Test Update 07/15/15

Except you were a CRT and either have or had a personal relationship with some of the devs for many years that gets your opinion viewed or considered much more easily.

You also know how to play the "game" of getting what you want better then most. Asking for this or that to work this way for nukes or wizards, knowing full well that most of the time it will be nerfed instead.

You also understand the inner workings of the game better then most of the devs and players to highlight when something for one class works differently or how this works this way for someone else and not you. Giving you some technical credibility to anything you present. Making many a non issue like mage rains look like some glaring issue when in fact they weren't.

So, some of the few things I was actually looking forward to in this patch, don't seem to be a thing. No where can I find anything about what "Stacking Group" something is in. Not when I inspect the buff on me, not when I inspect the item that has the buff. Does this only work when looking at spell gems or in a spell book? Because a lot of us use clickies and potions and poisons that would be happy to know what "Stacking Group" they're to be found in.

Your damage shield messages - I dunno what y'all didn't do, but there's no new filter, no new color filters, no new "Show Mine", in fact, everything that's listed above having to do with damage shields and/or environmental damage isn't on test right now. Outside of the procs, these two things are like, the ONLY good things coming out of this patch for Live, and these didn't even make it in.

As a side note, with having "Stacking Groups", is this taking us one step closer to being able to buff block entire LINES of spells, (eg: blocking every stupid version of every stupid spell haste on my rogue) so we can free up space to actually buff block more of the stuff we really want to add?

PS: That goldish browny colored text is horribad. I'm all for using color, but that should never be used on anything outside of a prison. Actually, we have that whole 'cruel and unusual punishment' ban thing going on, so not even good for prison use.

Nope. If you nag them they get pissed and tell you to off or they will boot you. Especially you-know-who.

They understand a lot more than they let on. Most of them just don't like getting into details because it takes time and they hate the drama of the forums.

Just for fun, I looked it up:

The last time I said anything about rains was Feb 4, more then 5 months ago, and I wasn't talking to a dev, I was talking to Jyve. You know what this means of course. Jyve is responsible.

Prior to that, the last time I mentioned rains was Oct 18, 2014, 4 months before that, and I wasn't talking to a dev, I was talking to Cinexa. You know what this means of course. Cinexa is responsible.

Prior to that, the last time I mentioned rains was May 17, 2014, 5 months before that. This time I -was- talking to a dev. Damn, I guess it was me! They must have remembered that conversation from 14 months ago and decided now was the time.

How exactly do you know what I did or didn't say? Oh, you don't. Check.

On that note:

Sept 16, 2014 after it was asked about missing spells from TDS Beta:

"<+Beimeith> I expect Mages will complain heavily about only having 1 rain spell"

Wait a minute, I actually reminded them to add the second one back? Yep. You're welcome btw.

You don't have anything to show for it because nothing is live yet. Mages stand to gain from the synergy just like the rest of nuking classes, as well as from passive increases. Will it be enough to offset the changes? I don't know I haven't done the numbers because I found out about it when I read the patch notes the same as everyone else.

Damn, you caught me. This was my secret plan all along.

Step 1: Voice my opinion to a dev
Step 2: Get told to shut up they like things how they are
Step 3: Never mention it to a dev again
Step 4: Wait 14 months
Step 5: Nerfs Inc!

It's not live yet so you don't know what you'll be doing on raids.

You're welcome!

\Everquest\Resources\SpellStackingGroups.txt

I still am a CRT, and if you think that means my opinion gets more weight than other peoples' you're mistaken about what the CRT is.

I don't play any "game" with anyone. I give my honest opinions, and I do it for every class, including my own...and I don't "forget" to mention what the repercussions will be for a change.

Yes, I do understand the inner workings of the game better than most people which gives me some credibility....But I don't go around lying about things in an attempt to get everything nerfed because then I'd lose that credibility. I've been blamed for how many things now? They just updated the CRT a few months back. Would they have kept me around if all I did was lie to them? (Hint: No)

That reads as a bunch of numbers and carets. It said it would be found in the spell inspection window. That implies it would be viewable in game.

In this case, you can put some of the blame on the devs for you soaking up most of the ire.

They made sweeping nerfs to all rains, for reasons unknown, nerfing many classes that probably didn't need it. They made large mechanical changes to spell crit damage that effected tons of classes. They also didn't seem to complete these changes, as several abilities lost their crit damage portion entirely. In doing all this, they've made no posts explaining why this is happening.

So far, you've been the only one at least attempting to explain some of it, so it's become "your thing" even if it's really not because the devs are silent.

I'm still concerned as to what they're going to do with the crit mod abilities they broke. I'm afraid this is going to turn into a "well let's just push this live like this and see what it looks like" thing that never gets finished.

People blaming you don't know you. I'm as much a mage fanatic as the next, and I'll argue numbers over any other mage and feel confident I know what I'm talking about more than another mage, and I'm fine supporting you. They can call me a traitor if for some reason that take this as a personal assault against mages, and I'll stand by you. Also, yeah devs get pissed when you pester them about the same thing, even if you're right .

I need to see what they add back into the baseline of things, but currently it isn't looking good for mages. Can't say for sure until it goes live and all the changes take effect, but the issue is that once it's live they rarely make quick changes to fix it; the changes will sit there for months while a class or archetype (sorry, Melee) lay in stagnation, while an insanely OP class, relative to other dps, get their dots fixed and do more dps than ever. I still don't understand that, though. I'm fine with fixing things, great. But then turning around and possibly heavily nerfing a class fairly soon afterwards leaves a sour taste in people's mouths.

But, you and I have talked since RoF about what we think the class balance should be like, and you and I almost 100% agree on that point (ofc we argue about mages and wizards!!!). So, yeah, I'm not slinging damnation at you, and I generally back you up or like your posts because I trust you. Maybe I'm just a naive mage, who knows!

Some of them especially don't like it when you're right :/

test patcher broken... would love to get on and do some testing... i dont want caster nerfs but come on guys melee are still part of the game. please fix the patcher so i can get some testing done

There's a work around.

I can't summon the care to do it.

As it stands with no mods running outside of crit chance only. If your casting 100 nukes, with max crit chance our AVG rain hits for 76k on a crit. So your doing 7.6mil DMG per 100 spell hits (since they land more then once per spell cast).

The way it got changed your maxed at 40% crit chance and 60% non-crit. Our min hit on the rain is 19k, so 19k times 60 (amount of hits that can not crit) bring you to 1,140,000 DMG. Then 76k times 40 (max amount of crits over 100 casts/lands) is 3,040,000 DMG. Bringing the total adjusted DMG to 4,180,000.

So now under max crit situations we went from 7.6mil to 4.1mil. Looking at roughly a 40-45% DPS loss for 1 rain. No type of ADPS mod will adjust that either because of the fixed crit chance. Not to mention we have the lowest self crit DMG mod among the 4 casters as well, so all of the additives pale when your already lower then everyone else lol.....

Completely unwarranted considering we are not the top Caster by any means. We also had the hardest time staying alive among the 4 casters because of our weak survival on any type of add events. Literally out of left field, it might have had some play back when every event had adds and we could beam as many targets as we wanted in COTF.

Yeah, when I did the math, taking into account spell damage variance, I believe it came out to a 45.8% DPS loss for rains. I'll check my math again when I get home, but I broke it down for sustain, burn, with each mod alone, without mods, and with a variance of mods. It took awhile, but no matter which way we slice it, it's a huge net loss. This was originally without the possible addition to the base, I believe, though I'll need to check my notebook, where I keep all my mage related math, to make sure. With the addition it was, again I believe, still a loss and a large one at that.

There is one in particular, heh. Many of us know all too well.

oops, double post!

Min hit is 19.9, max hit is 80k. It pretty much stays the same, it MAY even be worse considering it added to the crit DMG aspect, so losing the crit chance and adding Crit DMG defeats the purpose.

Pretty much the funniest part about the wait and see people here. Boosting the crit DMG, does nothing if you remove 60% of that Crit DMG by making it so they can not crit in that area.

To say the least, I am grateful we were told we had too much mana regen BASED on our Rains so we are using our level 100 Gather spell because they refused to give us a level 105 one again BASED on our rain mana consumption. One of the most illogical changes this game has made in awhile.

This is about what I was seeing too. Even with the changes to crit damage mods and our passive crit damage mod, it was looking like a ~44.4% decrease in rain DPS on a burn (and I was generally seeing 37-49% depending on the various mods). So even with the gains it's still a huge loss.

No matter how to slice it, no matter *who* is responsible, they completely *screwed* mages. Don't forgot the completely stupid changes they made to 1st spire... Even less for us to stack. It will be great fun watching the wizzies break 400k while mages are trying to out parse melee.

*GREAT GOING DEVS* Yet another patch made without a single bit of talking to mages / testing / research / care how it would impact casters. This will end up just as bad as the stupid pallie AA that was put in and then had to be pulled, all cause nobody bothered to really test it before hand.

And don't tell me "gee, thats why its on test!". Some things are so *stupid* they should never even make it to test. Doesn't take much to see how poor a choice this one was. I wish I could say I'm surprised but honestly who doesn't expect poor choices in EQ anymore.

If they push even 1/2 of this *crap* live it will be patch after patch after patch cause you know very well they will *never* get this right without days and days of downtime. They have a proven track record in this regard.

This crap gets old. Very old, so sick of always having to get the devs to fix all the stupid choices they make, while things that are completely broken get ignored. Much like this thread, so nice to see all the DBG comments. *sigh*

Savil

Maybe this is where they want mages?

Reminder, this is the only dev response we've gotten on this issue:

You guys just haven't gotten to EXPERIENCE this nerf on live. Once that happens, you'll love the lower pressure and expectations of having your main dps line getting a 45% reduction!

Pretty much what Pie is stating..If they increase the damage done by rains but lower the crit chance so much that we barley ever hit max dmg on them, there's no point in even increasing said damage. Gimmicks?

What really gets me is Magician's can't nuke for a mill +, our spire is complete crap compared to let's say a Wizards. We have to put in some serious work to get top 5 positions and that's at the expense of our lives sometimes due to how rains work and the risk vs reward of using them. This re balancing ( nerf ) is completely uncalled for and not warranted. I'm not placing blame on anyone, but if the numbers in this thread are correct regarding the situation of what rains will be, there's a serious issue here.

Of course I highly doubt the devs or mods even check this thread to see what we say, or care what we say. They've already decided obviously, I only hope they reconsider what their doing to high end raiding Mages before they put these change live.