Valg:
>As I noted above, the NPCs in question are significantly
>easier to tank than other NPCs of the same level.
Daevryn:
> Something like a pre-parry healer/shaman/druid might be a really
> good tank there since most of the damage that's coming out is
> unblockable anyway.

They might be easier to tank in melee. When you take into the account the dismember they throw out every few rounds, not so much. And yes, it's possible that they're still okay to fight for soloing healer/shaman/druids. But in a group it's still a bad idea because the non-tanks get hit. Yeah, it can be done, and sure, maybe solo it's not an utterly terrible idea for certain characters, but it's way, way less efficient than just sticking with the merchants across the street, or picking any of the other mobs that give good experience and don't ream you.

Anecdote: I was ranking there with a couple people recently as a mage, the group was somewhere in the 12-16 range (don't remember exactly). I was an arial mage with snow worm, 50 hp in trains, other misc lowbie gear, and 23 int. After the second apprentice I'd been jolted down to 18% and had to flee. The two other guys had both been jolted down to about 60%. This is the kind of scenario that makes it not worth fighting special mobs.

I'm really not saying "oh my god how could you make this change wtf." The changes are fine, in theory. My point is just that risk/reward ratio on these mobs is much higher than on any generic mob. Shouldn't the ratio stay the same, so that if you go for high risk/high reward you're not just taking risks for little gain?

Have you ever noticed that people usually don't bother with the prophets because they kick too much? At those levels, half the time it's not even worth fighting a mob that kicks, because your tank will need rest all the time.

Valg:
>Specifically, to rank on them most easily, you wouldn't care
>much about tanking, but you might want better saving throws
>and/or smarter characters. The existence of these kinds of
>mobs makes traditional tanks less crucial, not more.

Savings throws? At 15? I'll take your word for it that there is some decent lowbie saves gear, but it really seems like a waste of time unless you plan to stop and fight a lot of casters/communers at that level. As for int, how much do you need? If 23 isn't enough then only elves and drow are safe.

When I said you'd need a better group, I didn't mean a better tank. I meant that a healer, bard or muter becomes *neccesary* in order to rank well, instead of just being the best group member (this is in the hypothetical case where all mobs are special and do significant unavoidable damage)

Valg:
>one example, the old version threw a ton of Disrupt
>Organ if the NPC's level was high enough, whereas the new
>version picks from a variety of spells ...

True. Higher-level NPCs probably did get a little weaker. Then again, high level transmuters are an absolute nightmare and you'd have to be insane to try to rank on them unless you're a healer/invoker/bard group.

Valg:
>In general, these types of posts exhibit a selection bias,
>also. No one posts about how ranking has changed when a PC
>class gets a new ability that helps out. Some changes makes
>ranking easier, some make it harder, and many just make it
>different. On the forums, you'll only hear about the
>latter two, which often get conflated.

I generally don't post kudos unless I have a question or something to add to the conversation. That said, I do like any change that is in the direction of correcting the imbalance of melee vs casters ability to rank. If you made it so low-level warriors miss almost all their swings so that they need mages as much as mages need warriors to tank, I would applaud, though most people would consider that a horrible thing that makes ranking harder.

For the sake of honesty, I admit that I am biased in favor of mages. The sad thing is, I always *want* to play them, but almost never do. The last real mage I had was Elrys, which was over 4 years ago (oh god how did I get so old?), though I have had a couple hero-level shifters since then.