Not best title, wasnt sure how to type it. Curious what opinions are on certain class/race combo that seem to be superior. Arguably in EQ Iksar monk was better than human monk. I think Iksar monk had superior AC and Regen while Human monk had more fist dmg pre epic? Another example is iksar necro. With necro lich spell and having innate regen it really benefited being an iksar necro. This is a debated opinion and obvioulsly people like to roll play
Another example was like Ogre/Troll warrior vs any other warrior. The extra regen or the frontal stun immunity made racial trait better than most. Think dwarves got like extra 5mr racial
I hope racial traits play a roll in deciding class/race but i hope its not huge. Example might be like One race has racial +1 hp regen and another has +1 mana regen. Some casters might want the extra HP regen others go for that 1 mana. Strategy involved but not easy snap decisions
Iksar monk was better than human monk. I think Iksar monk had superior AC and Regen while Human monk had more fist dmg pre epic?
In fact, 1 attack speed better with unarmed fists. The big bonus to human monks was the ability to travel with ease, while the higher AC was much more a levelling bonus than a end game feature due to the AC cap velious introduced, that made monks with high ac squishy.
For ogre, the bonus in base statistics was a good reason to choose them but ended wasted when gear and buffs made everyone pretty equal, frontal stun was however pretty good, even if some said it was not such an issue, base stats where however, a killer at low level (except agi).
I'm not attending too much bonuses from races except base stats, it often ends up beeing the main focus of players, and sometimes gamebreaking.
I hope we don't have trivial stuff like +1 hp or mana regen, I want race to matter.
I think the EQ racial traits were excellent, the only one that was overpowered in any way was Ogre frontal stun immunity. Other than that none of them made too much difference at all outside of soloing. Yes Iksar necro could solo more efficiently from a min/max perspective but it wasn't really a big deal if you weren't Iksar.
Vanco said: @iksar. I hope racial traits matter but make them all matter. In EQ some where lack luster while others were better. Like high elf got infravision as racial compared to iksar that got forage, AC, Regen, infravision, -10 cold +5 fire Some traits will always be better for some classes.
You're fogetting that High Elves had the benefits of being good aligned (easy travel), had easy access to probably the best low level leveling zone, and no racial expirence penality. Iksar couldn't wear the heaviest armor types, had serious faction and travel restrictions (not even standard evil races would deal with them without faction work), and had a massive expirence penality. True once at max level the expirence penality didn't matter, but neither did the AC, resistance bonus, or the ability to forage.
Vanco said:AC was huge, Monks AC in kunark was so good that they were tanking better than some warriors. Also I played on pvp server where AC, regen, resist bonus still mattered in end game
That didn't really last :P. When velious introduced non class specific High AC items, the monk tankability was so high they put a dumb AC soft cap with a tremendous AC scale once attained, making the monk in line with other's melee DPS resistance, except with stonestance of course.
Vanco said: Either way I think we can agree that some race traits were much better than others.
Except I can't really agree with this. Sure some individual benefits were better than other individual benefits but those always came on races with other, negative traits that were designed as a balance. Trolls are a great example of this. A Troll gets Infravision and Troll Regeneration, the former being a nice trait for convience and the latter often seen as the most powerful individual trait. Trolls pay a hefty price for this trait though. First, they have an innate -20 fire resistance which doesn't come up often but is absolutely devestating when it does until the midgame when it can be mitigated. Second, they have a massively increased consumption rate which means players spend more money on buff food (assuming they aren't taking advantage of an obvious bug). Third, they have a massive expirence penality, a whopping 20%, which means that not only does a Troll level slower than other races he is hurting the leveling speed of any party he joins. Finally, Trolls are evil, which is to say that traveling and selling is significantly harder and the Troll is much less safe at any given moment. All of these are in place to balance the Troll Regeneration, and in my own opinion do an adequate job at it.
Vanco said: Ok I'll concede your right. We can't agree. All traits were equal
Agreeing to disagree is a thing that exists. I believe that all of the EQ races (with one exception) are well balanced with each other in regards to racial traits when all factors (location, alignment, size, traits, class selection, etc.) are considered. You are free to disagree.
I like debate.
Gurt said:Vanco said: Ok I'll concede your right. We can't agree. All traits were equalAgreeing to disagree is a thing that exists. I believe that all of the EQ races (with one exception) are well balanced with each other in regards to racial traits when all factors (location, alignment, size, traits, class selection, etc.) are considered. You are free to disagree.
I like debate.
Well if you like to debate, I'm assuming your "one exception" was Ogre frontal stun immunity. I would say iksar regen was superior for necros to all other races.
philo said:Well if you like to debate, I'm assuming your "one exception" was Ogre frontal stun immunity. I would say iksar regen was superior for necros to all other races.
Actually, it's the iksar, but not because of anything specific on the race. Rather it's because I feel like isolating them on the continent of Kunark ends up not being a penality sice Kunark contains several of the best leveling zones which means that there is little reason for an iksar to leave Kunark; coincidentally, this means the penality of factions that are meant to help balance out part of the regeneration becomes a penality you can choose to ignore. In addition to this the iksar enjoy a reletively safe city for themselves, and have easy access to classes to fill every role you would want in a leveling party. The iksar have great benefits and the harsh penalities for leaving their island were obviously intended as part of their racial balance, yet the iksar have no reason to leave their island.
Also I feel it's important to note that I don't think think the iksar were amazingly overpowered or that they should have had any of their aspects changed. I simply feel that the drawbacks are not entirely in tune with the benefits for selecting the race.
Any minor drawbacks are mostly irrelevant for any race once you are an experienced player anyway. It's more about weighing the benefits. The penalties can be overcome easily enough. Ogre frontal stun immunity did make Ogre the only choice for a raiding Warrior for a long time.
philo said:Any minor drawbacks are mostly irrelevant for any race once you are an experienced player anyway. It's more about weighing the benefits. The penalties can be overcome easily enough.
I feel like I can mostly agree with this if only with the caveat that needing to overcome the drawback is itself a drawback. What I mean by this is that while you aren't feeling the 20% expirence penality at max level you still had to pay 20% more expirence to get there and while you may not worry about your -10 cold resistance because your top end gear has you covered you did still need to buy those earrings back at level 35. You make the penalities irrelevent by either spending more time/money or by altering where you intend to level.
philo said:Ogre frontal stun immunity did make Ogre the only choice for a raiding Warrior for a long time.
I'll take your word on this one, I didn't play a warrior on live and don't have the time to take mine on p99 all the way to raiding.
Gurt said:philo said:Well if you like to debate, I'm assuming your "one exception" was Ogre frontal stun immunity. I would say iksar regen was superior for necros to all other races.
Actually, it's the iksar, but not because of anything specific on the race. Rather it's because I feel like isolating them on the continent of Kunark ends up not being a penality sice Kunark contains several of the best leveling zones which means that there is little reason for an iksar to leave Kunark; coincidentally, this means the penality of factions that are meant to help balance out part of the regeneration becomes a penality you can choose to ignore. In addition to this the iksar enjoy a reletively safe city for themselves, and have easy access to classes to fill every role you would want in a leveling party. The iksar have great benefits and the harsh penalities for leaving their island were obviously intended as part of their racial balance, yet the iksar have no reason to leave their island.
Also I feel it's important to note that I don't think think the iksar were amazingly overpowered or that they should have had any of their aspects changed. I simply feel that the drawbacks are not entirely in tune with the benefits for selecting the race.
That's not a bad point, however there were a lot of downsides during kunark levelling, including a lack of dungeons at some point and only big zones with a negative exp modifier. On this point, classic continent had a much better experience curve with crushbone>Unrest>Mistmoore in mind, where kunark had Kurn's up to twenty then... open zones.
However, it's true that low exp zones and low exp racial modifier could be overcome, especially in late expansions that made travelling easier, reselling easier, and grouping easier. But that would apply to every race with big bonuses back then. Ogre frontal stun and basic stats were good, but what about Troll shamans back then ? Big exp down modifier, but innate regen and innate bash with high base HP as well. Iksars were pointed, especially for necromancers, monks and shamans in which they seemed to excell even with their drawbacks, but hell SK and warriors were another problem, and mail only armor ended to be a chore during late kunark due to be limitated to a very specific round of items. It was also true during levelling, with some of velious drop beeing race locked before reaching velious raiding, like crusty armor.
I do think the ac bonus / armor limitation was an interesting, yet bad thought benefit, as it only benefited classes that were low dependant on AC at first, and it crippled the iksar tanks until velious raid was reachable. Also kunark's armor clickies were unusable for iksars tanks (Cobalt / Blood Ember).
Maybe on a necro it was a pure benefit with only a slower exp gain in every situation, probably on shamans and monks too, but yeesh, not on tanks.
I have an answer to the racial skill for certain classes debate. I too hated how ogre tanks were considered superior due to stun immunity (and ogre shaman in pvp). So I propose a fairly ez solution: Have racial skills according to class role. I.e. each race gets a couple of racials to select from during character creation. Each race could have 2-3 unique skills to choose from (like foraging, hide etc), while each class role also gives a unique role depending on the race... so if you are looking for a tank for your group, you won’t necessarily choose the ogre over the halfling simply because of a specific racial. Maybe all tank roles could have a high chance to resist, dodge, or block stuns, or maybe have high resist to mind affecting CC depending on race. (Being totally immune is still pretty OP).
It would suck I f you really wanted to be a Dark Myr warrior, but the DarkMyr racial was +1-5% mana Regen... or increased cast speed. Or if the Oger Druid had increased melee damage *shrug*
I'm not sure about that. While any race was definitely viable, DE didn't make up for much against Ogre. Dark Elves had a whole 5 base DEX more than Ogre which isn't anything really in terms of proccing more, they had 15 AGI more (if Ogre did the traditional 5 points into AGI at start) which was around 6 maybe 7 AC more, and while DE had 109 starting INT compared to and Ogre's 85 (15 points into INT at start) which at level 60 would leave them at: Dark Elf - 1428 mana, Ogre - 1140 mana. Essentially DE would have 1 extra cast of lifetap (255 mana cost) before going OOM.
Unless you are talking about a much later version/era of EQ?
Keep in mind slower XP rate affected your whole group. Because Eq calculated your XP gain based on the part your XP represented in the pool of every party player, your 20% more XP required made you eat 20% more exp in a group situation, and thus, slowing everyone but with everyone levelling at the same speed.