What direction are the devs taking with pure int casters?

A couple of expansions back we got END regen AA - we have no use for end at all! Our melee damage is utter rubbish. Was the AA supposed to be end & mana regen? Our weapons if I am reading it correctly has a proc IF we melee, always thought casters were ranged dps not up close. Are the devs trying to change us into a hybrid that does both? In which case can we get something which uses all this end we are now getting and some improvement to our melee damage?

Recently returned to playing a shaman and their weapons seem just as messed up, they get a heal from casting damage spells and mana from meleeing! Not sure about others but I'm normally too busy healing, slowing, maloing, epicing and roaring to cast damange spells, I may get the odd dot in here and there but not often. Oh and I nearly forgot the cani-ing!

Seems they are getting priests and casters confused!

Really hoping I'm reading the weapions wrong and they proc from just being on agro as that is also combat, I'm sure someone will be quick to correct me.

The weapons (at least in the last few expansions) generally have a proc for melee and a focus effect that procs on spell casting, so no matter what activity you are engaged in the proc happens.

Everyone got End Regen. That's what the "General" Tab in the AA window means.

I've seen many mages these days dominate mearatus with expert melee skillz. It's kind of like their version of "adps" ....

Caster weapons have had melee procs for many years. Nothing new about it; Wire (a Mage) was meleeing for extra damage back in SoD.

Since the AA dev doesn't have time to add new AA lines anymore I really wouldn't mind getting copies of the AA lines burst of power for double and triple checks, weapon affinity, skill cap increasing for 1h and 2h and the added damage line that add a flat 3,000 per hit. At this point yellow mana users have mastered casting but casters unless a npc can't melee. All yellow mana users and hybrids have powerful and heavily used combat skills which are spells in all but name having cast times, recast times, recast timers that pull from ones yellow mana pool.

You've had a melee proc at least since staff of writhing....

I know that is what the general tab is for, so why is it in general and not in achtype like mana regen?

It makes no sence giving AAs to classes who cannot use them.

If it is cheaper to give the same to all, then it makes a lot of sense from a business perspective.

Back then we had a choice to use something else if we didn't want to melee, I seem to remember at one stage using 2 books! One in primary and one in secondary, one was open the other closed, cant for the life or me remember what they were called.

So whats the point of the Archtype tab ?

Jumping in any class reduces endurance.

You tell me. I just proposed that there was some kind of rational thought behind the endurance AA.

Beside it gives people AA to earn, even if useless

Considering ADPS like Roar, bard songs, dicho (dissident) and various synergys (synergies?) etc. I would say turning on auto attack at least in a group setting is worth it.

Doesn't mean stop casting but it is noticeable on a parse.

Every class has endurance, whether you use it or not. Not every class has mana. That is why mana regen is in the archetype tab and endurance regen is in the general tab.

As far as melee on a caster, I've never parsed it seriously, but it does up the DPS some when I do it with my wizard. The challenge would be to know when it would be worth it.

There are some casters arguing in another thread that a 800 something focusable belt proc is still better that than the every cast 5k unfocusable belt proc, then we have this thread arguing about not wanting to melee for a 10-12k (or so) focusable weapon proc.

/boggle

Psst, 1 crits for 10s of k, the other crits for 100s of k

The archetype tab is for subsets of related classes, e.g. necro/sk, or tank classes, etc (I don't know the exact grouping offhand.)

When they gave End regen to every class it makes sens to put it in the 'every class' tab instead of putting it into multiple 'Archetype' tabs (I'm not sure if they can put the same AA in multiple tabs even?)

Casters and priests have always done added damage meleeing on spell global cooldown. You aren’t supposed to stop casting, you melee in between casts.

That being said, no idea why they added so much end revenue AA for casters.

I don't stop casting! Even on global cooldowns I'm casting AAs or clickies. I must admit I do melee when I'm silenced, but I prefer to throw things. Does throwing count as combat, or do you physically have to be hitting stuff?

Ignore me on the AAs I've just got the hump as I am down to my last few AAs to get, I'm just finishing up my last focus on spell lines I don't use and end regen, both of which is as much use to me as a chocolate kettle.