Mage Robes

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Gynek, Dec 25, 2017.

  1. Gynek Lorekeeper

    Is it intentional that we no longer receive focus for our 110 RS pet's duration? As the EoK raid robe/TBM raid robe both exclusively extend the 105 pet, and the new RoS robes seem to abandon the idea entirely for a nuke focus.
    Curious as to why this was done, and why then can't EoK Mage raid robes be changed to have a relevant focus, as for many EoK raid content/gear will continue to be relevant for a while.
    Having second best in slot raid gear that takes a lot of raid currency/dkp to obtain suddenly having no focus effects for Mages at 110 seems harsh.
    Not to mention the ever sharply shrinking spell dmg stat on Mage raid robes from TBM to RoS...
  2. Sancus Augur

    Yes, it is intentional. There were BP threads posted for every class months ago to gather suggestions for the new BP foci/clicks. For mages, while not everyone agreed what it should change to, most in the thread agreed that the current focus was lackluster.

    The biggest issue with an RS duration focus extension is that it only matters if the pet lives its entire duration. If the pet lives for less than ~40 seconds, it performs exactly the same with the focus as it would have without. Given RS are often used as offtanks and can't reasonably be healed, it's very common that they don't live this long. They often die in 12-18s when offtanking, and on raids AEs, AE ramp, etc often kill them before they reach their full duration.

    Other reasons include the fact that, when the 2/3s duration focus was first implemented (SoD I believe), RS pets didn't have all the swarm duration extension AA that they have now. In other words, the current focus accounted for a much greater % of their overall damage when it was first implemented than it does now when they live for ~41s without any focus. Also, RS pets don't scale with burns, meaning the damage contribution of the focus is significantly lower than one given to a spell (like Spear) with better scaling.

    The new focus is a much better choice IMO. Spear is likely our most ubiquitous spell, and it has a high enough base damage to be worth focusing. The new focus scales with burns and crit damage too (it is a crit focus). It also has the added benefit of focusing our entire line of Spears for those situations where we use multiple Spears.

    As far as the EoK robe, they don't go back and update old robe foci for new spells. I'm not saying I agree with that decision (I'm ambivalent), but it is in no way a Mage specific issue. Most classes will see their EoK robe focus be relatively useless with new spells.

    Regarding shrinking spell damage, Ngreth has chosen to do spell damage over a set of gear rather than specific items. Our overall spell damage goes up with each tier. This is also not a decision that I particularly agree with, but overall it doesn't matter too much especially given how little spell damage adds.
  3. Gynek Lorekeeper

    That's pretty much the answer I was expectimg, but figured I'd at least try a thread about it. I just noticed in group situations my RS pets were disappearing earlier than I am used to, and saw the new focus on robes. I don't disagree with the spear focus as much as I wish they'd give us a useful focus on our EoK robe then. And linear slot based spell dmg upgrades cuz OCD.
    Also, does this technically mean RoS T2 group robe is an upgrade to EoK raid robe for a dps coscious Mage?
  4. fransisco Augur

    ros T1 mage robe is an upgrade. It will give focus damage to all your spears.
  5. IblisTheMage Augur

    I very much agree that it is an upgrade.

    However, I just want to comment that in my group play I do not experience that swarm pets generally die early, and therefore I very much love extended duration AA for swarm pets. It is a helper for a style of play where group mages can use Of Many.