Good evening!
Let’s talk about my favorite Albion realm again (one hib class will receive an honorable mention).
As a whole, there are zero glaring weaknesses in the Albion meta. The only weakness in an albion setup is the cleric, as the only utility spells that they have other than realm abilities, buff and heal is a stun and low-delve baseline nuke.
Fighting an albion group allows players to play incredibly risky with very little risk and still reap the rewards of the play.
Starting with sorc, high utility, only balanced pet the realm has. What makes it unbalanced is that it’s another dang pet.
Cabalist: cabalist is a deadly caster. What makes the cabalist over the top is their pet and ability to pet-cycle power.
Their pet buffs are in a line that will at least be specced to yellow, often it’s specced to red for the tri-debuff. The pet is damn near unkitable and any cabalist paying attention, can release the pet and recast it, and pet cycle for power if needed. The pet can stick to someone even sprinting and is a bitch to kill.
Minstrels, can someone explain to me why they’re even remotely balanced at any form of gameplay? Land an aoe mezz on the pet or mini, chances are that one will get resisted and the mini is now granted with free mezz immunity. The minstrel can play in the backfield doing minstrel things with little fear.
Minstrel red con pet interrupting MOC is another really really really dumb mechanic. How is it that moc is designed to be uninterrupted unless mezzed, stunned or amnesia’d but this damn pet can just walk over and loc a moc’d caster down?
The moc’d caster is probably a shaman or a healer moccing because of theurg pet spam.
As the minstrel increases in realm rank, things like aom, ip, the empty mind and the like make the minstrel too damn tough to kill.
The red con pet takes too many resources to kill and it’s likely to be healed. Groups started to run a third acolyte to buff this silly thing. If my daoc memory serves me well, buffs on pets increase their abs on top of their stats. Bananas
*honorable mention mentalist* the mentalist can sit all the way in the back field and should the mentalist get mezzed, all that player needs to do is hit released and the mezz is broken. Dare I say it’s more stupid than the minstrel?
Theurgs: baseline dps buff, baseline haste buff (only one in game and not even conc buffs) best in slot. Speed 7 pets, faster than players running at speed 6. So now, not only are you playing with two/three tanks and a mini, now you have to deal with a class that can play hyper safe and pump out pets at, contrary to the 12% power tool tip, 5-7% power based on EB and that stupid Phoenix only power pool trick.
Now, you finally gain control of the fight and it’s your turn to push, whelp, now you’re dealing with clearing theurg pets as you’re trying to capitalize on any momentum. Really dumb.
Friar: have you guys seen the effectiveness of the spread heal proc? I have. Mercs are 10-15% of the groups total heals. So if you’re running the meta setup, 20-30% of the groups heals are coming from two tanks that done even have power pool.
————
Suggestion:
Cabalist: nerf pet buffs. Nerf pet hp. Get rid of pet cycle.
Minstrel: make the pet charm work like the sorcs. Even without the pet the minstrel is still super duper mobile and strong.
Theurg: I have many thoughts on theurg. Decrease range. Make pets actually cost 12% power no matter what. Decrease their run speed so you have the damn ability to try to combat them. Another cool thing with earth pets would be to have them lose 3.33% life a second. After 30 seconds they just die from no hp. Increase casting time. Do something. Make the pets have 0% chance to be resist by nukes or stuns.
Friar: make that spread heal proc thing a realm ability or remove it.
Alb is obviously hyper strong when a vast majority of the listed groups are on alb. It’s toxic to play against. It’s toxic to lose a fight because of one mistake but Albion having a million get out of jail free cards. It’s toxic to aoe mezz a minstrel, him or the pet resists and then having free mezz immunity.
The answer can’t be ‘this is how it was in 2002’ not a good answer.
Let’s talk about my favorite Albion realm again (one hib class will receive an honorable mention).
As a whole, there are zero glaring weaknesses in the Albion meta. The only weakness in an albion setup is the cleric, as the only utility spells that they have other than realm abilities, buff and heal is a stun and low-delve baseline nuke.
Fighting an albion group allows players to play incredibly risky with very little risk and still reap the rewards of the play.
Starting with sorc, high utility, only balanced pet the realm has. What makes it unbalanced is that it’s another dang pet.
Cabalist: cabalist is a deadly caster. What makes the cabalist over the top is their pet and ability to pet-cycle power.
Their pet buffs are in a line that will at least be specced to yellow, often it’s specced to red for the tri-debuff. The pet is damn near unkitable and any cabalist paying attention, can release the pet and recast it, and pet cycle for power if needed. The pet can stick to someone even sprinting and is a bitch to kill.
Minstrels, can someone explain to me why they’re even remotely balanced at any form of gameplay? Land an aoe mezz on the pet or mini, chances are that one will get resisted and the mini is now granted with free mezz immunity. The minstrel can play in the backfield doing minstrel things with little fear.
Minstrel red con pet interrupting MOC is another really really really dumb mechanic. How is it that moc is designed to be uninterrupted unless mezzed, stunned or amnesia’d but this damn pet can just walk over and loc a moc’d caster down?
The moc’d caster is probably a shaman or a healer moccing because of theurg pet spam.
As the minstrel increases in realm rank, things like aom, ip, the empty mind and the like make the minstrel too damn tough to kill.
The red con pet takes too many resources to kill and it’s likely to be healed. Groups started to run a third acolyte to buff this silly thing. If my daoc memory serves me well, buffs on pets increase their abs on top of their stats. Bananas
*honorable mention mentalist* the mentalist can sit all the way in the back field and should the mentalist get mezzed, all that player needs to do is hit released and the mezz is broken. Dare I say it’s more stupid than the minstrel?
Theurgs: baseline dps buff, baseline haste buff (only one in game and not even conc buffs) best in slot. Speed 7 pets, faster than players running at speed 6. So now, not only are you playing with two/three tanks and a mini, now you have to deal with a class that can play hyper safe and pump out pets at, contrary to the 12% power tool tip, 5-7% power based on EB and that stupid Phoenix only power pool trick.
Now, you finally gain control of the fight and it’s your turn to push, whelp, now you’re dealing with clearing theurg pets as you’re trying to capitalize on any momentum. Really dumb.
Friar: have you guys seen the effectiveness of the spread heal proc? I have. Mercs are 10-15% of the groups total heals. So if you’re running the meta setup, 20-30% of the groups heals are coming from two tanks that done even have power pool.
————
Suggestion:
Cabalist: nerf pet buffs. Nerf pet hp. Get rid of pet cycle.
Minstrel: make the pet charm work like the sorcs. Even without the pet the minstrel is still super duper mobile and strong.
Theurg: I have many thoughts on theurg. Decrease range. Make pets actually cost 12% power no matter what. Decrease their run speed so you have the damn ability to try to combat them. Another cool thing with earth pets would be to have them lose 3.33% life a second. After 30 seconds they just die from no hp. Increase casting time. Do something. Make the pets have 0% chance to be resist by nukes or stuns.
Friar: make that spread heal proc thing a realm ability or remove it.
Alb is obviously hyper strong when a vast majority of the listed groups are on alb. It’s toxic to play against. It’s toxic to lose a fight because of one mistake but Albion having a million get out of jail free cards. It’s toxic to aoe mezz a minstrel, him or the pet resists and then having free mezz immunity.
The answer can’t be ‘this is how it was in 2002’ not a good answer.