Test Update 02/09/2021 - Patch Notes and Discussions

Thundastruk is probably referring to the video Kizant posted of your Sont attempt tonight where there was zero raid lag.

On BB at least in RA's raid, there was so much lag, casters could barely cast. On a similarly timed Zlandi burn, I was able to cast 44 more spells compared to what I was able to get off during our Sont attempt. Our Zlandi attempts are split raided so the instance only had around 32-35 people.

It's pretty frustrating...


As for why BB? I'm fairly certain BB is one of the highest populated servers, if not thee highest populated server.

I'm glad to see the devs are working to figure something out regarding lag however, I don't feel like they've really made much head way. I'm unsure what Jhenna is talking when he says they've done a great job and then mentions 4 second cast delays. The Mages on raid experienced anywhere from 4 - 6 second delays at times between spells.

I agree it's frustrating. We had the reversed situation where Zlandicar was extremely laggy for us, whereas Sontalak wasn't. It's the first Sontalak run other than opening day that didn't have extreme lag. FWIW, Kizant also has a few videos of our laggy raid runs, but outside of explicitly posting videos to show the lag, he only posts those from our best instances.

I would say on average the lag was better for us tonight, but on Zlandicar (for example), the average time between my spells casting was over 11 seconds, and I had two instances where there were twenty two seconds in between two spell casts. That's with me casting spells as soon as they're off cooldown. The same is true for the rest of the raid, and I would say about half of our Zlandicar runs to date have had that much lag or more.

Edit: Looks like he has a video of it for reference:

If you'd like that SPA 124 version back then you have my vote!

Now that we've raided once after the proc change I have one more comparison to note.

1. On Feb 06 we killed Zlandicar in 79 seconds without any lag. It's a single target burn where I saw 61 hits for spike of ice. I use this proc because it's the only one that is semi-unique. It's used on two items that all casters have and it's always going to by a sympathetic proc atm.

2. On Feb 21 we killed Sontalak in 90 seconds without any lag. It's a single target burn so a similar situation and I saw 20 hits for spike of ice even though the duration was 10 seconds longer.

That comes to 0.772 hits per second vs 0.222. Of course, the difference won't be anywhere near as large in a longer duration fight but this is where Wizards got hit the most. During a short burn. And considering we generally do close to double the damage with our procs than other classes and they average from 50k to 250k it adds up.

Isn't SPA 124 similar to a worn focus?!

I'm more in the market for Elemental Union to operate off SPA 461!

The current version is broken enough.

Are those DPS numbers accurate? I don't ever join the parse channel, but if those are accurate, then I'm feeling pretty good at mine and feeling REALLY bad for wizards:

Zlandicar in 178s, 158.94M Damage @892.93K, 1. Abazzagorath = 158.94M@892.93K in 178s

Wizards should be doing 1.5-2x as much as paladins even against undead and even over 3 minutes, if they aren't, that isn't fair at all.

While I think most are in agreement that Wizards could use some help, that DPS is something like 1/3rd to 1/4th of what it would be in the absence of lag. While it's again worth noting that extreme lag disproportionately affects casters, you can't really balance the game around 10s+ global cooldowns versus classes that depend less on spell DPS.

Well, that is your opinion and you are certainly entitled to it. My opinion, is that the devs could offset the reduced damage due to lag by increasing the output of the Magician class. I'm just stating my opinion on how they could achieve that result.

I don't mind you disagreeing with me however, you always disagree when it comes to Mages gaining power and that's obvious enough by reviewing your posts. It might more be beneficial instead of just stating what you don't think will work, to advocate for an alternative idea?

It's my opinion that casters in general, need a boost. I'd like to see Wizards & Mages both get an increase in their damage capabilities. The change proposed to (Thaumaturge's Unity )EU is not new, it was literally the way that ability functioned previously. I believe it was a heavy handed nerf, that created it's current form.

Since we are on the subject of Magician's, I'm curious what you believe should be enhanced, since you disagree with my proposed changes.

Even 4x what he did there still feels low. I need to start looking at the parse channel I guess, I think my expectations may be way off at this point, not really paying attention to other classes for several years. I get that a short burn undead mob kinda is the most favorable situation possible for a paladin, but still.

I legit cast like 15 spells during our entire run. Nothing about that run was anywhere even remotely close to a stable parsing scenario for casters. That says much more about the state of servers and lag in general than classes though.

Nothing. Mages are doing good. If there were zero lag they'd be doing great. That should be the goal, fixing lag.

Regarding the expected patch that is scheduled at 0430 hrs on February 17th, 2021 - the patch notes explicitly stated:

"Changed some of the modern Spell Casting Proc items so they won't trigger from other proc effects or twincast. This is a step, but not the entire solution, to reduce raid lag. Recursive proc casting is causing a huge amount of spells to be cast in a short time."

These notes are specific and at the same time not entirely explicit on how it will be done. What is plainly mentioned is that 'spell casting procs' from items are proc'ing in a recursive manner when they should not be. With the exception of certain spells like 'mana reiteration'' that is designed to be recursive in nature, items with 'sympathetic' damage procs were never meant to be proc'd multiple times from a singular spellcast. I believe it is relevant to mention that 'spell casting procs' are not included with the general AA 'twinproc', as that AA only affects melee swing procs. Also I believe that it is important to note that the archetype AA 'twincast' is not meant to affect spell casting proc's either, as procs do not require additional mana cost to fire. With this background information now addressed, I began an 11.5 hour parse to determine relevant 'recursive' procs from items during twincast conditions. From this parse, I eliminated all recursive procs and reformulated overall DPS in lieu of the upcoming change. This parse was conducted as a wizard and resultingly will be most relevant to the wizard class but is also very relevant to all other spell casting classes that utilize 'sympathetic casting' procs as well.

(For results, skip the design section and go directly to the results section)


- Study Design - (for traceability and data validation)

1. Only the spell Ethereal Brand rk. III was cast during the entire duration.
2. The entire parse was conducted with twincast rk. III.
3. Personal and trophy tribute was used (this is extraneous).
4. No personal or additional aDPS was used whatsoever. This includes:

Frenzied devastion, Arcane Destruction, Arcane Fury, Fury of the Gods, Thaumaturgic vortex effect, Arcane overkill, Spire of the Arcanum, Glyph of Destruction, Fierce Eye, Group form of the Black Wolf, Illusions of Grandeur, Chromatic Haze, Spire of the Pathfinder's, Circle of Power, Intensity of the Resolute.

5. Buffs that were active include:

Twincast rk. III, Potion Restless Focus, Potion - Crystal Mana Tonic, Hastening of Cakenar, Righteousness, Greater Protection of Vie Rk. II, Benediction of Reverence, Promised REbirth, Talisman of the Unwavering, Mount Blessing Lena, Flight of Falcons, Communion of the Cheetah, Illusion Benefit Greater Jann, Nimbus of the Obliteration Army, Weave of Reclamation, Improved Familiar XXXII, Familiar: Ice Bound Uthork, Group Perfected Levitation, Voice of Sagacity.

6. Recursive procs are identified as any proc that is fired as a twincast. These instances include:

<spellname of proc here> (Twincast).
<spellname of proc here> (Lucky Critical Twincast).
<spellname of proc here> (Critical Twincast).

7. Sympathetic Casting procs on gear include:

Surge of Ice : Complimentary Velium Threaded Gem of Devastation
Burst of Ice X : Bone Shards of Frozen Marrow
Spike of Ice : Complimentary Velium Infused Gem of Striking
Spike of Ice : Velium Empowered Gem of Freezing
Burst of Flames V : Whispering Midnight Casting Fire
Surge of Ice I : Rallos Zek Acolyte's Casting Ice
Surge of Ice II : Rallos Zek Devotee's Casting Ice
Surge of Ice : Velium Enhanced Arcane Staff

(Yes Spike of Ice and Surge of Ice appears twice on two separate items. Resulting related data has been halved for the sake of simplicity to identify each individual item.)

8. Other procs to be identified as being recursive or not include:

Restless Strike
Arcane Fusion
Banestrike XXIV
Pyromancy XXX

9. The study was conducted for 11.33 hours of continuous casting of Ethereal Brand Rk. III immediately upon recycle timers.

10. The study was conducted on the evening of February 15th, and the morning of February 16th prior to the expected patch on 02-17-21 @ 0430 hrs.

11. Results of the study is contingent on the premise that only 'recursive sympathetic procs' are removed.


- Results -

The following spells are not recursive:

Pyromancy XXX
Banestrike XXIV
Restless Strike
Arcane Fusion

The following spells are recursive (as identified as procs that twincast):

Surge of Ice
Surge of Ice I
Surge of Ice II
Burst of Ice X
Burst of Flames V
Spike of Ice

Recursive Proc Rates for each item (proposed to be removed):

Surge of Ice: 16.64%
Surge of Ice II : 17.60%
Spike of Ice: 17.52%
Surge of Ice I: 16.90%
Burst of Flames V: 17.72%
Burst of Ice X: 17.30%

DPS Reduction:

Overall DPS: - 2.17 %

Surge of Ice: - 0.8795%
Surge of Ice II: - 0.3635%
Spike of Ice: - 0.3073%
Surge of Ice I: - 0.2854%
Burst of Flames V: - 0.2363%
Burst of Ice X: - 0.0992%

Proposed new proc rates (After removal of recursive procs):

Surge of Ice = 29.19% (already halved due to duplicate proc names)
Pyromancy XXX = 30.22% (unchanged)
Arcane Fusion = 1.5% (Broken AA, unchanged since ToV)***
Restless Strike = 45.60% (unchanged)
Surge of Ice II = 28.57%
Spike of Ice = 28.37% (already halved)
Surge of Ice I = 28.04%
Burst of Flames V = 27.98%
Burst of Ice X = 29.01%

*** Arcane Fury has an ~ procrate of 1.5%, which is nowhere near 3% as it is stated.

Following up this study, I completed another 11+ hour parse under the same conditions as before. Conditions are included in the previous post in the 'design' section. As according to the patch notes brought to us by the official Daybreak Everquest forums:

"Changed some of the modern Spell Casting Proc items so they won't tigger from other proc effects or twincast. This is a step, but not the entire solution, to reduce raid lag. Recursive proc casting is causing a huge amount of spells to be cast in a short time"

So, it is the contention of our developers that recursive procs are systemically contributing to raid lag and must be removed. For the sake of clearing up any ambiguity - the term 'recursive' is a calculus based mathematical term that refers to "relating to or involving the repeateded application of a rule, definition, or procedure to successive results": in this specific case, it refers to multiple procs firing from a singular spellcast.

It is not my intention to be too verbose, so lets ask the question: Did they remove recursive sympathetic procs in order to reduce raid lag like they were suggesting? The answer to that question is not at all. What they did do however is unilaterally reduce procrates for all high damage sympathetic spell casting gear and augs while leaving the 'erroneous' and recursive procs unchanged.

- Previous to the patch: Non-recursive proc rates (based on a 3 second cast time spell) -

Burst of Flames V: 55.54%
Burst of Ice X: 55.99%
Pyromancy XXX: 30.22%
Restless Strike: 45.60%
Spike of Ice: 55.64%
Surge of Ice: 54.97%
Surge of Ice I: 54.07%
Surge of Ice II: 56.03%
Arcane Fusion: 1.52%
(variability in proc-rates and the ‘not obvious’ ceiling value of proc rates are attributed to recursive procs)

- After the patch: Non-recursive proc rates: ‘normal procs’ (based on a 3 second cast time spell) -

Burst of Flames V: 27.49%
Burst of Ice X: 57.16%
Pyromancy XXX: 30.87%
Restless Strike: 46.20%
Spike of Ice: 27.31%
Surge of ice: 27.10%
Surge of Ice I: 27.74%
Surge of Ice II: 27.43%
Arcane Fusion: 1.43%

(variability in proc-rates and the ‘not obvious’ ceiling value of proc rates are attributed to recursive procs: ** removal of recursive procs equates a flat proc rate of 23% with a 3 second cast time spell**)


- Comparison from before and after patch: differences in normal proc rates (based on a 3 second cast time spell) -

Burst of Flames V: -28.05%
Burst of Ice X: +1.17%
Pyromancy XXX: + 0 %
Restless Strike: +0.60%
Spike of Ice: -28.32%
Surge of Ice: -27.87%
Surge of Ice I: -26.33%
Surge of Ice II: -27.60%
Arcane Fusion: -0.09%


- Previous to the Patch: Recursive Proc rates -

Burst of Flames V: 17.70%
Burst of Ice X: 17.3%
Pyromancy XXX: 0%
Restless Strike: 0%
Spike of Ice: 17.50%
Surge of Ice: 16.6%
Surge of Ice I: 16.9%
Surge of Ice II: 17.6%
Arcane Fusion: 0%



- After the Patch: Recursive Proc Rates -

Burst of Flames V: 17.30%
Burst of Ice X: 17.9%
Pyromancy XXX: 0%
Restless Strike: 0%
Spike of Ice: 17.10%
Surge of Ice: 17.4%
Surge of Ice I: 17.1%
Surge of Ice II: 18.2%
Arcane Fusion: 0%

- Comparison from before and after the patch: difference in recursive proc rates (any proc that is twincast) -

Burst of Flames V: -0.40%
Burst of Ice X: +0.60%
Pyromancy XXX: 0%
Restless Strike: 0%
Spike of Ice: -0.40%
Surge of Ice: +0.8%
Surge of Ice I: +0.20%
Surge of Ice II: +0.60%
Arcane Fusion: 0%

To summarize everything: What the patch notes implied regarding the removal of ‘recursive procs’ were not removed but instead normal procrates of only singular iteration procs dropped by approximately 27 to 28%. In this study specifically - these changes dropped overall damage output by a little more than 6%. Players that have all the type 18/19 sympathetic casting proc augs (I am missing one type 19), will experience a drop in DPS by approximately 8 to 9%. The ebb-and flow or fluid dynamics of raids and overall DPS and damage output will numerically yield that wizards may contribute to an estimated reduction as high as ~ 20-25% less total damage output as a result. Overall DPS reduction in this study concluded a reduction of -10,020.4 dmg per second (6.12%) in a ‘non burn’ setting: this number will be higher for those with more spell casting procs. Damage potential reduction will peak during burn scenarios where aDPS is contributed by both wizard (fury of the gods, arcane fury - etc) and other classes due to total spell hit # potential being reduced by curtailed proc-rates. Total proc rate reduction attributed to the patch identifies a change from 3.32 (based on 8 aug/gear related sympathetic procs) to 1.64 procs per 3-second time spellcast or a proc-rate reduction of ~ one-half.

I appreciate the data. I may be misunderstanding some of what you wrote, but I at least wanted to clarify a few things:

Twinproc affects spell procs. These are the limitations on the focus (in other words, there is no limitation for melee procs):

2: Limit Max Duration: 0s
3: Limit Type: Detrimental
4: Limit Min Level: 255
5: Limit Max Mana Cost: 0
6: Limit Type: Exclude Combat Skills
7: Limit Effect: Exclude Summon Swarm Pet
8: Limit Effect: Exclude Root
9: Limit Class: ALL
10: Limit Effect: Exclude Twincast Blocker

If you're seeing spells like Spike of Ice have a twincast message, it's because the procs themselves are twincasting due to Twinproc. That was not changed in this patch. I think this is what you're referring to with "recursive proc rates," and the intent of this change was not to adjust those.

The patch added SPA 497 to a number of modern worn proc focuses. SPA 497 is a limit applied to the focus that excludes certain kinds of casts from meeting the focus requirements, preventing those casts from proccing things. SPA 497 specifically excludes Twincasts of the base spell (which is what halved the rate at which those procs proc for you under Twincast) and spells that cast multiple component spells (e.g. the Wizard Wildether line).

The only real example of procs proccing other procs in EQ that I'm aware of is the Flesh to Venom/Poison line that Necros have. The DD component of those spells in itself satisfies the focus criteria of many other procs, which is an outlier.

Edit:

Arcane Fusion has had SPA 497 on it since TBL, and is therefore not eligible to proc from Twincasts. You had Twincast on, which is why you had half the proc rate specified in the AA description. For the damage number, you're misreading the number of digits. It says 350,000, not 3.5 million.

I noticed that after I posted and changed the post accordingly regarding Arcane Fury's damage - was hoping it would have gone unnoticed lol.

If there is a limiter regarding all procs in twincast conditions by 50% (SPA 497), With spell line-ups that favor twincast conditions and increased resulting damage potential, this situation to me seems very paradoxial: Non-twincast conditions with a normal proc'rate, or twincast conditions with a 50% hit on proc'rate.

The description of twinproc is misleading: "This passive ability grants a 21% chance to twincast your weapons combat-activated spells". The singular word "combat", has been an identifier as melee related for as long as I can remember: the word is still utilized to discriminate between casting procs and swing procs on weapon identification tags.

I was not aware of the Arcane Fusion twincast limit: it seems a bit silly to me that 3% is a situational proc'rate.

This information would be great in a Caster forum or even Veterans thread. I feel it's just going to be lost in time in a Test update thread that's no longer going to be looked at in a month or less.

That said, it gets confusing when you say Arcane Fury all the time ... it's Arcane Fusion. And yes it could be better, but it's so much better than it was (100 percent crit rate now, bump in damage). To help fellow wizards, we should get the description changed to this does not fire from twin casted spells (just initial ones) or something like that.

All your tests confirm what I saw. The proc rates for all the various TBL and up augs are still the same and it's still based on spell cast time (again, thanks Sancus for clearing that up for me). I did enough tests on Tests to realize that they did nothing for the proc rate of the various sympathetic augs ... just stopped it from firing on twincasts (or mangled the Wildether line). AE proc rates stayed the same (only fire on mob targetted ... no targets, no procs).

The only procs that were affected seemed to be TBL and up (at least the TBM belt was unaffected ... although the resist rate on the corruption proc is ridiculous IMO). I did one test with the old UF aug and I think it was unchanged (but I somehow lost the data in transferring to various computers ... and it just doesn't matter nowadays).

The main thrust of the change is still that it impacts wizards the most and is especially noticeable in our burns ... particularly burst burns. We've not had enough raids for me to say that it has made any significant change to raid lag experience (there's still too much variance between raid instances and that was true before any changes), but raid lag still exists so something else will need to be done if they want to solve the issue.

Unlike some of my fellow wizards, I'd prefer that they hold any changes to make up for the reduced proc rate until at least a game plan is established for raid lag (aka what are they trying next). I would also rather see the Necro dot revamp FINISHED (remaining lines changed, and then the rebalance) before modifying wizards. Most of the suggestions I've seen are very specific and aren't really that helpful to grouping/solo wizards ... mainly just raid burns.

My belief is that casters and direct damage casters especially need to be revamped in regards to melee damage and dot damage. I'd rather we actually do that first. If it means sucking even more for a year or so do get that done, I'm willing to wait. I do realize I may be in a small minority on that.

Keep in mind that there are more than two situations. We have a base 5% twincast rate and everyone should have an enchanter with twincast aura to increase it to 16% total. There's plenty of events where I average 80% or more twincast rate the entire time.

It's a small distinction but a fixed 3% rate per cast is only true if the limiter is put on.

Like Sancus briefly mentioned, the big issue for Wizards has to do with more complicated direct damage spells. Wildscorch doesn't proc any of the casting fire/ice augs now because the base spell is prismatic. Confluence will trigger less procs since the extra ethereal that can be cast won't be able to proc them. And it's a huge hit to quad casting wildether. This change effectively removes the usefulness of any wildmagic spell. Granted, some wizards probably didn't realize those were viable options in the first place.

Actually it looks like Ethereal Confluence is working fine. The additional Ethereal cast that can happen also procs things. Maybe the wildmagic line could be changed to be more like Confluence?

Guilty