Game mechanics and equipment, a thread to reform PL and re-establish class balance

[WhoIsThis]

First of all, I am amazed by the effort and precision you put into this great thread, Attackelf!

As I resurrected my forum account, gonna give my 2 cents too

For the younger readers, who don't know me: I used to play a lot during AO3 / Sewer days. Since I quit I only sneak in occasionally to check out new content. So I am not exactly up to date.

I think you ate right to focus on reforms just from the PvP view. While I never was a PvP person I grew to believe that the pve part of pl is so broken, that there is no way of fixing it with "just" changes in game mechanics.
Since nuri's I find playing pve, especially in pugs frustratingly hard when without elixir and mind numbing boring when on multi elixir. The fact, that in every pug there is at least one speed potted player kills all team play ambitions, which where the center piece of an enjoyable pve experience for me.
And all the many people liked to spend hours of theory planning how to build, how to skill, how to gear your toon to improve are now pointless cause a multi elixir is way better than your best build improvement.
I can't imagine that many pve enthusiasts are still playing pl.

So I think the direction of this thread is perfect, try to save PvP - as long as there are no PvP elixirs available.

Unfortunately, it's not just PvP that needs saving. PvE is also not viable without elixirs as you've noted.

The majority of the people we knew are gone. The issue with PvE is that there's little incentive to well, get better. What we need is a system to incentive people to get better at PvE and where elixirs are not used.

That said, I think the difficulty level forces it. The reality is, without elixirs, builds like pure int mage and pure dex bird would not be viable. Everyone would forced to be strength. But apart from that, the other issue is that the average PUG simply does not have the skill needed to complete any of the levels without the use of some elixirs. I sometimes go to lower end levels and solo them just to keep my non-elixir PvE skills at an acceptable level.