flishtaco wrote:
The sad part is the only ones who like actually have to have the AA are tanks. You can get by if the rest of your group doesnt have AA. Personally I think the simplest fix would be to just give everyone what used to be in Archetype when it came out with PoP iirc. That would go a long way all by itself.
Some of those are the greatest or game breaking but the majority of the ones people think of as must having are like SCM3, ND3,CA3,CS3. It would probably even be easier to code.
I don't agree with this idea. Honestly, I've seen lots of suggestions involving "free" AAs (either a lump like your suggestion, or some number you get automatically each level in order to get the cores without having to stop leveling). IMO, that's not really addressing the core problem. The issue is that classes that "need" to stop and get AAs ultimately end up taking longer to get to the endgame. That's just a given. You can level up a caster alt and get him into a high end guild and gaining great drops from raids in a fraction of the time it takes to do the same with a warrior, shadow knight, or paladin.
Giving out free AAs doesn't fix the problem. Because those cores benefit the casters just as much, right? They get spell casting reinforcement/fury/etc in there too. So basically, they get to be more effective while not having to stop to level. And trust me, the original archtypes don't even scratch the surface of what a tank in his 70s needs to be effective against even close to current content. You'd just make non-tanks that much "better" in this context, while the tanks would still have to stop and AA, just maybe not as much. It's linear and doesn't fix the problem at all.
Having a scaling AA multiple doesn't totally fix the problem either, but it at least mitigates it a bit. A tank can stop and grind AAs along the way without falling quite as far behind. Yes. The caster can grind straight to 80 and then start on AAs, so he's still ahead, but that will always be the case as long as tanks "must have" AAs to be effective, while casters simply become more effective by having them.
I'd much rather have a multiplier, for the simple fact that it'll apply to a large number of "core" AAs that I need instead of a smallish number that really only start the process off. I can tell you that I'm well beyond CA3, CS3, ND3, etc, in my AA path and still don't feel that I can tank sufficiently well in most newer content. In stuff 5+ expansions old? I'm balls out great. Anything newer then that? I'm pretty much unlikely to get a group invite at all.
I don't just want a freebie to get me to "medicre", I want something that'll speed up the time it takes to get from 100-200, and 200-300, and 300-500 AAs, and more. Because then I benefit directly from taking the time to get those AAs. And so does everyone else. No one's who needs the benefit we're talking about is unequally penalized.
Um... And that's before even discussing the issue of paybacks. So if I spent my time and effort getting some of those cores (certainly all the important archtypes), I don't get anything? Trust me, I'm still nowhere near where I want to be, but it seems a bit unfair that someone who didn't take any time to grind any AAs at all gets some "for free", while I don't. And yes, I realize that this smacks of the same kind of complaints I've bashed, but it's a matter of degrees IMO. A multiplier gives everyone an advantage, but gives no one a freebie. Someone with no AAs isn't going to spend as long earning them as I did perhaps, but wont suddenly "jump" up. He'll still have to stop and earn them just like everyone else.
IMO, it's the right balance of needed boost and preservation of past efforts.
