4,000 Astral Shards

[Drachmoril]

What does it get you?

A shared guild space!
-Tavern
-Mail box
-Auction house
-Bank

(^Essentially a portable hole)

Some handy buffs!

(Would you look at all those guild buffs!)

I bet I might even run into a guildie some day, if we happen to be selling / repairing at the same time!

[Drachmoril]

We worked real hard to get those energy resist shrines! That was a lot of time and guild renown.

We just want SOMETHING.

The NPCs hardly give anything. Strip them of their buffs, but leave them in the cargo hold.

The energy resists are too strong? Maybe they only kick in at level 30. Or increase as you level.

Removing them entirely, unless in preparation for an immediate guild ship overhaul, seems senseless.

[acemonkey]

They're balancing for the HC server now. Removing the convenient low level plat ship buffs leads to more purchases of alchemist for its energy resist advantage and general ranged/survivability, as well as promoting repurchases of tomes, xp pots, gold rolls for xp, etc for do-overs when players die, same reason instant boarding pass is being nerfed.

[Ausdoerrt]

Removing them entirely, unless in preparation for an immediate guild ship overhaul, seems senseless.

This IS the last part of the guild ship overhaul. You know, back from update 22 in 2014? When they said they'd eventually remove the legacy buffs, placed them in the cargo hold etc.?

One would think 6 years is a long enough transition period...



They're balancing for the HC server now. Removing the convenient low level plat ship buffs leads to more purchases of alchemist for its energy resist advantage and general ranged/survivability, as well as promoting repurchases of tomes, xp pots, gold rolls for xp, etc for do-overs when players die, same reason instant boarding pass is being nerfed.

That's bollocks, alchemist's energy resist is a short term buff, and is only about 10~11 points more than what literally any caster or anyone with UMD to use an energy resist wand can get. As a person who hasn't used the legacy shrines in years, trust me, extra 10~20 pts of energy resistance isn't a gamechanger, unless you like playing "asleep at the wheel" style.

[Harkmar]

That's bollocks, alchemist's energy resist is a short term buff, and is only about 10~11 points more than what literally any caster or anyone with UMD to use an energy resist wand can get. As a person who hasn't used the legacy shrines in years, trust me, extra 10~20 pts of energy resistance isn't a gamechanger, unless you like playing "asleep at the wheel" style.

Alchemist get resist bonuses from 2 different places.

General alchemist, granted short duration but an almost on demand thing:
Orchidium Reaction: Physical Resistance Rating and Elemental Resistance equal to (10 + triple your Alchemist level).

From the bombardier tree:
Stone of the Savant: Alchemist's Stone Toggle: While wielding an Orb in your off-hand, you gain +1 MRR and MRR cap per Alchemist Level. You also gain +5 Elemental Resistance to Fire, Cold, Electric, Acid, and Sonic, plus an additional +5 for every 5 Alchemist levels you have

Those stack with each other and would stack with the ship/hold buffs. At very low levels that makes you completely immune to magic damage and could possibly last until you get Alchemist evasion.

Liquid Luck: You gain evasion. (requires Alchemist 12)

Once you get evasion the elemental resistance means very little.

As for it not being a "game changer" do you solo, duo, or run in full groups? If full groups are they pug or are they a set group? Do you push forward hard trying to get mission completion time down or do you move at a slow pace? What difficulty do you play on? There are a lot of questions that determine how useful the elemental resist is. All of that added in with the increase of server lag/degradation of server performance and loss of that cushion makes a difference.

[acemonkey]

That's bollocks, alchemist's energy resist is a short term buff, and is only about 10~11 points more than what literally any caster or anyone with UMD to use an energy resist wand can get. As a person who hasn't used the legacy shrines in years, trust me, extra 10~20 pts of energy resistance isn't a gamechanger, unless you like playing "asleep at the wheel" style.

You're ignorant of what alchemist includes. They get +6 from an enhancement, +5-25 from an orb enhancement (+MRR!), and +5/10/15 from that standard duration (1 min/level) buff (also IIRC it was 4 flavors at once on LAM), all of which stack with standard, guild, bard, orb blocking, etc resists.


Tier 2:
Stone of the Savant: Alchemist's Stone Toggle: While wielding an Orb in your off-hand, you gain +1 MRR and MRR cap per Alchemist Level. You also gain +5 Elemental Resistance to Fire, Cold, Electric, Acid, and Sonic, plus an additional +5 for every 5 Alchemist levels you have

Tier 3:
Safety Goggles: +1/2/3 Armor Class and +2/4/6 Energy Resistance. Rank 3: Blindness Immunity

The spell doesn't have an accurate description that includes duration and what it actually does. In the reaper/champ era I'd much rather have 5/10/15 to 4 that stacks, over nonstacking 10/20/30 to one requiring 5 casts x# of party members if I'm gonna be stuck with a low duration mana drain of a spell, and even better it's self only so the rest of the party can go buy alchemist instead of expecting buffs out of my mana pool. It's the perfect selfish build to wreck the last 10 years of design to sell/shoehorn in to the META, just in time for the next HC.

The reason it's a nightmare patch for me is that now instead of dropping by the ship once an hour or so to get 5x 1 hour buffs of +30, I now have to waste in mission time and inventory space screwing with wands or pots for a much lower buff that won't last the whole mission, or REALLY waste time and mana and buff it out on a caster, or play warlock (they'll be alright with T2 ES enhancement) or else after Tangleroot visit Phiarlan for a 20 resist 30 minute buff.

If they'd made this change at the same time they made wands/pots of 5 flavor evergy resist that lasted 10 minutes, made the spell last 5 minutes minimum and cover all 5 flavors, etc, I wouldn't even care, that would be more balanced but still convenient. They ruined gameplay to make more money, end of story.

[Strider1963]

Yes, it will be another inventory nightmare. As if I didnt have enough stuff to carry around and taskbars, now I have to have carry around resist pots and energy protection pots just to get through low level quests with low protection pots. Not mention that leveling up will be slower because of having to be more careful because of enemy casters, esp in reaper mode. I wouldnt want to be a newer player who just rolled a barb., its gonna be even more painful without the elemental buffs. I just took a first life barb bank toon thru korthos and the harbor on elite without any buffs and it was painful to say the least. My advice to new players is to roll a class that uses a repeater, arty, inquis or mix so you can target the casters first and stay alive. By the time a melee gets to a caster theres a good chance he will be doa. But hey, now melees have strikethrough, if thats any good, and if they can make it to the enemy casters to take advantage of it. Enjoy!

[Ausdoerrt]

Those stack with each other and would stack with the ship/hold buffs. At very low levels that makes you completely immune to magic damage and could possibly last until you get Alchemist evasion.
OK, if the reaction stacks with enhancements then it's a bit over the top, true. Though the orb thing is kind of pushing you into a specific build.

That said, all the more reason to remove the legacy buffs and/or tone down the Alchemist resists.


As for it not being a "game changer" do you solo, duo, or run in full groups? If full groups are they pug or are they a set group? Do you push forward hard trying to get mission completion time down or do you move at a slow pace? What difficulty do you play on? There are a lot of questions that determine how useful the elemental resist is. All of that added in with the increase of server lag/degradation of server performance and loss of that cushion makes a difference.
Mostly solo E/R1, occasional groups, some raids. It works just fine.

If you mean to say that they're more valuable for zerg / higher reaper, then I say, boohoo, too bad the easy button is going away.



In the reaper/champ era I'd much rather have 5/10/15 to 4 that stacks, over nonstacking 10/20/30 to one requiring 5 casts x# of party members if I'm gonna be stuck with a low duration mana drain of a spell, and even better it's self only so the rest of the party can go buy alchemist instead of expecting buffs out of my mana pool. It's the perfect selfish build to wreck the last 10 years of design to sell/shoehorn in to the META, just in time for the next HC.
I can't think of that many quests in lower levels where you NEED to keep up more than 1-2 resists. If you're casting all 5 then you should learn the quests and stop wasting mana.

In higher levels there are additional spells / options, including a very useful twist in epics.

I also rarely ever find myself having to throw resists to the party, because most people should already have their own.



The reason it's a nightmare patch for me is that now instead of dropping by the ship once an hour or so to get 5x 1 hour buffs of +30, I now have to waste in mission time and inventory space screwing with wands or pots for a much lower buff that won't last the whole mission, or REALLY waste time and mana and buff it out on a caster, or play warlock (they'll be alright with T2 ES enhancement) or else after Tangleroot visit Phiarlan for a 20 resist 30 minute buff.

If they'd made this change at the same time they made wands/pots of 5 flavor evergy resist that lasted 10 minutes, made the spell last 5 minutes minimum and cover all 5 flavors, etc, I wouldn't even care, that would be more balanced but still convenient. They ruined gameplay to make more money, end of story.

Bottom line is you really don't have to, you're just used to it and unhappy that you now can't snooze through levels 1-10. You can throw money at it as in any F2P game, sure, or you can adapt your playstyle to where you don't need the buff, such as not jumping into acid / lava pools, killing casters first etc.


now I have to have carry around resist pots and energy protection pots just to get through low level quests with low protection pots
If you NEED those pots just to get through low-level quests, then I got bad news for ya :)

[Aeron1976]

I also rarely ever find myself having to throw resists to the party, because most people should already have their own.

And you never wondered why? Below Epics and one lost Twist Slot!?

Probably Ship Resists.

They were just a QoL Item that made the already tedious part less time consuming.

And they were a good help to newer players. The Zerg/Reaper whatever you may call them players didnt use/need them anyway.

So you only hurt new Playersand/or small guilds.

Great Job Devs! DEFINITELY NOT!

[Strider1963]

OK, if the reaction stacks with enhancements then it's a bit over the top, true. Though the orb thing is kind of pushing you into a specific build.

That said, all the more reason to remove the legacy buffs and/or tone down the Alchemist resists.


Mostly solo E/R1, occasional groups, some raids. It works just fine.

If you mean to say that they're more valuable for zerg / higher reaper, then I say, boohoo, too bad the easy button is going away.



I can't think of that many quests in lower levels where you NEED to keep up more than 1-2 resists. If you're casting all 5 then you should learn the quests and stop wasting mana.

In higher levels there are additional spells / options, including a very useful twist in epics.

I also rarely ever find myself having to throw resists to the party, because most people should already have their own.




Bottom line is you really don't have to, you're just used to it and unhappy that you now can't snooze through levels 1-10. You can throw money at it as in any F2P game, sure, or you can adapt your playstyle to where you don't need the buff, such as not jumping into acid / lava pools, killing casters first etc.


If you NEED those pots just to get through low-level quests, then I got bad news for ya :)

Well , if you have 140 past lives and just roll through everything, no, you dont need anything much at all. But apparently you dont remember how it was playing a melee without those buffs and no past lives. You have to kill the casters first and if youre playing a slow moving melee, good luck getting to the caster with a mob to mow through. Then, theres the elemental traps, you know, the ones that go "boom"? A lot more survivable with pots and evasion, otherwise, not so much. Like ive said before, they're making the game more difficult for the newer and lesser ability players and the ubers dont care. Elemental resists werent hurting anybody, they were helping everyone the same. Epics wont be a problem, but you lose a twist and have to have sp to use it, but doing heroic on reaper will just be more deaths and more time leveling up. Not fun at all, but of course, that probably doesnt pertain to you as you have all the past lives 3x including racials.

[archest]

Yes, it will be another inventory nightmare. As if I didnt have enough stuff to carry around and taskbars, now I have to have carry around resist pots and energy protection pots just to get through low level quests with low protection pots. Not mention that leveling up will be slower because of having to be more careful because of enemy casters, esp in reaper mode. I wouldnt want to be a newer player who just rolled a barb., its gonna be even more painful without the elemental buffs. I just took a first life barb bank toon thru korthos and the harbor on elite without any buffs and it was painful to say the least. My advice to new players is to roll a class that uses a repeater, arty, inquis or mix so you can target the casters first and stay alive. By the time a melee gets to a caster theres a good chance he will be doa. But hey, now melees have strikethrough, if thats any good, and if they can make it to the enemy casters to take advantage of it. Enjoy!


a wand or scroll which covers the same as a pot if your umd is high enough.

[Fedora1]

unless you like playing "asleep at the wheel" style.

*Raises hand* lol

[Matuse]

The amount of whining over low level content being dangerous to low level characters is really quite amazing.

It's supposed to be dangerous to low level characters. Otherwise what's the point? The resist buff shrines should never have been put into the game in the first place. They were ridiculously OP, and substantially detracted from the game.

[Requiro]

(...)

So you only hurt new Playersand/or small guilds.

(...)

Yes. But low level quests was designed that way. 30 elemental resist on level 1 was OP from the beginning.


(...)But apparently you dont remember how it was playing a melee without those buffs and no past lives. You have to kill the casters first and if youre playing a slow moving melee, good luck getting to the caster with a mob to mow through. Then, theres the elemental traps, you know, the ones that go "boom"? A lot more survivable with pots and evasion, otherwise, not so much. Like ive said before, they're making the game more difficult for the newer and lesser ability players and the ubers dont care. (...)

I agree with everything you said here. And because of that I'm happy that they removed that buffs. At least low level quests on Epic and higher will not be trivial anymore.

[Fenrisulven7]

They're balancing for the HC server now. Removing the convenient low level plat ship buffs leads to more purchases of alchemist for its energy resist advantage and general ranged/survivability, as well as promoting repurchases of tomes, xp pots, gold rolls for xp, etc for do-overs when players die, same reason instant boarding pass is being nerfed.

That's simply not true.

30 point resists at 1st lvl make "hard core" a joke

Boarding pass was being exploited as a free "evade death" clicky by the same crowd, it was only intended to conveniently get you to Sharn.

This is why we can't have nice things...



And quit speaking for the devs, you are just speculating about whatever your Outrage of the Week is.

It's tiresome, every thread, the same Cabal of Troublemakers.

You are just distorting the facts to generate a pitchfork wielding mob, because SSG ignored whatever your pet peeve is.



You want to help? Then discuss:

1) Yes, elemental resists could be restored if they simply scaled them to level

2) Yes, as the OP said, there is a dearth of useful amenities at the lower guild levels, those gaps need to be filled in.

Instead of hijacking the thread with your usual diatribe about SSG. Yes, you are mad at SSG, we get it already. Move on.

[fatherpirate]

The simple solution would be to scale the resist per level.

I don't think that would satisfy the most vocal group, they want their exploit.

[kathyddo]

For a game that has a tiny population compared to the last time I played, all I can say is SSG are incredibly reckless with new players.

And that's from someone who has never even used those buffs. so doesn't give a toss either way.

Personally I would have made those buffs 1st(maybe 2nd as well) life only. Games need to look after new players.

[Mglaxix]

The simple solution would be to scale the resist per level.

I don't think that would satisfy the most vocal group, they want their exploit.


Sign of the Silver Flame I* Hold Room 10 50,000 +[5/10/15] Guild bonus to Fire Resistance, and Fire/Light Spell Power
Shrine to the Devourer I* Hold Room 10 50,000 +[5/10/15] Guild bonus to Acid/Cold Resistances and Spell Power
Stormreaver Memorial I* Hold Room 10 50,000 +[5/10/15] Guild bonus to Sonic/Electricity Resistances and Spell Power


Grand Reliquary I State Room 55 180 Provides bonuses for Sign of the Silver Flame, Shrine to the Devourer, and Stormreaver Memorial. (i.e. +[5/10/15] Guild bonus to Acid/Cold/Electricity/Fire/Sonic Resistances and Spell Power.)

The new permanent buffs do scale and are a one time cost

[Ausdoerrt]

They were just a QoL Item that made the already tedious part less time consuming.

And they were a good help to newer players.

You say tedious - I say fun. In fact, it's actually kind of tedious to refresh every hour / on death.

And nah, they do nothing for new players, because they are probably not in a big guild and don't have access.


Well , if you have 140 past lives and just roll through everything, no, you dont need anything much at all. But apparently you dont remember how it was playing a melee without those buffs and no past lives. You have to kill the casters first and if youre playing a slow moving melee, good luck getting to the caster with a mob to mow through. Then, theres the elemental traps, you know, the ones that go "boom"? A lot more survivable with pots and evasion, otherwise, not so much. Like ive said before, they're making the game more difficult for the newer and lesser ability players and the ubers dont care. Elemental resists werent hurting anybody, they were helping everyone the same. Epics wont be a problem, but you lose a twist and have to have sp to use it, but doing heroic on reaper will just be more deaths and more time leveling up. Not fun at all, but of course, that probably doesnt pertain to you as you have all the past lives 3x including racials.
Nice tirade, too bad it couldn't be further from the truth.

I play E / R1 at most. I play on and off as time permits. I have 6 alts, half of them first life. My "main" has 6 heroic and 1 epic past life. Other toons include paladin, henshin mystic, ninja spy, SWF barb, TWF cleric. I run wacky flavor builds all the time just for the heck of it. I know very well what it's like to play an underpowered melee at all levels - I used to have a sorc / paladin back when EK imbues didn't scale and actually cost spell points to maintain.

I'm the DEFINITION of a casual player. And I haven't used the legacy resists in years, pretty much since the ship update in 2014.

The one advantage I have is I've been here long enough to remember when we didn't get so much power from enhancements so early on, and when levels 1-10 weren't auto-complete on Elite. You CAN compensate through smart play. Yes, even the traps, most can be timed or otherwise evaded. Yes, some quests will also be a lot more risky at level, and you'll die from time to time. But you'll also hopefully learn something in the process.


It's supposed to be dangerous to low level characters. Otherwise what's the point? The resist buff shrines should never have been put into the game in the first place. They were ridiculously OP, and substantially detracted from the game.
This, thank you.

I think for the time they were put in, the shrines made some sense. There was a lot less power creep, and access to them was quite restricted. Those times are long gone now.



The simple solution would be to scale the resist per level.

Funny thing is, we already have this exact buff in the existing system.