Mystic damage spells do not get better

[t3h_m0nopOl1z]

<DIV>In fact, they seem to stay the same or get worse.</DIV> <DIV><IMG src="http://members.cox.net/maxrobinson/AENukes.jpg"></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'm level 50 - but this spell is STILL not better. I know it's still orange - I know it will grow to be better (if I can get level 57) - but this is not a problem with normal DPS classes. A new spell at adept or adept 3 will exceed Master I damage usually only a level or so into it's progression. The other DD spell - Ire of the Grey - has a similar problem. I'm in the process of getting adept 3 of that so I don't have a picture (I've been getting some extra rubies and filling in some holes).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I understand trying to keep our dps low, but it seems plain stupid to have new spells be worse than old ones - and take more mana.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And another problem is our DoT spells do not upgrade very much - only the initial tick increases at a normal scale.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Again, we're not supposed to be a dps class, but this is still an annoying problem.</DIV>

[Merrygr]

<P>I have to agree on this. Same thing goes for our heal spells. Takes a VERY long time for the new heal to be an improvement over the old one (hp/power mainly).</P> <P>My understanding is that this will change completely though. The way spells scale will be redone (same patch as the combat/priest balance?).</P> <P> </P>

[BigDa]

No surprises there, really.  Nice that DoTs damage became mitigated by resists recently, too.  Anyone would think SOE are trying to get mystics to give up...  If it wasn't for the fact all our other abilities are so good, I'd stop playing...

[Banditman]

All spell damage is now mitigated by resists.  Every caster was "penalized" equally by the change which allowed resists to mitigate spell damage. All healers were were equally "improved" by the same change. <div></div>

[t3h_m0nopOl1z]

<DIV>I'm not so much annoyed by the fact that our damage isn't that great, we're preists after all. I'm more annoyed by the fact that the spells do not improve as you level, which is really the only reason I leveled in the first place. If our abilities just get worse or stay the same (in effect getting worse compared to the new challenges) as we level up, what's the point of leveling?</DIV>

[Banditman]

Get the Master for Fury, level to 57 and compare again.  I think you'll see that an apples to apples comparison will work in favor of the higher level spell. <div></div>

[Mystiq]

I too was disappointed at the adept 3 versin of Fury. The Anger master 1 was my first master spell ever :smileyvery-happy: (or was it breath of spirits....hm). But I must agree with Banditman, once an expansion hits and the level cap is raised, Fury should then improve enough to use it over Anger, not that I see much of a reason to, Anger doesn't really get resisted due to being grey in my experience.

[Thatdumbg]

<span class="headline">Update Notes: June 5, 2005<i> 6/5/2005 11:00 </i>*** Spells and Abilities *** Mystic - Corrected an issue with the resist rate of Anger of the Ancients.<i> </i></span> <div></div>

[Nal]

<span><blockquote><hr>Banditman wrote:Get the Master for Fury, level to 57 and compare again.  I think you'll see that an apples to apples comparison will work in favor of the higher level spell. <div></div><hr></blockquote>As this may <i>possibly </i>be true, a spell that you master 7 levels PAST max level should be stronger by comparison by a great amount compared to a spell you master at level 42, 8 levels lower than max level.  The game does not allow you to level high enough to master it,  so there is no point in leveling until they up max level pretty much. even then, if they do stuff they way they do it, there is always going to be conflicts until they give the game no max level or just dont give people armor or equipment after the point in which they cant master it by max level.  either way wont work. a third choice would be to make everything mastered automatically at max level, regardless of the skill needed to master it.  unfortunately, that would make it so they cant change max level without the spells and equipment turning orange and thus decreasing its value until you level up more.  that pretty much makes your character weaker until you reach the level to master all of the stuff which you mastered by reaching the previous max level.  either way, the system that they have now is fairly flawed unless they give the game no max level, which is nearly impossible to do. just my opinion on the situation.  its fairly possible some of my reasoning may be wrong, but thats at least what i get out of the whole thing. (and yes, i know that they plan to fix this one spell, im just saying as a general statement, their system is flawed...a good idea, but not worked right.)</span><div></div>

[t3h_m0nopOl1z]

<P>I'm already 1/3 of the way through the spells progression. I don't know what it starts at, but I assume its around 300? So when it maxes out it would be at about 400? 50 more damage? That's 14% more damage then my old one. Given that Master I's usually do about 10% more damage in the best of cases, that's a decent amount of upgrade if you compare Master vs Master at thier maxed levels, but we're comparing level 42 and level 57 here. Thats 15 levels difference.</P> <P>I know my Ranger's spells aren't this bad when it comes to "upgrades".</P> <P>I suppose this isn't an issue though since they are going to make everything max out instantly with the big patch. And they're balancing (?) all the healers. And they're adding ward mitigation. </P> <P>Damnit.</P><p>Message Edited by t3h_m0nopOl1z3r on <span class=date_text>06-06-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:11 AM</span>

[Banditman]

<span><blockquote><hr>NallX wrote:<span><blockquote><hr>Banditman wrote:Get the Master for Fury, level to 57 and compare again.  I think you'll see that an apples to apples comparison will work in favor of the higher level spell. <div></div><hr></blockquote>As this may <i>possibly </i>be true, a spell that you master 7 levels PAST max level should be stronger by comparison by a great amount compared to a spell you master at level 42, 8 levels lower than max level.  The game does not allow you to level high enough to master it,  so there is no point in leveling until they up max level pretty much. <font color="#ff0000">It's not "possibly" true, it's a flat out fact.  Until a spell is white, it's going to keep getting better.  Further, you cannot compare spells of different qualities.  It's apples to oranges.  I guarantee, if the OP is fortunate enough to get the Master quality spell for Fury, then when the expansion hits, levels to 57, he'll see a significant difference between the two spells.</font> even then, if they do stuff they way they do it, there is always going to be conflicts until they give the game no max level or just dont give people armor or equipment after the point in which they cant master it by max level.  either way wont work. a third choice would be to make everything mastered automatically at max level, regardless of the skill needed to master it.  unfortunately, that would make it so they cant change max level without the spells and equipment turning orange and thus decreasing its value until you level up more.  that pretty much makes your character weaker until you reach the level to master all of the stuff which you mastered by reaching the previous max level.  either way, the system that they have now is fairly flawed unless they give the game no max level, which is nearly impossible to do. just my opinion on the situation.  its fairly possible some of my reasoning may be wrong, but thats at least what i get out of the whole thing. (and yes, i know that they plan to fix this one spell, im just saying as a general statement, their system is flawed...a good idea, but not worked right.) <font color="#ff0000">The system works fine, the problem is that people don't understand it or fairly discuss comparisons within it.  Yes, some of the "upgrades" in quality need to be looked at because their benefit doesn't seem to be worthwhile.  But this is a comparison of a spell to itself, not a comparison of a spell line.</font></span><div></div><hr></blockquote></span><div></div>

[Mystiq]

<P>I still tend to agree that the system is flawed. It's not perfect, but it doesn't need to be scrapped for a whole new system that they'd likely screw up even more. Spells should upgrade at a more fixed and constant rate. Hell, separate them into buffs, damage arts, damage nukes, debuffs, taunts, heals and misc. utility first and then go from there, but there's no excuse for this higgldy piggldy system that lets the pertinent numbers in the spells only upgrade by 1 or 2 when going from app. 4 to adept 3 of an already white con or lower spell. Some spells don't even improve at all, or go backwards in effectiveness with upgrades......someone tell me the point to that.</P> <P>Anyways, this isn't a Mystic specific issue as i'm sure we all realize by now, but we all feel the pain of the OP. If you want to be heard on the issue I suggest you take the complaint to the spells and abilities forum, and add it to the already existing threads over there pertaining to this issue. I'm sure there's even a compiled list that some Mystic has already made detailing most if not all of our spells that do not upgrade for poop that you could draw attention to as well.</P> <P>Regards,</P>

[Ellywen]

<DIV>Just now, I noticed a copy of Mourning Soul Master up....  I have the adept 1, so i did a comparison, cause I love this slow...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>They have the same effect!  The slow doesnt increase with master AT ALL.  In fact, the Master is worse, because it costs more power!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now seriously... [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot]?</DIV>

[Banditman]

The current thinking is that higher quality of Mourning Soul is harder to resist.  This is not a representation of any known fact, merely speculation.  Feel free to put numbers to it if you so desire. <div></div>

[Slapfish]

<P>Seems to me what's really being missed in the discussion is that it's not the amount of % that a spell can go up, but the fact that even when it maxes it's not enough to make up for the increased difficulty of MOB's we're fighting. It's not like we're asking for a bonus here, we're asking to keep up. Do you really think that 10-12 level difference in the HP of MOB's we are fighting is only 24%? (btw I am going from the example used earlier of a MASTER level spell). </P> <P>If MOB HP increases aprx. 10% per level, a 10 level increase would mean a 100% increase in HP. (actually more if it's compounded, but for simplicity's sake we'll keep it level) So, just to stay even a spell awarded ten levels later needs to do DOUBLE the amount of damage, not 24%! What it means is that as we level we are sliding further and further behind because our spells are not scaling up in proportion to the difficulty of the MOB's we are fighting. </P> <P>I'm not looking to be a super duper soloing machine, I just dont' want to have to run everytime more than one blue MOB starts hitting me (like everyone else) Just a few weeks ago I watched a Templar a few levels below me fight two white con MOBs (white to me) without any problems. Yesterday it took me a FULL bar of mana (and two manastone conversions) to kill a level 33 heroic MOB. (gray to me). You tell me any other class that would have that much trouble fighting a MOB 6 levels lower. </P> <P>It's not just our damage spells that are like this, our heals and wards are not scaling as they should either. At level 39 my best heal only does a few hundred more than my best one at level 20. </P> <P>Something is seriously wrong here. These days when I get a spell I just shrug. Who cares. Chances are it's no better than what I had before and uses more power to cast it. Maybe it will get better in a few levels, but what's the point? Isn't the point of getting a new spell the fact that now you have something that is better than what you had before? In the few levels it takes to improve the MOB difficulty has once again increased so any improvement is meaningless. </P> <P>I'm gonna keep on playing my Mystic in the hope that SONY will make changes to this class but I hope they do it soon because I'm getting pretty discouraged. </P>

[Pin StNeedl]

<P>Although I agree that in many cases the increase from tier-tier is not enough and that the increase from app->adp->mas isn't enough, you really should try to make a fair comparison.</P> <P>e.g. compare master to master, or ad3 to ad3.... Ad3 of Anger is what? 280 damage?</P>

[Ellywen]

<DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Banditman wrote:<BR>The current thinking is that higher quality of Mourning Soul is harder to resist.  This is not a representation of any known fact, merely speculation.  Feel free to put numbers to it if you so desire.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>This adept spell hardly ever gets resisted for me, even against lvl 50+ epic encounters.  On the off chance it does, its recast is practically immediate, so... who cares?  Will land the second time =p</DIV>

[SweetSyc]

<span><blockquote><hr>Banditman wrote:The current thinking is that higher quality of Mourning Soul is harder to resist.  This is not a representation of any known fact, merely speculation.  Feel free to put numbers to it if you so desire. <div></div><hr></blockquote>A totally different topic here that I'd like to investigate also. Are higher level upgrades less likely to be resisted? </span><div></div>

[Pin StNeedl]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> SweetSycho wrote:<BR><SPAN><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Banditman wrote:<BR>The current thinking is that higher quality of Mourning Soul is harder to resist.  This is not a representation of any known fact, merely speculation.  Feel free to put numbers to it if you so desire.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>A totally different topic here that I'd like to investigate also. Are higher level upgrades less likely to be resisted?<BR></SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>I don't know how accurate it is, or if it remains true, but back in beta it was stated that each level of upgrade on a spell was equivalent to casting the spell at 1 level higher for resist purposes (might be 1 skill level higher, so 0.2 of an adventurer level).</DIV>

[Banditman]

That sounds like a very reasonable theory, I'd buy that. <div></div>