Spell Consolidation

[Sandain666]

<p>What spells should be consolidated? What spells should not? Personally I would like Lamenting Soul and Shreiking Haze to be combined , Also Lethargy and Wail of the Ancients. What other spells might be helpful to consolidate?</p>

[Birn]

Umbral mettle, runic aegis, spirit of mammoth and ursine augur.

[Finora]

<p>I would NOT like to see the buffs consolidated unless they reduce the amount of concentration the combined buff would take.</p><p>There are situations (more so for other priest classes) where you want to not have one of your group buffs or your self buff up in order to be able to cast more of the single target ones. Infrequent for mystics, but if they did that for us, they'd do it to all the priest classes and that would completely mess up how some of the other classes buff in groups and raids.</p><p>The two examples in the first post wouldn't be too bad, I just am leery of the whole 'spell consolidation' thing. I fear they'll go overboard with it and EQ2 combat will become like WoW with the hit your 3-4 abilities, hit with auto attack until the abilities refresh, hit them all again, auto attack, repeat until dead. All still button pushing here now but at least you do have to think about which ones you're going to push in a fight.</p>

[Baccalarium]

Eidolon merged with either Haze or Lamenting Soul. Would drop 3 single target debuffs to 2.    I'd love to see the 2 multi target debuffs merged into one cast since they are both so slow to cast.   But I view that much more game changing.    I often have a choice between offsenive (mit )debuff or defensive(slow) debuff,  it might take me a while to get used to not having that choice to make anymore. 

[Sandain666]

I forgot to mention ' Let's PLEASE try to keep this thread on topic with as little clutter as possible. I know there are lots of things we could all wish for but let's keep focused on Spell consolidation.

[Urian]

<p>mmm all single target debuffs into 1!!!</p><p>all encounter debuffs into 1!!!</p><p>yummy yummy~<img src="/smilies/908627bbe5e9f6a080977db8c365caff.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Urian]

<p>I have just been told to take a look at eqflame board since someone said that the devs visit the site and we should write our input there. So, there I went and before I register I decided to take a look at the mystic class board. After spending 2min reading through the spell consolidation topic I decided never to visit there again. Without making comments on any of the members there and since I am not going to apply membership in eqflames I will just voice my opinions here.</p><p>First of all, how is consolidate our debuffs not a good thing? What does "dumbing" down got anything to do with this?</p><p>Maybe I am alone in the world in this but execute a debuff cycle in raid is really not that hard, and I will hardly call it skill, and if YOU do then you should go play FFXI.</p><p>There is no need to CHOSE which debuff to be put on under any circumstances. Its either you throw them all on during raids, or throw a couple on if your grouping. The reality is tho the combat is so quick you really only need to put on 1 to 2 maximum and theres no need to chose because the effects are all similar and minimal. The real effect of debuffs are only taking into account after been contributed by every members in the group.</p><p>The way I see it spell consolidation (at least in aspect of debuffs) are quit opposite of dumbing down, instead it leaves us mystics more freedom as well as more efficient to brings into play our very versatile selection of skills/spells, since it will take us less time to do 1 aspect of our job.</p>

[Innermirror]

It is a far reach, but posted here for discussion.We all know passive spells. Those spells are all-time effective and we don't need to pay attention, as long as the related mechanisms work well. So here is my idea on using the form of passive spells in spell consolidation:Let's take the single-target DOT (supposed it's called "Strange Pox" ) as an example~1. When you get the upgraded version of Strange Pox, it was upgraded just like those CAs in AA ;2. When you get INT-AA's disease DOT, it didn't count as another spell. It becomes a passive effect to increase the damage of Strange Pox and give it another round with double damage-per-tick.3. When you get cold-based DOT, it didn't count as another spell. It becomes a passive effect to make Strange Pox  to have additional cold-based DOT effect.4. And then those DOTs in EOF-AA and those DOTs that I forget to mention can be changed to passive upgradings of Strange Pox, instead of becoming spells other then it.5. When you get the only reactive-DD spell (<span class="postbody"><span style="color: #ff0000;">Slothful Spirit </span></span>), it didn't count as another spell. It becomes a passive effect to make Strange Pox to have an additional load of reactive-DDs in its duration.Then we consolidate 2 original dots, one reactive DD and many DOTs of AA systems,  in only one spell.If you can fathom the idea, then you can see the possibility of adding single-targeted debuffs into one spell with a lot of passive effects, although SOE  programmers need to work out mechanisms like mana cost and alignment of duration etc.. I trust those programmers will do great works.All single cures can become one like this and same as merging singel REZs together. All group buffs can become one too. Group-DD can add with passive effects of original Group-debuffs. Single ward can add with Torpor and the long-casting Single Heal as passive effects. Group ward can add with Oberon and Group Heal in the same way. Let those programmers do the maths and make sensible adjustments or removals of the drawback.That's what I think of. 

[Urian]

<cite>Innermirror wrote:</cite><blockquote>It is a far reach, but posted here for discussion.We all know passive spells. Those spells are all-time effective and we don't need to pay attention, as long as the related mechanisms work well. So here is my idea on using the form of passive spells in spell consolidation:Let's take the single-target DOT (supposed it's called "Strange Pox" ) as an example~1. When you get the upgraded version of Strange Pox, it was upgraded just like those CAs in AA ;2. When you get INT-AA's disease DOT, it didn't count as another spell. It becomes a passive effect to increase the damage of Strange Pox and give it another round with double damage-per-tick.3. When you get cold-based DOT, it didn't count as another spell. It becomes a passive effect to make Strange Pox  to have additional cold-based DOT effect.4. And then those DOTs in EOF-AA and those DOTs that I forget to mention can be changed to passive upgradings of Strange Pox, instead of becoming spells other then it.5. When you get the only reactive-DD spell (<span class="postbody"><span style="color: #ff0000;">Slothful Spirit </span></span>), it didn't count as another spell. It becomes a passive effect to make Strange Pox to have an additional load of reactive-DDs in its duration.Then we consolidate 2 original dots, one reactive DD and many DOTs of AA systems,  in only one spell.If you can fathom the idea, then you can see the possibility of adding single-targeted debuffs into one spell with a lot of passive effects, although SOE  programmers need to work out mechanisms like mana cost and alignment of duration etc.. I trust those programmers will do great works.All single cures can become one like this and same as merging singel REZs together. All group buffs can become one too. Group-DD can add with passive effects of original Group-debuffs. Single ward can add with Torpor and the long-casting Single Heal as passive effects. Group ward can add with Oberon and Group Heal in the same way. Let those programmers do the maths and make sensible adjustments or removals of the drawback.That's what I think of. </blockquote><p>I think the dot sounds great for spell casting Mystics, but I can't think of a workaround for the CA using mystics. The wards + healing effect sounds like the next best thing since chocolate ice cream but I seriously double this will go well with the other priest classes. Perphaps adding our debuffs into our damage spells/CAs (there are lot of spells/CAs out there does that already) will be lot more feasible?</p>

[Baccalarium]

I'd be hesitant to add our debuffs into our damage spells.   There times that being able to debuff a creature without waking it up is useful.

[lstead]

I would prefer not to see any consolidation to be honest. This gives me SWG:NGE shivers. SOE needs to learn to stop monkeying. Consolidating spells sounds like a solution in search of a problem.The obvious would be the group buffs. We virtually always cast all of them. However, there are times when I don't cast one because it's not useful and I can use that extra point of concentration elsewhere. As for combat stuff, I can't see how they are going to consolidate these things without major changes to game balance. Take the debuffs. If you combine them and leave the timer, we become far more powerful than we are now. If you combine them and combine the timers, then they become useless for anything but boss fights because you never get a chance to get the cast off. I guess the obvious is to combine the singles and groups. But honestly, why stop there and not just have an attack button that debuffed the mob and proc'd a group buff and heal.Having played a game, LOTRO, where all your spells fit on a single bar and debuffs were add ons to attacks, this is one of the major reasons I'm no longer playing LOTRO. I <i>hated</i> it and all I could think of was how much better EQ2 was because it had all these different spells. While it may not take more than 2 brain cells to cast a string of debuffs rather than one, it <i>felt </i>very very different. In LOTRO, for example, I had three heals: large, small, and group. In reality I had one heal because the group was insta death aggro and the small was the same power cost as the large, so the only real purpose was if you got behind. In reality, it's really no different.

[Sandain666]

Spell consolidation is coming no matter what so in my opinion we should work together to make it as painless as possible. So glancing over previous comments I think the below would be an acceptable combo<span class="postbody"><span style="color: #33cc00;"><u>63 - Lethargy</u></span> - An impairment that decreases the attack speed of the enemy and surrounding encounter members.</span><span class="postbody"><u><span style="color: #66cc00;">68 - Wail of the Ancients</span></u> - An impairment that reduces the stamina, noxious resistance, and elemental resistance to an entire enemy encounter.What say you all?</span>

[ecoskii]

<p>At the moment in a raid guild i have 10 spell bars with about 2 gaps - a lot of that is potions, armour switches and some macros.  Some options to reduce it would be:</p><ul><li>combine our 2 direct heals - no great loss, could probably be ok across heal classes</li><li>allow more than 10 steps in macros to allow complete gear changes in one macro (minor help for some of us)</li><li>combine some of our ST debuffs </li><li>really wouldn't like to lose AT spells as they provide significant colour to each class but Torpor will start to lose value with the new level cap</li><li>replace some basic damage spells with the second level KoS damage spells (difficult as newbies would lose damage until they had aas)</li><li>combine our 2 emergency wards into 1 larger raid-wide one (rather than grp + st) - frequently they both get used at same time anyway</li><li>lose oberon or combine with bear heal - no huge loss, just won't be so easy to afk for a beer in groups</li><li>include bear heal on our direct grp heal (acts as a HoT anyway)</li><li>make the '0 concentration' self buffs innate characteristics of toons - i can't think of any time we wouldn't cast bear-form</li></ul><p>Fun part is i guess the devs will want to keep spell consolidation 'common' across the heal classes so that they remain similar in basic roles.</p>