Forums » Pantheon Classes

Feign Death

    • 316 posts
    April 16, 2018 1:18 AM PDT
    Must agree, 187!
    • 1860 posts
    April 16, 2018 2:59 AM PDT

    This isn't close to how it was:

    Must have been nice being a viable DPS, situational off-tank, and highly utilized puller with self heals and FD.  I figure warriors will be lucky to get 1.5 roles.

    Wizards and Rogues were DPS...SKs in burst because of harm touch.  Sure any class can do damage but...calling a monk dps is like calling a ranger or a mage dps.  It was middle of the road.  Calling them support is more accurate.

    Monks aren't off tanking any real content. 

    One self heal that healed a small percentage of hps with a long cool down can hardly be referred to as a role.  

    Monks were pullers, plain and simple.

    I hope in difficult content Warriors don't get 1.5 roles.  They aren't a hybrid.  Their job is to hold aggro.  Specific class focus with individual, unique roles is important.

    The puller role wasn't even mandatory like a tank or healer.  In some content monks weren't even desired...

    I also feel like you are probably incorrect about a Direlords fd not being useful to split mobs.  What else would be its primary use? I think the expectation is that it will be spell based instead of ability based.


    This post was edited by philo at April 16, 2018 3:21 AM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    April 16, 2018 6:34 AM PDT

    Regardless of any of that, Pantheon is a new game and monks have been clearly identified to play exactly as I described.  If you look at how I phrased my sentence, self-heals weren't used to describe a role like that which came before it.  As far as what warriors are, or are not, this is what we can operate off of:

    "The Warrior seemingly defies limits of physical strength, ability and resilience. However, not content with fortitude alone, he also refines his mind, becoming a master strategist in battle."

     

    Again, I don't even care if monks are great pullers.  I just feel their "style" of pulling from EQ1 is whack if I'm supposed to believe that Terminus is filled with intelligent inhabitants.  FFXI had the best "pulling game" I have ever seen in an MMO.  Sight, Sound, and Scent were all factored in as relevant.  FD Pulling/Splitting feels fake and contrived.  It feels like we're settling for it because of nostalgiac purposes and nothing more.  It's interesting you say monks were considered a support in EQ1 ... out of the 4 classes that have been revealed thus far, monks are the only class to not be classified as support.  They are described as a fantastic pulling class, capable melee DPS, and "suitable off-tank / stalwart off-tank with self healing mechanics and high avoidance"  --  I don't see any caveat there that states that content must first not be "real" in order for that to be true.  They are a highly utilitarian class ... something has to give, right?

    As far as Direlord's getting FD ... it's my opinion that they might not get it, and that if they do get it, FD would probably be better utilized for how it was meant to be used when it was introduced to EQ ... a save-ass ability.  SK's got it in EQ2 but they could cast it on target ... it was a great way to save a squishy if they pulled threat, or force a hate bounce.  I'm not saying it absolutely can't be used to split an encounter, I'm just saying it would probably be impractical.  If you don't have a monk, you probably have some other form of encounter splitting.  Relying on a DL to do it (assuming FD has an extended recast) just wouldn't make much sense.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at April 16, 2018 6:41 AM PDT
    • 1860 posts
    April 16, 2018 7:20 AM PDT

    It is easy to make real world connections about FD.  I agree with you in that it is not what would happen in reality.  It is silly when you think about it like that.  But lots of things are silly in games.

    That class description is very general.  We know monks will have some sort of dps spec...but when a raid or a group is looking for a class to take on challenging content that they need a dps class to burn down I highly doubt monk will be one of the top few choices.  

    Reading between the lines in what Joppa and others have said, to me at least, it seems very clear DL will get fd.  In the recent interview he said monks won't be the only class with fd...or some such thing.  I think DL is the obvious choice...and Nero when that happens.  I think this is a Brad game much more than EQ2.  It seems more likely that game mechanics would be similar to 1 than 2.

    • 690 posts
    April 16, 2018 7:40 AM PDT

    Plenty that's unrealistic in games. Mobs just watch/hear you pull and murder their friends without giving a fig, so long as you do it outside of their reatlistically way-too-small social aggro range. Mobs choose to attack the well armored guy who is best at insulting their mothers, rather than the lightly armored guy who can blast them with humongous fireballs, or the lightly armored guy who is stabbing daggers into their vitals for realistically disproportionate amounts of damage compared to the humongous fireballs. By the way, these humongous fireballs and vital stabs fail to immediately murder the target, which is also unrealistic.

    Unrealistic things like this, and yes, feign death, help the game to be more fun. It adds balance as well as mechanics for desirable playstyles according to VR's goals in making Pantheon. 

    That said, Feign death strikes me as overpowered a tad. I can't help but agree that a truly challenging game shouldn't give you a near-infinite-use get out of jail free card whenever something attacks you when you don't want it to. Even enchanter pulls based on mez and calm spells in eq had a punishment if you plan wrong. The fact that FD lets you essentially AFK and regen resources in the middle of a group of enemies is also questionable.

    But.... feign death was an iconically fun part of eq. You can't really expect eq creators to not put fun icons from eq into their other games even if it's not necessarily a good idea. And..yea...feign death is certainly fun.


    This post was edited by BeaverBiscuit at April 16, 2018 7:56 AM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    April 16, 2018 7:55 AM PDT

    I don't mind seeing the Direlord get FD.  In my experience, there were always reasonable limitations with how the SK or Necro could use the ability.  As far as class descriptions go, we can thankfully look forward to seeing an update on those at some point in the near future.  I am highly curious to see if speciailization is still a thing.  As a warrior, I am hopeful that we will also get mutilpe specializations.  I would be thrilled to see a berserker spec that I could use for soloing purposes or certain group/raid content.  The main thing is that I want to be challenged and engaged and have some degree of flexibility present within the class.  It would go a long way toward extending meaningful progression with situational gear.

    As far as monks using FD to split encounters ... I remain convinced that another ability could be used to potentially offer a similar value with pulling utility that is a bit more realistic.  Let's assume that monks get some form of mezz that they can only use as a "surprise attack"  --  if they manage to sneak up on an NPC, they can do it without FD.  If they aren't able to sneak up on an NPC, they can feign death ... and just as the NPC gets close enough to inspect this free lootable corpse, the monk jumps up and paralyzes them.  Once the paralysis wears off, maybe the NPC forgets what they were doing.

    I think that's still a little bit farfetched (because of the tomfoolery) but it would make more sense than the EQ1 iteration of NPC's being split up by following a flopping corpse around that is clearly attempting to exploit their pathing.  I still think a pebble toss would make the most sense ... something like the "distract" ability from rogues in WoW.  I have also spent a ton of time playing an enchanter in several MMO's and place a tremendous value on their encounter control capabilities.  If a monk can safely split up packs that seems to be safer than having to mezz multiple mobs that could resist the spell cast, or have it broken by an errant strike.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at April 16, 2018 7:57 AM PDT
    • 15 posts
    April 16, 2018 8:24 AM PDT

    We should not expect FD pulling to work as it did in EQ1 as they have said the mobs are going to have a variety of dispostion's which will affect their behavior. That said it still seems you have misconeptions about how it worked in EQ1. Yes I get what you are saying that the mobs are intelligent and should see through it but that is what the ability is about, and hey guess what if you stand right back up after you do it most likely they are still going to be mad at you. Using FD to split mobs is more than just pulling them, hitting FD and there is your single. It takes a lot of manipulation and I can't wait to see how it is going to work with all the different enemy behaviours. What works for 1 set of mobs may end in disaster with another set of mobs.

    Again it seems people don't understand FD is not a perfect ability, it will fail, or if you do a bad pull you may be waiting a couple minutes before you can move. There may be mobs that just see through FD due to a disposition they have also which I pretty much expect. Spell casting mobs again are a real pain for timing with FD and will break it, Mend or whatever it will be was a small heal on a 5 minute timer. Being able to pull 2 mobs instead of 5 mobs for a group with no Enchanter or Bard is going to be huge when pushing higher level content. If you are farming lower level stuff then the risk is a lot lower so having a warrior pull the 5 with some secondary CC might work in some situations.

    I do like the rock throw idea, some kind of distraction method to assist in pulling but not as a replacement to FD. Having different specilizations would be nice to see although I would see them more as different stances for the melee classes. For warrior I see 2, 1 when tanking and 1 more DPS focused for when they are not the MT. Monks would be Avoidance for pulling/offtanking and then Focused for when they can DPS without issue, just a couple quick examples. These should not be huge swings in the way they play but allows for more variety when making groups or raiding.

    • 15 posts
    April 16, 2018 8:31 AM PDT

    I wanted to touch on what diableri said also about how a puller pulls to keep the mobs flowing. If you leave it to your tank then there is a lot of downtime, especially if the tank dies while trying to pull. Splitting the roles allows the whole group feeling to be better than having everything rely on your tank to do it all.

    One thing i really hated about EQ though was when a group was really rolling pulls could get pretty long and XP was range based, I missed out on lots of XP due to this so I hope they don't go this route again.

    • 4 posts
    April 23, 2018 10:03 AM PDT

    In the blistering heat of Southern Ro, a grinning sand giant by the name of Cazel winks approvingly.

    • 2752 posts
    April 23, 2018 11:51 AM PDT

    Snowman84 said:

    One thing i really hated about EQ though was when a group was really rolling pulls could get pretty long and XP was range based, I missed out on lots of XP due to this so I hope they don't go this route again.

    I don't ever remember this being an issue, the radius for getting exp was massive. 

    • 1479 posts
    April 23, 2018 11:59 AM PDT

    Iksar said:

    Snowman84 said:

    One thing i really hated about EQ though was when a group was really rolling pulls could get pretty long and XP was range based, I missed out on lots of XP due to this so I hope they don't go this route again.

    I don't ever remember this being an issue, the radius for getting exp was massive. 

     

    Happened me a lot during KC era or PoP (when farming in bastion of thunders earth side, Sometimes I was going really far to get mobs and lost some chunks of xp )

    • 15 posts
    April 23, 2018 12:02 PM PDT

    Iksar said:

    Snowman84 said:

    One thing i really hated about EQ though was when a group was really rolling pulls could get pretty long and XP was range based, I missed out on lots of XP due to this so I hope they don't go this route again.

    I don't ever remember this being an issue, the radius for getting exp was massive. 

    That was one of the metrics of the puller skill and familiarity too. You got used to the pace of mob death of your current group, the pathing around the pull/camp routes and the different mobs you’re pulling. There were times that I had two to three mobs que’d up pathing back or mezzed/charmed/snared between the group and spawn locations. I could easily get far enough away from the group to miss the exp messages but you figured that stuff out fairly quickly. 

    • 15 posts
    April 23, 2018 1:05 PM PDT

    The XP range was pretty good size and yes early on and dungeons it wasn't that big an issue. The later expansions or just the big zones I ran into this constantly, the group was usually killing enough to where a mob here or there missed wasn't a big idea but it still bugged me. Considering you wouldn't lose aggro still in the same zone why could you not get the XP for the mob regardless of where you were? You could learn the range of where you were pulling and if you would lose xp but it would slip my mind and happen.

    • 595 posts
    April 23, 2018 2:03 PM PDT

    Snowman84 said:

    The XP range was pretty good size and yes early on and dungeons it wasn't that big an issue. The later expansions or just the big zones I ran into this constantly, the group was usually killing enough to where a mob here or there missed wasn't a big idea but it still bugged me. Considering you wouldn't lose aggro still in the same zone why could you not get the XP for the mob regardless of where you were? You could learn the range of where you were pulling and if you would lose xp but it would slip my mind and happen.

    This was never an issue for me as I never played a monk, but I can certainly understand the frustration it would cause.  Times in which I may have been pulling as the tank, pulls would obviously be coming much more slowly (and my group certainly wasn't killing mobs in my absence). Like you stated, not massively punitive, but just seemingly unnecessary.

    • 1479 posts
    April 23, 2018 2:16 PM PDT

    Probably a way to avoid the "alt sitting at zone entrance, getting all the exp from across the map", but once you are on the aggro list and in the killing group, you should get the credit.

    • 64 posts
    April 23, 2018 2:25 PM PDT

    FD was not originally intended to be used to split mobs up.

    Personally, I would be happy if FD pulling was never a thing in PoA.

    • 752 posts
    April 24, 2018 12:18 PM PDT

    There were plenty of other tactics for pulling mobs. But when it came down to it the monk had a reliable reset button if the pull didnt look right. That is why monks became the raid pullers of choice. But most of the times you just pull a train and the chanters handle it

    • 98 posts
    April 24, 2018 5:36 PM PDT

    Neyos said:

    What are your thoughts about FD being in Pantheon and do you think it's a must-have ability? Thanks!

    I like that Feign Death will be in Pantheon, and expect there to be other types of "aggro-dump" abilities for other classes.  But I don't think any particular aggro-dump, or even the general category of aggro-dump abilities, will be "must-have".  I don't even think the Enchanter's Mesmerize spell, or the general class of crowd-control abilities, will be "must-have".  I'll even go so far as to say I think some groups will figure out how to be effective with no aggro dump **and** no crowd-control.  And I think that will be awesome :)

    • 945 posts
    April 25, 2018 2:59 PM PDT

    As a former SHD in EQ, I may have a slightly biased opinion, but I absolutely loved FD. With that said, I feel that the more CC abilities (or pull management) the classes have the better after seeing the types of encounters that are in store. Having to rely on a single class for CC will likely lead to an over reliance of that class (enchanter mez). Having bard mez, monk FD splitting, maybe mage wall/cage summoning or even necro screams of terror types of CC would be welcomed. I would hate to have to wait hours for an enchanter that is in lvl range and doesn’t already have plans to be available in order to be able to play in areas with pulls larger than 3 or 4 enemies. If paladins get Rez, then I think FD on the DL would be comparable. Maybe invis too (circlet of shadows FTW! ;p)


    This post was edited by Darch at April 25, 2018 3:01 PM PDT
    • 752 posts
    April 26, 2018 9:07 AM PDT

    I loved my SK on eq1 because i was actually better at pulling. Snare then FD and mobs split really well. IMO monks had it harder than SK even though we had a spell cast timer. Once the aa FD was avail that wasnt an issue.