
Originally Posted by
Tlachtli
Allow an RSC Vet to weigh in here...
As much as I wanted to dislike EoC, after playing a few hours today I really do like it. While I lament that special attacks are gone, the new abilities are really cool. Not sure how the balance will play out in PvP, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.
The old style ('simple' combat) was honestly boring and was a random number game; it worked well enough, but it was a decade old and I'm not terribly sad to see it go. With the addition of stuns and various DoT abilities it's a little more strategic now. For example there is a melee ability that deals DoT that increases when a target moves, and another that 'kicks' an opponent and forces them back a square; obvious combos like that make combat a little more exciting, and I'm also waiting to see what others people come up with. The ultimates may be a little OP (dealing insane amounts of splash damage, healing back 40% of health, ect) but they're hella-fun to use.
Besides, simple combat isn't dead. In fact, there is an ultimate under Vitality that increases auto-attack damage as long as you don't use abilities. If that's your style, it's still viable.
The changes that Jagex are making may or may not be balanced yet, but they've got the right ideas.
My only complaint so far is that they've gone back to the last-hit XP system, where you are only granted combat XP on mob death. With the whole everywhere-is-multiway-combat thing, that's just begging for people to steal your kills all the time. Moving away from the last-hit system was the second-best update RS ever had (with the GE being the first), and I'm sad to see such a huge step backwards.