Test Update 08/07/2018 - Patch Notes and Discussions

Discussion in 'Test Update Notes and Bug Roundup' started by EQ Dev, Aug 6, 2018.

  1. Nilwean Elder

    - Druid - Changed Preincarnation to trigger the highest rank spell version that you have scribed. Rank 2 now extends the duration of your Preincarnation spells by 30 minutes.

    Why? The AA had a better chance the the highest rank of the spell.

    - Druid - Changed Blessing of Ro to cast the highest known spell in the Grasp of Ro line that you have scribed depending on rank.

    Why? The AA had better debuff stats for all stats lowered. Also now there are stacking issues with single unable to overwrite ae. The new AA also seems to cast a lot slower.

    - Druid - Changed Vortex of Ro to cast the highest known spell in the Pillar of Ro line that you have scribed depending on rank.

    Why? The AA had better atk / fire debuff, better resist check, and hit more targets. The new AA also seems to cast a lot slower.
    S33k3r likes this.
  2. Cannikin Elder

    Tanks have been asking for a level cap upgrade to Warlord's Grasp (and knight equivalents) since RoS beta.

    DBG's response after almost a year is to raise the cap and make it completely worthless by removing the only things it was used for in the first place (short term aggro lock, and generally only ever bothered to be used on named/raids). Gee, thanks devs. I can't even begin to count how many times as a tank that I really, really cared about pulling a single trash mob towards me while avoiding getting aggro, instead of, I dunno, taunting and having it follow me normally... o_O

    At least it frees up a spot on my hotbars, and adds to the growing list of abilities that'll never see the light of day again.
  3. Warpeace Augur

    Glyphs

    Are we trying to price casuals out of the Glyph market? Rather expensive.

    Angry Thoughts was 4 AA and now its 20. I don't see going from 30% - 40% agro generation needing to cost 5X the original cost and still only last for 2 minutes at that price it should be 20 minutes.
  4. S33k3r Augur

    - Cleric, Druid, Shaman - Ancient Alliance, Bosquetender's Alliance, and Divine Alliance now have a 1.5 second delay between area-effect healing activations.

    Does that mean when a heal lands and activates the AE healing rain it will also block any other heal that lands for the next 1.5 secs from triggering a rain ?

    - Shaman - Group Pact of the Wolf has been replaced with a new ability line, Soothsayer's Intervention, which will trigger the highest rank spell you have scribed from the Ancestral Intervention line.

    Will druids get an AA for their Survival of the Auspicious line?
  5. Flaiyre New Member

    Dissonant Chord goes from a 30-second refresh to 9 minutes? Seriously?
  6. Forcallen Augur

    Sad to see yet another patch with no movement on the dot revamp front or increasing the debuff cap or some work around solution.

    This debuff cap problem only continues to worsen with all the additions you have made in the past few years and with many of the changes during AA consolidation. Gelid Claw/eye gouge unable to be toggled off, alliances (some requiring multiple weak dots on a mob), frenzy/flying kick/backstab debuffs, weak unfocusable dots added for melee, the 15 or so debuffs applied by druids/enchanters/shaman. And on and on and on the amount of debuff slot bloat has grown.

    Its to the point that a guild with 2 necros can hit they debuff cap by their 8th dot cast meaning even if or when they eventually get around to reducing necro dot bloat (almost 3 years after the fact now) even if they limit them to 10 dots, it wont matter because of how much other stuff has been added. Its everyone's problem at this point as more and more stuff is buff blocked from landing or prevented from working.

    There has been a lot of other stuff changed, modified or whatever in the past few years that frankly could have waited as you focused on fixing or easing this ever growing problem instead. Please fix it asap!!! You realized this was an issue years ago, claimed to be addressing it and yet have only furthered the problem seemingly each and every patch. It no longer is a "when aristo gets around to it" problem considering its impact and that the problem has been furthered from angles other than just the spell dev.
    menown likes this.
  7. Lheo Augur

    Do anyone belief that the devs realy play EQ ?
  8. Metanis Bad Company

    Code:
    - Cleric, Druid, Shaman - Ancient Alliance, Bosquetender's Alliance, and Divine Alliance now have a 1.5 second delay between area-effect healing activations.
    This is a very drastic healing nerf and I believe will render healing alliances nearly useless. These heal activations are very weak and became useful only because we could trigger 2 or 3 of them every second. And what happens now if a cast that would have fulminated the alliance hits the target while the delay period is active, will we lose the big heal??? What a sneaky and underhanded way of nerfing raid healing. SMH in disgust.
  9. Belkar_OotS Augur


    I appreciate the desire to reduce some potency of the healing alliances, however they serve a very important function on raids.... namely helping healers keep their groups up, especially druid and shaman since their tools don't keep up as well as they need to in my opinion.

    Damage of Time spells do damage every 6 seconds, or 1 tick.

    Druid and Shaman get Survival/Intervention - 1.5 minute recast, and is effectively only a good heal on 1 person. Since Shaman are getting the Intervention as an AA, please do the same for Druid.

    More on point:

    Druid group heal Lunasalve - 4.5s cast (2.7 with spell haste), 6s recast = can't keep up with 1 dot, especially if its dangerous (which all modern dots are), and pray that your druid has spell haste. Druids either need pulses on their group heals like shaman, or the recast brought down to a minimum of 3s (so spell haste keeps them covered) or even better, just global recast (healers should be interchangeable right?).

    Shaman have it a little better with Eyrzekla's Recourse = 1s cast, 24s recast, which triggers additional heals for 3 waves at 6s, and they get hots also. But trimming off 4s off the recast would help them stay on top of dots.

    Clerics won't be horribly impacted due to their superior group heals and tools - Word of Greater Restoration 4s cast (2.4 with spell haste), and global recast, Syllable 3s (1.8), 8s recast, then Divine Arbitration and Epic, hots, and much better healing and more varied activated AA.

    This doesn't take into account directional AE, rampage and other concurrent damage that often occurs in both groups and raids which makes it very difficult to keep up with multiple things happening at once even with superior play.
    S33k3r likes this.
  10. Belkar_OotS Augur

    I wanted to add a bit more to my post but I timed out on my edit time.

    Shaman also get swell/surge as an AE heal which also helps cover their own group. (I want to be thorough lol).

    Lol... another alternative to adjusting druid group heals would be to give them their first real AE heal (not counting alliance or their 5 target AA) but considering the context I doubt that option is on the table.

    Survival and Intervention group heals serve the same purpose for both classes and are effectively identical. You could just merge the spell lines and give the AA as an archetype AA to prevent future AA bloat and consolidation.

    Also as a personal pet peeve. Can the alliances be made the same across the 3 classes (keeping the shaman range). The range on the shaman version is superior which makes it the best spell to use in effectively every situation, negating the purpose of the spells, being a team cooperation spell.
  11. Aurmoon Augur

    Just a thought on the healing alliances to perhaps keep with what I believe to be the “spirit” of the ability:

    If healing is only triggered every 1.5 seconds, consider making it so that the heal that goes off each 1.5 seconds is magnified by the number of healing spells that have landed on the tank. Numbers are made up and would obviously need to be adjusted, but something along the lines of:

    If 1 heal lands in the 1.5 second interval since the last heal trigger, a 2500 base heal AE goes off after the 1.5 second timer expires. If two heals land in that interval, a 5000 base heal AE goes off. Three heals: 7500 base heal AE goes off. Etc. Etc.

    This still rewards landing more heals but does not continually spray the raid with healing.
    Maedhros likes this.
  12. Metanis Bad Company

    Nice idea conceptually.

    It would have been nice if there were an explanation why the Devs felt these heal alliances needed to be adjusted in the first place. The heals were not overpowering as witnessed by the difficulty in guilds being able to finish EoK raids.

    The one solitary positive benefit from this change will be a drastic reduction in alliance healing log spamming. If that is the benefit the Devs are seeking to achieve then your idea would be a sweet way to maintain the healing without the spam. Although the increased electrical consumption of the servers having to do all these calculations will probably cost DBG their profit margin.
    Maedhros likes this.
  13. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    A few things about the Druid changes:

    1. Druid heals - With the reduction of frequency on Alliance triggers, and the granting Shamans their emergency heal cast via an AA, a few things:

    Druids should get an AA to match. Those Intervention lines are identical to druid Survival lines. Both classes should be able to fire off this ability through the AA window and not be required to have a spell slot consumed by these long recast spells. Also I hope the cast time reduction and recast reduction provided by the AAs (dropped from 1s cast 3min reuse to 0.5s cast 1.5min reuse) that came out in SoF along with the spells, are applying to this AA.

    Druid heals are plagued by recast timers that are unnecessarily long and recast timers that are linked throughout the spell line. Druid’s group Heal line Luna____ [Spell Group 5_32] has a 12 second recast and 4.5 second base cast. AAs allow Druids to reduce the recast to 6 seconds but in heavy AE fights this is still too long if you are tasked with healing your group, which most Druids are. This spell group needs to have the recast timers reduced to 6s base and then allow the AAs to remove the recast timers entirely. Also the cast time should be reduced to somewhere in the 3-4 second range. 4.5s is an awfully long time at this point in the game.

    Also all Druid single target healing methods other than their slow 3.8s Vida line have shared recast timers. This greatly hinders a druids ability to heal against increasing fast and hard hitting content compared to their other Priest counterparts.

    Curavida has a 3.8s cast time and no recast time.
    Adrenaline has a 1.8s cast time and 15s recast, recast Timer 2.
    Revitalization has a 0.5s cast time and 12s recast, recast Timer 15.
    Remote Moonflash has a 1s cast time and 24s recast, recast Timer 11.
    Remote Sunblazs has a 1s cast time and 24s recast, recast Timer 11.

    Either some of these recast timers need to be removed, to allow Druids to rely on older spells in a spell line like clerics rely on remedy and Shamans rely on Reckless. Or some of these recast timers need to be cut in half. It would be more reasonable if Adrenaline and Revitalization each had their timers cut in half allowing you to cycle Adrenaline-Curavida-Revitalization. But currently you are having to lean too heavily on Curavida and the game moves too fast for that to be your go to heal.

    2. Druid Fire Debuffs - I think they worked fine in their current implementation. However I am guessing this change was made so that the spell Debuff lines get utilized. If you are adamant on making this the case a few issues:

    ————-

    AE version, we are losing 44 ATK, 19 AC and 50 Fire Resist from the Debuff power. I think we can ALL agree the Druid Debuffs are in no way overpowered in their current state. By no stretch of the imagination should this be a nerf.

    Increase the power of the Druid Spell Group 5763 - Gaze of Ro - to match the power of our current AA, Vortex of Ro II. Also while you’re editing this value, change the cast time on Gaze of Ro to be 1.5s to match Vortex of Ro.

    —————

    Single version we are losing 27 ATK and 51 Fire Resist while we gain 16 AC Debuff. Honestly the AC is the least valuable part of these Debuffs. The power of the ATK and FR need to be increased on the spell version to match the current AA.

    3. Druid Debuffs in General - While we are talking about Druid buffs, we’ve long had the issue of having too many Debuffs. If I want to hit a named or a raid boss with maximum Druid Debuffs I would have to cast:

    Blessing of Ro - ATK, AC, FR
    Skin to Sumac - Fire Dmg Amplifier
    Breath - AC, CR, Cold Dmg Amplifier
    Glistening Frost - AC, ATK
    Overwhelming Sunray - AC, FR, Fire Dmg Empathy
    OR
    Pearlescent Moonbeam - AC, CR, Cold Dmg Empathy

    A few ideas to help with this:

    The new Blessing of Ro AA should cast Cowl of Ro AND Skin to Sumac. These Debuffs are often used in conjunction because 1 reduces Fire Resist and the other amplifies Damage done by fire spells. Skin to Sumac does have body type conflicts but the AA could be coded to only use Skin when the target allows it.

    A new AA should be created to cast the Druid ice Debuffs together. Frostreave Breath and Glistening Frost. This should be on a separate timer from Blessing of Ro. It should have a similar 1.5s cast time as well so it can be fit between casts like most AAs.

    The two DoT AAs should be revamped to be 5-10 minute DoTs with largely increased mana cost and slightly increased Empathy values. This way they can be used more as ADPS Debuffs that they’re designed to be rather than some weak DoTs that they currently are. It would allow you to cast it on an important target once and reap the benefits of the Empathy for several minutes rather than needing to reapply it continually through the fight.

    4. Protection of Direwood - You increased the mana cost but not the Melee mitigation. These values desperately needed increases to be valuable but they seem to have not been updated correctly:

    5. Wrath of the Wild - You increased hit counter for all ranks, perhaps the AA will see some use now! However two additional changes I would suggest is make the AA instant cast and make it function like you change Daily along to function. Hit either your target (if friendly PC/Pet) or hit your NPC’s Target? Very low priority but while you’re already in there changing things this would be nice.
    Fnyanea, Sancus, Mithra and 3 others like this.
  14. Razorfall Augur

    YES.

    One minor complaint though....could you please make this 4 levels so that you can tell what you can and can't use this on by Con?

    Now we just need to increase the level harmonious arrow works on and I'm happy for a while.
  15. Belkar_OotS Augur

    Apparently I'm a great mind because I was envisioning the same debuff and spell consolidation that occurred in this patch essentially.

    However I hope they go 1 step further and make each AA more inclusive and for more classes.

    I'm not at home to make sure I've included everything that is currently available so please correct any errors.

    Have 1 single target and 1 AE shaman debuff AA. Spiritwalkers or Soothsayers.

    Single does
    1. Malo
    2. Putrid Decay
    3. Slow
    4. Cripple

    AE.
    1. Malo
    2. Slow


    For enchanters 1 single target, Coercers or Mindbender.

    Single
    1. Tash
    2. Slow
    3. Cripple
    4. Somnolence

    AE would just be Tash since they don't have other AE debuffs I can think of at the moment.

    For Druids Boquetender or Naturalist

    Single Target
    1. Glistening Frost
    2. Frostreave Breath
    3. Cowl of Ro

    AE would just be Vortex of Ro since I can't think of another AE druid debuff.

    Obviously I want to make sure the best of each ability gets applied within the class and between classes for slow/cripple.

    Maybe it is time to make a shaman version of helix and make the slow and Cripple values the same for both classes and reduce a debuff slot.

    I know I have tacked on a couple extra druid debuffs but I feel it is a long time in coming quality of life improvement for the class. But still excluded the skin to plant line and the dot+debuff abilities.
  16. Raccoo Augur

    - Shaman - Consolidated Spirit Walk and Group Spirit Walk into a single line named Lupine Spirit, which will now cast Spirit of Wolf, Spirit of Bih`Li, or Spirit of Tala'Tak on your target's group based on rank.
    Why even bother with Spirit of Wolf? Spirit of Bih`li will land on level 1+.

    - Shaman - Group Pact of the Wolf has been replaced with a new ability line, Soothsayer's Intervention, which will trigger the highest rank spell you have scribed from the Ancestral Intervention line.
    On Test this currently locks out the spell when you use it. The AA also has a longer refresh (3 minutes).
    Belkar_OotS likes this.
  17. IblisTheMage Augur

    Bards can use modrods now :).

    I think that is pretty cool.
    Gyurika Godofwar and Belkar_OotS like this.
  18. Belkar_OotS Augur

    I was going to post this in the class forums but... since it is ever so slightly related and is more general than class specific I figured I'd share this pipe fantasy.

    Boquetenders/Spiritwalkers/Coercers

    Swift Affliction – Swift Dots for shaman

    Prolonged Affliction – very long duration

    Extended Affliction – long duration

    Affliction – standard length

    Casts the highest-level spell of each dot, similar to the Unity Self buffs that were provided in RoS.

    Keep a fast cast time (3s max) – Set the recast to the time it would normal take to cast the associated spells as things are now.

    I opted to recommend going off dot duration since it makes the most sense from a daily player standpoint and how they would reapply dots in an ideal setting.

    Potential Benefits:

    1. Precedence set with Shaman’s Chaotic Venom Spell which combined dots (and a chance for nuke).

    2. Still requires obtaining the best spells.

    3. Reduces some of the ramp up/building up time to help dots in fast paced scenarios since the player could cast the Affliction, Extended Affliction, and Prolong Affliction combo dots faster as a complete set, while keeping the cast time the same for multiple targets.

    4. Increases player options: can expedite casts for utility classes and frees up spell gems for other tasks, or they can use the spells traditionally to recast on a resist, or in situations where a specific resist type isn’t appropriate (immune to fire or powers up with disease etc).

    5. Recast time means players couldn’t reapply the dots faster than they are currently unless they want to use spells slots also for doing multiple targets. I don't see this as a huge issue myself.

    6. Simplified casting orders for players, allows more usage of unique class abilities without having to have as many varied spell sets. Which equates to less annoyance and more fun to me.

    7. As a non-coding person, it seems that making this adjustment could also provide a programming/coding opportunity to use fewer debuff slots, where all the modifiers and calculations are consolidated into 1 debuff that is placed on the NPC or are somehow “stacked” like they are in other games.

    I think something like this would be amazing for necromancer but is possibly a step to far for them at the moment and would need much more thought since they have more unique dot lines.

    I think it could be good to bring out more utility and non dot abilities with the freed up spell gems.

    Maybe tie the new AA to existing dot amplifier AA that does the focus and casts dots at the same time? Seems rather complicated though in my estimation. Technically my idea could be executed as a spell also.
  19. Boze TLP complaint factory

    Even at 75 on Phinny the new glyphs are 20AA each for that level range. Seems excessively high.
  20. svann Augur

    It'll crash the server
    Yinla likes this.