Dark E Sk or Isk SK ????Follow

I really enjoyed this thread. Nothing like EQ drama to spice up the day.

I can see where both sides have a point, but I believe Gxm "won" the debate if only because he didn't degenerate his responses to the attacks that Heightserz ended up with. Yet, Height does have a point that was not expanded upon.

The thing is, just like in EQ1, when you reach the end game there is precious little difference in equipment that a certain class will aspire to. There will be the one ultimate BP that every tank will strive for, the one crazy robe all finger wigglers will drool over, etc. With little variation, everyone will have the ultimate gear in each slot, or be in the process of aquiring the ultimate item for that slot.

I recall in EQ1 when every paladin in my guild had the exact same gear at level 60 after months of ToV farming. The dwarf pallies had the most HP (albeit not by much), the high elf pallies had the most mana, etc. Every toon of every class was in the same situation. We kept a set of the same resist gear in inventory, the same clickies, tank gear, mana gear, and even similar CR gear. Eventually, every item will be found and folks will strive for the best of whats available until the next expansion.

Height's argument is that there *are differences naked, which is true and no one disputes it. The weakness in this argument, though, is that you are never naked in EQ2 unless you manually disrobe. Gxm stated that the differences can be made up with gear, which is also true, but the weakness in this is that, at the endgame, there is usually (by EQ1 standards) very little difference in end-game equipment.

So after being level 50 for a few weeks, the top tier players will likely all have the same equipment in the same slots and the only difference will be whatever race attributes your toon came with. In EQ1, ogre tanks rocked because of the higher HP and the ability to avoid getting stunned (when HP ruled). High elf pallies ruled due to the extra mana. Erudite casters ruled from their higher natural INT, etc.

In the end game (in EQ1), something as trivial as the ability to "slam" or to not being stunned provided huge dividens. EQ1 was a game where small percentages would make or break the encounter. Numbers meant everything, where 1% hitpoint increase elevated you to a new level of effectiveness. A tank with 5 more natural stamina had just enough more to be able to take out that one tough dragon. It was a game where simple calculations were enough to know in advance wether or not you could tank a mob. You knew that the creature one-rounded the tank for 4k every 3 seconds, so you planned for the tank to have 12k hp and two clerics on a 5 second CH chain and patchers chain patching. If your tank had 11,950 hp, then you couldn't use him. If your tank had 12,000 hp, he's good to go.

That was EQ1. I think Sony has learned their lesson and made class differences something more in the line of flavor than actual effectiveness. This game is more variable and has many more things to consider than just the creature's max output versus the tank's HP and the healer's healing potential. Until this game becomes strictly a numbers issue, I would have to agree that picking a race should be done based on how much fun you will have above all else.