slay undead

[shiftie]

douchetastic to lock that thread btw awesome asshattery and alliteration.

Elidroth wrote:

I can make changes right now (for the next patch), but they would fundamentally change the way Slay Undead worked. Keep in mind, the ways I've been looking into this all require no code support. The IDEAL way to change this would be though some pretty big code changes, but their time is pretty solidly booked. I've looked at a lot of different ways to handle this, and I keep coming back to the same one. Making Slay Undead an innate proc.

The problem is, the way I can do this (currently) would create a significant impact in the way Paladins solo (low-level xp giving undead with riposte slays). The changes would eliminate riposte slay damage, so you wouldn't be able to stack up huge numbers of undead.

Clearly with these changes I would need to simultaneously give a melee damage increase to help make up the difference.

located here http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts ... _id=163346

[vawen]

It is amazing that after all this time the solution he is researching is.. a proc, when it has been said here endless time it is the exact thing we don't want becouse it implies a severe nerf to swarm killing.

[Abazzagorath]

What's flat out pathetic is that he just wants to change it, for no good reason other than it apparently offends his idea of what it "should be" for the paladin class.

It has been shown over and over again to not be overpowered. His own parses show that its not overpowered. But he claims some "fear" that it will "magically" give big gains when the reality is that he and his cohorts lack the basic understanding of the game system to understand the difference between % based effects and flat additive increases, and because of that, he thinks that X dps added when the aa was created was intended and because a % effect gives X+ as overall dps increases, its "broken".

Its even more pathetic that with all of that, he has been spood fed fifty ideas on how to accomplish what he claims to want to do, but he keeps going, "there is no way to do it without fundamentally altering slay undead". Why? Because he is either purposely trying to ignore reality in order to whitewash whatever changes he wants to make (because he knows we'll be unhappy with it) OR he's just seemingly incapable of understanding how it works.

I am flat out sick of this. Slay functioned as it did before he even worked for sony. It is not overpowered, and could even use a freaking boost specifically at this point and still be fine. I'm sick of the excuse, the constant "we don't know how" BS. Its beyond the time where that excuse wears thin.

There is not a single effect in game that would result in slay derived dps from being a greater % of total *melee* dps than it is right now. NOT EVEN INTENSITY OF THE RESOLUTE DOES THAT. I'm beyond disgusted.

(edited to not hurt peoples feelings apparently)

[shiftie]

This included a bard

Shiftee Shiftee -vs- Combined: A deathspore: -- DMG: 8736781 -- DPS: 3648 -- Scaled: 3531 -- Slash: 2910020 -- Slay: 2698189 -- DirDmg: 1894905 -- Pierce: 963885 -- Crush: 188876 -- Bash: 80906 -- Non-crit rate: 81.9% -- crit rate: 17.5% -- crippling rate: 0.6% -- Attempts: 5163 -- Hits: 3966 -- Missed: 1074 -- Defended: 123 -- Accuracy: 78.7% -- Avg Hit: 2202 -- Max hit: 71539 -- DMG to PC: 4480759





Combined: A deathspore on 4/22/2010



Shiftee - 935

--- Armor of the Inquisitor - 1

--- Aurora of Dawnlight Rk. III - 2

--- Beacon of the Righteous - 2

--- Blessing of Life - 91

--- Burst of Dawnlight Rk. III - 15

--- Circle of Power I - 1

--- Covered by Vie - 1

--- Crush of Compunction Rk. III - 70

--- Crush of the Crying Seas Rk. III - 73

--- Devout Force Rk. III - 16

--- Devout Fury Strike - 85

--- Disruptive Persecution - 83

--- Earthen Mud - 11

--- Eulogy Rk. III - 92

--- First Spire of Holiness - 1

--- Flames of the Valiant - 1

--- Flames of the Valiant Strike - 4

--- Force of Disruption - 5

--- Gift of Life - 2

--- Glikigup's Redemption - 1

--- Glorious Vindication Rk. II - 67

--- Hand of Piety - 2

--- Holyforge Disc - 1

--- Inquisitor's Judgement - 2

--- Inquisitor's Judgement Effect - 40

--- Pious Shield - 1

--- Preservation of Tunare Rk. III - 11

--- Protective Confession Rk. II - 2

--- Steely Stance Rk. III - 1

--- Storm Blade Strike - 214

--- Summon Holy Steed - 1

--- Vie faded - 30

--- Wave of Remitment Rk. III - 4



this parse is much more relaxed and not really indicative of how bad swarming is with slay but it is the only one I have on this computer.

Shiftee Shiftee -vs- Combined: A cursed drachnid arcanist: -- DMG: 9217033 -- DPS: 5648 -- Scaled: 5648 -- Slash: 4528108 -- Slay: 4044637 -- Bash: 417452 -- DirDmg: 226578 -- Hit: 258 -- Non-crit rate: 83.9% -- crit rate: 16% -- crippling rate: 0.1% -- Attempts: 6442 -- Hits: 4687 -- Missed: 1565 -- Defended: 190 -- Accuracy: 75% -- Avg Hit: 1966 -- Max hit: 44955 -- DMG to PC: 1280517



Combined: A cursed drachnid arcanist on 4/26/2010



Shiftee - 231

--- Armor of the Inquisitor - 1

--- Blessing of Life - 32

--- Burst of Dawnlight Rk. III - 17

--- Cloak of Light - 1

--- Crush of Compunction Rk. III - 13

--- Crush of the Crying Seas Rk. III - 1

--- Devout Force Rk. III - 1

--- Devout Fury Strike - 3

--- Disruptive Persecution - 11

--- Eulogy Rk. III - 4

--- Fervor Strike - 14

--- First Spire of Holiness - 2

--- Flames of the Valiant - 8

--- Flames of the Valiant Strike - 22

--- Force of Disruption - 3

--- Gift of Life - 1

--- Glorious Vindication Rk. II - 34

--- Holyforge Disc - 1

--- Impeccant Fervor - 2

--- Intensity of the Resolute - 1

--- Lesson of the Devoted - 1

--- Pestilence Shock Strike - 26

--- Pious Shield - 4

--- Preservation of Tunare Rk. III - 21

--- Protective Confession Rk. II - 6

--- Vie faded - 1



This one is particularly awesome full of all my 7th yr vet glory

/tell Shiftee Shiftee -vs- Burynai Destroyer: -- DMG: 463165 -- DPS: 3563 -- Scaled: 3482 -- Slash: 308917 -- DirDmg: 154248 -- Non-crit rate: 64.7% -- crit rate: 33.7% -- crippling rate: 1.6% -- Attempts: 305 -- Hits: 249 -- Missed: 52 -- Defended: 4 -- Accuracy: 82.7% -- Avg Hit: 1860 -- Max hit: 8037 -- DMG to PC: 0

Burynai Destroyer on 4/18/2010

Shiftee - 74
--- Blessing of Life - 13
--- Crush of Compunction Rk. III - 3
--- Crush of the Crying Seas Rk. III - 3
--- Disruptive Persecution - 6
--- Fervor Strike - 10
--- Flames of the Valiant - 1
--- Flames of the Valiant Strike - 5
--- Glorious Vindication Rk. II - 4
--- Holyforge Disc - 1
--- Inquisitor's Judgement - 1
--- Inquisitor's Judgement Effect - 20
--- Intensity of the Resolute - 1
--- Pestilence Shock Strike - 4
--- Radiant Cure - 1
--- Second Spire of Holiness - 1





/tell Shiftee Shiftee -vs- Combined: Steel Behemoth: -- DMG: 1525921 -- DPS: 2595 -- Scaled: 2582 -- Slash: 1009735 -- DirDmg: 508250 -- Bash: 7384 -- Hit: 552 -- Non-crit rate: 74.5% -- crit rate: 25.2% -- crippling rate: 0.4% -- Attempts: 1082 -- Hits: 854 -- Missed: 216 -- Defended: 12 -- Accuracy: 79.8% -- Avg Hit: 1786 -- Max hit: 8042 -- DMG to PC: 1052770



Combined: Steel Behemoth on 4/18/2010



Shiftee - 189

--- Blessing of Life - 16

--- Crush of Compunction Rk. III - 22

--- Crush of the Crying Seas Rk. III - 28

--- Devout Force Rk. III - 2

--- Devout Fury Strike - 24

--- Disruptive Persecution - 35

--- Flames of the Valiant - 1

--- Flames of the Valiant Strike - 9

--- Gift of Life - 1

--- Glorious Vindication Rk. II - 26

--- Holyforge Disc - 1

--- Illusion: Fier`dal - 1

--- Inquisitor's Judgement - 1

--- Inquisitor's Judgement Effect - 15

--- Mark of the Crusader Rk. III - 3

--- Splash of Sanctification Rk. III - 2

--- Vie faded - 1

--- Wave of Absolution - 1



/tell Shiftee Shiftee -vs- Amalgamated Steel Behemoth: -- DMG: 212297 -- DPS: 3480 -- Scaled: 3370 -- DirDmg: 107311 -- Slash: 104986 -- Non-crit rate: 69.1% -- crit rate: 27.7% -- crippling rate: 3.2% -- Attempts: 106 -- Hits: 94 -- Missed: 11 -- Defended: 1 -- Accuracy: 89.5% -- Avg Hit: 2258 -- Max hit: 8037 -- DMG to PC: 116512






Amalgamated Steel Behemoth on 4/18/2010



Shiftee - 32

--- Crush of Compunction Rk. III - 2

--- Crush of the Crying Seas Rk. III - 1

--- Devout Fury Strike - 4

--- Disruptive Persecution - 4

--- Gift of Life - 1

--- Glorious Vindication Rk. II - 3

--- Holyforge Disc - 1

--- Inquisitor's Judgement - 1

--- Inquisitor's Judgement Effect - 15



thought I'd try out FC for xp it was pretty dumb, gonna suck bad at level 90 when RoI is out as an xp spot.

/tell Shiftee Shiftee -vs- Combined: A shade of Zek: -- DMG: 5852822 -- DPS: 4735 -- Scaled: 4735 -- Slash: 2629509 -- Slay: 2438680 -- DirDmg: 663614 -- Bash: 121019 -- Non-crit rate: 84.1% -- crit rate: 15.9% -- Attempts: 4067 -- Hits: 2993 -- Missed: 967 -- Defended: 107 -- Accuracy: 75.6% -- Avg Hit: 1955 -- Max hit: 33231 -- DMG to PC: 1125964



Combined: A shade of Zek on 4/19/2010

Shiftee - 333
--- Armor of the Inquisitor - 1
--- Blessing of Life - 48
--- Burst of Dawnlight Rk. III - 14
--- Crush of Compunction Rk. III - 18
--- Crush of the Crying Seas Rk. III - 9
--- Devout Fury Strike - 62
--- Disruptive Persecution - 18
--- Eulogy Rk. III - 9
--- Fervor Strike - 22
--- First Spire of Holiness - 1
--- Flames of the Valiant - 3
--- Flames of the Valiant Strike - 24
--- Force of Disruption - 1
--- Gift of Life - 1
--- Glorious Vindication Rk. II - 18
--- Hand of Piety - 1
--- Impeccant Fervor - 1
--- Inquisitor's Judgement - 1
--- Inquisitor's Judgement Effect - 20
--- Pious Shield - 2
--- Preservation of Tunare Rk. III - 14
--- Protective Confession Rk. II - 1
--- Spider's Bite Poison Strike VIII - 42
--- Twitching Speed - 1
--- Vie faded - 1

The foundation prog mission with bard, chanter, monk, ranger

/tell Shiftee Shiftee -vs- Combined: Shade of Burynai Adherent: -- DMG: 6961981 -- DPS: 2926 -- Scaled: 2924 -- Slash: 4081921 -- DirDmg: 2743591 -- Bash: 135808 -- Hit: 661 -- Non-crit rate: 76.4% -- crit rate: 23.6% -- Attempts: 5189 -- Hits: 4097 -- Missed: 981 -- Defended: 111 -- Accuracy: 80.7% -- Avg Hit: 1699 -- Max hit: 65081 -- DMG to PC: 2279714



Combined: Shade of Burynai Adherent on 4/20/2010

Shiftee - 964
--- Blessing of Life - 76
--- Burst of Dawnlight Rk. III - 1
--- Covered by Vie - 1
--- Crush of Compunction Rk. III - 80
--- Crush of the Crying Seas Rk. III - 122
--- Devout Force Rk. III - 38
--- Devout Fury Strike - 37
--- Disruptive Persecution - 136
--- Earthen Mud - 15
--- Fists of Wu - 1
--- Flames of the Valiant - 1
--- Flames of the Valiant Strike - 8
--- Force of Disruption - 4
--- Force of the Crying Seas Rk. III - 2
--- Glorious Vindication Rk. II - 87
--- Inquisitor's Judgement - 3
--- Inquisitor's Judgement Effect - 48
--- Intensity of the Resolute - 1
--- Preservation of Tunare Rk. III - 8
--- Resurrection - 2
--- Soothing Breath II - 1
--- Spider's Bite Poison Strike VIII - 58
--- Spider's Bite Poison VIII - 1
--- Storm Blade Strike - 210
--- Vie faded - 12
--- Wave of Absolution - 1
--- Wave of Remitment Rk. III - 10

The UQ prog task same group

/tell Shiftee Shiftee -vs- Combined: A steelhead clockwork: -- DMG: 3288688 -- DPS: 2429 -- Scaled: 2423 -- Slash: 1946875 -- DirDmg: 1248805 -- Bash: 89497 -- Crush: 1942 -- Hit: 1569 -- Non-crit rate: 77.5% -- crit rate: 22.5% -- Attempts: 2691 -- Hits: 2154 -- Missed: 460 -- Defended: 77 -- Accuracy: 82.4% -- Avg Hit: 1526 -- Max hit: 8988 -- DMG to PC: 1731398

I posted these parses over on live forums as an example of how slay isn't oP and just how bad our dps is on live targets. Granted this is all sustained and the only burst parse does have me burning 7th but I had no support like bard/chanter/sham. The one group named that I tried to parse high on qulas was grouped with me and killed the final foundation prog mob before i could hit quicktime/fierce on my bard and then 7th/ij/holy forge on shift.

[Hulkling]

[shiftie]

[Hulkling]

[shiftie]

lol it was a joke.

[Hulkling]

I hate you

anyway! I agree Slay Undead isn't overpowered in its current form. Even with its multiplicative damage formula, its still going to peter out eventually. In TSS when we got the last 3 ranks, it was pimp, and even a bit overpowered. Fast forward to today, with all the additional DPS abilities gained by all classes accrossed the board, and Slay DPS is already showing clear signs that its dwindling.

That said, with the prospect of gaining new abilities that may (or may not) severely amplify Slay damage, I'm not opposed to working out a good solution. I've suggested the following:

Retain the existing trigger mechanism that fires off a Slay. Change the damage forumala from multiplicative to a damage bonus --> damage bonus is tacked on at the end of the melee forumula, so its never multiplied by other effects (to my knowledge).

Pros:
Retains riposte damage.
Independant of weapon damage - devs are no longer limited in how/what/where we recieve live DPS upgrades.
As far as tuning purposes go, its the same as a proc without actually being a proc.

Cons:
Will require "upkeep" AA purchases (probably each new expansion I imagine).
Properly tuning it all the way down to level 59.
Static damage - no longer get the freebee of scaling infinetly with weapon damage.

and to complicate things even further, lets add on the Lay Hands formula so Slay damage bonus scales by level

[shiftie]

welcome to 2004

Elidroth wrote:

"Actually, a Brutal Onslaught Disc would make Slay go nuts as Brutal Onslaught directly affects the very thing that triggers Slay.. that being critical melee."

[Huurgh]

Uhm someone is making sure he does not push for the change in the next patch, yes?

[riou]

Doesn't bother me either way, in November illsalin will go gray by 87 or so, you will be stuck with maybe FC as the only swarm-able place (this might actually go gray at 90 or atleast a chunk of the mobs ) and even then it will go gray by the 95 level expansion the year after, And at that point swarm killing undead dies completely

it's not so much greater then what you could do vs live in a hotzone currently(unless the hotzone is FC or illsalin), the increase to melee dps that he would boost, would probably offset the change (you can do around 2/3-3/4 as much AA in a live 0 undead hotzone as illsalin btw, with more dps increase especially since elidroth says passive melee boost this will prob match illsalin at worst)

Elidroth basically just said in that quote, You either change slay now and start seeing DPS upgrades, or you wait 1-2 years+ for code support for DPS upgrades to start coming in, so, up to you guys whether you wanna wait 1-2 years or longer or start seeing more DPS now, so do you accept it now, or continue to stagnate and wait a long time while the reason you're fighting for it to stay (mainly riposte swarming) die soon anyway, hehe

[Thebobo]

[Abazzagorath]

I was so shocked by that, I sent him a PM. Here it is:

"Actually, a Brutal Onslaught Disc would make Slay go nuts as Brutal Onslaught directly affects the very thing that triggers Slay.. that being critical melee."

- - -

Your words. So bascially, you do not understand how it functions. Slay Undead has NOTHING to do with critical melee rates and has not since 2004 or so. It was changed because Cleave effects increased slay rates because it increased crit rates, which is why Holyforge was later changed to add a "Slay Undead (140)" line because the change resulted in a side effect nerf on our slay rate during holyforge discipline.

- - -

"Base Effect 1 is the chance for slay to trigger on a critical hit. Base Effect 2 is a damage multiplier. We calculate total damage, multiply it by the value in Base Effect 2 and divide that by 100."

- - -

How about not using some code note from a decade ago and actually look at the code. Is this going to actually require me to go find the posts from Ashlanne, Brenlo, and others back on the original Paladins of Norrath site (if it even exists still or I can find a version on the internet archives that maintains copies of defunct sites) before you understand how this works?

You have been given information on how it works, multiple times, but you keep repeating the same tripe showing that you either:

1) don't listen

2) don't comprehend, or

3) don't care and are just spouting off whatever sounds good for the moment to try and put spin on your inaction (or future actions) because you know paladins are going to be upset

- - - -

Slay undead is a specific type of special attack. It has nothing to do with criticals. It has nothing to do with crippling blows. It is a completely separate special attack whose only relation to critical melee was how it ORIGINALLY functioned.

Holyforge Discipline Detail | History | Stacking | Timer | Raw Data


Slot Description
1: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 200% with All Skills
2: Increase Chance to Crippling Blow by 20%
3: Slay Undead (140)



2004-12-15 10:29 Added Slot 3: Slay Undead(140)


Look at holyforge.

Slay undead was:

1) original a critical hit conversion (you lost crits that became slays)

2) with Planes of Power, it was modified to maintain the same slay per # of swings rate with Fury of the Ages added (no player knows for sure whether it was 1) by making FotA crits not convert to slays (a second crit roll after the slay roll) or 2) by just being smart and lowering the critical to slay conversion rate in lockstep with the increase in base crit rate from fota)

3) Gates of Discord gave paladins access to Cleave for the first time. Initially, cleave was broken and giving 10x the rate it was supposed to be giving, which was apparent with things like paladins with tipt bracer seeing a massive slay rate increase. This was quickly patched down to make cleave work right, but the point of converted crits to slays being affected by cleave was apparent to the devs.

4) During the summer of 2004, a few months later, slay undead was NINJA patched to no longer be converted critical hits at all - this was proven through long term parses of slay undead under holyforge discipline (which increased crit rates enough to parse the difference) when two players, ME (yes me), and Caladel from the Xegony server both showed monthly logs of holyforge showing a precipitous drop in slay rate compared to prior months - this was eventually confirmed by Brenlo

5) Since this was changed, paladins asked for the "broken" holyforge to be fixed on their class top 10 list, eventually, Ashlanna posted that a change had been made and would come in the next patch (she posted on PoN forums) and we saw it in the Dec 15th 2004 patch, which added a specific line to holyforge to give us an increase in slay rate equal to what we had parsed for the discipline for several years.

- - - -

This is not a complicated issue. Why do you continue to make it so? First we have devs telling us that slay increases exponentially with weapon damage (which it doesn't), now we have a dev telling us that you think they are converted critical hits? No wonder you have the completely incorrect idea of what the skill does and how its "hard" to fix it.

[Abazzagorath]

I actually found the old PoN forums, but it looks like they somehow had every post with a "last post date" between late april 2004 and mid november 2004 deleted.

So I couldn't find the thread where me and caladel posted our holyforge numbers for the prior year+ (was in august 2004 we posted them, maybe july), but we both saw the same drop in slays while using HF, which is how we knew that slay was modified to not work on crits at all. Devs later confirmed this.

I did find this gem though:

http://paladinsofnorrath.yuku.com/topic ... ndead.html

Note the initial post from Ashlanne:

"Hello Paladins,
I have news about Holyforge!! Holyforge was not working properly due to a change that was made to the Slay Undead AA.

Holyforge was not corrected to work with Slay Undead when this change was made. This issue has been corrected and will go live in the 12/15 update. Holyforge will now increase your chance to slay undead, and if you the Slay Undead AA you will have an even greater chance of a slay with Holyforge.
Ashlanne Barefoot
Sony Online Entertainment"

And note this post I made on it:

I would not interpret it that way. It seems like the change they did to the backend did what we knew it did, not have the crit increase affect slay. Actually, this indicates to me that someone really needs to do a good parse on cleave 3 to see if it is affecting slays anymore. Slay parses with cleave were done before may/june when HF became messed up. I also find it interesting that the +slay is set at 140, which is what HF was acting like after it was screwed up (its supposedly at 200+ to crit, but was acting like 140+ to crit), though probably just a coincidence since I can't see how it could be related the way its worded.

Presuming everything works how we all know we want it to when reading these changes (and if we don't we need to complain) during holyforge being active is:

1) Three times the "normal" crit rate (relative to what aa we have)

2) A 4 to 1 ratio of crits to to crippling blows (counting slays as crits)

3) A 140% increase in the crit to slay conversion rate for those without Fury of the Ages (since those with FotA have crits that don't convert, you'd expect a smaller straight up % increase)

What I am 95% sure is going to happen, however, is that the changes they made to the backend that was making chance to crip happen before chance to slay will still be in place, and the 140% increase in slay conversion is there *only* to make up for the reduction in crits that can potentially roll into slays.

Using the parsed 140% crit rate, you end up with a 168% increase in slay frequency over normal, which is slightly better that what we are getting now, but not much better. Using a 200% crit rate increase that we are supposed to be getting, would result in a 236% increase in slays while using holyforge over normal. That would be better that what we were getting before the nerf, and a whole lot better than what we have been getting the last 6 months.

Like I said on the eqlive thread though, we'll have to see the parses to figure out exactly what it is doing though. However, I really really doubt that we will see a 200% crit chance increase and a 140% chance slay increase, because that would mean a 320% increased slay frequency over normal. If you think warriors bitch about slay now, watch what happens when our slay rate goes up 3.2 times when we hit our disc.

[Xelaszan]

I made a suggestion on the EQ live boards (probably overlooked amongst the flinging mud, etc.) on a potential DPS fix for pallies.

Keep slay, it's great and we all love it. Slay is not overpowered in the slightest, which has been proven sufficiently (thanks for all the parse data btw, neat to see). The slay mechanism is already in place, so why not clone it as a live mob version. Have it activated, short duration, disc or AA based, whatever, that gives us a new special attack that works on any mobs. It's not a crit, not a proc, and hell the multiplicative factor on Slay could either be retained or changed to some damage bonus form instead...whatever the devs see fit. It can be a competing mechanism with slay so as not to increase its fire rate (even decrease Slay's fire rate while it is active, similar to how holyforge used to decrease Slay rates), or even flagged specifically for live mobs if devs really, really think it's necessary.

Honestly all these procs and nukes they are giving us are artificially inflating our agro to the point that is pissing off warriors. I pull agro on Fippy, Grunkuck, Protaurius, and especially the....SNAKE!!...all the time now, even without the "broken" agro from the inquisitor procs. It's not worth passing the 4k DPS mark if it means a 20k hitter is going to turn and wallop you. Sure we can handle it, but that's not the issue

[shiftie]

don't cast crushes till 80% or so they are combined 128 dps you'd be better off casting mark of crusader which is like 85 dps and no aggro.

[riou]

need reverse vot to cast on ourselfs or something to win


Anyway, I hope no paladins whine in beta this year when we get next to no DPS increase since they dont want Elidroths "fix", DPS can be sub-par for the next 1-2 years+ till we get code support

[Remdayen]

After looking at the number of replies to the slay undead post Hulking locked (666), I think we are doomed to suffer forever being gimp. Maybe Hulking a Shadowknight?

[Uhaen]

I had a wonderful idea.

Instead of asking them to remove slay completely, I submit that they keep the slay numbers in text only, but not apply the damage. That way, we can still compare penis sizes via screenshots, and get the dps increase we all love. It'd be like having a high score, except totally meaningless (like the high score I got on Asteroids 8 months ago at some defunct mall that nobody's played at since). Also, if your character name was once previously Shiftie, you must eat 4 pounds of dirt.

I am a genius.

[Cakeny]

So how bad will Elidroth be screwing us?

[shiftie]

it is likely that nothing will happen at all

it breaks down like this...

1. Lower level paladins don't have the gear to swarm and make use of riposte slays the same way higher end paladins do.
2. Higher end paladins who use riposte slays to swarm kill will lose this advantage next expansion cycle because all the zones worth swarming in will be lost at level 87-90 due to the con system
3. There will be a sweet spot where a small percentage will be able to use swarming as a possible means to gain solo xp to catch up as the move from the lower end to the high end in aa count as the gear from the next expansion if it can be equipped at 85 will set them up in gear that is better than tower thus allowing groupers to be the equivalent to raid geared players. The % of these players who will have the discipline to hang back and gain AA without the desire to rush to level 90 to see the end game content/aa/gear will be fairly small.

In the end riposte slay will only benefit a smaller portion of the paladin population than it does now via the small % who can currently swarm with any effectiveness.

I proposed a change that might be able to work with this proc that elidroth is talking about. Losing riposte slay isn't a horrible thing if we can work toward accounting for the dmg it does by other methods of delivery.

for example:

change slay to an innate proc like totc - of course the damage would have to be equal to or greater than it currently is from max weapon damage such as we see now 32k-34k and UF weapons had us slated for 40k slays in beta with the 219 dmg weapon. Or if you reduced the overall damage and increased the proc rate via PPM. Sadly totc is only 2 PPM as I found out while searching EGN, but they have the added benefit of the heals which is the primary goal of totc - the dps is a byproduct.

You could then give us an AA or disc to up the PPM. One thing we need to retain is the ability to combine our defensive discs with our offensive abilities. We currently have the ability to land slays while under vie disc and deflection so new abilities would need to be via AA most likely for something that might increase the PPM for a short duration to give an undead burst ability the way holyforge is supposed to.

The solution to the riposte dmg:



Give paladins an undead spell/nuke akin to Hail of Arrows for rangers - set the target limit to 8. The reason I suggest this over a PBAE spell is because slay is a melee attack that isn't resisted, so if the spell was resisted it would be a nerf to the riposte dmg.

Since undead are usually weak to fire, you could call the spell something like

Firestorm

When cast- so and so calls down a fire from heaven cleansing their target

when lands - so and so is struck by the light of the heavens.

8 target limit conal AE

24 second recast

300 mana

max hit ? you have to compensate for the fact that slay can land for full damage on a riposte which this expansion is supposed to be 40k, so the potential would need to be 20k per hit I would think.

I riposted at 14% 16706 ripostes/110872 total attempts by mob

so @ 16706 * 5% = 835 slay attempts @ max slay would be about 26 million damage in ripostes max potential damage

26 million damage/ 20k hits = to about 1336 attempts divide that by 8 and it would take 167 casts to do that damage

167 casts with a 24 sec recast would be 4000 seconds so it would take a total of 66 minutes to deliver 26 mil damage via a spell like that if it operated at max potential and if it was being chain cast.

My math could be bad but you can see how this might be a solution to the riposte dilemma. Obviously this could be tuned to match whatever numbers you want it to but I think a spell like this plus turning slay into a proc would help you scale our dps much better.

If we were to get something like this ... would people still be opposed to losing riposte slay and seeing slay end up as a proc? He is offering to make a change now, and then went on to say that coding is otherwise booked... so basically if we don't take them up on working out this change now - we won't see a change till probably at least midway through the next expansion cycle and potentially not for 2 years.

The question is do we love riposte slay enough to wait 2 years for a fix especially in light of the 3 bullet points I made to start this reply. I personally know that swarming days are numbered and I'd rather not wait for a fix any longer than we have already been waiting.

[Cakeny]

I'm sure they can fix slay without nerfing it to a proc, they are either too lazy or don't understand how the system works.

[riou]

[Hulkling]

[Abazzagorath]

[Cakeny]

[riou]

[Cakeny]

Rangers can insta-kill humanoids and they think slay would be overpowered with continued scaling?

[Abazzagorath]

[Hulkling]

[Warpeace]

Strange considering
Elhidroth quote:
"As for target DPS, it's not just MY decision but that of the entire systems team, but we're looking at putting you somewhere just behind Warriors for melee DPS because you have heals and spells which can make up the difference in utility. In turn, for Undead NPCs, we want you significantly ahead of ALL other melee classes."

I also do not believe Slay Undead is overpowered. It sounds as if no matter what the community provides for fixes to Slay SOE is bent on completely changing it. It feels more like the old bait and switch. They ask for input we give it then nothing for months. When they come back it seems like a complete rehash from the last time. Perhaps Elhidroth needs to elaborate more on his vision for this fix.

I'm not sure how his proc idea would work but unless it is big damage on undead and is not gimp with the number of procs I think it would be a fail.

[Abazzagorath]

[varutia]

At first thought I was totally not for it to be make into proc base. After giving it some time, I do want to see what we get in RETURN before making any kind of changes first would be a good idea. So long as we get decent return in the exchange to the change, I do not mind it personally. Having to kill undead only is a real hassle, with more dps on live mobs, there is actually a lot of options opening for us.

A lot of above posters are correct that swarming undead really is going to die next expansion anyhow, while I am personally still reaping major benefits out of right now, looking down the road it is really not that bright for Paladins in terms of swarming anyhow.

[boukk]

Bottom line is slay doesn't need to be touched, just using it as an excuse to not fix the class is pathetic at this point.

Either way proc is the worse way to go at it, so I am not actually surprised he picked it.

[Thessiuss]

Why not keep the slay the way it is, but add a low PPM proc on top of it? If the PPM proc is low, i doubt it'd be "overpowered" unless there's coding conflicts. Just food for thought.

[Cakeny]

Or they could just scale up SU like they should have been doing in the first place.

[balladish]

I'm sick and tired of our class being held hostage by SU.

For f***'s sake, take away our innate slay ability and remove our ability to swarm riposte light blues. If it means we can finally, finally move ahead as a class and get the upgrades we need, then just do it already. Make SU proc based, make sure it procs a lot and for a *lot* of damage (as Eldiroth said - he wants us to be *way* ahead of other melee classes vs. undead - which we aren't now as SU stands), and give us our much needed live dps upgrades.

The EQ dev team is so understaffed as it is, continuing to bitch and moan about theories and parses and rhetoric will get us absolutely no where. I am done arguing with these guys about this. They are going to get their way anyway - they are the ones at the controls. The only thing we can do as customers is stop playing the game, and I'm obviously not able to do that at this point.

So, I vote for getting SU changed to a proc based system, provided it procs a lot and for a shitton of damage. We will no longer be able to swarm pull, but we will be able to still be kings vs undead, and we will finally get the dps upgrades we need.

[Abazzagorath]

[balladish]