Frank wrote on Mar 6^th, 2017 at 12:16am:

You are right.  Cleric isn't a "very good" solo class, it is one of the best.  Remember those are for new players.  A first time player on a 28 point build is not laying waste to dungeons from level 1-10 on a sorc.  Sure I can.  And you can.  But, A cleric or a pally is a much safer bet to make it to mid-high heroics. 

Even warlock isn't that great for the first few levels.  Before you get pact damage, your DPS is rubbish.  Unless you think players just appear in the game with mastery of the UI, the combat system (which is pretty unique in comparison to other MMO's) and kiting then I think you are being a bit unrealistic about what are good suggestions for new players. 

One of the challenges is that the best solo builds early on are ones that can heavily self heal.  In obvious ways.  And avoid taking a lot of damage while dealing out respectable damage.  Preferably damage that does not limitations like mana.  AC is still viable at these levels and incoming spell damage is limited.  So self healing heavy armor builds are a pretty good choice. 

Later on, though, that changes.  So making templates that work for levels 1-8 and still work at level 15-20 (let alone 20-30) can be harder than you would think.  At the end of the day, though, 1-8 is more important because they won't ever get to 15-20 if you can't keep them alive for the first 8-10 levels. 

Alex DeLarge wrote on Mar 6^th, 2017 at 2:19pm:


I disagree. To a new player, a self healing reasonably high defense cleric is one of the best character options.  New players aren't doing Reaper.  A heavy mace will get them through normal or hard, probably even elite. 

Will it be mass AoE super fast killing? No. Will it be a more survivable, thus more fun build than a sorcerer? For a new player, almost always.

Context matters.

No new news on the mobos I see.

Grand wrote on Mar 6^th, 2017 at 3:16pm:

Indeed. It's like they're ignoring the forumites on purpose. I'm guessing there's a major problem with U35 and they just don't have the balls to tell us.

Bet the initial Lamannia build is so screwed up they won't even put it out tomorrow.

Sailias wrote on Mar 6^th, 2017 at 10:00am:

You don't seem to be making much sense.  If you don't have access to the code then what exactly are you working on with these new default builds you speak of?

And as to your second point, you have the naivete of youth.  You want to accomplish grand, sweeping things when just fixing the text would be "good enough for now" and could be followed up on later.  Your grand, sweeping plan will be shelved four months before you think it'll be ready to go live and you'll be assigned to work on something else.  Probably something else that is a "good enough for now" solution to some other problem or is a "good enough for now" implementation of some new content.

It's a 10 year old game, and "good enough for now" is about all they have produced for the past 5 of those years.

Asheras wrote on Mar 6^th, 2017 at 2:02pm:


7 APs (which you get in the middle of level 2)  gets you chain.  At that point, elite is easy to solo on everything you run into.  Before that you just have to kite everything and you won't die... it will just take a while to kill everything... but it's much easier than cleric.

And many new players are F2P that do not have access to a Warlock anyway.

They are still deciding whether they want to spend any money on the game at all, let alone the decision to go Premium or VIP.

Is Jakee throwing a fit again?

If you're on Khyber, and you're not a newb and in any channels, you group with me all the time

What channel is that, Jakeee?

Asheras wrote on Mar 7^th, 2017 at 10:17am:


All of this.

Because I did all of it... 

OP updated with Release Notes for U35 on Lamannia.