Destiny of Velious Conjuror

[Banditman]

<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Disclaimer:  For some misbegotten and unfathomable reason, beta was closed a week before release.  As you may know, this is without precedent in the history of EQ2.  Anything I tell you here may be completely wrong by the time we see the official release of Destiny of Velious.  What I'm telling you here is based upon the state of the expansion at the time beta was closed.</em></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Overall</strong></span></span>I suppose the big ticket item here is Shared Stats.  They are in, and they appear to work.  There were definitely some bugs and inconsistencies reported in beta, some were fixed . . . some were inconsistent.  In general, this expansion looks like it will treat us decently.  There are certainly other classes who are not treated as well, there are a few who perhaps got a little more.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Mechanics</strong></span></span><strong>Crit Chance</strong>The one thing we've counted on since late RoK / TSO is 100% crit rates against everything.  Forget it.  Crit chance is now a "contested" stat.  Mobs have what is called Crit Avoidance.  There are certain zones (entire zones!) that put a debuff on you that reduces your crit chance.We were told that there would be a buff on mobs that have Crit Avoidance to allow us to see how much they have.  There has been precious little evidence of this buff.  Good luck figuring out how much you need.Yes, this applies to your Wards and Heals.  In short, in Destiny of Velious, *nothing* is more important than crit chance.  If you don't crit, it feels like you barely even cast a spell.  It can be disasterous.<strong>Stamina</strong>Stamina is *uncapped* in this expansion.  Better yet, it *appears* to be linear.  One additional point of Stamina is worth the same number of hit points regardless of how much Stamina you already have.More importantly, all +HP values on items have been replaced with Stamina.  Items no longer have HP and Power on them.  The simply have Stamina and "whatever" the stat might be depending on what class the item was intended for.<strong>Wisdom</strong>Wisdom no longer affects your resists, at all.  It no longer affects anyone's resists, at all.  It only adds to a Priest's power pool, and increases their damage output.  No one but a Priest gets any benefit from Wisdom, at all.<strong>Intelligence</strong>Intelligence no longer adds Crit Mit to Priests and Mages.  We still get our Power Pool and damage bonus from Intelligence, and obviously, our pet continues to use our INT as his own.<strong>Strength, Agility</strong>Strength no longer affects carry weight.  Agility no longer affects avoidance.  There is no benefit to these stats for a Priest, at all.<strong>Pets</strong>Pets now share all our stats.  If you find them not sharing something, it's a bug and needs to be reported.  Initially in beta, this sharing also applied to our dumbfire pets, making them almost worth casting, but "in order to simplifiy the equation" that change was backed out.  Dumbfires = still useless.</p><p>Also in the useless catagory is our Scout pet.  Personally, I suspected that this would be the case, but we were told differently.  The Scout pet has been changed to a Bard, who casts group buffs.  Unfortunately, his DPS is still terrible, and the buffs he casts don't make up for the difference.</p><p>Some of the Summoner AA's (KOS) were changed to be enhancements of the Scout pet.  But even given unlimited respec in Beta, I was unable to make the Scout pet DPS "good enough" to warrant using him over the Mage.  Sorry.  That's just the way it is.  Yes, many Summoners gave feedback on the uselessness of the pet, but were ignored.</p><p>The pet offensive stance is still the same, and yes, still useless.<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Itemization</strong></span></span>Overall, itemization is a mess.  While this is pretty much par for the course when you talk about any EQ2 expansion, I continue to hope that one day they manage to get it right at the beginning of the expansion.  This won't be the expansion it happens.</p><p><strong>Pet Effects</strong></p><p>Largely gone.  Super unique effects - Granite Avatar, Eye of the Storm, Toxic Avenger for instance - still function.  Run of the mill effects like Power Flux, Quicksilver Blood, Molten Carnage, etc are simply GONE.  Some of the very high end Sentinen's Fate armor was altered slightly to mirror the Sorcerer armor.  Lower end armor and all non armor items simply had pet effects removed.</p><p>Do not panic.</p><p>If you were at the very highest end of itemization, Wing 2/3 of UD, you're probably going to break even on DPS on day one of DoV.  If you were in the middle of itemization, you're probably going to come out slightly ahead.  If you were at the lower end of itemization, you're probably going to come out way ahead.</p><p>The extension of 100% crit to the pet is unbelievably huge.</p><p>How this affects Plane Shift is yet to be seen.  It may turn out that Plane Shift is only a very minor boost going forward.  More testing is needed to see.  Plane Shift is definitely less valuable, but how much less valuable remains to be determined.</p><p><strong>HP / Power</strong>I touched on this a bit in the Mechanics section.  Items no longer have the +HP and +Power stat lines on them.  It's been replaced by increases to the primary stat of the Archtype for whom the item was intended and Stamina.  For instance, a Priest item might have 85 Wisdom and 85 Stamina on it.  No HP, no Power.<strong></strong></p><p><strong>Resists</strong>Resistance numbers are moving.  Resists are found on jewelry, in copious amounts.  There are no longer any resists on armor.  Thus, in the beginning of the expansion, you'll want to prioritize jewelry aquisition so that when you begin replacing your armor, you don't have your resists fall off a cliff.</p><p><strong>Focus Effects</strong>Some of our Focus effects are moving into the armor itself, no longer from Red Adornments.  I don't have the exact items at hand to give you anything more specific right now.</p><p><strong>Crit Mit</strong>Crit Mit is now on all armor, yes, even heroic zone items.  Obviously, raid armor has a lot more, but even heroic mobs can now crit.</p><p><strong>Procs</strong>Of all kinds, have been mostly removed.  Very very few items have procs, and what procs do exist are largely slot restricted or purchased via adornment.  Initially in beta, SF Ward proc items did not work in Velious zones.  SOE *reluctantly* reversed course on this, but I would not be surprised to see a reversal of the reversal.<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Heroic AA's</strong></span></span>This is what they are calling the new AA page.  It's very creative, don't you think?  Even more creative and intriguing is that there are no unique abilities for any class.It is structured "vaguely" like the Shadows tree:  4 lines of abilities, must spend 10 points in one line to get to the next.  There are overall spending requirements in addition to the 10 in prior line, and in the end you'll need at least 277 AA to reach one of your endline abilities, of which you can only have one.Each ability, save the endlines, has 10 ranks, 1 point per rank.  There is only one rank for the endlines, which costs 2 point.The first two lines are exactly the same among *all* classes.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Line 1:</strong></span><em><strong>Stats</strong></em> - 16.8 STR, WIS, AGI, INT per rank, 10 ranks.<em><strong>Ability mod</strong></em> - 33.6 Ability mod per rank, 10 ranks.<em><strong>Health & Power</strong></em> - .5% Health and Power per rank, 10 ranks<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Line 2:</strong></span><em><strong>Potency</strong></em> - .5 Potency per rank, 10 ranks<em><strong>Crit Bonus</strong></em> - .5 Crit Bonus per rank, 10 ranks<em><strong>Re-Use</strong></em> - .5 Re-use per rank, 10 ranks</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Line 3:</strong></span></p><p><em><strong>Enhance:  Elemental Toxicity</strong></em> - Increase duration of ET by .4 per rank, 10 ranks.<em><strong>Minion's Intent - Pet buff</strong></em>.  Decreases hate gain by 2% per rank if not Fighter, Increases taunts by 10% per rank if Fighter.  10 ranks available.<em><strong>Minion's Power</strong></em> - Increase pet crit bonus by 2% per rank, 10 ranks available.<em><strong>Ethernere Resilience</strong></em> - Reduces damage taken by pet by 1% per rank, 10 ranks available.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Line 4:</strong></span></p><p><em><strong>Energy Clash</strong></em> - Reduce hate by 3 positions (if not Fighter), Increase hate by 3 positions (if Fighter), Inflict 5300 - 6500 magic damage on Target Encounter.  1 second cast time, 40.5 second recast (48% reuse).<em><strong>Soulburn</strong></em> - Uses pet health to inflict damage on target.  After you cast it, takes the pet 5 seconds to cast.  Sets pet health to 1.  Cannot be used with Plane Shift.  2 seconds cast, 61 second recast (48% reuse).<em><strong>Servant's Intervention</strong></em> - If Summoner dies while pet is alive, Summoner is healed for the health of the pet, pet health is set to 1.  1 trigger.  3 minute recast (re-use does not appear to affect this)</p>

[joseph]

<p>thanks for the info finialy we get some idea of vellious.</p><p>so they didnt fix the offensive stance .. thats really sloppy soe. and dumbfires are usless and they dropepd the ball on the scout pet.. seriously are these DEVS tryign to sabotage eq2?</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Dumbfires is a real shame, because for a while, they were taking shared stats and actually did "ok" damage.  They were still useless in raids due to the AE problem, but in Heroic content they were decent.  Communion in particular had the nerve to actually approach being a good spell with shared stats.</p>

[Blambil]

<p>Good summary, mirrors my experiences with the beta.. It's kinda cool to go out to "old" zones, and unleash your pet on stuff.. it ripppps stuff apart now.. </p><p>However, Crit Avoidance SUCKS...  Some of the raids I participated in had 200% Crit Chance to get 100% crit...</p><p>Mob Crit ability is going to suck badly in the beginning until people get their Crit Mit >= 100%, and their resists much higher than they've been before... Elemental seems to be #1 resist to raise after CritMit.</p><p>Soulburn is nice.. WAS much nicer.. </p><p>I suspect what we see day 1 of "live" is drastically different than Day 180 of live will be.. Lots of broken-ness day 1.</p>

[Blambil]

<p>One more thing... be VERY careful about using CoH in DoV zones.. You may end up with a Level 97 doppleganger that heads straight for your group to kill you.. TOFS zones appear to do this 100% of the time.</p>

[Banditman]

<p><cite>Blambil@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>One more thing... be VERY careful about using CoH in DoV zones.. You may end up with a Level 97 doppleganger that heads straight for your group to kill you.. TOFS zones appear to do this 100% of the time.</p></blockquote><p>That is intended.  As the Dev said in the beta forums.  It should only happen in TOFS.  Anywhere else CoH should work normally.</p>

[Rhadamanth]

<p><cite>Blambil@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Good summary, mirrors my experiences with the beta.. It's kinda cool to go out to "old" zones, and unleash your pet on stuff.. it ripppps stuff apart now.. </p><p>However, Crit Avoidance SUCKS...  Some of the raids I participated in had 200% Crit Chance to get 100% crit...</p><p>Mob Crit ability is going to suck badly in the beginning until people get their Crit Mit >= 100%, and their resists much higher than they've been before... Elemental seems to be #1 resist to raise after CritMit.</p><p>Soulburn is nice.. WAS much nicer.. </p><p>I suspect what we see day 1 of "live" is drastically different than Day 180 of live will be.. Lots of broken-ness day 1.</p></blockquote><p>Is Soulburn really that nice?  First it takes you 2 seconds to cast and then 5 for your pet?  I think I've read someone saying it does like 100k and can't double attack...  Over 7 seconds that seems extremely lame.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Your pet can still cast while Soulburn is casting.  So your pet is really not "casting", I suppose it's probably a little more like Time Warp in that regard.  It's more a case of simply learning how to time it if you intend for it to be among the last things to land on a dying mob.</p><p>Unless of course they change it in the next 7 days.  And yea, it's pretty decent.  Then again, so is Energy Clash in situations where aggro is problematic.</p>

[ForgottenOne]

<p>I think heroic line2 items are 1% potency/bonus/reuse per point spent.</p><p>It was 0.5 initially but they bumped it up.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Could very well be.  I think I remember them being increased.  I probably just forgot to update my notes.</p>

[Rhadamanth]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Your pet can still cast while Soulburn is casting.  So your pet is really not "casting", I suppose it's probably a little more like Time Warp in that regard.  It's more a case of simply learning how to time it if you intend for it to be among the last things to land on a dying mob.</p><p>Unless of course they change it in the next 7 days.  And yea, it's pretty decent.  Then again, so is Energy Clash in situations where aggro is problematic.</p></blockquote><p>Ok, then that's a lot better.  Still, why no double attack?  At least for necros, we already get screwed on dots and LB for double attack, so what gives? </p><p>Soulburn seems like the only decent one, but may cause a lot of pet deaths and end up not being worth it.  Seems like most of the abilities would only be useful for beefing up your fighter pet for taking on hard mobs.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Minion's Intent is actually fairly useful going both ways, with Soulburn being available so much, you're greatly increasing the amount of hate he has, so really, 20% helps make sure that he stays down on the threat list as much as possible.  I think the biggest theme I noticed for Conjurors anyway is "Situation Use".  Many of the new AA's are situationally useful, and you'll probably be wishing you had about four mirrors.  Five if they could ever get the Scout pet right.</p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Rhadamanthys wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite></cite></p><p>  Still, why no double attack? </p></blockquote><p>To many people complained.</p>

[Cisgo]

<p> Players went bonkers when they saw conjurors time warping Elemental Blast and the early version of Soulburn and hitting for several million with two button strokes. So the damage was reduced and the reuse shortened. However, the class that took the big hit from this was the necro. The necro could have used an ability like (in it's original form) this to close the balance gap between the summoners. It really would have been nice to see unique subclass AA lines, not only for balance purposes, but for class distinction. However, SoE decided to carbon copy the AA lines between the subclasses, so no way of any class balance through AA in this expansion.</p>

[Rhadamanth]

<p><cite>Cisgo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> Players went bonkers when they saw conjurors time warping Elemental Blast and the early version of Soulburn and hitting for several million with two button strokes. So the damage was reduced and the reuse shortened. However, the class that took the big hit from this was the necro. The necro could have used an ability like (in it's original form) this to close the balance gap between the summoners. It really would have been nice to see unique subclass AA lines, not only for balance purposes, but for class distinction. However, SoE decided to carbon copy the AA lines between the subclasses, so no way of any class balance through AA in this expansion.</p></blockquote><p>So because EB + Soulburn does several million, they nerf it?  Is Soulburn even doing a good portion of that, or is it mostly EB?  It sounds like necros are just getting screwed on this.  I don't think LB can even come close to the amount of damage EB does...  It can't crit, has 4X the casting time, 2 minutes higher recast, can't double attack, and pretty much kills you to do it.</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>I won't be sticking around for Velious. That said, this is potentially the very best expansion in EQ2 history for Summoners.</p><p>Don't underestimate the power of Soulburn. It'll situationally give Elemental Blast a run for its money, as long as you can keep your pet alive after using it.</p>

[Cisgo]

<p>  Soulburn depends on your pets stats like potency and crit bonus as well as the mobs health. Testers were getting different readings from different mobs because they did not realize that it is based off the mob's health. They were hitting lower health trash and posting that the ability was weak, whereas hitting raid mobs the numbers improved greatly. In the raid setting EB and Soulburn were very close, (prenerf). All it took was for others to see the conjuror's numbers from these two combined abilities and the complaints were posted and it was adjusted/reduced, but with a better reuse.</p><p> I really believe that if Soulburn was a necro only ability it would have drawn a lot less attention due to the necro not having any ability like EB at thier disposal. The real issue to me was the lack of originality in the AA's, this in turn handcuffed the developers to gauge/limit the new AA abilities to the better of the  two subclasses (because the AA's were identical), leaving the counterparts still weaker and unbalanced. This was not just a problem with summoners in my opinion.</p>

[Dorsan]

<p><cite>Cisgo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>  Soulburn depends on your pets stats like potency and crit bonus <strong>as well as the mobs health</strong>. Testers were getting different readings from different mobs because they did not realize that <strong>it is based off the mob's health</strong>. They were hitting lower health trash and posting that the ability was weak, whereas hitting raid mobs the numbers improved greatly.</p></blockquote><p>I don't think that info is correct at all. Because I was able to hit 120k with my tank pet and 90k with my mage pet on the very same mob. And it hit constantly the same damage on all mobs I tested, heroic and solo alike. It even hit for over the max health of some mobs. What you might be confusing of mobs health is the influence of raid buffs and/or temp buffs on your pet in raid situations compared to your solo hits.</p>

[Squall Leonhea]

<p><cite>Dorsan@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Because I was able to hit 120k with my tank pet and 90k with my mage pet on the very same mob</p></blockquote><p>Tank pet does more? Does it depend on pet HP (which would make sense since you use pet hp). Would have some implications on AA, Gear and Buff choices.</p>

[Laiina]

<p><cite>Blambil@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>One more thing... be VERY careful about using CoH in DoV zones.. You may end up with a Level 97 doppleganger that heads straight for your group to kill you.. TOFS zones appear to do this 100% of the time.</p></blockquote><p>I only saw this in TOFS, but it may also be in other raids zones. TOFS also does NOT allow escape totems or any other type of evac to work.</p>

[Banditman]

<p><cite>Squall Leonheart wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Dorsan@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Because I was able to hit 120k with my tank pet and 90k with my mage pet on the very same mob</p></blockquote><p>Tank pet does more? Does it depend on pet HP (which would make sense since you use pet hp). Would have some implications on AA, Gear and Buff choices.</p></blockquote><p>That's correct.  Soulburn uses the pets HP to determine damage, thus why you cannot Soulburn a Plane Shifted pet.</p>

[Dorsan]

<p><cite>Squall Leonheart wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Dorsan@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Because I was able to hit 120k with my tank pet and 90k with my mage pet on the very same mob</p></blockquote><p>Tank pet does more? Does it depend on pet HP (which would make sense since you use pet hp). Would have some implications on AA, Gear and Buff choices.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah, I was also thinking to compare pet DPS in offensive/defensive stance because of the extra health gain in defensive stance. Since the health gain % is the same over all levels, I was thinking about using a low tier grandmaster defensive stance which doesn't have as harsh penalties as the high tier one. Never tested it in actual fight, will try once DoV goes live.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>That's actually an interesting idea, though I'd be a little concerned about the hate gain component of Defensive Haven.  Tanks are *really* struggling with hate in this expansion due to the extreme hit rate problems in the frontal of a mob.</p>

[Lantis]

<p>My personal experience with Soulburn was only post-nerf, and it left me pretty underwhelmed.  The risk vs reward isn't really worth it in a raid situation IMHO with all the AEs hitting you, since your pet is very likely going to die from an AE (which means 7-ish seconds of zero DPS) or requiring an immediate heal (which means 1-2 secs of no DPS from you as you cast one heal).  I suspect that spell might be very situational for me (assuming I end up taking it - will depend on how AE-heavy DOV raids are).</p><p>People will probably want to time it with their death prevent and Stoneskin, in which case the lower recast won't be giving you much.</p><p>Personally, I think they should have increased the reuse, and increased the damage.  Make it hit enough so it's worth the risk, and make it castable less often so it doesn't become too unbalanced.</p><p>And yeah, the pre-nerf version would probably have been very nice for necros as they were starting to lag behind conjurors DPSwise.</p><p>Xalmat: sorry to hear that.  I've been keeping an eye on your insights on these forums and Summoner's Tower for years.  I'll miss them.  But then, I understand your point of view - myself I only pre-ordered reluctantly, and will give SOE a month or two to convince me this game is still worth playing regularily.  I think the community will miss you.</p>

[hellfire]

<p>Shared stats along with the AA brings conj back to KOS level of power imo.</p>

[Germs666]

<p><cite>Cisgo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> Players went bonkers when they saw conjurors time warping Elemental Blast and the early version of Soulburn and hitting for several million with two button strokes. So the damage was reduced and the reuse shortened. However, the class that took the big hit from this was the necro. The necro could have used an ability like (in it's original form) this to close the balance gap between the summoners. It really would have been nice to see unique subclass AA lines, not only for balance purposes, but for class distinction. However, SoE decided to carbon copy the AA lines between the subclasses, so no way of any class balance through AA in this expansion.</p></blockquote><p>^that </p><p>I totally tried to get the developers to look at adjusting the recast on Lifeburn but no luck on that.</p><p>Looks like another expansion of necromancers being inferior. </p>

[Rixx_EOL]

<p>I know not eveyone does battlegrounds but it sounds like Soulburn & Servant's Intervention are intended to also add battlegrounds survivability.  As the conjy was on the very bottom tier for surviving 1-1 encounter in pvp or battlegrounds.</p>

[Banditman]

<p><cite>Rixx_EOL wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I know not eveyone does battlegrounds but it sounds like Soulburn & Servant's Intervention are intended to also add battlegrounds survivability.  As the conjy was on the very bottom tier for surviving 1-1 encounter in pvp or battlegrounds.</p></blockquote><p>Unfortunately, you can only have one at a time.  I can definitely see Servant's Intervention as a PvP tweak.</p>