[MAG] BP suggestions

What kind of BP focus and clicky do you guys want to see in the next expansion?
Same one? Old one? New idea? Please give your feedback, it will be passed on to the devs.
- Also, can you make a good argument for your focus becoming an AA, and coming up with a new focus if that happened?

Some guidelines -
- Top 3 spell choices for focusing are suggested.
- Focuses that impact usability of any spells/abilities are good (ex: heal/dmg focus %, spell haste, reduced timer, extended duration)
- Wanting same as existing BP is fine

For reference, the current focus:

[47243] MAG Servant Pet Dur 3
Duration: 3.3h (1950 ticks), Extendable: Yes, Dispelable: Yes
1: Increase Pet Duration by 3s
2: Limit Spells: Remorseless Servant
3: Limit Spells: Relentless Servant
4: Limit Spells: Ruthless Servant
5: Limit Spells: Ruinous Servant
6: Limit Spells: Rumbling Servant
7: Limit Spells: Rancorous Servant
8: Limit Spells: Rampaging Servant
Increases the duration of Remorseless Servant by 3 seconds.

Current clicky:

[47250] Zeal of the Elements XXVIV
Target: Pet
Max Hits: 16 Offensive Proc Casts
2: Cast: Companion's Strike XXVIV on Skill Use (32000)
3: Limit Skill: Bash
4: Limit Skill: Backstab
Your command causes your pet to strike enemies with an obedient fury that deals 15000 points of damage up to 16 times when bashing or backstabbing.
[47251] Companion's Strike XXVIV
1: Decrease Current HP by 15000
Text: You are struck by a forceful obedient strike.
Your companion's strike deals #1 points of damage.

I like abilities that refresh relatively often, and that has a good duration, so that I can add the ability to for example an assist hotbutton. I like counters, I think they are good for balance, what I don't like is meh-effects.

Virulent Talon is great, because it is noticeable, I like that is has a large number of counters, and that the number of counters increase with AA. I would like it to have a shorter refresh, but perhaps this is where the BP could cover for that need.

Say for example Companions Strike gets renamed to something less boring, and related to Virulent Talon, like for example Poison(ed?) Talon, it gets somekind of game design around how the two interact (maybe they cant both be used at the same time), and it benefits in strength/number of counters from VT AA, or a new added shared AA for VT and PT.

I like the mechanics around Flames of Power, so that different spells (Fickle, Chaotic) triggers the same effect (Flames), and that Flames can be developed via AA. It could be cool to have a secondary effect, like Talons of Power, with 1-2 counters, that increase the effect of the next Talon (VT, PT), with lets say 80% - 105%, similar to the Flames game design.

Going with the Talon-theme, a third source of Talon could be Talons of Fire, a spell. Again, some kind of game design around how the FT, VT, and PT effects so that they are not concurrent, and perhaps with some shared cooldown if that is necesary for game balance.

Thanks for asking Sirene! Here are my thoughts:

BP Focus:

Current Focus:
The current Remorseless Servant duration extension is a fairly decent BP focus.

Its main issue is that Remoresless Servant pets often do not live for their full duration, in which case the BP can't help at all. This is true in moloing situtations where they take aggro from our pet and increasingly true in raids where they die to AEs, ramp, or other damage outside of our control (given we can't back them off or easily monitor their health).

It's also worth noting that the 3s duration extension was originally added in Seeds of Destruction, at which point we only had 3s worth of AA duration, rather than the 18s we have now, meaning the relative increase in damage has degraded over time.

With that in mind, here are some other options:

RS Damage Focus:
One possible fix to this while sticking with Remorseless Servant would be to increase their damage instead via the focus. I don't know if it's possible to increase specific swarm pet stats via a BP focus (certainly not as easy as adding 7% via SPA 413). If not, it might be possible to add an additional pet focus to the BP that is limited to only Remorseless Servant spells. If that were the case, the focus could add 7% to average hit (and maybe some small additions to other stats if the devs were feeling generous) on top of the highest raid focus. This would be similar to how Wizard/Necro BP focuses used to work, with them essentially being superior to normal raid foci but limited to one spell.

RS Recast Reduction Focus:
I'll preface this by saying that if this option was chosen, I think the 3s duration we currently have should be made an AA so we don't lose damage on RS pets when they do live for their full duration (their damage was finally made not terrible with this expansion, and I don't want to go backwards). With that in mind, another option might be to reduce RS reuse similar to the Enchanter Unity Reuse Time BP focus. This would help reduce dead time in our weave. The issue here is I don't know if such a BP would stack with our RS type 3 (Tempus Faycite Shard: Remorseless Servant) which reduces RS re-use by 1s already. If they don't stack, we would need a 2 and 3s recast reduction on our group and raid BPs respectively.

Other possible spells to focus:
I very much want to avoid a focus that uses SPA 413 because I think having our focus completely superseded by Eye of Decay is ridiculous design regardless of the number of people who have it. Therefore, I would only want to swap our focus to a nuke if it used another SPA, preferably 461. In that case Spear of Molten Shieldstone would likely be the best choice since we use it in most scenarios. Chaotic Fire is also an option, but it would need more than the usual 5/7% given its base damage is so low currently.

In any event I'd ideally like to see the current focus we have become an AA if only because EoK focused on upgrading passive abilities and we saw no new ranks of Extended Swarm. That said, if damage was boosted enough to compensate, I could probably live without it.

BP Click:

Current Click:
The idea behind our current click isn't terrible, but its damage is far too low to be useful in any situation. It currently does 240,00 damage, which is less 1/4 to 1/8 of what some classes can do in one second on a burn. It's essentially useless in any regard.

Upgrading Current Focus:
One option would be to simply massively increase the damage that the current click does, like 10-20x. Doing 2.4-4.8 million damage every 10 minutes is hardly overpowering considering DPS numbers at this point.

That said, the big issue with this type of click in general is that our main pets miss swings on raids (read here for more info). The rate at which it procced for sustained wouldn't matter if it was able to get all of its procs off before it wore off, but on burst it would increase the gap between how our pets should perform and how they actually do perform.

With that in mind, some other options:

Mana Regen:
We're in a weird place in this expansion in that we can get mana back via Monster Summoning, but doing so puts us out of commission for 60+ seconds depending on how much mana we need to get back.

Therefore, I wouldn't mind seeing the option of a way to get some mana back every 10 minutes that doesn't require us to stop everything we're doing. Our other options for this - mod rods and mana reserve - have been stagnated repeatedly.

This would essentially work like the wizard BP click

Spell Boost:
There is a lot of potential here for a click, the issue is avoiding making it too overpowered. One solution might be to use SPA 286, to prevent it scaling with other modifiers and to keep the damage added relatively transparent.

Essentially this click would give us X number of counters, each that adds a set Y amount of damage. I'd like the total damage from the click to be in the range that I gave for our current click, around 2.4-4.8 million damage. That could be as simple as 16 counters at 200k (or w/e) each, or it could add more counters at lower damage (50 counters at 64k each, for example) if the devs want to prevent it from adding too much on a burn.

Edit: fixed grammar

After thinking a bit more about this I think this may be better suited as an AA. The 1st second of reduction would be very helpful, but we don't have enough downtime for the 2nd second to be as helpful.

FYI this should have been said, the Damage needs to be a fixed number so it can be easily adjusted. At least that is what they have said before which is why our current BP does 240k DMG.

We have wanted a better Robe for like 5 years if not longer. The current robes should have gotten the Anguish BP click: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=6407&source=Live .which scales infinitely better expansion per expansion. Like I said above though, it is not fixed damage so that is probably why we have not gotten an upgrade to that robe.

The case to make the focus an AA is pretty simple, pet pathing is incredibly bad. 9 times out of 10 we lose the 2-3 seconds merely from the pet deciding to run up a wall instead of in a straight line to the mob. EQ code being really bad should be the only thing needing to be said to justify making the worn effect an actual AA.

The focus effect should realistically modify our Spear. That spell gets used the most in group or raiding situations. It should either improve the damage with a stacking modifier or reduce the mana cost of the spell. The reduction in mana cost could be used for our Garg pet as well, I would not be upset with either.

For the click, it needs to not be centered around procs for our pet. Virulent Talon (our AA pet proc) has difficulty proccing in raid content. That has a pretty high proc mod added to it. Pets are bad at proccing melee stuff and it should NEVER be on our BP click. It needs to be an all skills modifier boost like our Anguish BP if it must be centered around our pets.

The 3 best things would be: Heavy DD click, Garg pet click or a Mana return click. Anything else will get mostly wasted like our current BP does.

I think the focus effect is ok as is however I wouldn't mind if it focused spear (or another useful spell) and we got the 2-3 seconds ext duration via aa. The click has been terrible for quite some time and needs a major overhaul. I've emboldened the ideas I really like.

As a grouper, I don't use spears (burn the heretic), and I don't need mana.

How about a new Twincast effect for swarm pets? For 20 tics, every swarm pet comes out twice? 10 min cooldown or so.

Most groupers do, or at least should be using spears to maximize their damage and, as a result, are going to have more issues with mana. It's your prerogative to use a lower DPS, more efficient spell lineup, but it isn't really a justification for not focusing our class' most ubiquitous spell on the robe. My main concern with such a focus is that I'd like to avoid the SPA 413 stacking issues that other classes are now running into with their BP foci.

As far as twincasting pets, my understanding is EQ code makes that impossible. It can only summon one pet per player per second, and twincasting a pet would essentially destroy one of the two pets (not dissimilar from what happens if you cast Remorseless Servant during Host of the Elements).

Our robe needs some major tuning in order to be more consistent with what our class does. I propose the following-

1. The focus effect should reduce the refresh timer on our self only mod rod. That way we can summon them faster.

2. The click effect should be to summon the AA mod rod. This way on raids instead of just continually hitting a AA mod rod hot key, we can spice things up every ten minutes and click our robe instead. Endless anticipation ensues to a climax of happiness!

If there is a concern from developers with having both effects pertain to mod rods, then the clickie could be something radical. Like summoning food and drink at the same time. Or, a magic rabbit that dances for you for two ticks.

I hope super serious thought is given to these radical ideas.

It is a design decision that pets can not be twincast, not that they can not do it. I believe it was Dzarn or Elidroth who posted this a while back during a Beta iirc.

Numerous ideas were provided by myself to work around the no twincasting Swarms, nothing has took so far.

@iblis, your doing something wrong if you do not have mana issues while grouping. Not using Spears is nerfing your DPS out-put by like 2 expansions. Spears need to get used a long with our Garg pets especially with being able to change their targets.

/off topic

As far as Spears as the solo/group magician goes, I have found the following weave to maximize my DPS:

Chaotic-RS-105 Spear-Chaotic-100 Spear

Then depending on lag, or if you just want to wait one second, Chaotic refreshes and you continue the above weave. Or I throw in 101 Bolt after 100 Spear, and by that time Chaotic has refreshed and I continue the weave. If I am solo I may cast Aegis AA after 100 Spear. In any event there is like a 0-1.5 second period of time after 100 Spear when Chaotic can be casted again.

If mana becomes an issue, and it does for anyone who is chain pulling solo/group, then the three options you have are:

1. Use 1h/Tome with the 1h being the mana return weapon. Throw in a mana return augment as well in there, giving you (if you melee) four ways of returning mana back.

2. Suspend pet, and use MS/RE to get mana back.

3. Sit and get to OOC regeneration and get mana back.

/on topic

Sometimes I carry the mod rod jokes too far. I guess I did so earlier.

I agree with the concerns about RS not living out its entire duration, especially when being used as an off tank in EOK, which negates any additional benefits the robe does for RS. I also agree that the click doesn't do much damage compared to other things. However, while I would definitely support changes to the focus effect (changing to Spear benefits, either additional damage or mana reduction is fine) and the clickie (increased damage)... my concern is asking for too much and then getting nerfed down accordingly. I cannot speak for all magicians, but I am pretty happy with where my magician is at in EOK on raid parses in my guild. I would hate to ask for minor increases in, say, damage out put of robe clickie and then have the devs hand out major decreases in other things to compensate.

One concern about asking for refresh reduction on RS on robe is Conjurer Synergy. Having more Synergy procs is going to increase our overall damage and DPS to a point where other classes may start to get upset with what we are doing. I am not saying a 1 second refresh reduction is going to bring us to berserker level DPS, I just don't want to get so greedy and ask for another slice of cake after I have already had four slices...

I don't think anything on the robe is large enough to materially impact class balance. It kind of feels like we're always on the verge of being nerfed again (see test patch), but I still think it's generally a good policy to ask for upgrades to things that suck (like our BP click).

As kind of a recap

BP Focus:
Seems like focusing Spear is probably the best option but not with SPA 413 (I really can't stress that enough). In general, it would be good to see the same general increase in damage other classes get (5/7% on group/raid), but the focus needs to be more consistently useful than the current one (I think even an RS damage increase by 5/7% would do that). Really anything that increases the damage of spells that we actually use would be good.

BP Click:
There seems to be a general consensus that the current one sucks, and either a spell boost or mana return (or pres) would probably be the best option.

Pie brought up an important point that the devs have generally been quite strict with regards to BP clicks in that they've wanted them to add fixed amounts of damage. It would be easy to get into modifiers that crit (SPA 303) or even % based modifiers (SPA 461 or 302), which would scale massively on burns, especially with ADPS. With that in mind, I still think a large SPA 286 modifier is the way to go, so that the damage it adds is very transparent. Adding a few million damage would make it actually matter without making it too powerful. Hopefully that would avoid a scenario that Cicely mentioned where we end up getting tuned down for something like this, since the damage added would be really clear.

With regards to some of the more "out there" ideas (pet twincasting, VT synergy, or ideas other classes have brought up like GCD reductions), without knowing the devs' intentions my guess is those are better suited for AAs in beta. It's wishful thinking, but maybe Dzarn will actually ask us what AAs we want this time around (and, since he's working on activated AAs, those may be some good ideas).... #ripAAchats

Edit: Also, with regards to RS refresh reduction (actually originally why I wrote this post, and then I got sidetracked), I can see the concern regarding synergy. I don't think 11 vs 12 seconds would be that big a deal, but it would be a benefit. Regardless, I think it's better suited for an AA anyhow. I was mainly trying to think of a few different foci, and it was inspired by the Enchanter Unity Rune recast reduction focus. IIRC we did ask for this back in... TDS? and Elidroth said no at the time, but it would still be nice from a weave perspective to remove that dead time. It isn't long enough to cast another spell, but it is long enough to be annoying.

I like the idea of changing RS duration to an AA. Especially since they rarely seem to live that long.

Good info. How much casting time reduction do you have, if I may ask?

When I do my best at modelling DPS for the different spells, including SPA 124, 303, and crits, I get that Spear DPS is not that great, being at par with Fickle Conflagration, and worse than Chaotic and of Many (We have composed the group so that of Many is always a good option, with all the swarms we can muster), and of course a lot worse than Orb and Force.

My model is of course very novice, and probably wrong. But also very much a factor is that I apparently have only 20% casting time reduction from Quicker Damage, and get no effect from worn foci. When I simulate a higher casting time reduction, there is break even for Spear and Fickle at around 30%. I therefore have my "Fickle Trickle" cycle which is:

Orb -> Force -> Chaotic -> Fickle -> Many.

I am planning to move Many up front at do some experimentation. I like that I get a lot of Flames procs, but the effect is quite limited (We have Bard, Enchanter, Shaman, Druid, and 2 mages in group, 3 players)

Even if the Spear came out a bit better than Fickle, there would be an opportunity cost, since in my model, all other spells in my setup have significantly larger DPS than Spear. I realize that counter-based percentual increases will have a larger effect on spears, so I should probably prepare a different setup, but as a grouper, nothing stands for very long time when we burn with ITC.

I realize that I am going against common understanding (I can be a bit compulsive with that ), and that most likely, I will end up going back to spears as I finish my learning proces, which I must emphasize that I am still very much on .

I don't think you can, actually.

Well, if not twincast pets, then maybe double cast? Perhaps it is possible to use the function that is used to summon multi-swarm pets, but for all pets, so including RS, and then double the number called.

Are we looking too much towards damage and mana, could it be something oriented towards pet defence or pet aggro management? Again, as a grouper, dps is really not an issue for us, at least. Mobs die fast anyway.

Just bouncing ideas, sorry if it is all over the place and too noobish. I defer to the senior mages better judgement, but believe in proces facilitation and exploration please ignore if perceived irellevant.

Thats a great idea.
What if it was just a 10% agro increase on earth/air pets

The beefier spells benefit from Quick Damage AA (20%) + worn spell haste focus (18% on group armor) + cle buff spell haste (10% for rk.II) = 48% , making the cast time of Spear of Molten Shieldstone 3.5s * 0.52 = 1.8s

But only the Quick/Quicker is calculated into the info window for the spell? Right now I have 1.5 (1.2) for say Chaotic, which would indicate that I only have the 20%...

Chaotic Fire has a 1.5 second casting time, and is therefore only hastened by Quicker Damage.

Because Spear of Molten Shieldstone has a cast time of 3.75 Edit: 3.5 seconds (more than 3 seconds) it is hastened by Quick Damage, Cleric Spell Haste, and worn foci, which brings its haste to 48% as a grouper like Brohg said.