Slow nerfs, healing nerfs, and DD nerfs = useless Mystic

[Jedis-Pov]

<DIV>Level 27 Mystic. Well, on a heroic con mob in a two person group, I need to recast slow 3-4 times during the fight. Healing a level 31 Guardian, my best heal is Healing Ritual App4, and his healing power was cut by almost 100. Casting a heal barely fills 1/4 an inch of his health bar. My two DD's, Grey Wind and Smite, were put on the same recast timer. Meaning in order to use them for a heroic opportunity, I need to wait until the wheel is half way around before I can recast one. That is, unless I waste mana by recasting Miasma or Cold Fire just to complete the wheel.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Killing a blue mob puts me down to 40% health and about 30% mana.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Please tell me I'm missing something here, seems like our usefulness was cut by 75%.</DIV>

[Death'Knig]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Jedis-Povar wrote:<BR> <DIV>Level 27 Mystic. Well, on a heroic con mob in a two person group, I need to recast slow 3-4 times during the fight. Healing a level 31 Guardian, my best heal is Healing Ritual App4, and his healing power was cut by almost 100. Casting a heal barely fills 1/4 an inch of his health bar. My two DD's, Grey Wind and Smite, were put on the same recast timer. Meaning in order to use them for a heroic opportunity, I need to wait until the wheel is half way around before I can recast one. That is, unless I waste mana by recasting Miasma or Cold Fire just to complete the wheel.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Killing a blue mob puts me down to 40% health and about 30% mana.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Please tell me I'm missing something here, seems like our usefulness was cut by 75%.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>No ur not missing anything im 49 and even more useless at that lvl so wait :smileytongue:

[tebion]

<div></div>what you are missing is that the mobs were scaled down in both dps and hps, too (but the "tiers" of mobs were made more distinct , means the "^" mean way more now) -> in relation it's no nerf. <div></div><p>Message Edited by tebion on <span class=date_text>09-15-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:28 AM</span>

[BigDa]

<P>I'm not quite seeing the problems you have.</P> <P>Pre-DoF I just gave up playing my Mystic (level 43 - mostly Adept1 - no special equipment) because it was too painful to keep a group alive (or even a duo) and soloing was boring (especially after the Haze nerf).</P> <P>Post-DoF I'm finding I can solo yellows with little problem. Just managed a yellow single-up-arrow. Kept a 50 paladin alive against level 49 double-ups. The level of challenge (i.e. the /con system) seems to be fine now.</P> <P>I <EM>am</EM> however, a bit disappointed with our reduced effectiveness - some spells aren't worth using anymore. Wards work good, but direct heals are crappy. STA debuffs are pointless (if they don't last the whole combat there's no point) Haze being 16% and last 36 seconds is pointless. Mourning Soul is just worth using. DoTs I'm finding pretty dang effective and with the reuse/duration of DoTs and mixing in the odd Grey DD I'm rarely waiting to use HOs.</P> <DIV>All-in-all, though, it's better than pre-DoF, I'm finding. *shrug*</DIV>

[ioniskar]

<P>Although i have yet to group since DoF, only because i go LFG for 4 hours, solo, then log for the night. I have had only little troubles.</P> <P>When i first palyed i hated the new changes untill a few hours went by and found the way. I can solo yellow mobs in EF using only ghostly ward, Miasma, Grey wind for HO's and pulling with mourning soul and wailing haze, i end up with over half my power and almost full health if i keep warding. Now i kinda like the new system even if they did nerf my ad3 Prophetic gaurd.</P> <P> </P>

[Gardapthia]

<DIV>I am glad they made the changes they did, my Mystic doesn't fell so much like a generic healer now.  Mystic's specalties are wards, not direct heals, so naturally we should not have the most effective direct heals in the world.  Heck, if you think that our direct heals are that bad, go play a Fury.  Theirs, by design, are the weakest direct heals out of all the healer classes, so we really have nothing to complain about :smileywink: .  We are also among the most power-efficient healers now.  Oh and smite & greywind are technically the same line of spells, so they should be on the same timer :smileyhappy: .  Cold fire applies some initial direct dmg as well, so recasting for an HO would not really be a waste of power :smileywink: .</DIV>

[Banditman]

<span><blockquote><hr>BigDave wrote:<p> </p><p> STA debuffs are pointless (if they don't last the whole combat there's no point)  </p><hr></blockquote> No.  Wrong.  Please don't believe that for a moment. Here is how a STA debuff works, and how it DOESN'T work. The trick is to get your STA debuffs in IMMEDIATELY upon pull, before damage is being done to the mob. Let's say you have a mob with a max HP of 100.  Ideally, you want to debuff this mob before any damage is done.  You cast STA debuffs that change the max HP of the mob to 80.  If this is done before any damage is done, you just did 20 points of damage to the mob. Now, lets say the mob has already taken 10 HP of damage before the STA debuff lands.  The mob will still be in green but health will be halfway down the first bubble.  When the debuff lands, his health will appear to go back to full.  What actually happened is you knocked his max health down to 80, while his current health was at 90.  So, in this case you did 10 points of damage, taking his current health to 80 along with his max health. The final possibility is that the mob has taken more damage than the STA debuff works for.  Let's say the mob has taken 30 points of damage before the debuff lands.  In this case, we'd see his health as just turning yellow, midway in the second bubble.  The debuff lands and his max HP are reduced to 80.  Graphically, you'll see the mob go from yellow to green because instead of 70 / 100 HP, the mob now has 70 / 80 HP. STA debuffs are always useful provided the mob is not damaged past the point the STA debuff will take away HP.</span><div></div>

[BigDa]

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Banditman wrote:<BR><SPAN> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> BigDave wrote: <P>STA debuffs are pointless (if they don't last the whole combat there's no point)� <BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>No.�  Wrong.�  Please don't believe that for a moment.<BR></SPAN> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>Ah, cool <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Thanks for that, Bandit - can always rely on you for the by-the-numbers facts! So, Fallacy is good as long as you pretty much pull with it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I guess I didn't really think it through - it kinda doesn't make sense that a debuff that has a duration only really has an efefct when it lands.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks Bandit!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Done any post-DoF parsing?</DIV>

[Banditman]

<div></div>I'm not even logging yet. I don't need a parse to tell me my DPS still stinks and that I can heal pretty good. I would like to parse some of the debuffs at some point to see what they "really" do.  The whole "reduces DPS by xx" thing is a very confusing issue and it bothers me a lot. Could be a while though, I'm working hard to keep up with my guild in pushing up to L55 so we can start hitting some DOF raid mobs. Incidentally, I wouldn't pull with it.  For some reason, the first hostile act taken upon a mob seems to generate a much higher amount of aggro than would normally be associated with the same act not being the first hostile act.  It's strange but true.<p>Message Edited by Banditman on <span class=date_text>09-15-2005</span> <span class=time_text>09:39 AM</span>

[BigDa]

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Banditman wrote:<BR> I'm not even logging yet.<BR><BR>I don't need a parse to tell me my DPS still stinks and that I can heal pretty good.<BR><BR>I would like to parse some of the debuffs at some point to see what they "really" do.  The whole "reduces DPS by xx" thing is a very confusing issue and it bothers me a lot.<BR><BR>Could be a while though, I'm working hard to keep up with my guild in pushing up to L55 so we can start hitting some DOF raid mobs.<BR><BR>Incidentally, I wouldn't pull with it.  For some reason, the first hostile act taken upon a mob seems to generate a much higher amount of aggro than would normally be associated with the same act not being the first hostile act.  It's strange but true.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>I may well do some logging myself - will post for your perusal!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'm finding aggro difficult to judge, since the first thing that ever happens in my groups is the tank gets aggro, gets hit, triggers the ward component of that buff of ours and the monsters run straight at me. So handy that wards now give aggro to us <EM>as they fire</EM>. No more zero-aggro, pre-warding <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV>

[Syltara]

banditman, thanks for that very helpful explanation as to why STA debuffs seem to "heal" the mob. my gf (monk) would always yell at me for undoing her work LOL. finally just stopped using that spell line and never got around to researching if the "bug" was really a bug. now i know it isn't. kewlish <span>:smileyhappy:</span> <div></div>

[Banditman]

Not a problem. An easy rule of thumb to remember with STA debuffs is that if the mob is one bubble down, STA debuff probably won't net you any benefit in HP reductions. Of course, there may be other reasons to cast the STA debuff.  Some have resist debuffs, some have STR debuffs.

[Kalada]

<P>I love my mystic now, but never really hated him, just thought he got overlooked as a healer.  I am a debuff god now and took my master lvl ward at lvl 44 and now hardly ever have to recast it.  (Love the whole works with mitigation thing).  </P> <P>Always loving Mystics..</P> <P> </P>

[RicoRanger]

<P>Hey banditman,  do you have any opinion on slows post-rebalance.  My understanding pre-rebalance was that since they don't slow CAs, only auto-attack speed, they were of limited value.  However, one thing they mentioned in the LU#13 patch notes was that NPCs now spread out their power usage more evenly over the duration of the fight whereas they used to font load and dump all their power in the early part of the fight.  This sounds to me like the percent of auto-attack dmg in the early part of the fight may have increased.  Do you think this makes slows more worthwhile?  Enough to be worth the effort/power?</P> <P>I also noticed that one of the training abilities was a master II version of one of the slows (wailing haze?) that has 20% speed reduction.  Previously, I think they were all 15%.  Does this change the picture for slowing at all?</P>

[Banditman]

Well, we can still draw some conclusions even with the old data. Let me start by saying that even with fights lasting only 45 seconds or so in the "new" combat system, I'm casting Haze and Mourning Soul when the mobs are single.  I "feel" like it's making a difference.  I have not parsed anything in the new system, I merely have my "real situation" observations that these two debuffs in combination seem to make a difference in how much healing I have to do. Now, I would say that when we finally start seeing some parse data come back we'll see some interesting stuff.  I think that caster mobs are probably still going to be ruled by the old formula of 66% damage from Specials, 33% from auto-attack.  However, for melee mobs, I think we're gonna see it even out some.  Maybe even to 50 / 50. I'd say that against melee mobs, you're probably going to see Slow become a little more powerful.  Not a lot, but you might be talking about 12 percent reduction in overall DPS now as opposed to 8 percent before.  Again, those numbers are TOTALLY off the cuff.  I have no idea if they are correct or completely bogus. We'll see how it goes when some data starts coming back from the field.

[RicoRanger]

<P> </P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Banditman wrote:<BR>Well, we can still draw some conclusions even with the old data.<BR><BR>Let me start by saying that even with fights lasting only 45 seconds or so in the "new" combat system, I'm casting Haze and Mourning Soul when the mobs are single.  I "feel" like it's making a difference.  I have not parsed anything in the new system, I merely have my "real situation" observations that these two debuffs in combination seem to make a difference in how much healing I have to do.<BR><BR>Now, I would say that when we finally start seeing some parse data come back we'll see some interesting stuff.  I think that caster mobs are probably still going to be ruled by the old formula of 66% damage from Specials, 33% from auto-attack.  However, for melee mobs, I think we're gonna see it even out some.  Maybe even to 50 / 50.<BR><BR>I'd say that against melee mobs, you're probably going to see Slow become a little more powerful.  Not a lot, but you might be talking about 12 percent reduction in overall DPS now as opposed to 8 percent before.  Again, those numbers are TOTALLY off the cuff.  I have no idea if they are correct or completely bogus.<BR><BR>We'll see how it goes when some data starts coming back from the field.<BR><BR><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Thanks!  I'm really hoping that slowing starts to play more of a role in EQ2.  Heck, I'd like to see mezzing play more of a role in EQ2.  To me, crowd control and aggro management were some of the things that made EQ1 so challenging.</P>

[BlueskiesTx]

<DIV>I also want to thank Banditman for explaining the STA debuff.. I have always wondered about that and now it's like the light bulb just went off!!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I've been reading your posts for months now, they are so scientifically researched... instead of just saying, "This spell sucks!!" you tell us WHY it sucks lol...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks for taking the time.</DIV>

[BALTO]

over time when ya see the benefits of substituting us with other class, you'll weigh more on the useless mystic side....yes were better than before, an other healers are now hurting like we have "always" been, which cracks me up...since we're adopting to the changes better from liven with our [Removed for Content]'d class for a year, heheh.  spell duration on debuffs, wards lasting power still week imho, means were spamming wards an heals as before, an if ya lay on our debuffs fully, your almost need'n to recast the important ones...not so easy as lone healer to make time for this, with resis an interuptions. just a few seconds while waiting for heal/wards to recycle to try an get one debuff off as lone healer, i find myself caught in a frenzied heal cycle, just as i did 7 months ago...cept then it wasnt as frenzied due to the haze line not be'n nerfed below the clerics debuff of the same flavor. i enjoy the challange honestly, but have a serious streak of class envy...even class envy with in the preist tree, not as bad though as before revamp. <div></div>