Hmm, LU 24 looks like it will be..... interesting....

I would tend to agree, at least with current play styles.

Here's a follow up report of the changes on the test server. Nearly everything is the same as the last time I posted screen shots here.


The only changes are that the effect on epic targets is listed explicitly instead of 66.7% reduced, i.e. for Cheap Shot the description says "Duration is reduced to 0.7 seconds against Epic targets." and the duration of Lanet's Excruciating Scream is reduced from 8 seconds to 7 seconds (Duration is 2.3s against Epic targets and they gain a 21s immunity to Daze effects.)


Currently the Daze on our Lanet's Excruciating Scream works like this:
It does not interrupt, so if a MOB is casting it will finish casting.
It prevents a MOB from doing everything except moving. They cannot attack you, use any CAs, or spells.
It does not break. You can attack the MOB for 7 seconds and it cannot fight back. (this is probably not intended)
Other spells that include the Daze effect (formerly called Pacify) like the Coercer's spell Hesitation, a root spell, state specifically that Daze is dispelled when the target takes damage.

Overall, Dirges are getting more crowd control than they had before. The root in Sapping Shot (6s), Garsin's fear (10s), and Lanet's daze (7s) gives us up to 23s that a MOB can be removed from a fight.

Please try it out on the test server if you want to see how it works in practice.


Othesus - Dirge - Lucan DLere
Vaspar - Fury - Lucan DLere

I thought Daze only prevented the mob from auto-attacking.... it also prevents the mob from using CAs and spells as well?

Do we know how much the Lanet's reduction is going to be? I see it as a nerf, pure and simple (IMHO) so thanks a bunch.

Currently pacify prevents mob from using CA's and spells and auto-attack. I play a guardian and a dirge, and as a Guardian I have a pacify attack - I love it cause it basically gives me a free time in which the mob won't hit me. I'm quite sure the current pacify attack (at least for some classes) doesn't break with damage. Because Lanets does the damage when the buff goes away I'm guessing we're seeing a similar thing. The daze won't break cause that would trigger the damage early.

SOE gave the Templar Pacify after LU15. I used it a lot, and it works exactly like a mezz....except the mob can walk.

As a Templar, between Pacify (now called Daze) and Stun, I could keep a mob locked down.

When using Pacify....if the mob took any damage, it would break the Pacify.

I am assuming that Daze will work the exact same way. This makes sense with Lanet's because at expiration, the mob takes damage. If it breaks early, no damage will be taken by mob (kinda stinks). That is how I am reading it, but I guess we wait to see what happens on the live servers. IT seems that it is bigged on Test.

I am curious as to why they are giving us more CC, and the Troub is getting nerf'd on CC. They need it more than us /shrug

As of right now, on test, no amount of damage breaks the Lanet's daze effect. It is literally free fighting time. The damage was reduced a lot, but it's hard for me to compare; my betabuffed dirge has a LOT less int due to the gear she's in. The damage is assessed a lot faster however, so there's going to be very few fights where you lose out on the damage you would have gotten from Lanet's; unlike now.
As for breaking and losing the time bomb: I doubt it. If Sony *does* intend for the daze to break, then they will likely treat the time bomb portion jast as they do the snare from our Verlien's line: One art puts two effects ont eh mob: one for the (breakable) snare component, one for the full duration disease mitigation debuff. Since they aren't currently doing so, I tentatively posit that they don't plan to do anything, and that Lanet's is actually going to remain as a 7(?) second unbreakable Daze... in which case I will be well repaid for the ~800 damage I'm currently missing from it (though *some* of that is the INT difference, which is marked, let me tell you).

The changes keep on coming! From Test Update, June 3, 2006:
http://patch.everquest2.com:7010/patch/eq2/motd/en/updates_test.html


*** Combat ***

- Armor procs and damage shields will no longer trigger until you fight back. (No more dropping buffs and changing pants to train through!)
Poisons:
- Increased effectiveness of poisons that decrease an attribute.
- Poisons can be dispelled.
- Damage over time poison deals damage up front. Damage per tick was reduced.
- Added flavor text to indicate when poisons land.

Scout changes:
- Ranger: Storm of Arrows: Can no longer be cast on the run.
- Dirge: Sapping Shot: Increased damage.
- Dirge: Death's Door: Grants a chance at causing reactive disease damage. (Death's Door? OH! That's our self AGI/INT buff-- even better for soloing)
- Troubador: Singing Shot: Increased damage.
- Troubador: Eli's Thunderous Hymn: Lowered reuse time to 5 seconds and increased damage.
- Troubador: Performer's Talent: Grants a chance at causing reactive mental damage.
- Troubador: Lullaby: Reuse set at 15 seconds.
- Troubador: Shrill: Reduced power cost.
- Troubador: Brilliant Blade: Removed power damage. Now reduces all spell resists on target.
- Troubador: Deafening Strike: Increased power damage.
- Troubador: Aria of Excitement: Procs cannot be outright resisted.
- Troubador: Lore's Shuddering: Burns health in addition to power for any ability used by the target.
- Troubador: Requiem of Reflection: Trigger percentages match dirge Percussion of Stone. Now non-profession spell damage is completely absorbed on a successful proc.

It looks like a lot of nice Troubador changes came through for our Troub brothers and sisters too.

Othesus - Dirge - Lucan DLere
Vaspar - Fury - Lucan DLere

is it only me that thinking that we dirges get the fu..ed up end of the line? lulaby reuse at 15 seconds and we get our garsin worktime halfed to 10 and reuse up from 30 to 40 seconds?

Yah, Im not normaly one to complain, but comparing some of the stuff they got vs what we have, I feel a bit slighted. In general I thought troubs had it a little bit better than us since they had charm and mez vs our fear (yes, I know we have rez, but I dont remember the last time rez helped me solo).

I dont have a lot to complain about about dirges, but I sorta feel like if they deserve tweaks, why dont we get any since were in about the same boat?


Edit:
Troubador: Eli's Thunderous Hymn: Lowered reuse time to 5 seconds and increased damage --- Especially this one. Correct me if im wrong, but I believe this is the equivilent of our Ludas. I would literally give my right arm for it to be reduced to 5 seconds, not even counting the increased damage.
Message Edited by Icarii_Raven`Lyon on 06-03-2006 04:55 PM

One of the more major changes for troubs is that they can now cast their mez on the run. Do you think they did the dsame for our fear?

Im happy for the troubies, that they have got some improvements, and am waiting for the dirge improvements to follow.

Sapping Shot
At fist glance having a Root on Sapping Shot seemed allot better than a power drain. However, adding Root will mean that we are unable to use any special bow attacks at all on raids (root messes up aggro). Additionally, the minimum range for attacking with bows means that the Root cannot be used as a means of backing off an opponent. This means that our special bow attack will only be useable when we our pulling ourselves in situations where we (i) any seeking to immeadiately move a mob away from potential adds; and (ii) we dont want to open up with a stealth attack. Whilst I can see situations where this will be of definate use, I would prefer to see the Root removed altogether in order to be able to squeeze in extra bow damage (however small that may be) during raids.

Deathbearer
The addition of a reactive disease proc is nice. However, if this is actually intented to help make up for poor DPS whilst soloing it needs a high proc chance (higher than the 15% I believe is currently on test). Obviously any improvement on what is (compared to other scout classes) a fairly weak self-buff is great and it is nice that the Devs are actually looking at this, but if this is our one shot improvement in the solo DPS line it would be nice to see a meaningful and smooth (i.e. higher proc rate over higher damage) damage increase.

Garsin's
I see that Troubadors will probably be able to cast mez on the move. It would be nice if Garsins could also be cast whilst moving.

Been playing around on test to see how things are with the AP and our skills. Was fiighting mostly the trash lvl 60-60 ^ and heroic grps of 3 ^ to test most of the changes. Checked out the new Cheep Shot changes on grey lvl 57 solo targets. Logged everything and then checked it all out in ACT. Also for the screen shots I had a STR of 314 and Int of 202 on test and 192 on Live.

Here is what I noticed.

Lanent's is now worth using in short fights because now it will go off. On longer fights we do lose out on damage and I see nothing that makes up for this at all. Foud this to do about 2%-6% of my DPS in my testing.

Jael's more damage is good, forgot to check its damage VS. Bow auto-atack though. The root is nice I was able to get off Jarol's, Banchee, Verlien's and then Luda's as the mob aproched, with a bow AA in there as well. One thing Im worried about is in what order does this attack do its thing? The description has it doing damage then applying the root then the second amt of damage. Now does that mean theres a chance that we can break the root wihen the second damage is applied?

Death Bearer has an intresting change I noticed it did between 3%-7% of my total DPS in short solo fights.

Fear well I dont use it on live and after playing with it and bugging it on test I gotta say its gor some pathing issues with mobs going under the world. I noticed one mob I feared ran into a river (thats ankel deep on my gnome) and was wait deep in the river.

Cheep Shot. that 4s blows! Found it much harder to get off shroud->Garisin's then Shrieking Stab. Hers the real problem with 4s CS, with out casting timer reductions Shroud takes 2s to cast Garsin's takes .5s then .5s recovery(were up to 3sec here) Shriking Stab is also .5sec to cast, .5sec recovery. Thats 4sec right there it leaves NO time for error, or for lag.

Oh not pictured or played with Wail of Horror did have its KB reduced to 1.5sec.


On the whole I like the daze on Lanent's, though on longer fights less damage will stink. the proc on our self buff is nice, just not sure how usful it is outside of soloing. Jael's change I am happy about I like the root and more damage does meake it a bit more usefull. Fear I could care less about but would like to see the pathing issues looked at.


Androw
70 Dirge
Najena
Message Edited by thecynic315 on 06-04-2006 11:19 AM

Talan,
You're out of your mind if you think our self INT/AGI buff doesn't compare to other scout equivalents. All scouts have a flavor of this buff (two stats increased, or in the case of brigands, a stat and mitigation), and they're ALL comparable, and they ALL take concentration. I don't know where someone picked up the idea that our self int/agi buff doesn't compare to other scouts' self buffs, but that simply isn't the case. Entirely separate from the stance idea, mind you, but the scout self-stat buff ability is comparable across all the classes... until they add in a reactive proc (which by the way, if it operates 3x as often as imbued armor procs (which go off on a 5% proc rate) then I don't think we need to worry too much about incidence of proc, but please let me know what you think *after you test*) which now suddenly makes the dirge version better than any other scouts' self-buff.
I would also like to see some of our non castable-on-the-move abilities changed as well. The uproar from troubies has given them the most love they've seen in one patch though! =D Maybe we should recruit some criers.

Wait... we ARE criers. Ah well.

The daze will work on epics?! That's BEAUTIFUL man!

I wonder if its possible to fear then sapping shot root the mob once he's out of combat range. Necro's currently have fear and root, and it can be an effective option.

Godstalk wrote:

"You're out of your mind if you think our self INT/AGI buff doesn't compare to other scout equivalents. "

I think that might be pitching it a bit strong. While on a point-for-point it's quite comparable to other scout self-buffs, in context it's weaker; because the other scouts don't have a full concentration bar. Since the self-buff is high on the list of things to drop for group-buffs in any group, it's probably weaker overall than other scout self-buffs simply because we can't run it as much. Which, to my eye, makes adding the proc a fair balancer for us, though an odd one, since it's a solo or off-tank tool. But ol' Whysp can't get too many solo tools, quite frankly.

Disagreeing with Godstalk twice in a month, I'd better get my grumpiness index checked. Or maybe it's my good sense that's going. Everything else is, why not that?

Whysprr

I agree with Whysprr, it's the fact we drop it in groups or when we need a different mix of our group buffs while soloing. It's because it takes a concentration slot that makes it.. underpowered, or rather less than useful. For those dirges who are group or raid oriented and rarely solo, it's the buff which nearly never gets cast.

Yesterday I was in a the start of a group that had 2 dirges. I cast all the buffs my fellow dirge didn't have up (she's a couple levels higher) and realised I had a concentration slot left over... I blinked a couple times and realised I could cast my self-buff.

Something which improves our own performance shouldn't be something that we use as a last-resort. That's tatamount to saying we're secondary to the rest of the group/raid.

Hmmm... While I admit that in raids and the like self buff is high up there on the list of buffs to go, I actually use my self buff a lot in groups. When I have my self buff, I hardly ever have power problems. Plus, the self buff also increases my damage. So, while I would say the self buff gets dropped mor eoften than not I'm more likely to drop Harl's or Rianna to switch in somehting else while doing a regular group. Groups that I'm in don't typically need bria's unless we are doing a long ring event, so in the long run me having more power for debuffs and more int for dps is more useful than Bria's, Boon's or Rianna's.

So, I guess what I'm saying is the self buff goes in my useful pile. Of course I may jsut be misreading ho unuseful you are saying it is. But, depending on the play style this one does get used quite often and is much less situational then say, noxious or tomb's which I almost never use. Admittedly, I'm speaking more from a soloing grouping perspective than a raiding one. On raid's self buff is one of the first things to go, but an individual poison proc isn't going to be useful much in raids anyway.

As for comparing our slef buffs to other scouts? even though we are technically under the same archtype, I really don't think it is really a valid comparison. Rogues and Predators have a lot of simularities and are easier to compare. Other scouts have more in common with brawlers than they do with bards.(and yes I've played each of those, crazy altaholic that I am.) The Bard could almost be a whole different archtype on its own.