unresolved summoner/necromancer issues - gimme some dev loving!!!

[geckoskin]

<DIV>I figured now was a good a time as any to try and bring these issues to the attention of the powers that be.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Caster pet dies a lot. Bad caster!!!<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Whats the primary advantage of a caster over a melee character? Dealing damage from range, instead of up close. So why exactly does our caster pet insist on running up to melee mobs? This is incredibly annoying in raids, where AE tears through low-HP caster pets like no tomorrow. Caster pets SHOULD be the optimal choice for raids, to be able to deal damage out of AE range, but currently the caster pet is the WORST choice for raids because they die so fast.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Summoner raid DPS crippled by game mechanics<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Our damage is balanced for non-raid scenarios, where we can expect to keep pets alive through intelligent positioning. You can't do that in a raid, AE is brutal. Consequently, our overal DPS is severely crippled in any high end raid, to the point where we are moved much further down the DPS hierarchy than where we should be.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A potential fix to the above two problems would be to remove pets from default AE damage, much in the same way that mezzed mobs are currently not subject to AE damage.</DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM></EM></STRONG> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Our new level 50 spells suck!!</EM></STRONG><BR>--- Our undead charm is pretty much a joke. With the low duration, recurring power cost, and restriction to weak mobs, it is little more than a fluff spell. Compare to the new spells other casters get - group teleport? spell reflection? Come on. This spell needs to either be SIGNIFICANTLY improved in power/usefulness, or should be scrapped completely and replaced with something more appropriate and useful.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The level 50 DoT lifetap is reasonable, but incredibly bland. If our other spell is improved to something worthwhile, then this is fine as-is, but if the undead charm remains unchanged then this spell needs a noticable boost in damage or duration, or an additional effect.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><EM><STRONG>Summonable mana conversion items are a pain to use<BR></STRONG></EM>--- Our dark heart line is pretty cool, in theory. the problem lies in the implementation. as it is now, nobody wants to use the darn things because it's a headache to do so repeatedly. sorceror, enchanter, and bard manafeed requires no work at all from the recipient, while ours requires they open their inventory, find the bauble, move it to activatable slot, then take the time to cast/activate it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In scenarios where the extra mana is most needed, such as a difficult and fast-paced raid, the healers are going to be busy spamming heals - they don't really have the luxury of fiddling around with inventory and item slots. It's bad enough that they would need to spend time to cast the bauble instead of a heal, but the inventory management is really too much.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>At a bare minimum, summoned baubles should appear in an empty activatable item slot if one exists. Instant cast would be nice too, but I'll take what I can get.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>INT bonus to damage doesn't scale up like it does for other casters<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Since over half our damage comes from pets, we recieve less than half the benefit from INT boosts that other casters do, or that melee types get from STR. this seems pretty unfair. a possible fix would be to have caster INT correspond to pet STR, to allow us a similar stat/damage growth curve as other classes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Never casting magi's shielding again<BR></EM></STRONG>--- i can understand wanting us to have to pick spells for each scenario, but the existing setup on beta seems ridiculous. as it currently stands, there is no scenario that a summoner would cast magi shielding. we effectively only have 2 slots available, as 1 slot is dedicated to pet and 2 more are required for pet buff. either reduce magi shielding to 2 slots, or reduce pet buff to 1 slot, so we can have a reasonable soloing setup involving magi shielding + pet + pet buff.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Feign death becoming pretty crappy<BR></EM></STRONG>--- currently, feign death is pretty fair (aside from working against any level mob regardless of apprentice/adept/master level, i agree that should be fixed). it's basically guaranteed to work, but has a long recharge time and maximum duration. however, once there is a reasonable chance of failure, it's really going to suck to wait 15 minutes to be able to feign only to have it fail and kill us. brawler feign has always had a chance of failure, but also has a very fast recast and no maximum duration to compensate.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>From a roleplay/flavor standpoint, it makes sense for necro feign death to be more reliable but usable less often and max duration. After all, we are casters, our feign death is a spell we are casting on ourselves to assume the illusion of death. We are the masters of death, we should be able to fool mobs consistently. Brawlers on the other hand are not casting a spell, they are literally 'playing possum' - controlling their body functions to the point of appearing dead, thus the chance of monsters not being fooled and the ability to do so more often and remain so indefinitely.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><EM><STRONG>Fix lich graphics<BR></STRONG></EM>--- The hair while in lich form really has to go. it looks dumb. not only does it look dumb, but it's horribly buggy , the hair smears and trails and ends up looking really absurd. it would also be nice if the low-detail lich model was changed, currently most people just see us as a skeleton with hair, not the lovely green flames and robes that are supposed to show up.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Pets run out of mana way too fast<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Give us some way to increase our pet's mana regen, or increase pet power pool/regen rate. also, aren't warlocks supposed to have built-in ways to get mana back? why isn't our warlock pet manatapping or converting life to mana when he gets low? There is a lot of room for improvement and flavor here.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Coranth]

I really have to agree with the previous post on all points.  I especially agree that the warlock pet must stay at range and the new levle 50 spells are either too limited or too bland.  Also I like the idea of the bauble popping into an empty activatable slot.

[Kalsy]

<P>I would also like to add....why do necros not have a poison/disease debuff?  I know there is a small pet buff that procs a noxious debuff.  I understand Enchanters have the best Buffs/Utility spells for the mage archetype.  But why do Warlocks who have the highest DPS in game have both a better Noxious Resistance buff than Necros and a noxious debuff?  </P> <P>My concern is what role will necros play on a raid?  With pet pathing issues, it has already been demonstrated that pets may not be viable for dps on raids with AE attacks.  With very limited buffs and debuffs, on a raid our abilties are limited to...Secondary DPS, Feign Death, Battle Res, and Power Shards.  I am very concerned that since clarity is going to be group only, people will insist that on raids,  summoners do nothing more than constantly pass out power shards to other people on the raid.</P> <P>The primary roles on any raid are DPS, Tank, Buff, Debuff, Heal.  Most classes do one of these roles exceptionally well, and a secondary role somewhat well.  Im trying to understand what the necro's role will be.  We are tier 2 dps.  We have no big buffs or debuffs to contribute.  We are not tanking or healing.  I understand the concern not to make necros to powerfull when soloing, but I would really like to see summoners be the best debuffers of the mage archetype.  Sorcerers can be the best dps, and enchanters can be the best buff/utility classes. </P>

[Errie_Tholluxe]

<span><blockquote><hr>geckoskin wrote:<div></div> <div> </div> <div>At a bare minimum, summoned baubles should appear in an empty activatable item slot if one exists. Instant cast would be nice too, but I'll take what I can get.</div><hr></blockquote>I agree with everything you had to say here, but when i got to this part I was reminded of Mod Rods. Just make em castable from the bag eh? its a short use device. WE already took the time to cast it, it should insta cast from the bag slot, not need to be equipped.</span><div></div>

[Nagazch]

<DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Caster pet dies a lot. Bad caster!!!<BR></EM></STRONG>Some say it runs into melee, some say it doesnt. Can anyone confirm 100% how it works ? And of course it should be casting from range...</DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM></EM></STRONG> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Our new level 50 spells suck!!</EM></STRONG><BR>Wish the charm spell would let you drag a powerfull undead around for an hour or so. After you lose it, you'll be back with your normal summoned pets unless spend time finding a new one.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><EM><STRONG>Summonable mana conversion items are a pain to use<BR></STRONG></EM>I have no problem getting my crew to use them. Everone in my guild have a "/tell Nagazch Heart pls" hotkey, so I am busy every 30 sec from raid start and 4-6 hours strait till it ends.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>After revamp, Summoners will be more busy than enchanters and bards. This is horrible and starting to stress me out on raids. You shouldnt be able to summon hearts during combat and please give them 3 charges and a reuse timer as well</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>INT bonus to damage doesn't scale up like it does for other casters<BR></EM></STRONG>No need for us to out damage sorcorers and scouts. I'm sure SoE have it balanced unless someone prove me wrong with some figures of a Wiz and a Nec with 600 int on a raid.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Never casting magi's shielding again<BR></EM></STRONG>Its a low lvl spell. Think its meant to go obsolete. Sick of casting mage and summoner spells when I'm trying to be a Necromancer</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Feign death becoming pretty crappy<BR></EM></STRONG>Agree ! This should be a 100% success spell. Otherwise its [Removed for Content]. Could let the rank of the spell determine the reuse time. New Feigh Death is horrible and having Master I seems useless</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><EM><STRONG>Fix lich graphics<BR></STRONG></EM>Should have been fixed a long long time ago (Just as well as the zombie animation *sigh*) and Master I lich looks awfull. At least give it the same animation as adept III</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Pets run out of mana way too fast<BR></EM></STRONG>Tank pet = soloing</DIV> <DIV>Mage pet = Grouping where encounters are short</DIV> <DIV>Assasin = Raids where encounters are long, mobs have AE, barrage etc. (should try to autoplace behind mobs to avoid barrage and use backstab though)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If mage is used in both groups and raids, what is the use of assasin ?</DIV></DIV>

[El Chupacabr]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> geckoskin wrote:<BR> <DIV>I figured now was a good a time as any to try and bring these issues to the attention of the powers that be.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Caster pet dies a lot. Bad caster!!!<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Whats the primary advantage of a caster over a melee character? Dealing damage from range, instead of up close. So why exactly does our caster pet insist on running up to melee mobs? This is incredibly annoying in raids, where AE tears through low-HP caster pets like no tomorrow. Caster pets SHOULD be the optimal choice for raids, to be able to deal damage out of AE range, but currently the caster pet is the WORST choice for raids because they die so fast.<FONT color=#66ff00>  My level nothing Imp in WoW (yes, I tried WoW) would either close to it's maximum casting range then park itself or if already in casting range would park itself right where you told it to attack from and go to town.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#66ff00>  I still don't understand why this hasn't been implemented in this game... if technically inferior WoW (that is the same age as EQ2) could do it from the beginning, why can't our pets do it?</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Summoner raid DPS crippled by game mechanics<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Our damage is balanced for non-raid scenarios, where we can expect to keep pets alive through intelligent positioning. You can't do that in a raid, AE is brutal. Consequently, our overal DPS is severely crippled in any high end raid, to the point where we are moved much further down the DPS hierarchy than where we should be.  <FONT color=#66ff00>We've got alot of heals now, probably have to use those on the pet more often.  Positioning still has a place in a raid for both dumbfire's and commandable pets and always has.  I don't doubt we can keep the assassin pet up in a raid though I think we'll spend all of our time recasting Grims if we choose to use those in a raid.  I've kept my rotting thrall running in most raids I've been on, no reason to think with our new 450-1k heal we can't keep a Shadowy up.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A potential fix to the above two problems would be to remove pets from default AE damage, much in the same way that mezzed mobs are currently not subject to AE damage.  <FONT color=#66ff00>Bad idea, horribly unbalancing since encounters are designed around AoE... if the pet takes no AoE, that's not fair to the scouts or whomever else needs to be in melee range.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM></EM></STRONG> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Our new level 50 spells suck!!</EM></STRONG><BR>--- Our undead charm is pretty much a joke. With the low duration, recurring power cost, and restriction to weak mobs, it is little more than a fluff spell. Compare to the new spells other casters get - group teleport? spell reflection? Come on. This spell needs to either be SIGNIFICANTLY improved in power/usefulness, or should be scrapped completely and replaced with something more appropriate and useful.  <FONT color=#66ff00>Yeah, it's crap.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The level 50 DoT lifetap is reasonable, but incredibly bland. If our other spell is improved to something worthwhile, then this is fine as-is, but if the undead charm remains unchanged then this spell needs a noticable boost in damage or duration, or an additional effect.  <FONT color=#66ff00>This one is crap, too.  4:1 damage to power ratio and only does like 1,500 damage a minute for a power cost of 400ish.  This is horrible for a lvl 50+ spell.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><EM><STRONG>Summonable mana conversion items are a pain to use<BR></STRONG></EM>--- Our dark heart line is pretty cool, in theory. the problem lies in the implementation. as it is now, nobody wants to use the darn things because it's a headache to do so repeatedly. sorceror, enchanter, and bard manafeed requires no work at all from the recipient, while ours requires they open their inventory, find the bauble, move it to activatable slot, then take the time to cast/activate it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In scenarios where the extra mana is most needed, such as a difficult and fast-paced raid, the healers are going to be busy spamming heals - they don't really have the luxury of fiddling around with inventory and item slots. It's bad enough that they would need to spend time to cast the bauble instead of a heal, but the inventory management is really too much.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>At a bare minimum, summoned baubles should appear in an empty activatable item slot if one exists. Instant cast would be nice too, but I'll take what I can get.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#66ff00>I agree, all the time it takes to equip/cast/cast these things run the times through the roof.  I only give these to my priests pre-raid and then cast them when they're used up... then it's all about recast timers.  Let the sorcerers do the power dumps mid fight, that's their baliwick.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>INT bonus to damage doesn't scale up like it does for other casters<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Since over half our damage comes from pets, we recieve less than half the benefit from INT boosts that other casters do, or that melee types get from STR. this seems pretty unfair. a possible fix would be to have caster INT correspond to pet STR, to allow us a similar stat/damage growth curve as other classes.  <FONT color=#66ff00>I've always said this and don't think it's gonna change any time soon.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Never casting magi's shielding again<BR></EM></STRONG>--- i can understand wanting us to have to pick spells for each scenario, but the existing setup on beta seems ridiculous. as it currently stands, there is no scenario that a summoner would cast magi shielding. we effectively only have 2 slots available, as 1 slot is dedicated to pet and 2 more are required for pet buff. either reduce magi shielding to 2 slots, or reduce pet buff to 1 slot, so we can have a reasonable soloing setup involving magi shielding + pet + pet buff.  <FONT color=#66ff00>May as well take it away from us.  Pet with buffs costs four concentration, not three.  Magi's Shielding is the "solo" mage spell when we'd be using a pet and two pet buffs.  The pet buff would have to be reduced to one concentration and Magi's would have to be reduced to 2.  I just don't see that happening since the three concentration is meant to gate the other mages buffs.  Even if we could use magi's, I'd still probably use teachings for the stamina buff.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Feign death becoming pretty crappy<BR></EM></STRONG>--- currently, feign death is pretty fair (aside from working against any level mob regardless of apprentice/adept/master level, i agree that should be fixed). it's basically guaranteed to work, but has a long recharge time and maximum duration. however, once there is a reasonable chance of failure, it's really going to suck to wait 15 minutes to be able to feign only to have it fail and kill us. brawler feign has always had a chance of failure, but also has a very fast recast and no maximum duration to compensate.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>From a roleplay/flavor standpoint, it makes sense for necro feign death to be more reliable but usable less often and max duration. After all, we are casters, our feign death is a spell we are casting on ourselves to assume the illusion of death. We are the masters of death, we should be able to fool mobs consistently. Brawlers on the other hand are not casting a spell, they are literally 'playing possum' - controlling their body functions to the point of appearing dead, thus the chance of monsters not being fooled and the ability to do so more often and remain so indefinitely.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#66ff00>Agree.  We get the horrible recast even on failure, we should get the higher chance of success.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><EM><STRONG>Fix lich graphics<BR></STRONG></EM>--- The hair while in lich form really has to go. it looks dumb. not only does it look dumb, but it's horribly buggy , the hair smears and trails and ends up looking really absurd. it would also be nice if the low-detail lich model was changed, currently most people just see us as a skeleton with hair, not the lovely green flames and robes that are supposed to show up.  <FONT color=#66ff00>Would be nice.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Pets run out of mana way too fast<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Give us some way to increase our pet's mana regen, or increase pet power pool/regen rate. also, aren't warlocks supposed to have built-in ways to get mana back? why isn't our warlock pet manatapping or converting life to mana when he gets low? There is a lot of room for improvement and flavor here.</DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#66ff00>The offensive buff giving a combat power regen sure would be nice to see... just incorporate it with the haste portion.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I'll add that I think we should get our power drain back... it was for a piddly number but it was the one thing we could do that would effect epics other than damage and noxious debuffs.  Helps considerably with our power management as well.<BR></P>

[geckoskin]

<DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Summoner raid DPS crippled by game mechanics<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Our damage is balanced for non-raid scenarios, where we can expect to keep pets alive through intelligent positioning. You can't do that in a raid, AE is brutal. Consequently, our overal DPS is severely crippled in any high end raid, to the point where we are moved much further down the DPS hierarchy than where we should be.  <FONT color=#66ff00>We've got alot of heals now, probably have to use those on the pet more often.  Positioning still has a place in a raid for both dumbfire's and commandable pets and always has.  I don't doubt we can keep the assassin pet up in a raid though I think we'll spend all of our time recasting Grims if we choose to use those in a raid.  I've kept my rotting thrall running in most raids I've been on, no reason to think with our new 450-1k heal we can't keep a Shadowy up.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#33ccff>I should have been more specific - in this section, I was mainly referring to the swarm/dumbfire pets. Rats and the new stench make up a large portion of our overall DPS, but have negligible HP - realistically we have no way to keep them alive if there is any AE going on, even a fairly weak AE will still kill rats off in one shot.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A potential fix to the above two problems would be to remove pets from default AE damage, much in the same way that mezzed mobs are currently not subject to AE damage.  <FONT color=#66ff00>Bad idea, horribly unbalancing since encounters are designed around AoE... if the pet takes no AoE, that's not fair to the scouts or whomever else needs to be in melee range.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#66ff00></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#33ccff>Maybe keep the primary pet taking AE damage, but at least let the swarm pets dodge it. They are really just fancy DoTs, and should be treated as such - DoTs shouldnt die before doing their damage.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#33ccff></FONT> </DIV> <DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Never casting magi's shielding again<BR></EM></STRONG>--- i can understand wanting us to have to pick spells for each scenario, but the existing setup on beta seems ridiculous. as it currently stands, there is no scenario that a summoner would cast magi shielding. we effectively only have 2 slots available, as 1 slot is dedicated to pet and 2 more are required for pet buff. either reduce magi shielding to 2 slots, or reduce pet buff to 1 slot, so we can have a reasonable soloing setup involving magi shielding + pet + pet buff.  <FONT color=#66ff00>May as well take it away from us.  Pet with buffs costs four concentration, not three.  Magi's Shielding is the "solo" mage spell when we'd be using a pet and two pet buffs.  The pet buff would have to be reduced to one concentration and Magi's would have to be reduced to 2.  I just don't see that happening since the three concentration is meant to gate the other mages buffs.  Even if we could use magi's, I'd still probably use teachings for the stamina buff.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#66ff00></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#33ccff>well, there are scenarios where you wouldn't need rending frenzy - for instance, if you are using the caster pet, rending frenzy is pretty useless, and you would rather have pet + pet stance + magis shielding, if that were an option. in a group, you would still use group buffs over magis, but if you were soloing moderately easy fights and wanted the caster DPS, magis would be preferable to teachings + aspect.</FONT></DIV></DIV></DIV>

[El Chupacabr]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> geckoskin wrote:<BR> <DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Summoner raid DPS crippled by game mechanics<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Our damage is balanced for non-raid scenarios, where we can expect to keep pets alive through intelligent positioning. You can't do that in a raid, AE is brutal. Consequently, our overal DPS is severely crippled in any high end raid, to the point where we are moved much further down the DPS hierarchy than where we should be.  <FONT color=#66ff00>We've got alot of heals now, probably have to use those on the pet more often.  Positioning still has a place in a raid for both dumbfire's and commandable pets and always has.  I don't doubt we can keep the assassin pet up in a raid though I think we'll spend all of our time recasting Grims if we choose to use those in a raid.  I've kept my rotting thrall running in most raids I've been on, no reason to think with our new 450-1k heal we can't keep a Shadowy up.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#33ccff>I should have been more specific - in this section, I was mainly referring to the swarm/dumbfire pets. Rats and the new stench make up a large portion of our overall DPS, but have negligible HP - realistically we have no way to keep them alive if there is any AE going on, even a fairly weak AE will still kill rats off in one shot.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>Lot's of classes have dumbfire pets... just have to time when they're cast to try and avoid the AoE.  The recast of them has decreased by quite a bit and we got other spells to make up for the loss of ghastly stench as a normal DoT.  AoE is brutal when it comes to swarm pets but that's the nature of using those spells.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff0000></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>A potential fix to the above two problems would be to remove pets from default AE damage, much in the same way that mezzed mobs are currently not subject to AE damage.  <FONT color=#66ff00>Bad idea, horribly unbalancing since encounters are designed around AoE... if the pet takes no AoE, that's not fair to the scouts or whomever else needs to be in melee range.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#66ff00></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#33ccff>Maybe keep the primary pet taking AE damage, but at least let the swarm pets dodge it. They are really just fancy DoTs, and should be treated as such - DoTs shouldnt die before doing their damage.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#33ccff></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>Still disagree... if that were so, every class that gets a dumbfire (alot of them) would have to be rebalanced to take into account those indestructable "DoT's"... just imagine one of these being cast by a mob on your MT, they're massive against mobs, imagine a mob cast that couldn't be destroyed.  Destructability is just the nature of the swarm pets, most mages and a few others have to deal with it and we're all balanced against that.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff0000></FONT> </DIV> <DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Never casting magi's shielding again<BR></EM></STRONG>--- i can understand wanting us to have to pick spells for each scenario, but the existing setup on beta seems ridiculous. as it currently stands, there is no scenario that a summoner would cast magi shielding. we effectively only have 2 slots available, as 1 slot is dedicated to pet and 2 more are required for pet buff. either reduce magi shielding to 2 slots, or reduce pet buff to 1 slot, so we can have a reasonable soloing setup involving magi shielding + pet + pet buff.  <FONT color=#66ff00>May as well take it away from us.  Pet with buffs costs four concentration, not three.  Magi's Shielding is the "solo" mage spell when we'd be using a pet and two pet buffs.  The pet buff would have to be reduced to one concentration and Magi's would have to be reduced to 2.  I just don't see that happening since the three concentration is meant to gate the other mages buffs.  Even if we could use magi's, I'd still probably use teachings for the stamina buff.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#66ff00></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#33ccff>well, there are scenarios where you wouldn't need rending frenzy - for instance, if you are using the caster pet, rending frenzy is pretty useless, and you would rather have pet + pet stance + magis shielding, if that were an option. in a group, you would still use group buffs over magis, but if you were soloing moderately easy fights and wanted the caster DPS, magis would be preferable to teachings + aspect.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#33ccff></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>If I were using a mage pet I'd be buffing his int with teachings in the place of rending and aspect for the extra power.  Why would you want to use the mage pet to solo?  If the assassin can come close to his damage then why would you not use him for his superior avoidance and health for weak mobs?  I just can't see any time that any buff is inferior to magi's shielding unless you aren't using a pet... if that were the case though, you'd be a sorcerer.</FONT></DIV></DIV></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>Edit:  Fixed a grammatical problem.</DIV><p>Message Edited by El Chupacabras on <span class=date_text>08-29-2005</span> <span class=time_text>04:57 PM</span>

[El Chupacabr]

Though I will say if the swarms are going to have those negatives, they should either be unresistable or have very low resist rates.  I don't even cast the rats unless I can get all my debuffs on due to the fairly high resist rate as it is.  Since our debuffs have gone way down, think these should be almost assured of landing. <div></div>

[geckoskin]

<font color="#33ccff">>>>>The level 50 DoT lifetap is reasonable, but incredibly bland. If our other spell is improved to something worthwhile, then this is fine as-is, but if the undead charm remains unchanged then this spell needs a noticable boost in damage or duration, or an additional effect.</font> <font color="#66ff00"><font color="#ff0000">>>This one is crap, too.  4:1 damage to power ratio and only does like 1,500 damage a minute for a power cost of 400ish.  This is horrible for a lvl 50+ spell. <font color="#ffffff"> You are thinking like a sorceror. You should be thinking like a necromancer. When was the last time running out of power was your primary concern? Or even a minor concern? Only in very long raids. The rest of time, power/damage is not a relevant statistic to us. You should be concerned with casting time, and to a lesser extent recast time and how long it takes to do that damage. If you chain your spells correctly, you should be machine-gun casting spells with fast casting times (mainly 1.0s and 2.0s spells) all of which are very casting-time/damage efficient. they take time to do the damage but that is fine as long as the mob stays alive long enough for the 24s duration to run out. Keep in mind that each new spell you cast is another proc from lich - 1.0s spells are great to have. When you view it from that perspective, maximizing your effectiveness as a DoT DPS class, the spell is a useful one to have in the arsenal. The lifetap portion of it is actually relevant if we are doing much healing, which could be a viable option for us. ~950 points of healing from a 2.0s spell is comparable to priest heals, we could be the difference between life or death in a tough situation. That doesn't change the fact that it is boring as hell. If this is going to be our premier 'new' spell, then it needs to have its numbers bumped up to make it worth the wait and balanced versus the other new spells. If they give us another new spell that is sufficiently gravy, then I'd be ok with the spell being left alone. </font></font></font> <div><font color="#33ccff">>>>>I should have been more specific - in this section, I was mainly referring to the swarm/dumbfire pets. Rats and the new stench make up a large portion of our overall DPS, but have negligible HP - realistically we have no way to keep them alive if there is any AE going on, even a fairly weak AE will still kill rats off in one shot.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font color="#ff0000">>>Lot's of classes have dumbfire pets... just have to time when they're cast to try and avoid the AoE.  The recast of them has decreased by quite a bit and we got other spells to make up for the loss of ghastly stench as a normal DoT.  AoE is brutal when it comes to swarm pets but that's the nature of using those spells.</font></div> Lots of classes have them, but summoners get FAR more of their max DPS than any other class out there. Other classes rely on one dumb pet to deal damage, and it is generally a middle-of-the road DPS spell, generally representing 10% or less of the class overall DPS. On the other hand, Summoners get THREE spells that deal damage via a pet, our real pet plus rats plus stench zombie. Not only that, but those three spells are the three highest-damage spells we get!!!! In a situation where pets are killed before they have accomplished much, we are losing potentially 70% of our damage. Like that number? I just made it up, but its an educated guess based on past spell performance and reported beta results. This effectively singles out summoners as being hurt the worst in a raid situation, as our primary purpose (DPS) is being reduced in effectiveness by so much. I think this warrants examination and rebalancing. <div><font color="#33ccff">>>>>Maybe keep the primary pet taking AE damage, but at least let the swarm pets dodge it. They are really just fancy DoTs, and should be treated as such - DoTs shouldnt die before doing their damage.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font color="#ff0000">>>Still disagree... if that were so, every class that gets a dumbfire (alot of them) would have to be rebalanced to take into account those indestructable "DoT's"... just imagine one of these being cast by a mob on your MT, they're massive against mobs, imagine a mob cast that couldn't be destroyed.  Destructability is just the nature of the swarm pets, most mages and a few others have to deal with it and we're all balanced against that.</font></div> not indestructible, just unaffected by indirect AE. they would still die to riposte or barrage, if you position them incorrectly or if the mob moves unfavorably. Also killable by direct targetting, in the case where you want to get them off a PC. Maybe even allow AE SPELLS to affect them, but not AE combat arts. There has to be a solution that allows our primary sources of damage to remain useful in high end raids, where nondirectional AE is a factor almost every single time. <div><font color="#33ccff">>>well, there are scenarios where you wouldn't need rending frenzy - for instance, if you are using the caster pet, rending frenzy is pretty useless, and you would rather have pet + pet stance + magis shielding, if that were an option. in a group, you would still use group buffs over magis, but if you were soloing moderately easy fights and wanted the caster DPS, magis would be preferable to teachings + aspect.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font color="#ff0000">>If I were using a mage pet I'd be buffing his int with teachings in the place of rending and aspect for the extra power.  Why would you want to use the mage pet to solo?  If the assassin can come close to his damage then why would you not use him for his superior avoidance and health for weak mobs?  I just can't see any time that any buff is inferior to magi's shielding unless you aren't using a pet... if that were the case though, you'd be a sorcerer.</font></div> As I said right above, you could be in a situation where you are killing easier targets and your pet's survivability is not an issue. The assassin pet is, you know, an assassin, so much of its damage will (presumably) be directional. With the pet tanking, the assassin pet would drop in DPS by a lot, while the warlock pet would only be affected by the occasional interrupt and thus would retain most of its DPS. Given that the mobs are blue, they will miss often enough to keep even the warlock pet feeling healthy with the healing your buffs will provide. but yeah, teachings would probably be a better choice than aspect for the last slot when soloing wimpy stuff, the added damage > a little extra power and crappy resists. <div></div>

[El Chupacabr]

No Rictus, I'm thinking like a mage.  We are still inefficient compared to the sorcerers and we're losing alot of our power generation come revamp.  I'll give you a stat you don't seem to be thinking about... that DoT is a toggleable, as in, one cast (look at the description, not the "duration" as that is likely a mistake)... that's one more hit of lich when I could have cast anything else, no thanks.  Search around on this board, I've got some revamp cast runs that do around 110 dps in lich damage alone, that one uber high power spell ain't gonna effect it much. It is just not possible to lose more health from liching, healing and pet healing that can't be recovered by siphon life and lich (unless you're tanking). In the revamp, alot of our damage is not coming from the dumbfires but from the pets proper, personal damage and lich damage... the dumbfires are alot of damage but it shouldn't ignore the rules that every other class has to follow.  Your reported results do not fall in line with the input I've received, I'm hearing 100 DPS total for both pets per minute (or thereabouts), that is roughly 30% or less of our damage that isn't just "gone" but will require timing against AoE's and the usual positioning... asking for immune pets just ain't gonna fly and you've been playing long enough to know that.  My rats stay up for quite a while in raids, it's not like they're insta-killed the second they're cast on every raid target.  AoE is AoE, if it can hit a scout it should absolutely hit all the dumbfire pets, just like it would if a player had those things on him.  Dumbfires are not DoT's proper but limited pets so follow the same rules. The final arguement is just a silly one, last I heard, the assassin pets damage is not positional and even if it were, why not just offensively buff the tank pet?  It's a big "what if I wanna farm stuff" arguement that has no bearing on real class ability. Limited pets are what they are for a reason... they aren't DoT's proper because development wanted stuff to swarm out and attack while following the same rules as players, if they are immune to AoE then they should be DoT's proper, since they aren't and we are in fact getting more of them, I'm of the belief that we are being balanced for the possibility of swarms being destroyed early.  Swarms are what will allow us to equal or outdo sorcerer damage but that damage comes at a price and it is possible early break of the "DoT". <div></div>

[quamdar]

i agree with el chup all you have to do is time your summon pets and you are fine, cast it RIGHT when a AE is called and it will stay up for quite a bit probably almost long enough for the new very short cast timer to refresh. i think the biggest problems with our class atm is FD is a huge recast and it has a chance to fail and that the new spells we got suck for mana efficiency especially compared to all of our other spells post changes(our utility seems nice with heal, rezz, shards.  buffs are decent mostly the int/sta on the teachings line.  DPS will get a very nice upgrade.  and alot of misc. changes including all pets now being useful and zombie pet animations.  overall looking at others i am very pleased).  honestly i don't see a reason to cast those two spells you can keep yourself plenty busy keeping other dots up and making sure you recast nukes as soon as they are up again.  between all of those spells and then rezz/shards on raids there will probably be plenty of spells i don't use because i just plain don't have the time to cast them so only the best of the best will be what i use and i can tell right now that consumption would be the last spell i would cast not to mention the gigantic mana cost of charm undead spell and it's seeming uselessness. <div></div>

[geckoskin]

<font color="#ccff00"> No Rictus, I'm thinking like a mage.  We are still inefficient compared to the sorcerers and we're losing alot of our power generation come revamp.  I'll give you a stat you don't seem to be thinking about... that DoT is a toggleable, as in, one cast (look at the description, not the "duration" as that is likely a mistake)... that's one more hit of lich when I could have cast anything else, no thanks.  Search around on this board, I've got some revamp cast runs that do around 110 dps in lich damage alone, that one uber high power spell ain't gonna effect it much.</font> I dont see our mana regen changing significantly. Lich still does its thing, pet taps still slurp big chunks, and the majority of our spells are still very mana efficient. If anything, I am seeing reports that mana regen is no more and perhaps even less of an issue in many grouping scenarios (probably due largely to the fact that aggro management has become far more important), but that will remain to be seen. And whether it is togglable or not is really not important, you can just toggle it off and recast it for another lich proc if desired. Every additional 1.0s cast spell you have is another large increase in damage, because the total damage being added will be proportionally higher to the spell's base damage if it is a fast cast, low damage spell as opposed to slower cast, higher damage spells where lich is less significant in the overall DPS picture. <font color="#ccff00"> </font><font color="#ccff00"> In the revamp, alot of our damage is not coming from the dumbfires but from the pets proper, personal damage and lich damage... the dumbfires are alot of damage but it shouldn't ignore the rules that every other class has to follow.  Your reported results do not fall in line with the input I've received, I'm hearing 100 DPS total for both pets per minute (or thereabouts), that is roughly 30% or less of our damage that isn't just "gone" but will require timing against AoE's and the usual positioning... asking for immune pets just ain't gonna fly and you've been playing long enough to know that.  My rats stay up for quite a while in raids, it's not like they're insta-killed the second they're cast on every raid target.  AoE is AoE, if it can hit a scout it should absolutely hit all the dumbfire pets, just like it would if a player had those things on him.  Dumbfires are not DoT's proper but limited pets so follow the same rules. <font color="#ffffff"> It may be the case that dumbfires will make up less of our overall damage, i'm mainly going by existing numbers where rats is way above any of our other spell lines, and i am guessing that stench will be similar (especially against groups). If it turns out that we are fine without them, i will be happy to be incorrect. <font color="#ccff33"> </font></font></font><font color="#ccff33"> The final arguement is just a silly one, last I heard, the assassin pets damage is not positional and even if it were, why not just offensively buff the tank pet?  It's a big "what if I wanna farm stuff" arguement that has no bearing on real class ability. <font color="#ffffff"> You cant really use our existing assassin pet as a frame of reference, as it is universally agreed that the pet is completely buggy and worthless. I can only hope that they have given it high damage positional attacks, because it's an assassin for crying out loud. if the damage is direction-independant, its not really even a scout, let alone an assassin. this is another issue that will have to wait for more information to be released, but i am crossing my fingers for real assassin pets. If we assume that it is a legitimate assassin, then we can assume that a significant portion (50%?) of its damage is from backstabs or flanking attacks. Even with both offensive stance and rending frenzy, the pet will not be anywhere near what we can expect a caster pet to do. Another thing to keep in mind is that the defensive pet buff is actually the better DPS booster in solo situations. parses posted previously have shown that pets do HIGHER DPS soloing with defensive pet buff on, because of the lifetap damage shield that triggers each time pet is hit. If the mobs are extremely low level and miss the pet nearly all the time, then the scales may swing back again, but i think it is reasonable to say that in some scenarios, mainly when fighting blue mobs, the caster pet with defensive buff will be the best choice for overall kills per unit of time. </font></font><font color="#ccff00"><font color="#ffffff"> </font></font><div></div>

[Suraklin]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> geckoskin wrote:<BR> <DIV>I figured now was a good a time as any to try and bring these issues to the attention of the powers that be.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Caster pet dies a lot. Bad caster!!!<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Whats the primary advantage of a caster over a melee character? Dealing damage from range, instead of up close. So why exactly does our caster pet insist on running up to melee mobs? This is incredibly annoying in raids, where AE tears through low-HP caster pets like no tomorrow. Caster pets SHOULD be the optimal choice for raids, to be able to deal damage out of AE range, but currently the caster pet is the WORST choice for raids because they die so fast.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Summoner raid DPS crippled by game mechanics<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Our damage is balanced for non-raid scenarios, where we can expect to keep pets alive through intelligent positioning. You can't do that in a raid, AE is brutal. Consequently, our overal DPS is severely crippled in any high end raid, to the point where we are moved much further down the DPS hierarchy than where we should be.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A potential fix to the above two problems would be to remove pets from default AE damage, much in the same way that mezzed mobs are currently not subject to AE damage.</DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM></EM></STRONG> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Our new level 50 spells suck!!</EM></STRONG><BR>--- Our undead charm is pretty much a joke. With the low duration, recurring power cost, and restriction to weak mobs, it is little more than a fluff spell. Compare to the new spells other casters get - group teleport? spell reflection? Come on. This spell needs to either be SIGNIFICANTLY improved in power/usefulness, or should be scrapped completely and replaced with something more appropriate and useful.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The level 50 DoT lifetap is reasonable, but incredibly bland. If our other spell is improved to something worthwhile, then this is fine as-is, but if the undead charm remains unchanged then this spell needs a noticable boost in damage or duration, or an additional effect.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#cc0033><EM><STRONG>Summonable mana conversion items are a pain to use<BR></STRONG></EM>--- Our dark heart line is pretty cool, in theory. the problem lies in the implementation. as it is now, nobody wants to use the darn things because it's a headache to do so repeatedly. sorceror, enchanter, and bard manafeed requires no work at all from the recipient, while ours requires they open their inventory, find the bauble, move it to activatable slot, then take the time to cast/activate it.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#cc0033></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#cc0033>In scenarios where the extra mana is most needed, such as a difficult and fast-paced raid, the healers are going to be busy spamming heals - they don't really have the luxury of fiddling around with inventory and item slots. It's bad enough that they would need to spend time to cast the bauble instead of a heal, but the inventory management is really too much.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#cc0033></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#cc0033>At a bare minimum, summoned baubles should appear in an empty activatable item slot if one exists. Instant cast would be nice too, but I'll take what I can get.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>INT bonus to damage doesn't scale up like it does for other casters<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Since over half our damage comes from pets, we recieve less than half the benefit from INT boosts that other casters do, or that melee types get from STR. this seems pretty unfair. a possible fix would be to have caster INT correspond to pet STR, to allow us a similar stat/damage growth curve as other classes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Never casting magi's shielding again<BR></EM></STRONG>--- i can understand wanting us to have to pick spells for each scenario, but the existing setup on beta seems ridiculous. as it currently stands, there is no scenario that a summoner would cast magi shielding. we effectively only have 2 slots available, as 1 slot is dedicated to pet and 2 more are required for pet buff. either reduce magi shielding to 2 slots, or reduce pet buff to 1 slot, so we can have a reasonable soloing setup involving magi shielding + pet + pet buff.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Feign death becoming pretty crappy<BR></EM></STRONG>--- currently, feign death is pretty fair (aside from working against any level mob regardless of apprentice/adept/master level, i agree that should be fixed). it's basically guaranteed to work, but has a long recharge time and maximum duration. however, once there is a reasonable chance of failure, it's really going to suck to wait 15 minutes to be able to feign only to have it fail and kill us. brawler feign has always had a chance of failure, but also has a very fast recast and no maximum duration to compensate.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>From a roleplay/flavor standpoint, it makes sense for necro feign death to be more reliable but usable less often and max duration. After all, we are casters, our feign death is a spell we are casting on ourselves to assume the illusion of death. We are the masters of death, we should be able to fool mobs consistently. Brawlers on the other hand are not casting a spell, they are literally 'playing possum' - controlling their body functions to the point of appearing dead, thus the chance of monsters not being fooled and the ability to do so more often and remain so indefinitely.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><EM><STRONG>Fix lich graphics<BR></STRONG></EM>--- The hair while in lich form really has to go. it looks dumb. not only does it look dumb, but it's horribly buggy , the hair smears and trails and ends up looking really absurd. it would also be nice if the low-detail lich model was changed, currently most people just see us as a skeleton with hair, not the lovely green flames and robes that are supposed to show up.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Pets run out of mana way too fast<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Give us some way to increase our pet's mana regen, or increase pet power pool/regen rate. also, aren't warlocks supposed to have built-in ways to get mana back? why isn't our warlock pet manatapping or converting life to mana when he gets low? There is a lot of room for improvement and flavor here.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>They need to give us mana spells like they gave necro in EQOA. Necros in EQOA got fast casting mana spells that stole mana from the mob and gave it to the whole group. Got them at 20, 30, 40 and 49 and you could chain cast them all in about 4 seconds and then start nuking again until they came back up to chain cast again. Necros in EQOA were the best mana buffers in the game after level 30 and they could also kick butt on top of it because of their pets damage.</DIV>

[borw]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> geckoskin wrote:<BR> <DIV>I figured now was a good a time as any to try and bring these issues to the attention of the powers that be.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><EM><STRONG>Summonable mana conversion items are a pain to use<BR></STRONG></EM>--- Our dark heart line is pretty cool, in theory. the problem lies in the implementation. as it is now, nobody wants to use the darn things because it's a headache to do so repeatedly. sorceror, enchanter, and bard manafeed requires no work at all from the recipient, while ours requires they open their inventory, find the bauble, move it to activatable slot, then take the time to cast/activate it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In scenarios where the extra mana is most needed, such as a difficult and fast-paced raid, the healers are going to be busy spamming heals - they don't really have the luxury of fiddling around with inventory and item slots. It's bad enough that they would need to spend time to cast the bauble instead of a heal, but the inventory management is really too much.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>At a bare minimum, summoned baubles should appear in an empty activatable item slot if one exists. Instant cast would be nice too, but I'll take what I can get.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>Pets run out of mana way too fast<BR></EM></STRONG>--- Give us some way to increase our pet's mana regen, or increase pet power pool/regen rate. also, aren't warlocks supposed to have built-in ways to get mana back? why isn't our warlock pet manatapping or converting life to mana when he gets low? There is a lot of room for improvement and flavor here.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Actually for these I see 2 solutions:</P> <P>For the Dark Heart line it should summon a no-rent item with unlimited charges or allow it to summon a no-rent item with stats that as soon as you put it on it casts a buff on you that slowly drains health for power. <--- This would also give lower than 50 necro's the ability to generate power since this publish is basically nerfing our power regen.</P> <P>For the pets they could do 2 things. Either give us a pet only power infusion spell or add a power drain effect into the offensive and defensive buffs.<BR></P>

[Dastion]

<DIV>"Its a low lvl spell. Think its meant to go obsolete. Sick of casting mage and summoner spells when I'm trying to be a Necromancer"</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>No, it's a basic mage spell that is never upgraded.  It's meant to give the mage his generic defenses.  They put it at 3conc so that other mages would have to choose wisely about what spells they use.  However, when it comes to Summoners we simply cannot opt to use it.  If any pet you are using it is going to take 4 conc to run.  4 conc just for our pet is insane. 1 for pet, 2 for stance, 1 for berzerk buff or, if warlock pet, then Teachings for extra intelligence.  The only bonus is that when you use the warlock pet you get to replace rending frenzy with a group buff.  But either way still only leaves you with 1 conc.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And to top it off, everything else you might need to do requires concentration.  Invisibility (only usable on one target, why does it need to use conc?), our pretty useless see invis buff, why do these need to require concentration?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The pet is a staple of our class, it shouldn't require 80% of our concentration to be made optimal.</DIV>

[Errie_Tholluxe]

Control Undead Master 1 is pretty much a joke in KoS. At 510 Int, lvl 66, the spell lasts for around 2 minutes, just long enough to kill one, maybe two other mobs before your back getting beat on again.Our new Undead Tide is also pretty much a joke, with less hitpoints than a newbie coercer and about as much defense. Yes yes, they put out additional damage. At the same lvl our fellows, the conj, get a short term pet buff that wipes the floor even post fix.Many adept 1's are by no means an update. Is a Master spell now considered treasured as well as the legendary gear? would explain a lot.<div></div>

[Selene1]

just because these are the necro boards, no need to necro post.let the dead rest for  a change.<div></div>

[Xalmat]

<img src="http://www.eqsummoners.com/images/omg_rez.jpg">