The Spirit Realm

That wouldn't be as easy as just surrendering something we really don't need to because of a half-ass claims and people biting into the notion that it is absolutely, positively the only way we can get improved.

Ok, let me start off by saying, I normally don't post here. I have been a paladin since 2001. I have never opted for a re-roll of my paladin. I play paladins in every game if possible, or I try and create what would be a paladin ( Warrior/Cleric combo ).

Ok, about this, I have been reading about it and arguing on the Sony forums about a burst undead dps. Alot of my ideas over the years have been rather solid ( i try to use numbers to show, but in reality most of the time it would need to be changed from a developer perspective ). I AM STRONGLY AGAINST changing slay undead. It is not even eye candy anymore when a wizard can critical nuke for 50k at the push of a button.

Elidroth is saying that paladin live DPS can't be increase because of the modifier on SU. I disagree with that, otherwise you wouldn't have glyphs that allow damage increase but don't work with special melee attacks. So I purposed a burst undead discipline on the Sony Forums. Boosting basic melee abilities will increase undead dps, but isn't that the idea? We should be right behind warriors dps, but on undead surpass all melee ( in essence all classes, due to a majority of higher end melee have DPS similiar to the big nuke classes) ?

The only change I personally would see fit to slay undead, would be to change it from a chance to randomly trigger the slay undead effect 5.15% chance for Base Damage*23 to a triggered, push button slay undead. Now before you automatically trash the idea, here is my reasoning ( Again this is just my opinion ):

Just some Positives:
Re-use time can be controlled by developers
Controlled variables allow developers to control the DPS output
It's still a Damage*23 ( until possible later change )
Live dps can be increased without the effect of SU being increased
It's still weapon based damage which will keep the eye candy part of it
Will no longer be a RNG effect, making it's damage more substained dps

Just some Negatives:
It's no longer melee triggered
Paladins would have to actively work to maintain their dps on undead
Undead DPS will overall decrease
It's dps will no longer be based on skills/aa's
No more chance for double/triple slays

Now it's got alot of positives and alot of negatives, but in my experience from constant debating during the Knights Vs. Warriors Planes of Power discussion, once a developer mentions it, it will change whether we like it or not. But if it must change, this idea would be a nice change. Alot of Paladins want a way to make the paladin have to actively maintain his undead DPS, this would fill that role. Paladins want to keep the large eye candy from SU, this would keep that role. Paladins want a dps increase, this would fill that role. At the same time it will allow developers to gives us higher live DPS ( which is where everything really matters ) and allow us to keep our fabled Slay Undead ability. The possibilities the developers could work with if SU is triggered is huge. AA's for double slays, possibly triple slays, AA's for larger slay damage, AA's for recourses. The ideas are almost endless. But the main thing is if they keep it's overall damage based off the weapon. Despite all this...

Leave slay undead alone if possible!

The funny thing is ... we were told that they want to change slay, then they didn't. By looking at the aa on lucy or w/e the rumor has circulated that we are getting flurry. I just don't see how the dev logic is such that they add in an aa line that does the exact opposite of what they are complaining is the problem with slay.

You will meet huge opposition to a buttom mashing "backstab" skill button even though people could tie it to taunt or bash like they already do. For some reason the paladin community has a major problem with this as has been mentioned earlier in this thread.

I just wish they would make the change already... I hate the idea that this is hanging in limbo, because eventually we are going to feel the swing of a nerf bat. They need to just go ahead and make it happen so we can figure out where to go from there. Especially now that some people are in beta and those people could test the changes. NOW would be a perfect time ... if the devs had any real connection with the player base and cared about our real opinion the would make this happen now. They could make the change and spell dps and other melee dps discs could be added and tested. Hulking could then pass the beta tested info to the paladin community and as a community they could work to accomplish a fair alternative. Instead this is going to be dropped on us like the MC change and many are going to be pissed off.

This whole thread kinda reads like the stages of dying (Denial, Anger, Bargining, Depression, Acceptance). And maybe thats the point. There are two reasons to drag this out. One, the ideal is that they are devoting an extended period of development to this issue because they believe it to be valuable and therefore worth the extra time and effort to get it right. That would be nice. Two, wait until enough people have moved through to acceptance to the change that at this point does feel inevitable, and therefore less of an uproar of when it finally does go live.

At this point I just hope we have time to add input before it being pushed live.

I have been watching this whole thread since it started, I have talked to Nodyin and Elidroth shortly at FF about it, but to be totally honest: I have no faith anymore.
Not because I don't think that Elidroth doesn't want to help us, but because the resources for EQ are spread so thin that even major issues can't be attended, even less such a minor thing as the unhappiness or one class of 16.

This game is dieing and we are just one of the first classes to move down that road.

Been gone for bit .didnt the orignal dev who put this mess forward leave to be a dev in dc online?so were going on 11 months now nothings changed but the bs about them not being able to change melee dps has stayed.an people are just floging a dead holy steed here?

Nodyin and fellow Paladins,

I appreciate all the repsonses here from the Paladins, and the Dev's giving us an opportunity to discuss the Slay Undead nerf before it hits live. I would like to address a couple of points before offering my desires for consideration.

1. Slay Undead is not overpowered- For slay to be overpowered, there would need to be the existence of enough undead mobs to make this true. Currently, there are not enough undead mobs over level 75 to provide any sort of preference to Paladins over normal DPS classes. I would love to see a dps parse of a wiz,zerk, monk, mage, Necro and Pally on undead sustained for 30 minutes to prove that Paladin are severely overpowered. I find this hard to believe now that wizards can nuke for 100K+ and are sustaining 6Kdps. If the devs want to nerf slay, why not provide some facts and figures to back up your claims?

2. Sks get DPS, Pallys get Group Heals- This is an interesting note that is completely irrelevant. Sk's get Feign Death, Invis, AOE aggro, Pets etc. Why should Pally have any less DPS than SK cosnidering all the other abilities SK get? One thing about heals is that they take time to cast and we must switch targets (further decreasing our dps). Not to mention that we dont have any decent heals for the mana cost. Our fast heals, duration heals, and group heals are completely underpowered for the mana they cost.

3. We cant fix Live dps without nerfing Slay- I love this... this is pure propaganda on the part of the developers. A true insult to our intelligence. It is statements like this that promote ill will and hostility towards the developers. Let me propose a scenario for the obviously small minded developer who made this statement:

Current Model:
basedps= live
Basedps*23= slay undead (see stupid Pallys, if we increase basedps, undead goes up- no other way around it)

New model doubling live dps:
basedps*2=live
basedps*11.5= slay undead or basedps*23/2=slay undead

Do you developers know how basic algebra works?

And now, since we have clearly proven that there is no real need to nerf slay, I would like to EMPHATICALLY and Wholeheartedly BEG that no improvements be made to Pally LIVE DPS if a SU nerf is accompanied by it. In the past, changes like this have only hurt the game and the class and never improved it. This is the LAST and ONLY thing that is fun and unique about the class.

Finally, let us consider that no changes were made to slay and our current Live dps is increased. What profound affect would this have on the balance of the game? Would the need for non Pally DPS classes disappear? Would all groups migrate to lvl 75 undead zones and only want to invite Pallys? Would everyone suddenly reroll to a Pally? I think you Devs are making this way more into a big deal than it is. Please provide some sort of answer to these questions!

You do realize nodyin stepped down months ago right?

i just ignore posts like that because all i seen was "i didnt read anything beforehand therefore im just posting my own opinion". If the guy did read b4, he woulda read that the #'s arent changing, its the form of the code that is. Thats change 1. Change 2 which would be much later on, is where #'s wil be discussed. And nobodys saying nerfing to anything. The ultimate goal is to remove the Stagnation in our dps on both live and undead, but thats months in the future as devs and players are gonna be dealing with UF for a lil bit

He's just repeating what's been said in this thread 30 times.

Purty Much...

Ya, iirc it was that slays won't increase with more crit AAs or would be a toggle on/off mode that, when active, our armor turns into paper. Having had that in our history with this ability really brings out the skeptic in me when I read about how nerfing it again is a must in order to make our class functional again.

not to discredit what you say, but do you have a source for that?

Thanks for that info! Is good news for a change.

So.....

The new expansion is out. It's a year later than when we first began this discussion. Any chance we can get a timeline from the DEV's when we can expect a revamp of our damage?

I think we have ,for the most part, been patient.

guys, the expansion came out, the devs took their vacations after expansion release to 1) give the players time to find all the messups not found in beta and 2) actually see their families like we do. That vacation ended monday 1-4-10. If you read eqforums ull see even Elidroth (the man behind the dps fiasco) saying he JUST back and his first order of business is why his code broke something with zerkers. Its been 3 days with him back in the chair. Just tonite Hulkling came into sw channel asking some things in regard to Twinheal. So we arent being totally avoided, just a list of priorities is going on. First list: complete the expansion bugs from Beta (fix them), then, go back to non beta related material (IE our dps). Ive said it b4 and ill say it again, dont expect this issue to really be addressed until AT LEAST March...

It's been a year. 2 weeks of vacation means nothing and not seeing anything after this much time does tell me we are being totally avoided and are not on that list of priorities.

After what SK's got from Underfoot Devs don't give a rats ass about Paladins and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves

I was playing my lv85 sk today and ya I gotta say wow sks sure do get a lot more love then paladins lol. Maybe one day we will see that dps boost but if you play a paladin and know what other classes are doing around you its gotta be in your back of your mind thinking wow we could use some help in every area including healing, tanking and dps of course. Its a shame we dont try and get something like the zombie AA sks got but more tuned for what a paladin would do that would b atleast neat.

Really? We need help in all areas? I think we're pretty damn strong in every area but dps. Which is perfectly fine. And can a mod lock this damn thread already? At this point it's dead and then some clown comes in starts it up again with the same shit that's been discussed 40 times before in it.

it shouldnt require a locking but Zanador is kinda right (God strike me down) that this thread really doesnt need to be brought up against for awhile, until the issue is ACTUALLY addressed. and for the players saying that devs arent doing anything with paladins, go read the UF Bugs post...

As in Honorific Mantle will now be granted from a Mission, Wupty f**king do thats not a Paladin fix its a screw up fix on their inept part fix

maybe, maybe not. we did the same thing with stuff like Aurora. Only thing that we really physically can do atm, is just wait and see what happens. Ive already put a bug in Elid's ear last week so just waitin on him to get caught up on his PMs

we can physically do whatever we want, but thanks anyways Hulking

Elidroth says there will be no updates until he can get code time, at which time he'll let us know.

This wait is not fun lol, I'll be excited to finally see something