a Day With put BH

Alliptica - Raging Tide wrote: »

well all youre doing in a quest, is smashing a few buttons by yourself. even oraclers know how to do that!

*sigh*

Since you didn't notice it the first time...

Michael_dark - Lost City wrote: »

You absolutely learn how to play your class from regular grind quests. You're rarely killing the same mob for more than the number that is required by the quest, then you move onto the next quest mobs... all of which attack and behave differently. You learn what specific skills do in different situations, adapt your gameplay and many times have to avoid specific circumstances... aggroing too many, being kite-pulled into other mobs, which attacks are better suited for what you're doing... and of course you're going to kill lots of them, so you'll hone your effectiveness, learn to manage your chi, mana and hp... work out combos that you're happy with... a lot of things you just don't learn from running the same instance with a cleric to buff or heal, a veno to lure or a barb to tank. I agree PvP is a different story altogether, but BH is just lazy. Most people barely even have to work hard for it.

I dislike BH. I'm not going to stretch for who's the problem, because ultimately, it can easily come from the fact that BH didn't start until I was 8x, and 3x BH didn't start until I was late 9x. Now that I'm 100, I do BHs more than before because of the nice items they provide me.

Now, I'll be blunt, there is no reason as to why you should avoid doing your BHs, because the amount of Experience you gain from them far outpaces the amount of exp you can get from virtually any other method (with the exception of Rebirth and Frostcovered Runs). With x2 exp/spr/drops the difference lessens, but the end result is still the same. If you're not doing your BHs, you are not properly maintaining your leveling to the best of your ability.

Now, there is a certain hint of truth to people being able to effectively play their character even being "Bounty Babies," as you are still forced to spend until level 40 doing the grind, with assistance from CS between 30-40. During that time, if you haven't learned to utilize your basic skills, there is no helping you and this MMO or that character class is just ill-suited to you period. You acquire few actual "new" skills 40+ (your 59 skills, 79 skills, sage/demon variants, and 100 skills), so a lack of understanding abilities is much more deep-seated than just doing BHs all the time.

However, that being said, for the vast majority of BH the mobs are relatively the same: melee and ranged. The melee will stand in place and attack, the ranged will run back ~3 times trying to kite you before staying stationary. This does not account for the vast number of mob behaviors that exist. Various mobs will introduce annoying status effects that you have to learn to counter on your own (i.e. no cleric on standby to purify you, which means you have to find a way to counter the effects yourself). You will have to face each mob and it's behavior on your own, if you're melee you have to learn not to be kited into other mobs by a runner, if you're ranged you have to find ways to counter mobs entering melee range to attack. Some mobs have errant behaviors, such as social aggro or extended aggro ranges. Some will use spells. Some will use both spells and melee attacks. You have to learn how to make the best of the situation, while simultaneously maintaining your own personal well-being.

The squad dynamic while questing is also different. Because quests are generally made to be do-able solo, when you utilize a squad there is nobody that is useless (some may be less useful, but that's a different matter). You find that three archers are able to catastrophically injure anything before it can hit any of you. You find that multiple venos are able to rack in kills very quickly each on their own. You find that having a barb take aggro from the mobs first makes their otherwise deadly hits not so intimidating. These experiences, instead of the atypical squad dynamic of Tank + Cleric + 4 others can be applied to various instances where people don't normally apply them. Venos can tank any boss in FC with the exception of Decaying Fragrance. Why can't it tank Decaying Fragrance? Because it has a powerful debuff and venos cannot purify their pets. So you need an alternate tank. Does it have to be a barb? Why when a BM is just as good, and with recent tests, Assassins are looking like they with proper cleric support can do just as well when properly equipped.

When Rebirth was first started, people always searched for perfect squads. Later it was found that by adding more Archers/Wizards the DD power was enormous and made the run easier, even if it takes longer to raid the back rooms without a Veno. But that same logic didn't necessarily work in Delta, where Venos found an additional role in holding the boss at bay while their allies killed the wave of monsters that assailed them with the boss's arrival (Yeah, every boss wave comes with mobs in Delta). These things aren't found in the Tank + Cleric + 4 others dynamic that BH teaches you. Venos would not think of this on their own if all they have done is run through instances where, nowadays people even use genies to lure their enemies instead of a veno's natural abilities.

Yes, BH is wise to do. It keeps you up to snuff better than anything else. But not questing doesn't open your eyes to behaviors that don't exist within those instances. Has a veno ever had their pet randomly unsummoned in BHs? Was there that one time in that 59 run you did? Can't place your finger on it yet? Any Veno who's been through the trials of the swamps knows the problem I'm talking about. How about having their flying pets glitch and not attack properly? You cannot learn that in a closed instance (with the exception of TW). And these are easy examples of things you learn to overcome in the world outside of simple instances.

The solution isn't to make BH not worth the effort. It's to make grinding worth the effort again. Whether it's with increased exp or drops being implemented, I don't care, personally. Ultimately, these are things people should want for themselves, because it is another facet of the game, and it exists for a very good reason.

Well, I can't speak for the other classes, except perhaps partially for Blademasters, but BH teaches far more for Assassins than grinding/questing ever does. I can learn how to do solo work while grinding/questing. I can learn that some mobs I need to freeze in place, some I need to start with Deep Sting and sleep them before they cast a DoT spell, some I need to lure in with a bow before I start using daggers, and some I just kill with the bow to avoid taking any or very little damage at all. These are all very useful for when I do things which are usually solo tasks for me.

Now, if I want to learn how to be productive and useful in any squad, then BH is mandatory. Assassins are meant to be a squad class because of how their skills work. We see a mob coming toward a squishy, *Shadow Teleport*. Just saved one Wizard from death. I am being attacked by multiple mobs and I can't handle them, but I can't Shadow Escape because the cleric threw me some IH, *Deep Sting* *Tackling Slash*, I'll kill one, *Headhunt*, I'll kill the other one now, and now kill that one I had just stunned. Now we are at a boss, *Rib Strike* *Subsea Strike* *Tangling Mire* *Inner Harmony* *Spark Burst+*, watch as the boss's HP falls extremely fast over just 7 seconds. Now the tank died and I've got aggro, better save the squad. *Deaden Nerves* *runs out of sight of the squad* *Shadow Escape/die* *Boss resets*. Hey, I just prevented a party wipe while giving the Cleric enough time to resurrect the tank.

Sorry, but in this case, BH is more beneficial to learning than grinding/questing. I can learn plenty from those, but my tactics for squad work or for PvP are far different than with grinding. In grinding, I just just double spark and kill a mob easily, and just keep doing this over and over. I can't do this for PvP unless the person I'm fighting doesn't know what skills are.

However, if you want to bring in a money factor, the few drops I get from a BH covers my pot/repair costs easily, and if I really want to I can just dump that exp into a genie and sell it once it gets high enough.

Grinding does have it's benefits, as I learned how to deal with multiple mobs all at once and how to kill them quickly. However, it taught me nothing of how to save other members of a squad or how to prevent party wipes or how to maximize the overall DPS of the entire squad.

BH on the other hand has taught me more about what debuffs to watch for on bosses to combine with mine. It has also taught other classes how to work well with me. I can help a tank out by freezing a mob and then him running under it so he doesn't get hit. What about the other mob attacking him? I just put him to sleep/stun.

Islamey - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Funny how noone is QQing against world quest :P.
What does that teach you?

It doesn't teach you anything, but the topic by the original poster was the joy of questing other than in BH (tripled). World Quest doesn't detract from questing where you might be looking for help from others because WQ is solely a solo event--you can't really do it with others so you can alt-tab and do other more productive stuff with your time, or you simply pay a lot of teleport fees and get it done very quickly if you're rich. Although a guy could cary a girl around to the WQ waypoints, it defeats the inattentive advantage of WQ since they can't move to the next waypoint until they BOTH are ready to move on.

WQ is irrelevant to the OP since it doesn't detract from people looking for help in quest squads because those doing WQ must do it solo. In contrast, those doing BH *are* in squads for a good amount of time given the x3 bounties... and they could be in a squad for a quest, but instead they're in a squad for BH because it's better EXP than any quest (if you do all three bounties). Same applies to FCC runs... those people could be in a grind-quest squad helping each other, but FCC gives soooo much more EXP it's the better use of time.

Someone earlier suggested that for grinding to become attractive again, it needs to offer competitive EXP & Spirit as BH/FCC/CS or the cost in time and/or money of those dailies needs to go up to make them less attractive. PWI may feel that the balance is already there...

FCC - best EXP/Spirit but costs time and gives no coin (this is why ppl want "fast" FCC cuz time is the only cost)
BH - 2nd best EXP but after 69, costs a wine buy-in and also costs time; players that regularly do BH have decided the benefit outweighs the cost
CS - 3rd best EXP but always has a cost that escalates by level strata; many players stop doing this once the cost hits 71k a day
WQ - 4th best EXP but has a long time cost -OR- very high teleport coin cost; it's free and you can alt-tab between waypoints and do other stuff so lots still do this by flying from point to point
Grinding - Worst EXP option but provides an income for time cost that should exceed repair/consumable costs

Doesn't seem like anything is wrong with that setup to me...

When I went to pick up my daily BH quest and couldn't find the headhunter, I thought it was some glitch with my client and not the server. Then I saw that nobody was spamming for BH invites and realized that the headhunter had been taken out of game. At first, I was disappointed. When I decided to bust out some grinding quests I realized that grinding is a great investment. I made over 500k in just a couple hours, not to mention the countless mats I harvested.

So, BH is good because it gives us the chance to level up fast and use our squad skills. And grinding/questing is good because it adds coin to our pocket rather than drains it. So a balance between the two would be ideal imo b:victory

BH for 100+ should stay. Because you don't get experience but cool staff or reputation. Or just if you choose then experience or spirits. So I like BH 100 much more, than another BH's.

I would say make it like 3 times a week you can do it.It as also taken away FB squads especially FB19 which is great for new comers to the game as well as helping other with FBs.Then there is the problem with money as BHs provide very little.

I lvled up some skills and now I am broke and I am not going into my safe.

BHs stretches your factions resources out as everyone is asking for help and find very little time for yourself.You can't get your crafting skills lvled and no one is making even high end npc gear.

It would be nice though if there were more quests like the Tideborn ones.

What about the friendship quest?

^That doesn't sound to bad either I would go for first choice.

GHealz - Archosaur wrote: »

this was THE best day in perfect world..the day the BH was gone
i will not lie i would love to se it removed cuz for the first time in a long time ppl are doin quests instead of spamming for bh squads i really liked this day an i hope BH is perma removed

no offense in any way, i swear to god if u get BH removed i will move to arch and kick your sorry cleric butt b:angryb:angry sorry but bh is a life saver right now b:surrender