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Great spells of historyFollow

#1 Sep 22 2018 at 1:17 PM Rating: Excellent
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I was thinking how in the early game certain spells were by themselves "game-breaking" in the sense that they were supremely powerful in terms of their impact on gameplay.

For example, #1 on my list would be the cleric's level 39 spell, Complete Heal. You have to have played in the early game, or perhaps on progression servers, to appreciate how critical this spell was for high-level grouping and especially raiding. It took 10 seconds to cast, burn a lot of mana but was very efficient because IT COMPLETELY HEALED THE TARGET---assuming the target had 7500 or fewer HPs and, believe it or not, in the heyday of this spell, not even the best raiding tank had that many HPs.

Remember the "Complete Heal Chain"? Again, you have to go way back or play progression to remember how raid forces would be dependent on a group of clerics diligently casting this spell in timed sequence on the main tank during fights with bosses. Heck, in my old guild, a lot of times whether we could run a raid or not depended on whether enough of our clerics logged in to play. We treated our clerics with kid gloves, tolerating almost any absurd demands, to keep them fat and happy AND PLAYING. Clerics have no regular self-invis, and they always seemed to get lost anyway, so as raid leader I used to assign a druid or ranger to hand-hold some clerics to get them to the raid. (No guild banners in them days!)

Even in group play, a mana-efficient cleric had to make the tough call sometimes to cast CH and let it run the full 10 seconds, or interrupt it in order to cast a much less mana-efficient faster heal, all based on whether he thought the tank could last until the CH landed.

Those were the days when it took skill to play EQ! Smiley: sly

In retrospect, it's amazing that there was ever a time when one spell could heal far more HPs than any player possessed.

Any spells you think can be called game-breaking in their time? I have a couple or three more I was post eventually...

Edited, Sep 22nd 2018 3:19pm by Sippin
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Sippin 115 DRU **** Firiona Vie ****Agnarr
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#2 Oct 02 2018 at 6:49 PM Rating: Excellent
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Playing a necro repeatedly on progression it is funny how many dead spell lines the class has.

Screaming terror is a really good mez... that never gets upgraded* If the group trusts the necro, the necro can CC, off-kite and manage all sorts of things while the spell is effective.

Banshee Aura is a self damage shield that is actually quite useful, especially with the later +DS gear... never upgraded*.

Feign death in all its forms is really overpowered if one is honest.

Necro dots hit at really odd level spots, resulting in a massive DPS spike at least a few times on your way to level 50 because the one new spell is so much better than the rest of the rotation.

Charm... well there are literally dozens of threads on the official boards about how overpowered every charm is... and then all dispels and memblurs...


In many cases you didn't realize how powerful some spells were because you had such lousy gear. Stacked up gear and faster regen makes a lot of things work really well.


*at least in the time/level I have played. Maybe they've retuned the whole toolkit 100+
#3 Oct 03 2018 at 11:58 AM Rating: Good
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Feign Death is a great spell/ability but not sure if it's "game-changing" like Complete Heal. Although certainly there have been raid encounters where monks could make or break the raid by use of this ability. I'm thinking of like a Plane of Fear break-in where the monk could drag the corpses of guildies who had died to the northern wall sorta-safe spot and then use the staff of forbidden rites to rez a cleric.

Call of the Hero: on Vex Thal raids we used to camp a mage permanently at a spot as far "in" the zone as we could get to bypass a lot of clearing. The spot I'm remembering had a wanderer who came by so we'd send an sos-capable rogue to report on the wanderer's position. He'd also engage the mob and hold its attention hopefully long enough so the mage could summon a cleric to heal him. This was raid-changing at least (if not game-changing) since it would save us a lot of time and give us an edge over competing guilds.

Spirit of the Wolf: very game-changing spell since enhanced run speed is huge in the old game. As a druid or shaman you had to be prepared for non-stop requests and if you were a greedy you-know-what you could make some decent plat charging for this buff.

Evac spells: Wizards and druids get them. When I ran early raids I would try to have a wizard or druid in each raid group so if the raid really went sour we could evac out most of the raid force (minus the initial deaths) and recover all that faster. But then our guild got into arguments over strategy: the counter argument being that it's better for the entire raid to wipe at the same spot, especially if we had cleared for three hours to get there, and then let a camped-out cleric log back in and "rez in place." Nonetheless I consider evac spells, whether group or single, to be game-changing.

Speaking of rogues, Shroud of Stealth is a game-changer. If for no other reason than the fun of roaming forbidden zones with any sos-capable rogue, learning layouts, discovering where mobs spawn and wander and finding out if a named or boss is "up." Great for collecting ground spawns too! I guess lock-picking qualifies as well since some raids were entirely impossible, like Chardok Royals, without being able to lock-pick doors.




Edited, Oct 3rd 2018 2:02pm by Sippin
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Sippin 115 DRU **** Firiona Vie ****Agnarr
FV: 115 WAR ENC CLE MAG WIZ SHD SHM Master Alchemist ROG Master Tinkerer & Poison-Maker
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Agnarr: 65 DRU ENC SHD MAG CLE ROG WIZ BRD WAR
#4 Oct 05 2018 at 10:58 AM Rating: Excellent
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Sippin wrote:
Spirit of the Wolf: very game-changing spell since enhanced run speed is huge in the old game. As a druid or shaman you had to be prepared for non-stop requests and if you were a greedy you-know-what you could make some decent plat charging for this buff.


Yeah, but the necros were always jerks and wouldn't cast it on you! ;)

(j/k - who knows the reference?)
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#5 Oct 05 2018 at 2:56 PM Rating: Excellent
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The Burning Woods


Smiley: lol Smiley: lol Smiley: lol

Boy, you and I showing our age...
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Sippin 115 DRU **** Firiona Vie ****Agnarr
FV: 115 WAR ENC CLE MAG WIZ SHD SHM Master Alchemist ROG Master Tinkerer & Poison-Maker
Master Artisan (300+) * Baker * Brewer * Fletcher * Jeweler * Potter * Researcher * Smith * Tailor
Agnarr: 65 DRU ENC SHD MAG CLE ROG WIZ BRD WAR
#6 Oct 06 2018 at 6:21 AM Rating: Excellent
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tatankaseventh wrote:
(j/k - who knows the reference?)


"@#$%&* wouldnt sow me either. what is that sh#$ gold?"

Smiley: cool
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#7 Oct 06 2018 at 6:23 AM Rating: Excellent
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Sippin wrote:
Boy, you and I showing our age...


I love Part 2 from the Dwarf Cleric's POV -- Brell is gonna owe me a lot of beer...
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Savage Lady Nekokirei of Drinal
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#8 Oct 06 2018 at 8:37 AM Rating: Excellent
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Actually the funniest story in that thread is Attack of the Killer Gnomes. I always like stories with unintended consequences in EQ and charm spells often create those. I vaguely remember some story where an enchanter charmed a Priest of Discord and somehow the Priest went rampant on an entire noobie zone and killed dozens of players. Must have been Greater Faydark. I'd love to see the exact details.

And of course there's always Fansy, probably the best real story ever, at least for a PVP server,
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Sippin 115 DRU **** Firiona Vie ****Agnarr
FV: 115 WAR ENC CLE MAG WIZ SHD SHM Master Alchemist ROG Master Tinkerer & Poison-Maker
Master Artisan (300+) * Baker * Brewer * Fletcher * Jeweler * Potter * Researcher * Smith * Tailor
Agnarr: 65 DRU ENC SHD MAG CLE ROG WIZ BRD WAR
#9 Oct 06 2018 at 10:00 PM Rating: Excellent
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I <3 Fansy.
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Savage Lady Nekokirei of Drinal
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#10 Oct 07 2018 at 6:58 AM Rating: Good
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Fansy the Famous Bard

If you're not familiar with the Tale of Fansy you owe it to your self to read the link.

The only question I've never had answered to my satisfaction is how Fansy got the giant's aggro to transfer to the evil players after he trained them to the evils...

/ponder Smiley: banghead



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Sippin 115 DRU **** Firiona Vie ****Agnarr
FV: 115 WAR ENC CLE MAG WIZ SHD SHM Master Alchemist ROG Master Tinkerer & Poison-Maker
Master Artisan (300+) * Baker * Brewer * Fletcher * Jeweler * Potter * Researcher * Smith * Tailor
Agnarr: 65 DRU ENC SHD MAG CLE ROG WIZ BRD WAR
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