Class balance "discussions"

[cougerofeq]

It all started because at introduction - the mage epic pet was overpowering(stated by verant) and the relative power of the mage has steadily dropped since then. Once you have it, it hurts to lose it.

[Xuthaz]

thread derail incoming!

There was never a time that a cleric was going to outdamage a warrior, yet the warrior sure as hell was not going to have the time to heal while fighting.

I agree in spirit with what you were saying, but bad example.  Clerics in D&D are the most overpowered class in any table top game i've ever played.  they do the most damage as well as the best healers, 2nd best melee class with 2nd best defense(AC).  I'm referring to both 2nd and 3rd edition AD&D (3rd edition they are worse at melee but better at spell casting)

[Kinash]

If ya remember your ancient EQ lore, ya would remember that the game was primarily designed for grouping. The point of EQ over all the other MMORPG's was that the point was to group and work on quests rather than solo slaughter. With that in mind many classes were specifically designed to be group players. Personnally, I believe that in many cases soloing ablility was merely an afterthought, that all players were meant to group, but some had the added advantage of good solo-ability based on their job in the group.

[Whiptail_Warclaw]

Cleric:
Primary: Support (Healing/Buffing/Rezzing)
Secondary: None
Secondary: None

I have a 40 Cleric, so he's not in the Plains yet and his roll will most likely change, but currently he has many rolls in a group.

Cleric:
Primary: Healing/Buffing/Curing
Secondary: Assisting puller (Pacify as needed)/ Crowd Control (Rooting and Atone are wonderful), Stunning fleeing mobs.
Secondary: Rezzing (If I'm rezzing either the puller has over pulled or I have not done my job) / Cast the odd nuke (mana permitting)
Secondary: Leadership Abilities (since I normally make my own groups, when I play my Cleric)

It's all about the player and what the player does with the class, he/she chooses to play. Above is two different examples of how two players see the same class.