Change to Aurora Aggro on Test

[furum]

Did you all see the Sept. 1 patch notes on test? Little disappointing. What do you think?

*** Spells ***

- Paladin - The Aurora line of spells will now generate a minimal amount of hate when used. They should be otherwise unaffected.

[riou]

Shoulda been fixed 2 years ago

[Hulkling]

yeah takes away our nifty no-agro parlor trick, which sucks, but not a huge deal imo, because it was kinda exploitive. And it still functions virtually the exact same way.

[Normy]

Still lame. Glad to know they are appeasing the people that hate the paladin class though.

I know this was probably a long time coming and all, and I accept that, but why does it always seem they are more eager to "fix" paladin "exploits" than any other class? I mean, they fixed WoT because swarm killing mobs is an exploit, but it was still fine that zerkers and warriors were able to do it with the entire plane of fire zone. They fixed Splash because they didn't want paladins able to cure anything in the game with a purify effect, but they have no problems with the same purify being on 2 cleric group abilities. They are fixing Aurora now to make sure it can't be exploited to make paladins healers, which will really only impact the group game where paladins are already in bad shape on healing. That's way too unfair for the paladin class, yet I watch rangers headshot-trick people to 85 in 2 days and they are all super over-capped on AA.

I guess on the list of known-exploits in the game, and the list is impressive, are we of so much interest that we jump to the head of the line? Is it only my perception?

Well, I'll miss this 0 agro version. I do exploit it from time to time, I'm not afraid to admit it. It is handy when the healer in group says AFK, and I'm able to say "keep pulling, I'll keep us up for a few fights." and hop on my horse and stay off agro. Yes, it allows me to do a slightly better job than a cleric merc, at the cost of me doing anything else useful in the group. That is what I viewed the tradeoff as. Yes it was easy to heal like that, but at that point a merc is better since then I can at least help the group. I still view that as much less of an exploit than my ranger friend inviting me into an instance and getting me 10% of my level at 85 in 7 minutes.

Oh well, even without that nifty trick AoM is one of my fave spell lines, so as long as they don't screw up anything else on it...

[Ughbash]

[Normy]

Their reasons for nerfing WoT line were never really spelled out. First they said it was because a paladin could exploit raid targets. When showed exactly WHAT raid targets they were talking about, it was all from expansions 5-7 years old (with I think 2 exceptions where there was a bunch of newbie mobs in a static zone with a raid target). Modern content either had trash that would hit hard enough to make it useless to try, or no trash at all. When it was demonstrated that all that "raid content" that was being soloed by paladins was already routinely soloed by most other classes in the game they stopped pushing that excuse.

Then the excuse came along that swarm killing mobs for mass xp was an exploit of the spell. When again brought up the various classes that can do the exact same thing but don't need undead mobs to do it, they would stick back to the first excuse like it was new.

The reality is it got nerfed because enough loud people complained, bitched, and made it out to be like we were gods and unkillable because of a spell line. (I still remember the imaginary math used that made us invincible to any mob hitting less than a raid mob because WoT was that uber).

I don't know of any nerf to the mortal coil line for SK's. Isn't that the line that just provides free dps, agro, and healing for swinging a weapon? Maybe I'm getting that confused with a different line.

And the point I'm making with this comes up precisely with what you just said about the cures. We were TOLD that splash was nerfed because it cured rez effects. They rescinded that when it was realized that was misspoken, but it was curing the revival sickness, which formed the only basis I saw actually stated as to the "why". Doesn't the cleric epic cure the exact same way across a group? So that will also cure revival sickness.

The reality of why they nerfed splash seems closer to make it an easy-to-maintain spell line and it gimped a few events from previous expansions.

Again, I'm ok with this nerf because I figured it would happen eventually. I guess I just don't see this as nearly as big of an issue as many of the known exploits still in the game, some of which are just as easily fixed.

[Brohg]

[Brohg]

Oh, on topic: I consider the Aurora change immaterial. I thought from long time back that paladins who used that "sploit" were really just "gimping themselves and their group". I'm glad, though, that game mechanics now discourage bad players from making a bad decision. Raise the general competence of the playership by fiat? I'm game.

[Normy]

I cannot agree. First, there were several solutions around any version of unnerfed splash. To name a few would include making effects aura-like, IE insta back on even if cured. Or making it incurable. Or fix the purify effect to NOT bypass the recourse effects and make random AE's a nasty recourse. In a sense that's pretty much what they did, except that several modern events seem dependent on the unnerfed version.

It definately killed the difficulty in a number of events, I can't argue against that. But then what exactly is Alpha and Beta testing for? Why did it take them 6 months into the expansion to see it as overpowered when they knew exactly how it was going to work with at LEAST uf raids well before it's release?

Those events you mentioned, I've not done, but many have the opinion that the events were designed around the concept of of using Splash to survive (which did put a much inflated value on the paladin class, which should have been distributed to a few classes, but not nessecarily removed completely). So I reject the excuse that they didn't know how that powerful of a spell was going to effect the game. The evidence you provide to show how overpowered the spell is also demonstrates that the content was designed around the use of the spell, and now the player population is screwed and can't win the encounters at the level they are supposed to be able to do so. /shrug, I don't pretend to know exactly how the devs think, but that's what I make of the facts presented.

And I wasn't aware of that about cleric epics, so I apologize for the bad info.

You call it nerfing an overpowered ability, and I should think of it like that because it just as soon could have been any class. Even if you are right, I can't think of it that way. Shaman could just as soon have Slay Undead AA's, so if they nerf it as an overpowered ability I shouldn't think of it as a nerf to my class? So if they nerf cani that's not a nerf to the shammy class, just to the ability? I am just saying i feel like we have the express lane on the nerf train compared to others.

It's just a difference of opinion, I'm not really in to fight about it. I just feel like we have the spotlight at all the wrong times.

And to be clear, I see this nerf (to AoM) as reasonable, not aruging it. I'll miss it but I unerstand why it needs to change.

[Brohg]

[shiftie]

In regards to splash I knew coming out of beta that it would be nerfed. It was originally a HoT and since we know how balls retarded HoT's are in today's eq we talked them into making it a direct heal. In detail we talked about the ability to twinheal the effect and they were fully aware of it. All of this does not change the fact that most of us knew a nerf was incoming. I actually talked about it several times over the months leading up to the eventual nerf. I envisioned a different change, mostly one through content omission like brekt/testtube/crystal core AE's that were detrimental to cure. I find it amusing that the devs are ok with it curing tash and charm as it adds a sense of danger to events ( that line of logic is lulz worthy).

Now that you talk about cleric D'arb and shield click... you were referring to the curing component but completely overlooked the healing component. Aurora worked the exact same way darb and epic did as a way of balancing a groups HP. With that said I full expect that darb/epic should have aggro added to their effects with this change. One of the major beneficial factors of this ability was not so much in the group game but in the raid arena where you could stand in the center of a kite and heal the sk's that were taking damage without pulling their mobs off of them. This is where I will feel the nerf the most other than that yes in the group game it was a parlor trick. As long as it heals through DA so I can save a cleric and they can click off DA and not die to low health aggro then I have no problems with the change. From what I hear we can now cast this when we are the only person in the group though I haven't had a chance to test it.

[shiftie]

[Thebobo]

whats up with the mana usage increase?

[Thebobo]

Was at 19% mana did one cast of Aurora and used all my mana. Thats close 8k mana for one heal lol.

Is the new version suppose to use more mana as well?

[Normy]

/sigh

And now the second boot falls.

One of the reasons I didn't want the devs to touch this spell line was because it was a working spell line. Took them over 6 months to get it working and worth a damn. I really hope this isn't the start of another long session of "will this spell ever be worth having" again. I imagine the coding of a smart spell is quite a bit more complicated than normal spell data stuffs. Hopefully someone just forgot to carry the 2 or something and they can fix this quickly.

[stanlie]

[Hulkling]

oh boy. Not good. Lemme see if I can dig up some info.

[Hulkling]

Aurora of Dawnlight Rank III

used to be:
Slot 1: Drain up to 1604 of Caster's Mana and heals 100 hp for every 10 mana
Target: Self

New change is:
Slot 1: Drain up to 1604 of Caster's Mana and heals 100 hp for every 10 mana
Slot 2: Increase Hitpoints by 1
Target: Group



Now that its a group spell, the Slot 1 is being actived for every person in the group. Meaning, if you have 2 people in your group, you'll get two split heals of 16040 (32080 total) at a cost of 1604 X 2 (3208) mana. If 3 people in group, you'll get three splits heal of 16040 (48120 total) at a mana cost of 1604 x 3 (4812). And so on.


Informing Aristo....will update when I learn more.

[Vaindolf]

FFS do they test stuff before they patch the damn things in??
So how fking LONG do we have to wait on a fix on this now?
Im really starting to be tired of this shit now. Last night they 1-900-MixALot up patcher, now this.

[Hulkling]

It was on Test Serve for a week. Even they missed it. Shit happens.

Plus its not totally borked....we can now complete heal an entire group at will

[Vaindolf]

sigh, 16k heals for 10k pure mana (no preservation and shit) = good? Well then i think old group heal is 10 times better. Its leathal using aurora now if you wanna keep a blue bar after 30 sec into events. Beyond crap.

[Hulkling]

[Aetemius]

Is there a recast delay on it now? For some reason last night every time I cast it, it ended up graying out for more then a few seconds.

[Normy]

So it's no longer acting like a smart spell then? That means each time we cast it, it will take the full mana of how many are in the group?

Maybe I should play on test. I might have noticed 9624 mana cost upon healing one person.

And a follow up question, since the target is now group, is the range limited to the 17 inches it felt like before?

[Hulkling]

[Hulkling]

[Thebobo]

[Hulkling]

thats just the added Slot 2 heal thingy (the way they hacked it to give it agro)