Focused Feedback - Mages

Enchanter

Base Weapon Damage

Enchanters base weapon damage is lower then all other mages and scouts in game. All scouts have a base of 2.0 for both melee and ranged with no AA spent to enhance it. Summoners and Sorcerers have a base of 1.0 for melee and 2.0 for ranged. Enchanter have a base of 1.0 for both melee and ranged with no AA spent to enhance.

Purposed Change - Raise ranged base to 2.0 as was done for Summoners and Sorcerers. Change the base melee modifier on the AA Quickening to add 1.0 for any enchanter out there still interested in melee (I don't see the point but I am sure there are some enchanters out there that still wish to melee. Perhaps it would be appealing to a coercer depending on group set up, I can not say for sure I play an Illusionist.)

Reasons for this change - With the launch of ToV summoners and sorcerers had their base ranged damage raised up to 2.0. One would assume this was done to make gear with WDB/SWDB a viable option for them. So gear that grants WDB/SWDB will be 100% less valuable to enchanters then it is to any other mage or scout class in the game. Don't get me wrong it will still be a nice stat to have, but do to the fact that we are working off a lower base it will be twice as nice for every other mage and scout class in the game.

Enchanter Vigor & Other Buffs

On the beta forums there were a few players proclaiming doom and gloom, and the death of enchanters as a desirable class for the top 25 raid forces in game. I think we still be able to hold our own and when played well and be desirable. However some of our buffs have been outgrown, some are totally useless. What follows is just a few questions, and/or suggestions about some of the buffs we bring to the group.

1. Enchanted Vigor - Make it group wide? This would free up a charm slot for all classes who currently use it. Sometimes I find myself searching for a target to cast it on. Sometimes the highest DPS class in my group has no alternative charm... for shame!
2. Illusionary Arms - Add 5 Flurry? 25 DPS mod is so miniscule. (Illusionist)
3. Channeled Focus - I don't know where to begin with this one. Even if it had a reasonable recast time I don't think I would spend the AA points to unlock it.
4. Mana Flow - Remove the 10% health sacrifice. In most fights power is not an issue. In the few fights that it is, this spell outright kills the enchanter. In the Klandicar encounter it possibly wipes the raid.

Gnomad ~ Crushbone

Re Channeled Focus:

I.... am torn on this. With all the damage procs channeled focus can be amazing when you cast it. It can but upwards of a 15% DPS increase for those 30 seconds for that group. (Note: Would have to do actual math to see where it's at right now. Last time I ran the numbers it was 13.3333333% increase with back of the envelope math for my raid group make up when cast on the mage group. Some people assure me that it can be close to a 40% increase.)

It can also be barely noticeable. It depends on what the gear is, what group it's cast on, the make up of said group, and all that.

Also I don't feel that using it JUST for the increase trigger percentage is a good use for it. At least they fixed the mana reduction formula so it does something on power drain fights and lets you cast with 0 mana.

It really does need to be looked at as proc chance is the only reason I'd run it. I am also unsure if the increase to procs happens all the time or not.

• Illusionist:

As Gnomad said above, increase the base spell weapon damage to 2.0 to be inline with all other mages, bards, etc. This is quite the easy fix and I have no idea why it hasn't been done yet, or even to begin with. For the most part enchanter spell DPS is fine and doesn't need any adjustment but melee/ranged DPS should be in line with all other classes. The only exception to this is that our abilities should benefit from double cast. Please make it so that abilities such as Theorems, Prismatic Chaos, Psychic Trauma, etc have the ability to double cast (gain increased triggers, etc). My biggest problem with enchanters this xpac (and last) is their utter lack of utility. The only purpose of enchanters anymore is as a mana battery, and I'm sorry, but I'd like to have more utility than just pumping out power.

Enchanter AA tree: I know that not everything is geared towards end game players, however, at any level there is no reason to spend more than 50-60 points in this entire tree and that is on the high side, the only line really worth taking in this is the INT line. AGI line is ok, but spending 23 AA's to get a 2-3 point increase in spell double attack is kind of extreme. Please really consider looking into revamping this entire tree.

Illusionist tree: For the most part I'm ok with this tree. I would like to see some specific changes to the following abilities though:

• Time Warp: At end game this ability is greatly diminished. Hell it was diminished in ToV. It's to the point where a mage group will be fine not having an illusionist in the group. My recommendation for this ability would be for it to trigger a drastic increase in fabled/mythical crits for the 5 seconds that it is up. This can be coded so that it only affects level 100 players, so that level 25's with 340 AA's aren't affected by it.
• Time Compression: Again, this has no affect on end game mages who have already min/max'd their stats. Please consider adding some other type of utility to this to make it worth casting on mage's again. Also consider allowing the Illusionist to cast this on themselves.
• Arms of Imagination: Everyone runs the screams of battle rune, so again this ability is pointless, I find myself just throwing it on my toon during raid/groups as it doesn't really benefit anyone wearing the rune. My recommendation would be to up the stats on it to make it better than the rune and have people actually want it cast on them, or to allow it to stack with the rune.
• Illusory Arm: this isn't even worth taking. An entire 25 DPS to one person in group? Please consider coming up with a new ability to replace this.
• Illusory Instigation: Have this be an 'until canceled' ability. As of right now everyone wants coercer's in groups simply for their hate. Making this an until canceled ability would make illusionists sought after for both groups and raids. I would even be willing to free up a concentration slot for this.

The rest of the tree's are decent. The following spells/abilities need to be looked at:

• Spellshield: I know people took advantage of this and exploited a lot of names in the early days of EQ2 so it was extremely nerfed; to the point where it is absolutely worthless (aside from in BG's). Please consider revamping this ability. It doesn't need to be a reflect as it is now, but can easily become something else, such as a 20% damage reduction to spell damage for a set period of time for the group.. or even an individual.. anything would make it more useful than it is now and worth casting.
• Chromatic Storm: With interrupts being so important both this xpac and last, please move the interrupt portion of this ability to be when it's cast, not when the DoT expires. As is now, it's pretty much impossible to time it for when the mob cast's their abilities that you're trying to interrupt. A far better fix would be to remove it from this ability all together and place it on Ultraviolet Beam.
• Illusory Allies: Please consider making this a swarm pet. It doesn't have to be a mimic, but a swarm pet would be nice. As it is now, pretty much pointless to cast. Another fix would simply have it be an AE mem wipe to help with tank swaps, without the mob jumping around killing people for 15s.
• Personae Reflection: Right now our pets are getting owned pretty badly, in groups and raids.. pets need to share the owners resists, or be immune to some of these monster, always on, AE's that so many bosses have. Additionally, the pet should share the crit chance of the owner.
• Synergism: With the extreme amounts of hate being generated, the detaunt proc on this is incredibly negligible. Please consider making this a constant dehate (-20 hate generation).. or better yet, whenever it procs have it drop the persons hate position by 1-2 slots.
• Flash of Brilliance: With the prestige ability and the character development ability this grants over 500 STR, AGI and WIS for the group, however, it only grants 154 INT for the group.. please up the INT increase to equal the other attributes that it buffs. Same with the casting skills, they should equal the melee skill increases and right now they're about half of that.
• Enchanted Vigor: Like mentioned above, turn this into a group ability. While on the surface that may seem OP, in the end *all* it will end up doing is free up a charm slot, b/c everyone wears the charm anyway.

This is what I think short and simple:

Give chanters more dps cuz their utility isn't good enough anymore to choose one instead of an Xtra T1 dps.

Make wizzies a bit more balanced in terms of AE vs ST dps. Its all about increments and FB atm and it gets very, very.. Yawn... Boring!

Warlocks are fun and fine (mostly) IMHO.

Can't say nothing bout summoners cuz I never played one higher then 30 and that was 8-9 years ago ;P

i'd like to disagree with the notion that Time Warp has become obsolete. Our guild finished #41 in ToV progression - we didn't kill Zlandicar, but killed all of the contested mobs and killed Fitz in Fabled DT. We did not kill any avatars because frankly we won't do a call list and we can't have enough people on outside of raid. We've killed 3 names so far in AoM and currently sit at #30.

Time Warp is still NECESSARY in our mage group, and I've got to believe that's the case for many other guilds that aren't in the top 20.

I never said it was completely obsolete.. I said the utility of it was greatly diminished.. this is true even for a #41 guild that killed all but Zlandicar.. in that type of guild I guarantee your mage's were running at least a 50-65% spell double attack. If the average mage cast 3.. hell lets say 4 spells during the 5 seconds that TW is up and lets say they're running 50% SDA... Is having 2 extra spells double cast every minute greater than bringing in another sorcerer? Unfortunately the answer is no. At this point in the game, the only good utility an illy brings to a mage group (aside from being a mana battery) is peace of mind.

I raid both illy and coercer and I agree with Gnomad on most points. The one thing I will disagree about is on mana flow. I don't think the health sacrifice is significant at all. The problem with fights like Klandi is the power sacrifice. The effect on that fight makes you take something like 400% damage for all power consumed so that the power sacrifice one-shots you. If I was going to ask for it to be changed I'd say drop the power sacrifice. If anything I'd leave it as requiring 10% of power to be available, but not actually consume it. With such a long recast it's not like the actual power sacrifice is a detriment.

As to Laita, I disagree on more points than not. I highlighted points I agree for clarity's sake.

• Enchanter tree. INT line is a given but STR line is awesome. Before the expansion Counterblade was in the top 5 best abilities. Also, despite me specc'ing out of it over and over I keep coming back to the STA line as well because Sever Hate and Respite as so freaking useful. In the very least you should have a spec with it to swap into.
• I agree with Herem in that TW is still awesome. It's all about GUARANTEED double cast. There are spells that are so significant that making sure they are doubled is still 100% worth it.
• Time Compression is awkward I agree. Maybe just cast on self and be done with it.
• Arms of Imagination: Again I disagree. It is better for yourself to cast this on yourself and get a different rune with stats you couldn't get with 5 more AAs to spend elsewhere (like bolster)
• Illusory arm: Agreed. This has been changed multiple times and it's been left as a crappy buff.
• Illusory Instigation: Disagree on this as well. For a single AA it's a cheap option. And while it's not as effective as a coercer hate buff, you can put it in the time warp rotation as you time your first doublecast and thus guarantee some extra hate for the tank while your group's DPS is temporarily increased. I'm not sure it'd be balanced to make it a permanent buff without it costing more than 1 AA, and if it cost 5 I'm not sure it'd be worth it.
• Spellshield: Again disagree. There is already a conversion to 20% damage reduction in the Prestige line in the form of Illusory Barrier so I don't see a need to provide another way to obtain the same thing.
• Chromatic Storm: This needs no change that I can think of. Our interrupt Spellblade Counter is one of the best of any class. A single illy can keep the important interrupt encounters from casting the interruptible spells even in hard fights like Fitz. Even if Chromatic Storm interrupted at the beginning, with 1 second cast time you're going to miss it unless the spell's cast time was so long that any class could interrupt just as well.
• Illusory Allies: Again disagree. While this has very, VERY unique scenarios where it is useful, the fact that we have it and it works the way it does has been the key to defeating some very hard fights. It is a hard spell to appreciate because the description doesn't do it justice to what the actual effect is. It is worth giving it a second look, though.
• Personae Reflection: Yeah, our pet is kinda weenie. It may not be a bad idea to have a deeper look at its survivability.
• Synergism: While I can see your point, this is an awesome spell. I am not sure that I would be willing to have its threat proc be changed to hate or positions if it meant losing some of its pluses. To be honest, I consider it a DPS buff, the threat part is just candy.
• Flash of Brilliance: I suspect you haven't masted this spell. The skills should be the same at master level. The Int is indeed half of the other stats. It wouldn't be bad to have that upped to match for sure. But since it's such a great spell I'm not sure I'd be calling for it to be revised.
• Enchanter Vigor: Yeah... having everybody wear the charm made it very odd. Selling the charm for etyma made that even worse.

The TL;DR version: What Gnomad said plus check pet survivability and allow Time Compression on self or re-balance its stats.

As to coercers, the very sad truth: the only good thing about the class is being able to make pets that look like awesome monsters. Almost none of the DPS comes from spells to grandmaster upgrades are pointless (and more and more it all comes from melee, making this class a scout in cloth.) The hate buffs are not as useful as people think when it's all said and done. And now that we can't power feed two groups at once (which they say now was not an intended feature) then they are not any better at feeding power than a good illy. Granted, the power rewards are a little quicker. But in my opinion this class could be replaced with a hate transfer potion from the marketplace and nobody would miss them.

Necromancer.

Lifeburn is horrid as it doesnt scale with cb/pot, a fast fix for this would be good as we suffer from the lack of DPS atm due to this.

Other than the mage pet are rather useless.

Vampic orb needs it damage to go up and larger a AE range.

Siphoning soul item: Only one is usefull as utility, the tank one. The pet was decent havent tried it in a long time though. The AE one needs 10 charges 3 simply isnt enough and 10 is still low if you are in a group that needs to AE alot, the damage isnt high.

And, why not put Siphoning soul into another abilty so we dont have to cast it, make it a proc or flat effect in another ability we use alot?

Aa issues have been mentioned, but "Unda spiritus arcanus" (our end prestige line in aom) is a bit odd. Remove the range req for max damage, and, the damage is a bit low. The reason to remove the range req for max damage is that you dont always have 20 meters, in raids you may be forced to stay up the nameds ****, or between 9-17 meters, and there may not be room to get to 20 meter range. That function needs to go away.

Old Prestige: I kinda need 3-4 more points to spend there. Reason, we all take CB to pot, and pot to cb on each side. Wanting Rot flesh to get 100% increased duration would force us not to have 40-70 CB (depending on gear) from other side which is alot. Those 3 points can do alot, just dont allow us to go past the stat converter on both sides at the same time, easy balanced there.

New prestige: 8 CB increase for 8 points isnt alot, could use more.

Not unda spiritus arcanus but the other end line (tired so dont remember) doesnt do enough damage imo, well also unda spiritus arcanus, hehe

In general I think Necromancer's abilities lack a bit due too smaller damage pr tick instead of a bigger hit, ie soulrot and others. This makes our ability mod not working as much as other classes even with good pot (hm good pot hehe) A fix can be less ticks but higher damage pr tick so it does the same damage and same duration. But first fix lifeburn please

Unda Spiritus Arcanus is amazing and doesn't need to be changed. The range requirement means you have to actually use a bit of strategy for your damage. The only thing that it needs is a fix to how it goes on cooldown if you are out of range and it doesn't hit anything. It is essentially an AOE so it should function similarly when no targets are hit.

The new prestige gives 8% of your CB earned through items and spells, not just 8 CB. The 3% base pot for each orb could be more damage, but I think it is mainly a buff.

Necromancers don't need ability mod as much as other mages, which makes doublecast more useful to them as they pretty much get the full damage. Soulrot is one of the only mage spells (on the 1.5 second reuse) that is actually worth using, and is frequently one of the top damage of a necromancer on single target. Their dots don't need to hit harder or else they'll be just like other direct damage mages. Lifeburn, Siphoning of Souls, Vampirism, and Undead Horde need some help though.

Just a heads up: We'll be keeping these threads open until January 5th. After that point, we'll be locking the threads and moving on to the next phase!

Fine, but could you fix lifeburn before next year please?

Thanks for the heads up. So can we expect to see changes made as a result of the feedback in early January if all goes well?

Some people may not agree with me but I really don't mind that it goes into a cool down if you cast it at 21 meters and it hits nothing. It rewards you greatly for casting it at 20 meters, and will hit any hostile target you are engaged with 20 meters and under. I don't mind the fact that you squander it if you step back a little too far or mob gets repositioned out of Undas range. Just my opinion.

I would like to see the numbers i can get with an increase to my auto attack.

The damage is low? lolwut. The damage is amazing. The spell is borderline OP really. There is only one issue with it, and that is what I posted before. It goes down even when it hits nothing. It does not need to be changed, with exception to that.

Though I would like to know the modifier based on the range. It just says "increases with range," some elaboration would be nice.

True, but then they should do that with AOEs too.

From the beta forums:

Int Mult: floor((log2(int) * .28 - 1.2) * 100 )/ 100
Range Mult: 1 + (range/20), max of 2

(2750 * intmult) * range_mult
Then it goes into the potency/critbonus equations.

2750 = 5500, as that was posted before Mr. Xelgad upped the base damage.

Conjuror

A few other things that have come to mind. Others have posted about them, but I'd like to throw in my own opinion.

Plane Shift:
As the spell sits now, I only precast on pull mainly out of habit. Its not a game changer what-so-ever. In longer fights, when there is an opportunity to use it again, I don't bother. It takes way too long to cast, and for what? 30% potency and barely noticeable (~10k) increase to health (mainly for Soulburn purposes..lol)? The 76.8% attack speed is literally useless and the 76.8% casting speed is only *kinda* effected since diminishing returns. The CC only became *kinda* useful for AoM, but with food giving ~180, 76 is a bit underwhelming. Make the potency increase modify base potency so it will scale properly. Make the max health a % increase (25% maybe? Though I think scaling with %max health increases are broken), which will also help it scale properly. Make the 6 min (modified) recast justified.

Teamwork:
There used to be a debate on whether or not this was worth it. Its completely laughable now and I cant see why anyone would spec into it. Since the mage pet is the only pet worth using, I'll only discuss that aspect of it. 5% potency to the group is bad and extremely outdated. Change this to modify base potency, and allow it to scale properly.

Reanimate:
Only issue I have with this is that if the summoner dies, and gets revived (the pet doesn't die), it pops the trigger of this. Would be nice if it didn't do this.

Fire Seed:
The damage on this is really really bad. I only really cast them now because I'm OCD and don't like it when my concentration isn't full. Did an amazing 16k DPS on an encounter tonight (on me, 11k on the scout I put it on.) So guud. Maybe put some sort of buff on it, maybe DPS mod? Just because the damage is crap, doesn't mean it can't be made useful.

Flameshield:
I put this on the tank tonight just for the luls. It did a whopping 3.5k DPS. OP. Maybe put a resist buff, or a mitigation buff,or a STA buff attached to it. The damage is crap, but that doesnt mean it can't be made useful without doing much to the damage.

Planar Detonation:
Sometimes triggers in situations in which you don't want AE to fire. Can it be made to disable the AE while singular focus is active (and still hit single target)? Feels like a waste to toggle it off. This isn't something that is a major issue, there is only a couple times I can remember that it was an issue, but that time *did* happen.

Winds of Velious:
Sometimes this just bugs out. I'm not exactly sure what causes it, because I've seen it in a lot, and can't tie it to any particular one situation. It seems to happen when either I die when its active on a mob and then the mob dies before I am revived. Sometimes when I revive after dying while it is active. Sometimes when the mob dies within a second or two of my applying it. Basically it goes grey (like the spell is active on a mob) and isn't usable. I try toggling it off and nothing. Camping out and logging back on generally seems to solve the issue. Its not just the icon in my hotbar, I tried going into my spellbook to toggle it off too and nothing. Pretty sure I've /bug this a couple of times.

Antagonize:
The pet offensive stance is so bad I can't believe they justified giving us a level 98 upgrade. The level 98 Grandmaster gives the pet 8.7% potency, and auto attack skills (major luls). Once again, make the spell so it modifies base potency so that this is at least somewhat useful again. Most of us are still using the Grandmaster Level 14 Defensive stance, which is very indicative of how broken stances are.

Fire From Within:
The group "buff" that is cast by the pet. With 8 points into Cabalist's Aura, which increases the gains to health and potency by 80%, this "buff" gives the group/raid 5.4% max health, 5% effectiveness of worn armor against physical, and 5.4% potency. The max health increase I think is enough, the mitigation increase is alright, but would be nice to get nox, arcane, and elemental on that (though that is a little bit too much.) The potency, once again, is outdated. Once again, change this to modify base potency so it scales better.

Petrify:
I can't think of a Conjy that has this on their hotbar, let alone uses this spell. Its notoriously bad. It has a 1.5 second cast time, and a *gasp* 22.5 second recast (all modified.) It does less damage than just about every single target spell we have (on par with a tick of our DoT's) takes forever to cast and the recast is ridiculous. Cut the cast time down to something like 0.5 seconds base, up the damage (dare I say at least triple?) and cut the recast down to a base of 5 or so seconds.

The following I already posted in another post, but I’ll put it here too so it’s all in one place.

Dumbfires:
When they are cast on a mob and the mob dies, they despawn. They are simply a DoT at best, yet they are able to die (which makes them quite inefficient in comparison.) Make them stick around for their whole duration, and move onto another mob. This is particularly evident with Communion because the pets stick around after the mob dies and just run back to the summoner and wait there for the duration of the spell and despawn. Non-direct AE damage avoidance would be nice too.

Heal Servant:

Can we add a cure curse to this? There are curses that can apply to the pet that tick damage, that make babysitting the pet quite annoying. No healer is ever going to waste a cure curse on a pet (as they shouldnt) so a cure curse attached to the heal (that already cures everything else) would be nice.

That's it for now. TL;DR wahh wahh I'm a whiny Mage.

Another thing about Lifeburn.

The constant AoE damage from nameds kinda ruin the purpose of having life to burn, it kills necros trying to do so an dtake out the effectivenes of lifeburn.

Even though you only have 320 AA you are able to put points into your Dragon Tree. If you're having trouble with any of the zones you can make them much easier for you. In the second Dragon Tree line there is a death save at the bottom. You'll need to put enough points in to be able to take that one, and you can max out the regen ward. Then if you can manage the points to do it, you'll want to get Convert Power (pop it when your health gets low and hit mana flow to keep your mana up - rinse repeat). You can then also manage the rest of your points, giving up some DPS, to get very defensive instead. That way you can mostly take care of yourself and your pally merc can take care of himself. Or, you can use a healer that isn't attacking and just use your pet and you to kill the mobs.

Also, use the quest jewelry and adorns to make sure you have the resists that you need for the zones - that way you'll take less damage.