Most of you know, The official nerf of pet-pulling (1 Viewer)

[Devlin]

Thought you guys should know just in case you missed it somewhere, but here is the official post of Rashere of how Beastlords and pet classes alike and some tactics of monk are getting nerfed or "un-exploitable" in the next expansion

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Over the course of beta, we've identified and corrected a number of issues that have been around for a while but were being exacerbated by the downtime changes we are making. There are two particular changes with the "call for help" routine that I want to draw attention to since they close loopholes that allow some questionable tactics that some of you may be using currently. I want you to be aware that they will no longer work after our next patch to save you the potential deaths from attempting them. These will also be in the patch notes.
When most NPCs call for help, they will only call for a small, set number of NPCs to respond to keep from swarming people with dozens of NPCs at once. There was a problem in the call for help routine that caused an NPC to not call for help again for a few seconds if it had already called for help and enough NPCs responded that they had met that maximum number the first time. This is what was enabling the so called "tick pulling" phenomenon whereby you could aggro an entire room, drop aggro, then immediate re-aggro a single NPC and it would come alone. This is now fixed and NPCs will now properly call for help every time they are aggro'd from a non-aggro state.
With the above problem fixed, we also had to address another bug in the same area to prevent just shifting the loophole form one tactic to another. This one had a similar effect, although for an entirely different reason. When a player sends a pet in to attack an NPC, the NPC uses the pet's leader to determine how the NPC reacts. In one part of the "call for help" routine, this check was missed and it was causing an NPC to not call for help if it was attacked by a green con pet of a PC. This particular bit of code is there for NPC vs NPC combat to keep NPCs from ganging up on each other, but the missing check for a PC leader caused it to not call for help if a PC sent a green con pet to aggro it. This is now fixed and the NPC is properly using the pet's leader for this check as well.
Again, both of these fixes will go out with our patch next week.

Rashere

 

[adol]

Wow that changes the way a lot of classes pull, guess FD is now the only way to go. but it also seems that they have made it harder for even fd puller to pull. It will be interesting to see how much this will mess things up

thanks for the post D

 

[ctngang]

LoL well that's Just gona make alot of people mad as i know alot of them solo useing this way of pulling i do see alot of TRAINS comeing our way

 

[Cheesymac]

they have a point because it is an exploit in the fact that ot was never meant to be done that way, but it seems to me that there are more important things to worry about, such as class balancing.

 

[Siddin]

Wow that changes the way a lot of classes pull, guess FD is now the only way to go. but it also seems that they have made it harder for even fd puller to pull. It will be interesting to see how much this will mess things up

thanks for the post D

Its all about the bards.. lull. mez... snare... fade....
what else do you need?

 

[ctngang]

they have a point because it is an exploit in the fact that ot was never meant to be done that way, but it seems to me that there are more important things to worry about, such as class balancing.

it's an exploit thats been around for the past 7 years and now thay want to fix it cause there seeing it used on the progresive servers makeing it to easy to open the doors to a new place also is this gona effect the harmonay spells for druids and clerics with there spells i dont think its an exploit i think its its a way for the none casters and some casters to play the game just not by there rules but why wate so long to change it when thay have know its been there stupid if ya ask me.

 

[Appleseed]

Its all about the bards.. lull. mez... snare... fade....

Hopefully we get a new lull or mez that actually will land on mobs. Bard lull was also changed to only last like 3 ticks if I remember right, and max level is 65 I think. So pretty much for the last 2 expansions I've only loaded lull for PLing my alts..

But it will just take some time to figure out how to get singles again. Either that or it will be like PoI back in PoP when you HAD to have an Enchanter or Shaman in the group.

 

[Wilbur68]

Hopefully we get a new lull or mez that actually will land on mobs. Bard lull was also changed to only last like 3 ticks if I remember right, and max level is 65 I think. So pretty much for the last 2 expansions I've only loaded lull for PLing my alts..

But it will just take some time to figure out how to get singles again. Either that or it will be like PoI back in PoP when you HAD to have an Enchanter or Shaman in the group.

Luvwen's Aria of Serenity lulls up to lvl 70 - of course Sony simply flags some mobs un-lullable but Mezz, Fade works fine again when it lands. With the changes incoming to the resist system (allegedly making it easier for stuff to land) it may balance the changes proposed above.

 

[someoneorsomething]

I’m sorry to say but this sux. Like it wasn’t hard enough. The way the mobs hit nowadays if you get 2-3 with no mezzer your almost bound to wipe (I know it depends on group/gear) I guess they are completely trying to alienate the guy who wants to come on and solo. Bsts were supposed to be a solo class. And now getting swarmed with enemies isn’t gonna make anyone happy. I cant even imagine how hard Samples of corruption is going to be now. It’s like you have to have a perfect group for every mission. I see a lot of classes getting left behind on this.

 

[Ferny50]

Enchanters and Bards just became the elite pullers of EQ.....not that Bards weren't already the elite pulling class anyway.....

 

[Stoic]

Personally i think it was beyond irresponsible of SoE to allows this "bug" to exist for so long that it became a basic principle of pulling.


Sometimes i just really wonder what theyre going going to say next...

"It recently came to our attention that Wizards and Rogues are dealing an awful lot of damage. It was never intended for them to be so useful, and so we'll be overhauling the way rogue/wizard dps works..."

 

[darkeros]

monks were always intended to be the best pullers and they soon will be, dunno where u get bards and enchanters...bards can pull well in large areas and they rely on mana, but monks can do it all. Enchanters can't single pull for shit in comparison to bards/monks

 

[Siddin]

actually i don't rely on mana, i rely on the group not waking people up. Bards have always been the pullers untill monks finally got feign death. Bards have the ability to cc, highsun mobs if it gets too bad, mez, snare, kite, etc. it doesn't take much room for any of this and thats only if the bard can't lull/pull mobs. BTW its very easy to pull singles without using lull/fade. I really don't see why so many people say that bards have to have the ability. Fade is THE reason why bards can't regen mana beyond what they are wearing.

 

[Sum1]

monks were always intended to be the best pullers

Actually, FD was never intended to be used as a pulling tool... its just that after it was out a while, some monk figured out that if you FD the mobs walk back to their spawn locs... sometimes at different times. They recognized this as a way to split.

Bards are still superior pullers, imo... but not because of fade. I find it humorous sometimes to see how much monks/others rant about fade without realizing that that ability is relatively minor compared to some others.

 

[Siddin]

Actually, FD was never intended to be used as a pulling tool... its just that after it was out a while, some monk figured out that if you FD the mobs walk back to their spawn locs... sometimes at different times. They recognized this as a way to split.

Bards are still superior pullers, imo... but not because of fade. I find it humorous sometimes to see how much monks/others rant about fade without realizing that that ability is relatively minor compared to some others.

You know, its sad when you go to the bard boards for everquest live and see monks ranting about fade, then we go in and tell them ok, make your feign death instant, costs about the same as our fade costs us, make it so that you regen endurance only equal to your normal regen + items and you can have your instant fade ability since monks don't get mana. Immediately after that they back off... I wonder why, well not really.
A good puller does not need to use abilities that wipe aggro, they can either single pull or use other abilities that they have to keep the pull down to where the group can handle it.

 

[someoneorsomething]

I wish we had a mq2warpmob plugin lol then we wouldnt have to wory about it lol

 

[Sum1]

You know, its sad when you go to the bard boards for everquest live and see monks ranting about fade, then we go in and tell them ok, make your feign death instant, costs about the same as our fade costs us, make it so that you regen endurance only equal to your normal regen + items and you can have your instant fade ability since monks don't get mana. Immediately after that they back off... I wonder why, well not really.

hehe... I also like mentioning that if you FD, but allowed a see invis mob to get too close to you, that it would mean insta-reagro. They don't always like that response.

Or bards can give monks fade (as you described it up there), but I want the DPS of a monk... lol... they also don't really enjoy hearing that.

 

[BordonDrumer]

Fuck everyone... Monk > Bard

Now you know I play a monk...

 

[nyghteyes]

Maybe now they will increase the effectiveness of SK / Necro FD. Maybe add a Insta FD AA.

 

[anon 456]

Maybe now they will increase the effectiveness of SK / Necro FD. Maybe add a Insta FD AA.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.......

 

[KeithClancy]

monks were always intended to be the best pullers and they soon will be, dunno where u get bards and enchanters...bards can pull well in large areas and they rely on mana, but monks can do it all. Enchanters can't single pull for shit in comparison to bards/monks

Sorry I both own a monk and play a friends high-end bard. There's no comparison between the two. The only time a monk is superior to the bard is when there's physically not enough room to safely fade without immediate re-aggro. Inside or out, I can pull almost any mob from anywhere in any zone to any other point. It takes a lot of mana, but that's the beauty of highsun, snare, mez all coupled with an instant and complete memory wipe.

For xp group splits it's ridiculous. With the bard you can put a mob in camp in a fraction of the time and not have to stay flopped on the ground useless while the group kills it. If my monk weren't so damned good at pvp and such nice dps ... and didn't have a tail, I'd probably just reroll a bard and be twice as powerful. It just so happens that i'm a nostalgic SoB :o

 

[Ferny50]

monks were always intended to be the best pullers and they soon will be, dunno where u get bards and enchanters...bards can pull well in large areas and they rely on mana, but monks can do it all. Enchanters can't single pull for shit in comparison to bards/monks

what the intent was and what the truth has been are pretty far apart. Bards, for the most part, had been a very safe bet for pulling end game where you can't afford a mistake. Enchanters, for a good long time, prior to the pac nerfs were fairly reliable pullers. Pac was way powerful to the point that you could skip content and plows because pacification reduced reaction and frezy radius so effectively. Pac and run on by, np.....

 

[cheeky monkey]

I play a Monk, an SK, a Necro, A Bst and a Shammy. This sucks. I can understand this was never an "Intention" of SoE to be able to pull like this, but it has become ingrained into EQ culture. Its like a common law marraige.
The fact that they are focusing on this aspect of gameplay and group dynamics is sad. I hope enough people complain about this and they revert back to what it was.

I am a police officer and I can only imagine what the community here would say if we started enforcing some of the "laws" that are on the books.

Use common sense and stop worring about common cents.

 

[Siddin]

If you read some of what the dev's have said, it was something that they had to fix in order to put in the new expansion, so no matter how many complain, it simply will not be reverted back.

 

[thez]

monks were always intended to be the best pullers and they soon will be, dunno where u get bards and enchanters...bards can pull well in large areas and they rely on mana, but monks can do it all. Enchanters can't single pull for shit in comparison to bards/monks

This statement is completely false. "Pulling classes" in general were never conceived of by Verant / SOE. FD was never intended to be a pulling tool...in fact, the use of it as a pulling tool is "technically" an exploit, or at least, it's exploiting the mob AI. By the time that Sony actually realized how people were using it, they decided that it didn't affect the game in a negative way, so they decided to endorse and enhance it. Bard fade, necro pet pulling, enchanter pulling...all of these are similar, and being used by people in new ways that the devs didn't expect.

BTW, I can pull better on my necro or bard than any monk I've ever seen, regardless of the zone. My guild uses SK's over monks for pulling, except against heavily casting mobs, and now that necros (and, I assume, SKs) get the equivalent of full stonewall via AAs, our monks will likely be relegated to DPS positions only. The plain fact is that the ability to cast snares/roots/dots and the higher ac/HP more than easily levels the playing field.