-era spells are here to stay, I figured it'd be worth compiling a list of what's available. Darchon got us off to a good start. Some more are listed below. This list is probably not complete, but it's pretty close. It should be exact for level 50+ spells. I just looked at the differences between the P99 spell lists (which are accurate up to Velioius) and those at lucy.alkabor.com (which also have Luclin/PoP spells). When the lists differed, I checked TAKP allaclone for PoK availability.

    necromancer: Torbas' Acid/Poison/Venom Blasts (poison nukes)

    wizard: Elemental Shield/Armor/Cloak (self-only FR/CR buffs), O'Keil's levity (self levitate/FR/DS)

    mage: none that I know of

    enchanter: Entrancing Lights (PBAE 1-tick mez)

    cleric: Blessings of Piety/Faith (10% spell haste buffs)

    druid: Spirit of Ash (tree form + 2 FT)

    shaman: Blasts of Poison/Venom (poison nukes)

    bard: Sionachie's Dream (mez up to level 53), Tuyen's Chants of Disease/Poison (single-target DoTs)

    ranger: Hawk/Falcon/Eagle Eye (archery accuracy buffs), Jolting Blades (add jolt proc), Mark of the Predator (attack buff), Warder's Protection (self-only AC/HP/DS/attack buff)

    shadowknight
    : Abduction of Strength (strength tap), Mental Corruption (add nuke/+mana proc), Spears of Disease/Pain/Plague (disease nukes), Torrent of Hate (group attack tap), Torrent of Pain (group AC tap), Torrent of Fatigue (group strength/stamina/endurance tap), Cloak of the Akheva (self-only AC/HP/DS buff)

    paladin: Cease/Desist (fast/cheap stuns), Instrument of Nife (add undead nuke proc), Thunder of Karana (mana drain), Valor of Marr (25% self haste), Quellious' Word of Tranquility (max-duration stun up to level 61), Resist Disease/Magic, Breath of Tunare (self-only regen/mana drain), Healing Wave of Prexus (660 HP group heal), Brell's Mountainous Barrier (group 225 HP buff)
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2016
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  16. Pithy

    Pithy I Feel Loved

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    Looks like hybrids are the clear winners, with paladins standing out since they get substantial upgrades to their class-defining abilities (stuns, group heals). The SK attack and AC taps and self-buff are nothing to sneeze at. Ditto the ranger self-buff. The wizard FR/CR buff is pretty cool.
     
  17. Elrontaur

    Elrontaur People Like Me

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    Not to mention most of our entire spell book available on the drood vendors in the library ;)
     
  18. Jugo!

    Jugo! People Like Me

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    Jugo enjoys O'Keil's Levity (72 minute duration levitate, up to 50 FR buff).
    Part of why I enjoyed Velious/Luclin/PoP more than classic is that hybrids get fleshed out and their identity is more defined via spells. I ?think? Hybrids did not get any unique spells until Luclin? (spells that their parent classes didn't get) It's nice that alot of this is present on the server currently.
    Why isn't your main a BST?
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2016
  19. Sverder

    Sverder Well-Known Member

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    Thank you! I leveled to 38 using flash of light for aggro because I didn't realize cease/desist were in the game.
    Want to know an interesting tidbit? When you blind your enchanter's pet to take aggro after charm break, the mob will take off running after it is recharmed because it no longer has an enemy in melee range. Most of the time flash of light doesn't last very long, so this isn't a problem. However, when in a small heavily populated dungeon like Dalnir, the blind pet can and will create a nice train headed right for you.

    On another side note, does anyone else have problems taunting a mob to gain aggro after a charm break? I've been charming since the teens, and I literally cannot recall a single instance where the mob turned to me after taunting it after a charm break. I always taunt (no effect), bash, and stun/FoL to take aggro. Usually 1 FoL is enough to take aggro, but certainly taunt (skill 180+ now) by itself should be successful sometimes?
     
  20. Pithy

    Pithy I Feel Loved

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    Added it to the list, thanks.

    Glad to help! I thought new peeps might be interested. Especially folks stuck on the fence about which class(es) to play.
     
  21. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    That's because charm wipes the hate list which results in the enchanter being the first on it, and the first player who gets on the hate list and is also in melee range gets a tiny hate bonus which taunt does not overcome.
     
  22. Lenas

    Lenas I Feel Loved

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    This confuses me. Shouldn't taunt overcome any other hate by +1 when successful? Assuming the taunt comes after the break that is.
     
  23. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    As I've always understood it, taunt works off of "unmodified" hate, ignoring situational bonuses. For example, you can't taunt off of a player with low health aggro, or taunt and turn a mob that's charging after a player who's just sat down.
     
  24. Jugo!

    Jugo! People Like Me

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    Otherwise, its too easily abusable, and hate could be "built up" ad nauseum.