oh well if we can't get a fix, ill join the mass Exodus that left with rift and again with GW2 and try to forget how much time and effort i wasted in this game.
This is among the best written posts ever seen on these forums- it clearly explains some primary issues and lots of good suggestions for change.Yet here we are almost 2 months since it was started and not a single SOE response. Awesome.
To be fair, Kander and I have messaged a few times and I get the impression a lot of this is going to be considered, but that they need some time on it. At least that is my impression.
If you can, put it in his ear that the right side should be the best line for warlocks not the left. We aren't wizards. Would love to know why its 150 for wizs but 180 for locks too lol. make it 120 and increase the dmg on those nukes and its a pretty sweet line. Also given how little SDA there is in game, they REALLY should lift the cap on it so overlapping time warps and focused castings aren't a waste of dps. it wouldn't be an issue of overpowered as all it does is negate us from wasting SDA duration. It's a handicap that no other class has to deal with as far as time warp timings. As if that wasn't a pain in itself.
If they uncap SDA it will most likely lead to it being itemized more, which would probably lead to a certain amount of balancing issues. Would rather a change to pre mod damage, meaning that regardless of itemization it would stay as a viable ability. The only problem would be if there's even more stat inflation it may become straight up OP. Sometimes I look back to GU60 and wonder if the crutch to fix us then was really worth the long term balancing issues. More SDA also ignores the fact that the current "big" upgrades from HM Gen'Ra and the duos ring are all about adding more ability mod, a stat that is ingored when calculating doublecasts, so it would likely lag behind the gear upgrades a bit. Also I'd like to see the right side increment requirement come down to 150 but I don't want it as the natural side for us to be on because of the clunkyness of how it plays. Waiting on increments to cast spells and holding back ultimately losing dps then waiting for a timewarp for the nuke/aoe because you don't want to not double it making you lose even more dps and it just feels so weird. The entire concept is something I don't like. Right side has become the wizard side because of the comparitive poor performance of their left side along with having better aoes that instant cast on right side (their blast is better than ours because they can put heroic aa in it while we essentially must plaguebringer enchancement instead). Compared with the damage noxious influx actually puts out and how useful the 18% duration buff is I think a change to 150 will still leave most on the left side, which is fine. Honestly though at this point I'd be fine settling for maintained gift.
Totally agree that right side should be the way to go, we are (supposed to at least) be AOE specialists, that's what set us aside from Wizards and made me betray years ago, mass AOE damage untouchable by any other class. Reducing the increments to 120 is a no brainer, also why have the insta cast of rift and apocalypse at full increments when you are about to blow them all anyway? Makes much more sense to have insta cast rift and make apoc cast just a little faster than current or lower the reuse. Nobody want's to see a reduction to the left side, we just want the right side to be 'as good' . .
make gift maintained as part of the middle option at third rank. Drop the increments to 120 or 150, though personally i believe it should be 120 unless.... instead of the apoc/rift increment change, make it a passive 50% base reduction on blues/greens. It's supposed to be an aoe side right? so make it affect all of the group oriented stuff. Though if they did that i'd say 150 would be fine with increments. Also this would still go along with the fact they should make the greens optional area of target blues. I still say make the myth dmg passive on those spells flat out, and the clickie a blue toggle.
I. Make all spells and abilities on the warlock (TBAOE) aka Light green-Target based AOE's reason 1. warlock can maintain there range yet still put out aoe dmg 2. converts group target abilites and blue aoe's , single target red abilities also converted to TBAOE ...usless abilities if your a squishy. 3. make negative void effect all AOE abilities to reflect changes here. II. Prestige lines should be split down for group buffs,spell multi cast, proc's, negative void effects-beneficial on one side and aoe dps increases (rift, apocalypse, absorption, dark nebula,(once converted acid,dark pyre) on the other side .end line take off the group buff proc and add a double spell cast ability that lasts 15 secs for all spells. this might put us back up over the beastlords and rangers where we really should be on parse.
Group Dependency:_((((----Way more than any other class!!!!! Problem 2: The other 3 mages cannot so easily have their personal biggest way to spike dps ruined like Warlocks can with Time Warp miscommunication. As a result, on a given night the parse is likely to include multiple inadvertent overlaps of Focused Casting and Time Warp. This is why adjusting Focused Casting to be +100% to pre-modified base makes sense. Better solution TimeWarp a POT buff procs every 2mins last for 10 seconds. your maintaining your own dps by watching the buff and you can then see when to hit focus casting for 10 more seconds Bad/Broken Spells: List: Absolution: Cast time makes it almost never usable ( this should be Target based aoe/ added: 30% chance to trigger Appocalyptic Plague (appocalypse dot effects)) Dissolve: Never worth casting (honestly, we're ok with this) (Change to Target based AoE Dot=Initial dmg) Dark Infestation: If Dark Broodlings are triggered, the DOT portion fails to keep ticking. (Change: TBAOE / broodlings proc dots on hits stacking like splurt) Dark Nebula: Practically never worth casting (Change to Target based AoE Dot=Initial dmg, reduce cast time in half) Rift: Only worth casting to someone spec'd right side prestige. (add double tox count to aftershocks) Distortion: Only worth casting to someone spec'd left side prestige. (Change to Target based AoE with Dot=Initial dmg) Flames of Velious: Only worth casting to someone spec'd left side prestige. (Change to Target based AoE buffs mob with a proc that continues cold dmg for every hit it takes for 10sec's) Master's Strike: Never worth using, despite having to earn. (Warlocks AND Wizards) (add effect / unresistant stun effect insta click utility for interruptions) Static Discharge: Never worth using. (AOE stun effect added / dehate) Encase: Only worth casting as rare filler if spec'd right side prestige. (TBAOE ) My recommendations: Make Negative Void Effect all Light Green Target Based AOE's Convert all (GTAOE's) Group Target aoes' into Target Based AoE's (TBAOE) Convert all PBAOE's (Blues) into (TBAOE's) Convert Curse of Void, Vacuum field, Dark Siphoning, Dark Pyre, Acid, Distortion, Encase into (TBAOE) Make Cataclysm dmg double every tick.or (Splurt) add temp potency siphon effect to Dark Siphoning Eternal Damnation add effect debuff noxious. double the dmg on all Nihilistic RIFT- i think rift should be a VOID style spell it should stun distort and damage the enemy kinda like it does....i like the first change to the effect but it got changed back to the lame earthquake. the after shocks need have a reaccuring CHANCE to Trigger all Procs 100% for the duration of the aftershocks this would trigger alot more tox effects., Darkagrovations needs a slight change - when a mob becomes infected and DA hits the mob the aoe portion needs to trigger off of the inital hits- the major change that needs to happen here is, the proc from the initial hit needs to infect any surrounding mobs with dark incubation's once triggered you can then hit all the mobs and keeps spreading like the raid mob curses. Master strike should have been Called Mages Strike AOE for of int / 2 * lvl base dmg to make the ability lvl based and stat based progressive spell. Propagation- add effect that all spells triggered do adittional poison dmg Agonizing death should be percentage based dmg 25%/ 50% / 75% and below 10%=100% grasp and shrouds of bertox Curse of darkness aa lines should max out at 20% Curse of darkness aa need to have the casting speed reduction 10% per point. the Focused Catalyst aa; my idea was a little different than yours for me i was thinking something more like this. ---------Catalyst------- improves the critical multiplier of spells by 25% for the next 3sec's Makes caster always do critical dmg on spell attacks for the next 3 sec's ----------Focused Catalyst-------- Reduces resistability of all spells by 20% for the next 3 sec's Next spell cast will do max critical dmg. Stat Progression: what i see- my scout classes have quik fast casting fast recovering abilities that do alot of dmg. combined with OP autoattack and benifits from Stats to multi-attack and flurry. they put up 5 to 1 hits comparably, our Damage on abilities should compensate for having longer cast / reuse / recovery times. Another issue i have is "Reality Check" -how is a ranger shooting 1 arrow and hiting 15 mobs? come on get real stop drinking that big glass of ******. - If im fighting with a short sword and dagger im not going to be hitting anymore than 3-4 people. ( this was always the roll of magic to do mass attacks, Wizards and sorcers alike where to be feared but frail) Solutions that i agree with you on Gift of Bertoxxulous: Make it maintained. The buff does minimal damage, so casting it over and over becomes tedious for minimal benefit, especially since it doesn't proc on all our spells anyhow. Furthermore, change Gift of Bertoxxulous's damage to be = to 1/2 our intelligence, and proc on all noxious spells. This would make it tie it in directly with stat growth, and would be useful in all scenarios. Curse of Darkness, Netherealm, Eternal Damnation: Cut the cast times in half for our temp buffs. These are meant to be able to be used mid-fight, but the duration on them takes too long to be worth using most of the time. They are meant to be great if used at the right time, but right now, they take so long that they should only be used pre-pull. Additional Solution: To share the wealth, make the duration of the Warlock/Wizard buffs on the left side prestige last for 45 seconds instead of 30. This allows for a more free-flow playstyle while not impacting dps very much. Get Absolution's base cast time changed to 3 seconds (meaning 1.5 w/ 100 cast speed).. Lastly, a few other ideas for a few of our endlines that don't work well: Change Volatility to make Aura of Void apply as an 8-target AOE instead of the +/- range oddity that Volatility currently is... it has been tested consistently that this does not work on Raid Mobs as advertised. In addition, casting Aura of Void does not trigger increments on the right side prestige. It should. A similar fix to a spell that wasn't working like that was given to Wizards. Volitality is awesome to bad there is not enough points to sacrifice to get that option. and get the respective other options that are available. Change Aftershocks to give all Warlock damage over time spells an "aftershock" that is proportionate to the power of the spell that triggers once the spell expires naturally or TWICE if it is cured. This would help balance our dps against the rest of T1 dps that don't suffer from mobs that cure. Obviously for PVE only. This would be a great idea as long as the dot is reset as if it was just recast, otherwhise we will still have alot of broke down dps from dot dmg being distorted.
From NUNE / eqflames "There are a few more things you should know about ability mod: First of all, our green and blue spells only benefit from 1/3rd of our total ability mod. However, using the myth clicky to turn our greens into single-target spells will allow them to benefit from all of our ability mod instead. Dark Siphoning behaves a little different from the rest, in that with our myth unclicked, it receives only 1/6th of our ability mod. Our temp procs don't benefit from ability mod at all." Maybe this Could Be a major fix for the warlock make all of our abilities actually use ability Mod Like everyone else.
Don't worry, as other classes get more and more from gear and warlocks start to fall off more and more we'll get some huge crutch ability to make us even for a few more game updates. Go go GU60-esk buff.
what pisses me off the most is not even a response they read the tittle and laugh as they read on to the next thread....ive decided that id rather move on than make an account with nothing but scouts and berzerkers oh and one necromancer, in 2 months my 6 month subscription will be out and ill go find another game to play, like many i have played this game for a long time and hate switching games and leaving guilds i have grown fond of but it seems to me that the devs have a class they play and they are very partisan to that class in every way. this is in the top discussions on the forums yet NO DEV has even read this thread or doesn't want to respond in the matter that nothing is going to be done and everyone /rage quits.
Mog said that he was in conversation with them but i haven't seen anything on test that reflects anything being done to address well anything. What would be amazing, and quite simple, was if they just posted saying they were looking into things and wanted more direct feedback and explanations to justify such feedback, and just picked a time on test to converse with people who play and understand the issues. obviously they couldn't talk to everybody forever about everything but its not rocket science as to who the old knowledgeable players are. people like Mog know the issues and why they are issues and can articulate them and the reasons why in a manner where a lot of good could be done, IF SOE actually made that kind of an effort. edit* More than anything if they address stuff, i really want them to fix things and not band-aide again like they did with PB. UT needs to be addressed more than anything imo. the dependency on that buff is way out of control. Fixing the issues would be far better than them just beefing something up to an op like status to make up for a broken class. It would also save them issues in the future.
as i understood it, the next big revamp is going to be to the outdated AA trees and it's coming this winter or something. expecting to see anything before that is just building castles in the sky.
Next big thing is EQ-Next, which is why, in my opinion, these things aren't being addressed. The "A" team is working on that while we wait and wait.
okay been playing around with these dumbfire pets since they did get an update...the reason the dark infestation dot kills off when the minions pop is because the ability changes they radiate an aoe from them and apparently according to the number of targets recorded taking damage its a triggered aura that radiates from them(kind of like eternal damnation im thinking) regardless they make your Curse of darkness and Eternal Damnation put up some decent numbers for about 10 sec's or so. i have a recorded 12 target hits while my aura's where up and did some decent dps but puts us no where near where we NEED to be.. SOOO basically our usual rotation for dps boost is now our only dps, upfront dps is 3 xpacs behind and dynamics and rotations are jacked up because of conflix with FC and short timers on the aura's. If they want us to be all trigger damage than dump all our spells except aura's and trigger spells and extend the aura's where they are maintained buffs.
