Zander's is still broken in beta and to top it off, it doesn't even get affected by Degredate! -Kalll, 70 Dirge of Impulse on Mistmoore
Do we intend to give some consolodated ideas or feedback to the Devs on the proposed AAs? My own thoughts are.... In general it is disappointing to see so many 'passive' abilities. Bards are already classed as buff-bots and it would have been nice to see more active, even if situational, abilities to attempt to introduce the sense of versitility that most bard players hoped to experience when selecting the class. Comparatively to other scouts Bard will take another, if minor, DPS and mitigation step-back with EoF and many scout professions have 'almost' (if not quite) the same utility as Bards. Therefore, increased versitility is vital to the class. Degenerate and Luck Lines: The Degenerate and Luck lines seem reasonably well balanced. There isn't any real need for the Side Blade ability as our DPS flank attack can be kept running continuously and Tombs remains a defunct ability. The enhancement to Tombs could make Tombs a realistic choice on the hotbar if it did something like increase critical chances by 1%/ level. I'm not convinced that the proc increase on Luck of the Dirge is significant, but I know others differ in opinion so I may be wrong. Life and Death Line: I'm not sure that the amount of healing from Dirge lifetaps really makes the percentage increases given significant. That said the lifetap enhancements seem to be in-balance with the AAs from other classes. The casting time reduction to Elergy of the Awakening is pointless and dull. Something like adding a 2 sec/ rank (non-direct) AE immunity to those rezzed would be useful to enable rezzed casters to move out of AEs on raids. The reason why I say 2 sec/ rank rather than 1 is that people often suffer lag and disorientation when being rezzed in a raid with lots of partical effects flowing around. The re-use reduction on Oration of Sacrifice is also pointless and dull. If a quick fix is required then increased healing or reduced health cost would have some minor use (I say minor because looking at the AAs I wouldn't expect significant improvements). If something more fun and versitile is to be implemented how about a time based Trauma or Noxious cure. Confront Fear, although of minor use does add another ability to a Dirge's arsenal and therefore seems a nice addition. Control: Bar the final ability this ENTIRE line is truly, truly awful. Nothing in the tree offers anything worthwhile and it would be far better to remove the entire line and simply give other pre-requisites for Magnetic Luck. - Sapping Shot is a really weak ability and only of use when wishing to debuff before pulling (and assuming no rooters in the group). Therefore, reduced re-use time is pointless. The base damage is far less than autoattack. Rank based damage increase and/ or increased root duration (1/sec rank?) would be far better and not at all unbalancing. - Lanets: Reducing the re-use time from 45 to 40 secs is pointless and dull. This simply feels like a filler ability on the tree. - Garsin's: Reducing the re-use timer is dull. In any event, fear is broken for use in groups as autoattack breaks it and it moves a mob outside of a tanks taunt radius. Additional non-powerful functionality could be added by (i) replacing this ability with a long recast group fear OR (ii) making it so that after this ability is cast the next Garsin's cast becomes a group fear OR (iii) making this an ability that allows taunts to hit the feared mob (presumably dependant upon it being in the encounter taunted) regardless of distance OR (iv) making it into a long re-cast non-epic effecting mem wipe OR (v) making it a specific target aggro reduction for a 'friend' - due to the mob becoming afraid of the 'friend'. - Wail of Horror: This is currently a 'freebie' ability for Dirges and not remotely strong enough to be considered a combat art in its own right. It therefore feels like a slap in the face for it to appear on any tree. Additionally, 3% increase in KB chance? Why could anyone be interested in purchasing this? Has this just been placed here because Dirge's don't really do CC and therefore people were struggling to find something to put here? Replacing it with an aggro radius reduction ability would be extremely in-keeping with both the Dirge class and the 'control' nature of this line.
You people do realize that they basically are giving things back to us they previously nerfed down in LU24. take sapping shot for instance. They raised recast time by 5 sec in LU24. Now look what we get as an AA. Raise reuse time by 5 of sapping shot maxed out. WOW. Just wow. Thats all i have to say. Im really disgusted with the developers right now.
When u look at the control tree, i think that this should have been only for pvp servers. Why do we get crap that is totally useless in pve? SOE get your priorities straight and give us abilities that are worth considering. But again bards get the shaft as always.
Strangest thing about the control tree, if we all agree that Magnetic Note is mostly for raids, then why does every skill in that path either not work on epics, or have an element that doesnt work on epics that is being increased?
To force crap in order to get something good? There would be no reason for any PvE or especially a raiding dirge to take -any- of that line otherwise.
The crowd control line reminds me of the KoS Wisdom AA. Alot of people bought that line despite the fact all but one of the abilities was terrible. It is worth keeping in mind that most classes have recieved AA lines with only very small improvements to overall power. I don't think SOE wanted to add in a large power-creep to the game. Also if AAs were of vital importance, we would get even more cookie cutter clones than we currently have. At the moment people can afford a minor hit in efficiency in order to play the way they want. I think the stealth ability is not a bad choice as it will make using Garsin's a viable option in combat. Currently I just Bump and SoD whenever it is up At least most of us agree that our final abilities all look worthwhile. Some classes were not so lucky. I have already worked out a few AA builds that I am happy enough with. Just tossing up if I want Luck or Magnetic Notes now...
The control line is painfully bad. I mean, its so bad that I am surprised that anyone who works on the game professionally could look at it and not go, "oh my God, nobody is going to pursue this line." Indeed, I will make a bet with anyone at Sony that NOBODY who is not taking the line just BECAUSE nobody else takes it will chose that one. It not just that dirges do not do CC, its that the effects chosen are so utterly useless. What is up with magnetic note? Anyone here in a guild (or even grab a group) that often anymore where the tanks lose aggro and cannot snap it back? Often enough to justify going down that line? Casting Lanets faster is OK, but OMG the rest of it. Really dissapointed in the devs on that one. They mailed it in on this one.
My interest in Magnetic Notes is for: - Saving the tanks butt when heals are slow by moving the agro to an off-tank for 5 seconds. - Sticking agro to the secondary tank when the first one dies. Giving us all 5 seconds to spam de-agro and for him to rescue. - Tanking myself when the MT goes down in a normal group. - Teaching annoying pickup mages that it is not a good idea to annoy the dirge. (joke...mostly) - Helping on raids when the mob mem-wipes. - Saving overzealous predators and sorcerers. - Making the mob target a monk with Tsunami or a Paladin with a massive ward blessing in order to save the MT. I am far from sure that I will take that line, but it is certainly interesting. I make very good use of OoS in emergencies and I love the spell for the amount of times it has saved our butts, I feel that Magnetic Notes may be the same.
My thoughts on the end of line abilites: I'd agree magnectic note could be useful, especially considering some of the warlocks in our guild, but I don't know if I want to waste another shed load of AA's on crap again just to get a useful ability. I also think the recast/duration is a bit low, maybe if the recast was on 1min or it had a 10sec duration then I'd definately go with it. Would hope they revamp this line somewhat, some how get in improvements to Luda's/SoD/Infected blade rather than spells which I need to blow the dust off my hotbar before I use. Confront fear, I don't think I'll be going for this, maybe if they get it to do what it says and remove ressurection sickness, would be useful in raids where I can rez and remove sickness so they can get back into the fight quicker, BUT THEY NEED TO GET IT TO DO WHAT THE DESCRIPTION SAYS Degredate, does the power reduction work on the per tick bit?? I wouldn't be surprised if it was bugged and it only did the initial cast, bit wary of the wording her, also I'm against the recast bit, currently the refresh on the spells is the same amount of time on the spell cast, assuming the first thing you do is chain cast the debuffs when it comes to refresh them you're now going to be stuck waiting for them to be ready to recast after you've cast the first. A minor irritation I know. As we run with 2 dirges + troubs in my raid force I only need to run 1 debuff, so I don't think I'll be going for this. Luck of the dirge, I think this might be the only end of line ability I'll be going with, the line above it looks very nice and can see uses for all those abilities (except selo's but we can skip that), but the main reason I think it will be useful is that at max rank we are looking at approx 3% increase in proc chance on PoS and a 2.5% increase in proc chance on the Templar stoneskin, with them triggering more often on the MT thats going to be a fair chunk more damage absorbed. Just my thoughts anyway, suppose I had better get some work done now.
I think alot of you are being reactionary, and not particularly fair. All of these things make what we already do better. This isn't some "hey let me re-roll a coin toss" crap...these are upgrades to your already upgraded spells and abilities. I don't see anything here at all that I would deem "useless". Those end-skills are great. For PvP players, several of these abilities are absolutely HUGE. But everything rocks for PvE folks as well. These upgrades are all about adding to your survivability. I, for one, am very happy with these choices. Several of you bashed the "sapping shot" line....I wonder if you actually ever use it. You know, the stun that goes along with that is QUITE good, and having a nice shorter recast time to this is QUITE nice. Soloability is getting nothing but better. Have you read these things carefully? The ward against poison/disease is nice, the boost in procs is nice, it's all nice. Some of you are whining that these things aren't being done in large enough amounts, but several of these things have multiple levels of upgrade...so you can dig a bit deeper. In any event, any benefits are better than none. We have a great tree here. Message Edited by TerabithianWhisperwind on 11-06-2006 09:22 AM
Just to nit-pick -- I use the bow line (Jael's at my level) all the time because I solo a lot. We just don't kill that fast. I can't think of a single time it's been down when I wanted it. So decreasing the re-use timer is the wrong way to enhance this skill. Upping damage, decreasing chance for the root (not stun) to break, would enhance it -- and it is a quite-useful CA. Whysp
A different nit-pick: You cannot use Magnetic Note to keep agro and alt tank... since it takes your target's *target* and forces them to face your target. And getting something to match the description is what a beta test is about. =) It's bugged, and they'll fix it. Or they won't and we'll complain. Complaining during beta that it's broken though...
A lot of other classes have been getting their AAs improved and we got some improved tonight. A step in the right direction...still disappointed that there's no way to increase Ludas, Banshee, or Scream of Death. Luck of the Dirge is still broken, so no clue to test if it will affect stoneskin or not. All skills are linear per rank. Skills not mentioned are same as before. Garsin's Grim Acclimation - 6% wis reduction Shrieking Stab - 1% DPS Verlien's - 6% disease Claras - 4% mit Discante - 5% str/agi Degredate - increase casting speed 10%, 5% reduction is power cost and 5% longer duration Jael's - 1.5s improve reuse Lanet's - 1.5s improve reuse Garsin's (Fear) - .1s increase casting speed, 2s improve reuse Wail of Horror - 4% knockdown Grievence - 10% heal increase Wail of the Dead - 7% heal increase Elegy (group) - increase casting speed by .6s Elegy (single) - 3% health/power Oration - 4s reuse Cacophony - 1s increase in duration Luck of the Dirge - No change, still broken -Kalll, 70 Dirge of Impulse on Mistmoore
Wow I love these changes. Things just a great deal better. 5 seconds more of CoB just makes the spell 40% better, that is pretty awesome. I find myself healing a great deal, if the healing adornments stay the way they are now, I will seriously consider going down the life and death tree.
