Interesting stuff in the works....I couldn't find find the original post though.

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/showthread.php?t=15819

From the EQ2 scout boards...

We are now testing significant changes to the combat system. The main goal of these changes is to increase the fun and challenge of EverQuest II. Some of the ways we are going to accomplish this goal include:



Adjusting spells and combat arts to ensure that damage, healing, and utility are more proportionate among the classes.
Adding new spells and arts to better fill out character progression.
Making the con color of your opponent a lot more meaningful to better indicate the level of challenge you're about to undertake.
Smoothing out player and NPC progression so there are no longer sudden increases in difficulty around the class and subclass levels.
Addressing cases where some characters could be made virtually immune to attack through buff stacking.
Our intent is that the game feels and plays basically the way it always has for soloers and small group players. Individual players of any class or level should be able to defeat level-appropriate solo encounters. Heroic encounters should require the cooperation of multiple players. Groups and raid forces taking on powerful targets should find an increased level of challenge.



Below are some specific changes to the various elements of combat.



Avoidance



Your likelihood of avoiding an attack is now based on two primary factors: the con color of the attacker and the type of armor you are wearing. The heavier your armor, the lower your chances of avoiding an attack.
The more grey your target is to you, the greater your chance to avoid attacks and mitigate damage from that opponent; your chance to hit and damage the target also increases.
Conversely, the more red your target is to you, the less your chance to avoid attacks and mitigate damage from that opponent; your chance to hit and damage the target also decreases.
Increasing your Defense skill gives you a better chance of avoiding attacks, but there is now a cap on how much it can be buffed or debuffed.
Increasing your Agility improves your base chance of avoiding an attack, but it will not improve your likelihood of parrying, deflecting, or blocking with a shield.
There is now a cap on the effectiveness of Deflection buffs and debuffs
Buff caps scale as the character increases in level. The higher your level, the greater the buff cap.
Mages and Priests no longer receive the Parry skill.
Shields now have the following base chances to Block: Tower (20%), Kite (20%), Round (5%), Buckler (3%). Your chances to Block scale up or down based on the con of your opponent. Shield buffs no longer have any effect.


Mitigation



The base mitigation values of armor have been adjusted as follows: Heavy (38%), Medium (30%), Light (22%), Very Light (14%).
Mitigation values scale up or down based on the con color of your attacker.
Spell and item effects can now have a greater effect on your overall mitigation. You can mitigate a maximum of 80% of any damage type. This cap is higher against opponents that con grey.
Armor quality (Handcrafted, Treasured, Legendary, Fabled, or Mythical) is more meaningful than it was before.


Melee Damage



Melee damage bonuses are now calculated based on the attacker's strength versus the defender's agility.
The damage output of both players and NPCs should now increase more smoothly rather than receiving a sharp boost every ten levels.
Weapon quality (Handcrafted, Treasured, Legendary, Fabled, or Mythical) is now a greater factor in the damage potential of weapons.
Damage buffs only enhance auto-attack damage, not spells or arts.
The con of the target is now the primary determiner of your chance to hit or defend against attacks instead of skill. Skill buffs still have an effect, but they are treated more like a buff rather than the primary determiner.
Mages and Priests now gain 5 points per level in their offensive melee skills.


Spells and Combat Arts



Most spells and combat arts have changed, either in potency or in what effects are applied. You are advised to examine your choice of spells and arts closely, as they may not behave exactly the same way.
Certain spell lines have been added or expanded upon. Upgrades have been added for many spells and arts that didn't have them before.
There is now a spell damage bonus based on the difference between the caster's intelligence and the target's wisdom.
Debuffs and damage-over-time spells cast by two members of the same class can both stack on the same target. For instance, if two necromancers are in a group and cast the exact same DoT on the same target, both will land and take effect. If one necromancer has a lower-level DoT in the same line, that spell will stack with the other necromancer's higher-level version.
The power cost for a spell or combat art no longer increases when upgraded. For example, the Master I version of Backstab will cost the same amount of power as Apprentice I Backstab.
Upgrading the quality of a spell or art now has a more meaningful impact on the values of stat buffs/debuffs, hate generation, snares, haste, skills, and many other effects.
Casting times have been removed from most single-target damage-based combat arts.
Many combat arts with faster recast times will now also cost less power.
Attack speed decrease spells now have more effect.
Attribute increase and decrease effects are more powerful.
Icons for spells that target a single ally now have an orange background.
Root, stun, stifle, fear, and mez spells are now either resisted or not based on the target's resistance to the damage type of that spell. Duration is no longer mitigated, so if the spell successfully lands, it sticks for the full duration.
The Spell Avoidance skill is no longer used and has been removed. Items with a Spell Avoidance buff will be modified.


Heroic Opportunities



Heroic Opportunity effects are now scaled based on the average level of spells used to trigger them. Completing HOs with low-level spells will have a much lower result than using spells appropriate to your level.
Heroic Opportunity result effects will be evaluated after the initial round of spell and combat tuning is complete.


Healing



Wards now apply their effects after mitigation
As wards absorb damage, they now apply hate to the caster appropriate to the amount of damage absorbed.
Reactive heals now assign their hate to the caster of the spell rather than the target.
Overall healing potency should be better balanced among the Priest professions.


NPCs



The damage output of both players and NPCs should increase more smoothly rather than receiving a sharp boost every ten levels.
NPC damage tables now more closely match those of players. This will tend to decrease the melee damage of NPCs while increasing their spell damage.
NPCs now have a broader list of Archetype and Class spells that they can cast in combat.
NPCs use their own versions of spells and arts instead of using player spells combined with their own multipliers. This should eliminate cases where normal mobs could cast super-powerful versions of player spells. Please note that bosses and other special encounters may have such abilities by design, however.
The damage output of epic encounters has been reduced.


Pets



Summoned pets now only grow a set number of levels. After that, a new summon spell needs to be obtained.
Summoned pets cast their spells and arts at the same quality level as the spell that summoned them. For example, and Adept I version of a pet will cast its spells at Adept I quality.
Limited-use charm spells will now cause charm to break if the pet is ordered to do something that it isn't supposed to be able to do. For example, ordering a pet charmed with Bria's Entrancing Sonnet to attack a target will cause the spell to break.
Maintained spells cast on charmed pets will automatically drop when the charm expires.


Items



Items no longer grow in effectiveness as the wielder gains levels.
Existing items (including weapons and armor) can be equipped at the same level they were before these changes; however, their effectiveness (meaning AC/resistance values for armor or damage range for weapons) will be fixed.
All modifiers (such as health, power, stat, and skill increases) other than mitigation and resistances are unaffected by this change.
Con color for items has been replaced by tier color. Item names now appear in the color that designates their quality level (common, Handcrafted, Treasured, Legendary, Fabled, or Mythical). Common items have white names.


Poisons



Poisons will now appear in the Maintained window as well as their Effects window when applied. (Previously, they were only visible in the Effects window.)
When a poison procs on a victim, the poison effect will appear in the attacker's Maintained window. This denotes that the player successfully poisoned a target. There is no concentration cost, however.
A player can have one Poison from each category active at the same time. This means a Rogue or Predator can have a damage poison active, a resist debuff poison active, and a miscellaneous debuff poison active (anything other than a resist reduction or damage). Any or all of these three have a chance to proc during an attack.
There can no longer be more than one damage poison active. This was done to reduce confusion, since only one of those damage poisons would actually be active.
Poison damage effects will stack when applied by different players to the same target.
Poison debuffs will stack only if the debuff effect is different. The same debuff effects (e.g. two strength debuffs) will never stack, even if applied by different players.
Poison effects will not interfere with profession damage or debuff spells. All poison effects will be cumulative to profession spells with similar effects (i.e. a player can use a poison that decreases the target's strength along with a combat art that decreases its strength, and both will take effect).


Health/Power Regen



In-combat regeneration of power is capped at 1.5 times the character's level. In-combat health regen is capped at 3 times the character's level. These numbers may be adjusted during testing.
When outside of combat, characters now receive both in-combat and non-combat regen effects. Previously only the greater of the two applied.


Class-Specific Changes



NOTE: This is only a partial list of the changes that have taken place. Virtually every spell and combat art has changed in some way.
Scout and Mage changes are in place. Balance and tuning of the abilities is still in progress.
Fighter and Priest changes are still in progress. Effects on some spells and arts will be adjusted further.


Fighter Changes



The combat art damage output of Fighters has been set below that of Scouts. Auto-attack damage has been made comparable to that of Scouts.
All subclasses of Fighters now have both primary defensive and offensive stances.
As part of their defensive stance, each subclass of Fighter now receives extra mitigation against a specific type of damage.
Crusaders now receive the Spear and Great Spear skills.
Shadowknights have been given improved lifetap effect and harm touch reuse.
Bruisers' base health is now equal to that of Monks.
Brawlers can now deflect, parry, and riposte attacks from any direction, not just the front.


Scout Changes



The spell/art damage of Scouts has been increased.
Auto-attack damage for Assassins and Rangers has been increased.
Swashbucklers and Brigands received a slight health increase.
Rangers, Assassins, Swashbucklers, and Brigands now have both offensive and defensive stances.
Bards now have decreased cast times on some target encounter debuffs.
Assassins gain improved damage output of stealth attacks.
Ranger: Steady Aim is now a more powerful short term ranged skill increase.
Brigand: Beg for Mercy has changed to target a player that places a reactive spell effect on them. This reactive spell effect causes them to lose a massive amount of hate to the entire encounter.
Swashbuckler: Inspired Daring now grants a 100% proc that lasts for 13 seconds.
Dirge: Hyran's Angry Sonata allows the Dirge to target the group's Fighter to increase the aggro they gain.
Troubador: Alin's Soothing Serenade lets the Troubador decrease hate for all group members other than Fighters.


Mage Changes



Summoner main pets will no longer spawn with a down arrow.
Enchanters gain a long-duration Charm spell for non-heroic creatures which requires 3 concentration.
Warlocks now have contagious forms of noxious resistance debuffs.
Conjurer: Conjurer's Mark grants the pet an elemental resist debuff proc whenever they attack.
Necromancer: Transfer Life heals at the cost of the Necromancer's health.
Necromancer: Lifetap, which drains health from the target to the Necromancer, is now obtained at level 20.


Priest Changes

Priest: Priests now have increased damage capability.
Priest: Group healing has been improved.
Fury: Call Lightning is a 45s recast powerful single-target damage spell.
Shamans now receive the Great Spear skill.