First of all, what I love most about playing EQ/SoD...
My favorite thing has always been to kill stuff with fewer than the norm. To push a group or raid to the limit and be as efficient as possible. I remember killing some guy in velk's during the Velious expansion with one group. He was always multi-grouped. We weren't aware of him being done by one group before (and we weren't the top geared guild on the server). It was fun figuring out how to make our group be as efficient as possible. We died many times but eventually won. I remember having around a 86 point damage shield (that was a lot back then). These are the type of things I think back and smile about after I'm done playing.
Now, SoD through the eyes of a tank that started about 3 years ago (with a longass break in between). First, I will list the problems and then I will elaborate on them.
1. It is VERY hard to improve gear as a tank. In order to join a raid or tmap group that has the possibility of dropping loot that you could use... Well, its damn near impossible. People seem to think you have to have gear that is very similar to what might drop or better. Well this kinda defeats the purpose of joining it in the first place if you don't need anything.
2. People have gotten so used to having a main tank that trivializes the encounter, that they will not accept less. If they do, and fail on the first attempt, they automatically blame it on having a "sub-par" main tank. Forget strategy, effort, working as a team. Hell, forget even doing your job right. The question on SoD is how many aa's do you have and what is your hp/ac?
3. SoD seems more of a "my hp is bigger than yours" than live EVER did (talking pre-luclin). So much so that nobody cares if you know how to play or not. All that matters is your hp/ac. Half the time they don't even care if you are boxing.. Just so long as you have enough hp/ac.
4. Adepts are even trivialized. I killed snowskin on my monk with a tank that had over 3.3k hp unbuffed at level 43. Then there is traek... I have killed him like 10 times on my monk and haven't failed once. It is not fun, it feels like farming a low level dungeon with a high level character. People cheer when we kill traek with a level 57 paladin that has 4.4k hp unbuffed and over 100 aa's. Are you really surprised we won?? Why the fuck do people have these characters stuck at level 57 when they need nothing from the adepts? Does it make you feel good to be that much better geared than other people at that level and you get to flex your muscles to new people every 3 days? Or maybe it so you can keep killing these encounters over and over to equip your alts without having to put effort into it? I don't get it. I will say this though. It's not impressive in the least. In fact, I am embarrassed for you that you are still level 57 killing the same dragon over and over. It reminds me of the kid that flunked every year and thought he was cool because he was bigger than the rest of us.
I miss running blindly into an encounter, evaluating what happened and then improving on the next try. I miss scrambling to keep control of the fight as our tank gets feared while fighting a dragon. I miss people dying during the fight. I miss having just enough firepower to get the job done so that you are biting your nails wondering if we are going to make it. I miss the feeling you get when you win in a close battle. Traek is so trivialized, I was fighting him on my monk and healing in a raid on my druid at the same time. It doesn't feel fun, it feels like something that I need to do.
I played a sk on live for years and loved it. I love it on SoD when i'm not playing the hp/ac war. So many times I've gotten turned down for being "inferior" when in fact I'm geared right about where the encounter was intended for.
For a really long time, I've been trying to find a low tier guild to join and work our way up together. I love the feeling of being part of a guild that starts at the bottom and works to the top. I've turned down joining a low tier guild because they "cheat" imo and have had a main tank with over 8khp unbuffed and a cleric to match since it was formed.
It just trivializes the game and is just not as fun to me. What I like to get out of these games is the feeling of accomplishment and that I'm good at playing my character.
I do not get either out of SoD as a tank. It's a nonstop uphill battle. You are either not geared enough or you do not need anything that drops. I've had to farm pp for almost all of my gear. Farming pp is the least fun of all.
The thing that set me off enough to write this post was an incident that happened just a few minutes ago. We wiped on a VD map. (FYI: When I was fully buffed, I had almost 7khp and over 1400ac. and I have all the defense aa'a except weapon shield). Immediately people started saying how we needed better tanks to be successful.
Being the type of player that I am (prefer a challenging over trivial encounter), and "thinking" I wasn't being healed very well, I decided to look at the log. I added up that from the last time I had been directly healed, I had taken 7326hp of damage. So basically, besides a HoT that must have healed a few hundred hp during that time, I did not receive one direct heal for the full length of my bar. This was while tanking one mob so there is no way it was because of "my gear".
I realize it is hard to coordinate as a team with a pickup raid. Actually, if the map is done by the people they were designed for, a wipe should be expected on the first try as a pickup raid. Pointing the blame on hp/ac/aa's gets REALLY FUCKING OLD. These maps are called "very difficult" for a reason. Just because you die and it didn't seem easy enough, does not mean the people involved do not have enough hp/ac/aa's. When everyone on the raid can actually use the stuff that drops, it simply means the encounter is going to actually take some effort. The encounter is going to be what is called "very difficult".
I'd rather die multiple times and go from complete disaster to almost winning than to kick a few people that WERE INVITED to the raid and replace them with people that can't even use the drops to make it trivial so I can get my sacred gear.
Is it just me?? Or is everyone a gear whore that immediately gives up on a challenge to be power-leveled?
Or maybe I just need a guild because now that I think about it.. Writing this post is helping me realize more than ever that I need a guild. Pickup groups/raids almost ALWAYS sucked on live.
But pickup groups sucking are not what this post is about... It's about people thinking their group/raid's gear is not good enough because the encounter is not trivialized like they are used to.
So nobody gets the wrong idea... I love SoD.. They fixed a lot of issues with live and have a ton of new content. I would go as far as saying It is better than live ever was. It reminds me of Velious (my favorite expansion) on steroids. The tank situation (especially sk's...) just gets old. I might just start playing my monk instead, unless I get in a guild that fits me and makes it less irritating.
My favorite thing has always been to kill stuff with fewer than the norm. To push a group or raid to the limit and be as efficient as possible. I remember killing some guy in velk's during the Velious expansion with one group. He was always multi-grouped. We weren't aware of him being done by one group before (and we weren't the top geared guild on the server). It was fun figuring out how to make our group be as efficient as possible. We died many times but eventually won. I remember having around a 86 point damage shield (that was a lot back then). These are the type of things I think back and smile about after I'm done playing.
Now, SoD through the eyes of a tank that started about 3 years ago (with a longass break in between). First, I will list the problems and then I will elaborate on them.
1. It is VERY hard to improve gear as a tank. In order to join a raid or tmap group that has the possibility of dropping loot that you could use... Well, its damn near impossible. People seem to think you have to have gear that is very similar to what might drop or better. Well this kinda defeats the purpose of joining it in the first place if you don't need anything.
2. People have gotten so used to having a main tank that trivializes the encounter, that they will not accept less. If they do, and fail on the first attempt, they automatically blame it on having a "sub-par" main tank. Forget strategy, effort, working as a team. Hell, forget even doing your job right. The question on SoD is how many aa's do you have and what is your hp/ac?
3. SoD seems more of a "my hp is bigger than yours" than live EVER did (talking pre-luclin). So much so that nobody cares if you know how to play or not. All that matters is your hp/ac. Half the time they don't even care if you are boxing.. Just so long as you have enough hp/ac.
4. Adepts are even trivialized. I killed snowskin on my monk with a tank that had over 3.3k hp unbuffed at level 43. Then there is traek... I have killed him like 10 times on my monk and haven't failed once. It is not fun, it feels like farming a low level dungeon with a high level character. People cheer when we kill traek with a level 57 paladin that has 4.4k hp unbuffed and over 100 aa's. Are you really surprised we won?? Why the fuck do people have these characters stuck at level 57 when they need nothing from the adepts? Does it make you feel good to be that much better geared than other people at that level and you get to flex your muscles to new people every 3 days? Or maybe it so you can keep killing these encounters over and over to equip your alts without having to put effort into it? I don't get it. I will say this though. It's not impressive in the least. In fact, I am embarrassed for you that you are still level 57 killing the same dragon over and over. It reminds me of the kid that flunked every year and thought he was cool because he was bigger than the rest of us.
I miss running blindly into an encounter, evaluating what happened and then improving on the next try. I miss scrambling to keep control of the fight as our tank gets feared while fighting a dragon. I miss people dying during the fight. I miss having just enough firepower to get the job done so that you are biting your nails wondering if we are going to make it. I miss the feeling you get when you win in a close battle. Traek is so trivialized, I was fighting him on my monk and healing in a raid on my druid at the same time. It doesn't feel fun, it feels like something that I need to do.
I played a sk on live for years and loved it. I love it on SoD when i'm not playing the hp/ac war. So many times I've gotten turned down for being "inferior" when in fact I'm geared right about where the encounter was intended for.
For a really long time, I've been trying to find a low tier guild to join and work our way up together. I love the feeling of being part of a guild that starts at the bottom and works to the top. I've turned down joining a low tier guild because they "cheat" imo and have had a main tank with over 8khp unbuffed and a cleric to match since it was formed.
It just trivializes the game and is just not as fun to me. What I like to get out of these games is the feeling of accomplishment and that I'm good at playing my character.
I do not get either out of SoD as a tank. It's a nonstop uphill battle. You are either not geared enough or you do not need anything that drops. I've had to farm pp for almost all of my gear. Farming pp is the least fun of all.
The thing that set me off enough to write this post was an incident that happened just a few minutes ago. We wiped on a VD map. (FYI: When I was fully buffed, I had almost 7khp and over 1400ac. and I have all the defense aa'a except weapon shield). Immediately people started saying how we needed better tanks to be successful.
Being the type of player that I am (prefer a challenging over trivial encounter), and "thinking" I wasn't being healed very well, I decided to look at the log. I added up that from the last time I had been directly healed, I had taken 7326hp of damage. So basically, besides a HoT that must have healed a few hundred hp during that time, I did not receive one direct heal for the full length of my bar. This was while tanking one mob so there is no way it was because of "my gear".
I realize it is hard to coordinate as a team with a pickup raid. Actually, if the map is done by the people they were designed for, a wipe should be expected on the first try as a pickup raid. Pointing the blame on hp/ac/aa's gets REALLY FUCKING OLD. These maps are called "very difficult" for a reason. Just because you die and it didn't seem easy enough, does not mean the people involved do not have enough hp/ac/aa's. When everyone on the raid can actually use the stuff that drops, it simply means the encounter is going to actually take some effort. The encounter is going to be what is called "very difficult".
I'd rather die multiple times and go from complete disaster to almost winning than to kick a few people that WERE INVITED to the raid and replace them with people that can't even use the drops to make it trivial so I can get my sacred gear.
Is it just me?? Or is everyone a gear whore that immediately gives up on a challenge to be power-leveled?
Or maybe I just need a guild because now that I think about it.. Writing this post is helping me realize more than ever that I need a guild. Pickup groups/raids almost ALWAYS sucked on live.
But pickup groups sucking are not what this post is about... It's about people thinking their group/raid's gear is not good enough because the encounter is not trivialized like they are used to.
So nobody gets the wrong idea... I love SoD.. They fixed a lot of issues with live and have a ton of new content. I would go as far as saying It is better than live ever was. It reminds me of Velious (my favorite expansion) on steroids. The tank situation (especially sk's...) just gets old. I might just start playing my monk instead, unless I get in a guild that fits me and makes it less irritating.
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