Banditman
03-16-2006, 03:07 AM
<div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div>Greetings Mystics and others. The following compilation of information is the result of the work and brainstorming of many leading Mystics. While Mystics are much more satisfied with their class than they were pre-LU13, there are still some issues remaining which impact our class that should be addressed, corrected and updated.This post is broken into three sections, each of which may have up to 10 different topics. As these topics are addressed or other topics come up, I'll try to update the thread to reflect this. Special thanks to Kendricke as I stole his idea for how to organize this.<font size="4">The Bugs</font>This section is items and topics which are broken, not working or working incorrectly. Included is supporting information when available and necessary. Mystics have done everything in their power to confirm these bugs so that accurate debugging and correction of these issues can take place.1. <strike>Attendant line of spells is no longer healing as it has. It's gone from one heal "pulse" every two seconds to one heal pulse every six seconds, cutting it's effectiveness by two thirds. We were told this was being fixed, but it's still broken on Live.</strike> <font color="#ff0000">This appears to be fixed in LU21.</font><strike>2. Group Wards appear to be leaking damage through on to protected players. There doesn't seem to be any noticeable reason for this to be happening, such as a pre-existing DoT or effect.<i>Supporting Information -Here's a fairly clear log of it. I've edited out a lot of garbage in the middle, the complete log is still posted elsewhere:(1140845574)[Fri Feb 24 22:32:54 2006] aNPC 1041308 Altairenanhk the Riddler:Altairenanhk the Riddler/a says to you,"What animal begins on four feet, then walks on two feet, and finally walks on three feet?"(1140845577)[Fri Feb 24 22:32:57 2006] Kaswa's group is enveloped by a protective umbral shroud!(1140845577)[Fri Feb 24 22:32:57 2006] Nicia envelops your group with a protective umbral shroud!(1140845577)[Fri Feb 24 22:32:57 2006] Amary's group is enveloped by a protective umbral shroud! <font color="#ff0000"><== weee! we're protected!</font>(1140845577)[Fri Feb 24 22:32:57 2006] Loendar's group is enveloped by a protective umbral shroud!(1140845577)[Fri Feb 24 22:32:57 2006] Guralo's group is enveloped by a protective umbral shroud!(1140845577)[Fri Feb 24 22:32:57 2006] Superairhead's group is enveloped by a protective umbral shroud!(1140845579)[Fri Feb 24 22:32:59 2006] You say to Altairenanhk the Riddler,"man"(1140845579)[Fri Feb 24 22:32:59 2006] Success is rewarded.(1140845579)[Fri Feb 24 22:32:59 2006] Amary hits Unknown for 46001 points of pain and suffering damage.(1140845580)[Fri Feb 24 22:33:00 2006] Altairenanhk hits Amary for 1584 points of crushing damage. <font color="#ff0000"><== ouch! right thru the ward</font>(1140845580)[Fri Feb 24 22:33:00 2006] Amary's Sanguine Feedback hits Altairenanhk for 226 points of heat damage.(1140845581)[Fri Feb 24 22:33:01 2006] Altairenanhk tries to crush Amary, but misses.(1140845583)[Fri Feb 24 22:33:03 2006] Altairenanhk hits Amary for 1062 points of crushing damage. <font color="#ff0000"><== ouch! right thru the ward</font>(1140845592)[Fri Feb 24 22:33:12 2006] Altairenanhk hits Amary but fail to inflict any damage. <font color="#ff0000"><== ward caught this one</font>(1140845607)[Fri Feb 24 22:33:27 2006] The umbral shroud surrounding Loendar's group dissipates. <font color="#ff0000"><== ward wears off</font>(1140845607)[Fri Feb 24 22:33:27 2006] The umbral shroud surrounding Guralo's group dissipates.(1140845607)[Fri Feb 24 22:33:27 2006] The umbral shroud surrounding Kaswa's group dissipates.(1140845607)[Fri Feb 24 22:33:27 2006] The umbral shroud surrounding Amary's group dissipates.</i></strike>3. Our cures do not seem to scale properly when mentored. We are having a difficult time curing when mentored down.4. The Vultak Tribal Spear does not fulfill the AA requirement for a spear when equipped.5. Our pet does not appear to properly receive buffs placed upon him.<i>Supporting information -Here are two tests run by very competent Mystics regarding the ability of our pet to be buffed properly:Test 1I dropped every buff I had, summoned the pet, and dueled a ranger. I had the ranger take him down in health a bit, made sure he wasn't using any abilities with an effect (dot etc), and waited for the pet to tick on health regen. Then I cast healing ritual (the teens strong heal).My results:Unbuffed:239 Healed, 33% (39 to 72)239 x 100/33 = 724 HP on petForetelling on Pet (Should be +643 Max Health):215 Healed, 25% (52 to 77)215 x 100/25 = 860 HP on petUmbral Mettle on my group (should apply to me and pet? +321 Max Health):257 Healed, 32% (62 to 94)257 x 100/32 = 803 HP on petSpirit of the Mammoth on my group (+66 STA)215 Healed, 29% (63 to 92)215 x 100/29 = 741HP on petTest 2Ran out to PoF and tested the amount of damage required to kill Dogdog under these conditions:I subtracted last hit -1 from the total damage to get the minimum HP he had.No buffs: 514 - 653 HPAvatar only: 628 - 729 HPSpirit of Mammoth only: 578 - 707 HPUmbral Mettle only: 708 - 790 HPForetelling only: 644 - 776 HPAll buffs: 822 - 939 HPThis test was run by a L62 Mystic, his buffs as follows:Avatar, Master 1: +59 StaminaSpirit of Mammoth, Adept 3: +66 StaminaUmbral Mettle, Adept 1: +241 HPForetelling, Adept 1: +482 HPTotal buffs: +125 Stamina, +723 HPIn total, this Mystic should have been buffing in the ballpark of 1350 HP to his petAs you can see, it is only adding 286 to 308 HP.We assume that this bug also applies to buffs from other players which should have an effect on our pet.</i>6. Aura of Haste and Immunities must be recast after zoning. Please make all AA buffs work identically to avoid confusion.7. Our pet, like Conjuror and Necro pets, can cause the "stuck in combat" bug. (rare now - 2006072<img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />8. Higher quality versions of lower tier with potentially lesser effects overwrite higher tier, lower quality buffs. Runic Talisman for instance has this problem.9. Ritual Expertise doesn't scale properly beyond rank 3.<i>Supporting information -Perhaps there is an issue with the code that only allows a spell to go down to .5 seconds of casting?Note: You must zone for the your spell descriptions to update themselves, so if you verify this ensure that you zone after every point spent.Description:"Basic single target cure spells have reduced casting and recovery times, and cost less power"Now, lets look at the cures.UNMODIFIED: Cast 1.0s, Recovery 0.5s, Power 95RANK 1:Reads: Increases the speed of basic cure spells, by improving casting speed by 12.5%, recovery and reuse timers by 4%, and reduces power costs by 6%.Actual new cost: Cast 0.8s, Recovery 0.4s, Power 89 (Game rounds down to our advantage here)RANK 2:Reads: Increases the speed of basic cure spells, by improving casting speed by 25%, recovery and reuse timers by 8%, and reduces power costs by 12%.Actual new cost: Cast: 0.8s, Recovery 0.4s, Power 83 (Here the rounding scheme seems different, but it is well within limits)RANK 3:Reads: Increases the speed of basic cure spells, by improving casting speed by 37.5%, recovery and reuse timers by 12%, and reduces power costs by 18%.Actual new cost: Cast: 0.7s, Recovery 0.4s, Power 77 (Again, rounding scheme different the the first, but still within limits)Rank 4:Reads: Increases the speed of basic cure spells, by improving casting speed by 50%, recovery and reuse timers by 16%, and reduces power costs by 24%.Actual new cost: Cast: 0.6s, Recovery 0.4s, Power 72 (Casting time here should be 0.5s? Everything else appears within limits).Rank 5:Reads: Increases the speed of basic cure spells, by improving casting speed by 62.5%, recovery and reuse timers by 20%, and reduces power costs by 30%.Actual new cost: Cast: 0.6s, Recovery 0.4s, Power 71 (Cast and power cost bugged: should be at least .4 cast even rounded against us; power cost should be 66 or 67)Rank 6:Reads: Increases the speed of basic cure spells, by improving casting speed by 75%, recovery and reuse timers by 24%, and reduces power costs by 36%.Actual cost: Cast: 0.5s, Recovery 0.4s, Power 71 (Cast time should be at worst .3, recovery is okay if rounded up, power cost should be 60 or 61)Rank 7:Reads: Increases the speed of basic cure spells, by improving casting speed by 87.5%, recovery and reuse timers by 28%, and reduces power costs by 42%.Actual cost: Cast 0.5s, Recovery 0.3s, Power 71 (Cast time should be .2 at worst, recovery is okay, power cost should be 55 or 56)Rank 8:Reads: Increases the speed of basic cure spells, by improving casting speed by 100%, recovery and reuse timers by 32%, and reduces power costs by 48%.Actual cost: Cast 0.5s, Recovery 0.3s, Power 71 (Cast time should be 0? Maybe .1, recovery is okay, power cost should be 45 or 46)</i>10. Ritualist Aggression does not proc correctly. With a 12% chance to proc, it can be seen to proc on an exceedingly rare basis. Players with less than 12% (4 ranks) into this report never seeing the proc go off at all.<font size="4">The Balance Issues</font>These are issues which directly impact the Mystics "place in the world". They are issues involving abilities or situations which we feel make Mystics a less desireable class to play or play with.1. Bolster nerf. Ok, explain to me how a decrease in effectiveness the likes of which recently hit Bolster can be defined as "slight". Are we back to the nerf first ask questions later stage? Bolster had been in it's form for the entire beta period, during which we can only ASSUME it was tested and deemed to be appropriate.2. Stamina buffs are, in the endgame, not nearly as valuable as a raw HP buff. Since most of Mystics buffs revolve around Stamina, this is a huge problem for Mystics. We would like some consideration given to this. Some possible solutions include allowing Stamina buffs to raise the cap. By allowing Stamina buffs to raise the cap, you give Mystics back a decent amount of desireability since the full impact of their buffs in this tree will be felt.<i>Supporting information -It has been shown that a high quality tank can, with little help, push his/her Stamina very near the hard cap. In these situations, a Mystic is of very little value, whereas a class who buffs raw HP retains the full value of their buffs.We believe it would be fair and reasonable to have the Mystic buffs which affect Stamina push the Stamina cap up by the value of the buff.In many situations, this particular mechanic would have absolutely no effect whatsoever on gameplay. In those situations where the value of a Mystic is currently being repressed by the cap, this mechanic would alleviate those concerns without greatly impacting the overall balance of the encounters.</i><strike>3. Wards are not subject to criticals the way Reactives and Regens are. This is a fairly significant handicap as various AA's among various classes increase heal criticals. This needs to be corrected and ideally Wards need to be LOGGED. 4. Wards do NOT log. Yea, it's important. Something so simple as "Shaman01's Ward on Player01 absorbed xxxx hit points of damage" would be a godsend. This is an ongoing, long term problem that has never been addressed or resolved. We aren't buying the whole "mechanics" thing. "Mechanics" were the reason Wards could "never" take mitigation into account.<i>Supporting information -One concept we've come up with is when something hits a ward, have a number pop out of the persons head and show how much damage was absorbed. Use a different color to differentiate this from a normal heal (blue?).Yes, we still want it logged, but putting it out there in big blue numbers would kinda rock too.</i></strike><font size="4">The Wish List</font>These are different ideas or concepts that we've come up with which we feel would enhance the playability and enjoyment of our class. We've tried to keep them restricted to things that don't heavily impact balance, though I'm not sure we've always been successful.1. Change our pets auto attacks from crushing to disease. Right now, our AAs demand that our pet be in harms way quite often. Because of the VERY weak nature of our pet, he is often riposted and killed. It's asking a little much for a healer to position a pet in rear arc and still do his job. By making his auto attack disease based, he can no longer be riposted and his surviveability will improve without stepping on the toes of Summoners by making our pet more powerful than he needs to be to do his job.2. Upgrading our Group Cure spells past Adept 1 does little to no good. The scaling on that line needs to be looked at, probably across all Priest classes. It becomes most problematic as we wait out the last couple levels before an upgrade.3. With the advent of Tier 7, it has become apparent that there is little desire to improve our Haze line of debuff with respect to the things that this line currently debuffs. Please consider adding something more to this line, perhaps spell skill debuffs, cast timer Slow or even just increased duration on the existing effects. We can understand if, for balance reasons, further improvement of the Slow and melee skill debuffs are problematic, but please give us a positive reason to upgrade to further tiers of this line.4. In the current scheme of things, many of the AA's revolve around certain items or types of items being equipped. In particular, many of the Shaman AA's require a spear. Unfortunately, this requirement basically precludes a Shaman ever going along that line since the itemization of spears is so horribly weak. Consider adding a spear to both the Prismatic and Godking lines if you insist on keeping these requirements intact. While we agree that these requirements may be good for flavor, it's simply too much loss of functionality to swallow. It's not going to add much flavor if no one uses it right?5. While we do appreciate the added flavor to our direct healing lines, that flavor simply doesn't add any inherent value. Instead of the current increase to maximum HP, consider taking that increase and converting it to a small Ward instead. This certainly continues the flavor of the Mystic class and adds more real value to our heals.6. Please, please, please consider giving our Attendant line some real RANGE on his healing. The current range is around 5m of RADIUS (10m diameter) and does absolutely no good at all in most situations. We don't believe it would be unreasonable to give this line the same range as our normal heals. If it's supposed to heal, please, let it heal.7. More "Creatures of Shadow". You can hardly take two steps without running into some Undead creature, but I challenge any developer to find a solo / group grind friendly concentration of "Creatures of Shadow" beyond level 50. It may even be so simple as reclassifying certain mobs as "Creatures of Shadow".8. We lost the haste portion of Avatar. How about giving a little back. Not necessarily Haste, but perhaps DPS mod or Attack rating?<p>Message Edited by Banditman on <span class="date_text">03-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">05:20 PM</span></p><p>Message Edited by Banditman on <span class=date_text>07-28-2006</span> <span class=time_text>03:29 PM</span>