EZ Server

2-11-15 Caster Changes

New spell file available!

This is mostly a repost from the other thread, but it lists all final changes. The Drake adjustments are in place, but can be gently tweaked as needed (translated: calm your tits). All of these changes will be live with reboot (2/12 AM-reboot). Casters should be very powerful and *more* cost/reward balanced than before. I've updated recipe book and I will unlock the Mana Necklace recipes today. I'll also be adding the new spells (Exorcise Evil, Exorcism en Masse, Word of Vivification II) to loot tables today (they have been in DB since 2 weeks ago).

Overall, the changes are sitting fairly well given the length of the thread before and the good dialogue from everyone actually contributing. If you have questions/concerns, PLEASE post them here! :-)


Healing:

• Avenger's Touch had it's percentage heal max value decreased by roughly 20%.
• Skin of the Drake has a recast time of 45s (up from 30s) and is primarily limited by hits.
• Skin of the Drake III trigger saw a 20% drop.
• Skin of the Drake IV trigger saw a 30% drop.
• Druid Single-Target Regeneration has been increased by 30%.
• Remissive Remedy now has a 0.5s cast time (down from 1.5s), with a cooldown increased to 40s (up from 20s).
• Purge Weakness now has a 0.5s cast time (down from 1.5s), also cleric usable.
• Word of Vivification will become a 1.5s recast (down from 2.5s).
• Ancestral Honor 8.0 decreased to 100k HP buff (from 150k).
• Ancestral Honor 9.0 decreased to 132k HP buff (from 200k).
• Armor of the Crab increased to 30k HP buff (from 10k).
• Armor of the Crab II increased to 75k HP buff (from 20k).
• Clerics have a new rank of Word of Vivification, 20k base healing. Will likely find it's way in T8 and/or T9.
• Both ranks of Word of Vivification have a 10% chance to hit all clients in 100 units for half of the base heal amount (6k for rank one, 10k for rank two).
• Clerics and Paladins gain access to a new spell, Exorcise Evil, which dispels harmful magic effects from a target. (0.25s cast, 15s recast)
• Clerics gain access to a new spell, Exorcise en Masse, which dispels harmful magic effects from group members. (0.25s cast, 45s recast)

Damage:

• Kaldar's Heavenly Fire is now 60k per target, across four targets, in three waves. Cooldown was increased to 24s. (Up from 24k and 12s CD)
• Kaldar's Heavenly Fire II is now 126k per target, across four targets, in three waves. Cooldown was increased to 24s. (Up from 60k and 12s CD)
• Static Burst is now 40k to all nearby targets. Cooldown was increased to 18s. (Up from 10k and 15s CD)
• Static Burst II is now 96k to all nearby targets. Cooldown was increased to 18s. (Up from 50k and 15s CD)
• Polarity Flux is now 20k to four targets. (Up from 10k)
• Polarity Flux II is now 48k to four targets. (Up from 45k)
• Polarity Flux III is now 120k to four targets. (Up from 100k)
• Shy Crustacean's Soul Eater is now 30k. (up from 5k)
• Shy Crustacean's Soul Eater II is now 75.6k. (up from 20k)
• Timeless: Tempest Wind is now 27.5k per wave, to four targets, across six waves. Cooldown was increased to 35s (Up from 7.5k and 16s CD)
• Timeless: Tempest Wind II is now 62.5k per wave, to four targets, across six waves. Cooldown was increased to 35s (Up from 37.5k and 16s CD)

Items:

• Earring of the Mystic Ages focus, Painfully Gorgeous, has been redesigned. It now adds additional spell damage that stacks multiplicatively with the Ultimate Charm. Effects are 10/20/30/50/100% per rank.
• Mana Necklace has been redesigned to better utilize casters as casters, not proc hunters. The new Pirate's Ire effect will add a 75% bonus per rank (75% of base damage, additive) and proc only the pet buff (First Mate's Gift).
• First Mate's Gift has been changed from Icestrike-like damage to Firestrike-like damage.

Mechanic:

• Spell haste can stack almost unlimitedly. Spells can get as low as 0.25s cast time.

---

Exorcise Evil (CLR/PAL) can be found on Wisdom Spells Merchant in Surefall. (after reboot)
Exorcise en Masse is in T4 and T5. (now)
Word of Vivification II is in T8 and T9. (now)


-Hate

What happened to the poll to modifiy SoD based on the number of hits?

Was anything changed about all mobs being ranged/speed in some tiers?

Recast on drake for me (yes, new spell files installed) is showing 450

New spell file (just updated 30s ago) should address this. Sorry!


-Hate

Thanks for the speedy response, Hate!

Sorry! It went live with number of hits, I was just stupid when I copy/pasted. Fixed original post. :-)



Any non-boss or non-ranger NPC should've lost their ranged ability. It may take reboot for public zones or new instance for effect. Some boss NPCs have ranged nonsense still as they have super slow or no movement speed, making them sitting ducks without ranged capabilities.



-Hate

Thanks Hate

My tits are calmed  ;D

I am probably not the only one who has already doped the druid from our line up ....funny story... turns out I did not even need drake it was just a safety blanket..I do die now if I over pull in t9 but I will just have to suffer with >30 pulls..

Changes look good and I look forward to exploring the new rules for what suites me best.

thank you for the continued support of my entirely unhealthy addiction.


:)

For those of us slow on the uptake, can you clarify the mana neck changes?

As an example, what would a caster with UCv2 and Mana Neck 10 see as far as percentage damage boost on spells?

The real question is why is anyone playing a caster when you can have stick and done with melee.

mana neck ...trying to combine 4 lp essence 2 mbd and 4 sls....no worky.....how do you get diamond dust? and glowing stones?



i forget

Because we stick and done our casters too?    My mage in my 2nd group is always on stick.  When everyone attacks, he chain nukes and malos and his pet auto attacks.    Whats the difference?  lol

not everyone uses the banned MQ2MELEE function FYI

stick,twisting mage spells and a pet attack in your hotkey is banned?   Now I'm getting confused.

I'll post as updated screenshot or two, with a detailed explanation later today.  Also, the Mana Necklace recipes are still disabled until slightly later today.


-Hate

Yuuuup! The ONLY thing you can twist here are bard songs and epic. No other spell, no other item. Says so specifically in the rules....


Oh, and Hate, Crab 2 is giving 20K hps still, not 75K.

I don't play a caster in any real capacity other than buffs and telling the pet to assist, but I think it's retarded to say you can't twist nukes on a mob when all you have to do with melee is call assist and they'll do their job til the mob is dead...maybe this needs to be reviewed by Hate and Akka.

Issue was people twisting zerk epic and cleric group heal and afk killing. Thats why Hunter first stated twist was bannable if used by any class other than bard, back around Xmas of 2013.

Then it's a cut of your nose to spite your face fix and I'd guess a major contributor to nobody being interested at all in playing casters.  I don't recall Hunter saying that at all, if there's an official post I'll concede my point but I do know that in my direct conversations with Hunter he only cared about automation if it was afk killing and didn't much care as long as there was a control toon at the keyboard.

I recall both of these, more or less they coincide with each other.

Dim, all I can tell you is just before Xmas 2013 he got into someones shit about it in OOC...cant recall who. Said roughly that people should know better than to use twist for anything other than bard, because its obviously not something he'd allow. Whether you recall it or not is meaningless....he said it. Most probably while you werent on. He ended the rant in OOC with "Use twist on any class other than bard and I will ban you". As to the lack of a post about it.....probably timing. As I said, was right around Xmas 2013.

Yes he said that in ooc.  Never made a post about that I saw.

I could really care less regarding casters, but considering people saw him say in /ooc that's obviously the way he wanted it.  I'm curious though if someone put a multiline on their assist command and used whatever the caster command is to tell them to cast a nuke on refresh over and over until the mob is dead if that's grey area too.  I can't foresee any situation where I'd actually want to play a casting class, but I still contend that their viability in a normal group setting is shades worse than a melee that can stick to a mob, moveback, circle behind all with a single keypress.  Tedious multiple button pushing?  I'll pass.

Not to start an argument but With mutiline and channels you can have your caster assist your main tank/and cast 2 spells depending on cool down with a single key..i just tie it to my attack key that I am pressing every few seconds anyway as mobs die....casters chain spells..epics are clicked ....heals are cast....and I don't have to be sneaky about it....


but whatever) i see people using mq2melee so often its funny....not to point fingers but I see questions like "why does my char stop attacking when the mob gets low" in ooc all the time....i would guess that 90% if not higher of the newer and a large margin of the older players use it to some degree or another...

Maybe the question should be ...do we want to officially allow it because such a large portion of the people already do it?

Since using twist to nuke is essentially the same thing it should be allowed. It's dumb that casters cant use twist to cast nukes imho. If the point is to balance casters a bit more let them use twist to be able to cast more spells. I'm running out of multiline room as it is.

Chunka, as stated in the original post, reboot is needed for the changes to take effect. The Drake spell broke because the refresh time in spellfile was jacked, so it told client to "sit the !%!& down" for 450 seconds instead of 45 seconds.

---

As for the casters and twisting/autoattacking/etc, I will clarify this here and in the official rules post:

Is that, in any way, unclear?


-Hate


EDIT: Not being aggressive, just trying to clarify my stance on this. :-)

Makes sense thanks for the clarification Hate. I think it will help after you update the rules as well since it creates confusion.

Personally I'm really looking forward to the caster changes.

I can't give an exact example as I don't have my test box setup on home desktop yet (did on work laptop, but starting new job monday so... handed old one in). To give you a scaling example: UCv3, Earring50 (caster), Mana Necklace 8 or 11 (can't remember) on a wizard with all AAXP...I was averaging 29mil per cast.


-Hate

Pussy

On that wonderful note, Chilled Devil still doesn't seem to be procing  :-*

Hahahahahaha again? I'll build a test box this weekend and fix it completely. I had it working, tweaked, broke, can't remember fix. Sorry again!


-Hate

Just tossing this out there as I do not want nor expect a reversal, but... wiped X3 on T9 undead raid today.  Used Druid regen, Stoneskin (2 clerics) and both HP buffs (SHM + CLR). 

My issue was :

I established aggro using drake and AOE taunt (x2), then called in melee.  Used Over raided heal, cycling between the two clerics who almost immediately got the aggro and were gone... followed by the Pal, followed by the War and so on.

If anyone has a helpful hint on how they survive this encounter I sure could use it.

So with all of the changes, I figured it would be a good idea to take my cleric off the shelf and finish up UC2 on it... so rolled into Anguish.  I have to say... the Drake changes are... effective at making druid worthless at healing lol.  Just to see, I pulled small trains, like 20 mobs (as opposed to Watchyoudie's half zone pulls in there)  and put it up when I got back to pull spot... it was gone in like 2 seconds or less lol.  I don't need it for Anguish... but if I did I don't see the value in using it.  I'm not complaining... I'll adjust and use other healers more or do what I have to... but  I'd rather see the heal amount gutted by 80% but leave recast and hits as they had been or something.  As it is now, the only use I could see for it would be on a slowed ST boss pull or something where it would last longer than a second or two.  I know it was OP before... I think its pretty useless now though.

That's why I dislike clerics, if you dare cast a heal no matter how much aggro you may have on the warrior they will instantly gank your cleric.

Pally heals FTW ..I use a single pally with my group of 6 and can easly do the undead event....aggro from heal is never a problem and i just use the level 1 hatestomp on my UW..

On the hill-giant i have to hit the angerbomb a few times because the fight lasts <20 seconds most of the time and my rogue with pull agro.

cleric healing is bad..dont use them IMHO its hard to manage and a uc2 or 3 pally will take good care of you unless you are pulling stupid numbers.

So, I have not tried all of the spells.   But the cleric, druid and pally changes are definitely not game breaking.    Drake certainly does not last long, usually it is < 3 seconds on my pulls.   Would not be too bad to increase hit count a tad.    However, overall I think the changes are ok, nice job. 

That being said, you can proceed to nerf them   :P

SHHH dont tell ... lies anyways it's not half


prob increase hit counter and reduce recast time .. spell is going to fade anyways and doesn't over heal anymore anyways be nice to get a decent heal spell out of a dru that itsnt to op or to nerfed

Can agree with reducing the recast on drake to where it was...since hit counter is going to make it last only a few seconds as it is anyway.  Other than that, I think the changes are good. I am still rather debating about charging up the ranger I have on the druids account and benching the druid.

Sk pbaoe == sweetsauce.    Though feel free to make it 500k per.     

Loving the wizzie changes....but as a guildie who wants to remain nameless pointed out (a hint: rhymes with Klincle) the big issue is that even with AE the mobs just die too fast for the big wiz nukes to be useful (except for boss fights).

Anyway, his idea was to add the wizzie nuke as a proc. My idea was to use epic for this (if possible)......perhaps right click epic then cast the spell you want as a proc. Could chose ice, fire, AE. Casting this spell after you click your epic completely drains your mana to 0 after each proc.

Just a thought.

Did cleric crab changes get canceled? Its still giving 10K hps for rank 1 and 20K for 2.

I fumbled the change. I changed the heal value and not the actual scale value. Fixed...   :-X

Also, increased the number of hits for Drake by ~35%. Let me know if that helps.

NOTE: CHANGES WILL NOT APPLY UNTIL REBOOT. TOOLTIPS WILL BE INCORRECT.


-Hate

skin fades in under 2 sec with a 20 mob pull in t8 ... making the spell worthless and basically the dru worthless 45 sec recast is to long for a heal especially one that lasts 2 seconds.

The hit counter is pointless, only reason to use drake is mass pulls. Hit count negates that. Should put it back the way it was before and just reduce heal amount or just scrap it all together.

I agree either remove it or reduce heal. Right now it's worthless and so is druid.

As a suggestion, give drake 120% movement speed bump (even if tank has FT) and stun immunity. Decrease heal amount 15% or whatever and remove hit counter. I don't think anyone will ever use the spell or druids again otherwise.

We may want to try drake again after the server reboots. Hate added 35% to the hits the other day, but none of the changes took because the server never rebooted Sunday AM. Lets see what the changes do.

As for not using a druid at all.....I dont know. Druid epic click aint huge, but it adds to dps a bit. Regen on pulls helps me a lot, especially with big pulls and surviving the HUGE increase in stuns I've seen. Also druids still have the best single hp buff in the game. Not huge, no, but worth using for some.

But....agreed. As things stand now drake isnt worth casting. Lets see what the changes do, though, since as yet we have not.

Good point Chunka,
Did not know the update did not take affect yet.

As I stated before in the upcoming thread about these changes, if the druid is useless with these changes:

A) Skin of the Drake was OP, but no one wanted to admit it.
B) The druid didn't have good enough healing without Skin of the Drake.


So far, I'm seeing lots of option A. People got used to using Drake as a invulnerability during nearly zone pulls. Sorry, not intended and not returning. If the Druid is lackluster a healer, what else is wrong with it so we might address it? The single target regen (not the group one) is much stronger than the group one, which could be cast on the tank for extra goodness.


-Hate

Kruciel pointed out, on board, /ooc, publicly a couple years ago that Drake was OP.    It wasn't changed until now so people got used to it.       So, it was brought to the light.     We all knew it was OP.   But guess what, people that play this game want to clear things quick.  (cue the arguments from Aggregate Master and maybe Dim).    

Druid is certainly a lackluster healer at this point.   Single target regen is nice, but not needed on pulls really.   At least not for me anyway.    I would recommend looking into Chlorobon 2 to see if is strong enough.    Also, perhaps they could get their own line of group heal or an HoT.      

What was the EQ vision for the druid class anyway?    I thought they were just port bots, typically played by women that flirted with guild leaders to get loots.    /shrug

I still use druid to heal, as I want to max my ROI.    However,  as a new player coming up, I may roll one for a buff bot but that is about it.  

Heck reduce heal amount 50... 60%... (or whatever the appropriate amount would be)

This does the purpose of removing invulnerability... but would still make you moderately more capable of larger pulls for 18 seconds - based partially on the abilities of your tank - rather than making literally any toon capable of handling literally any size train for 18 seconds.

Druids live were meant to be a utility healer that does moderate dps. Various skills made them kiting masters, which made for a ton of solo druids. Not really an option here.

Druid dps is meh. Its DoT, but its AE DoT....so not awful. The snare component here is meaningless. With even UC2 the damage per tick aint horrid. The biggest uses for the class are drake, hp buff (biggest in the game atm) and regen. Regen was pretty big back when half the higher tier trash mobs arrowed....and for those of us seeing increased stuns (many). Druid with UC2 and single target regen 5 is getting over 250K a tick heals. Not awful, but for many not noticeable in many circumstances.

(removed) Best to not take the bait and rehash old arguments.

Every class here has a defining ability (some better than others  Mage *cough*) except the DRU.  The goal then should be creating a "must have" ability for them and then tweaking that to ensure it's not OP or too weak to bother with.

I like the above example of returning Drake to it's original cast time and duration, but reducing the proc heal value.  If that is even possible?  Combining that with the HP buff and single targ regen may get the Druid back to useful.

I have notice an appreciable DPS boost from the silk side!  I use all 4.  Very nice and thank you for that.

IMO the longer recast time is critical - avoids the infinite chain drake, but yeah

fix this shit ... i cant even use it to  adjust my group of mobs that only takes 5 sec to do

To paraphrase a leet player:


We all dig the ditch

Drake was an excavator

Drake is a shovel

DRUID

what to do?

cant use them now...

What exactly is overpowered?

I am not a smart man....

Return the cooldown to its former glory.

Increase the duration to 1hour.

Leave it as a # number of hits.   INcrease?Decrease? as needed

this gives you a buff you can place on your tank that will allow it to make a hell of a pull..with stunns and not die...../cheer


this does not allow you to return to the group and be unkillable ..

Increase single target regen time as a start. No one wants another buff to babysit, maybe at least a half hour.  Won't be regulated to buff bot status that way.

Drake is fairly useless atm, but i have found no need to really cast it since the change.  Only reason druid might stay around is too apathetic to raise another class/group.

Is there a way to allow only a certain number of mobs to trigger the proc, anything above does damage. 

OR

Add a torpor like debuff maybe with malo that can't be cured.  Would help you deal w/ physical damage but make you exposed to magic damage as a trade off.

Thank you for the change to ranged mobs, makes pulls for me not require drake anymore.

Trying to legitimately heal with cleric but aggro is ridiculous fyi.

Been healing a ton with cleric, using WoV2 and ST heals in T9, ToFS and no agro issues at all.

I have found the changes from SoD didn’t affect my game play at all, but then again I only pull like 2 to 3 mobs to my camp at a time and not ½ the zone

I think it more of now people will have to change there game style to more on how the game was intended to be played.

Not sure if I am reading this  right

But Crab II is showing as "Increase HP when cast by 75k" and  "Increase Max HP by 20K", so still a 20K HP buff?
Where the Shaman Buff shows as 132k for both Increase HP and Increase Max HP, which is right

Just an observation, if it's right then all is good =)

Thx

Have you updated your spell files? I'm getting 75K hps from crab 2.

Yup, 11-02 15, just redownloaded again to make sure

Very strange, O well,  somat my end then, will try again

Ohhhh! You mean the description. Yeah, no. Those arent always accurate. Test by seeing what the buff increases your hps by, using /say hp before and after.

Aye, looks like it works

Forgot about the HP command, and i know inventory counter is wrong
although taking Crab II off seems to take off 82500 hps, lol, so even that may be wrong

But thanks for info Chunka =)

when I cast crab 1 , the emote says 30,000 HP, but I'm still only getting 10,000 HP buff on my toons

Which is 75000 hps plus the added percent for Oak3.


Say hp before the buff and after, and check the difference. Thats how many hps you're getting.