These changes would shut me up

[SunT]

If these ‘quick fix’ suggestions were taken I could shut up and play.  I would rather see a complete revamp of Epic abilities and resistances as I posted in another post and have all my tools working, but this is much more realistic and attainable.

Power Regen:

Problem:

We have the lowest base regen.  Dev Stare is touted to be the reason why, but cannot be used in all situations due to its long cast time.  In aoe groups you cant get it off or if you choose to you have to trade most of your DPS for it.

Solution:

Make Devitalizing Stare a 1 second Cast time.  Leave it alone other than that but make it so I can throw it up easily and quickly.  I could live with that until the next level increase and our upgrade to Insight.

Crowd Control, Mez/Stun/Root:

Problem:

No CC on Epics.  Rarely a CC opportunity on Epic Adds as most fall under Epic Guidelines.  CC is a core ability.  We need some effective use of this ability.

Solution:

Leave Named Epics alone.  Make all Epic adds and trash mobs act like Heroics.  Allow only our Group Mez and our Emergency Mez and our Short Aoe Stun to work on them.  This will limit us to a Max of Two adds per Chanter locked down and the refresh and durations will keep us very busy doing just that.  If a Chanter is assigned to Mez, they will basically give up 90% of their other abilities to do it.  What it will allow us to do is stop an Epic trash add group or lock down the minions of the Boss.  I can live with that.

Drains:

Problem:

No drains are effective in any aspect of EQ2.  This is very frustrating for Chanters as it has been at the core of our strategies and usefulness since the game launched.  3 Illusionists and 1 Bard could not drain a green epic when we had them tank parked for 15 minutes.  We got him to 25% but I have to assume he was doing some of the work. 

Solution:

Increase the Power Drain amount by 3X on all spells vs Heroic or under.  Increase the Power Drain Portion vs Epic by 10X.  Leave the Power Drain Portion vs PC the same.  This way we do not one hit drain in PvP like any of us care.  We can actually drain Heroics in Small groups where it makes sense.  And if there are more than one Drain Class around we can Drain an Epic in a Long fight.  If there are 3-4 we can do it in a reasonable amount of time.

Stifle:

Problem:

LU13 granted us the ability to stifle Epics for 55/60 seconds.  This was agreed to be overpowered and was nerfed.  The nerf went too far however, as Stifle does not work on Epics in any form now.  This is one of our Core abilities.  Screwing with mobs minds is what we do.  Not being able to stifle epics takes a large portion of our class defining contribution away.  It also [Removed for Content] raid strategy down to building specific Mit on tanks and piling on healers.  Not a real Challenge IMO.

Solution:

Leave Drain Thought’s Stifle effect heroic or lower.  Make Color Shower affect Epics.  This grants a 12second Stifle every 40 seconds.  You could not Chain stifle an epic unless you had four on a given raid and they were working in perfect unison.  If this was attained then it should be rewarded and admired rather than nerfed.

Group Buffs:

Problem:

The elimination of stacking buffs actually nerfed us all in its implementation.  If one has a buff up the other buff drops so If both casters buffed INT but one buffed Wis as well the Wis is not granted as the buff will not stay up.  Pre LU13 Crack did not stack between Chanters but the secondary stat effects did and the higher overwrote. 

Solution:

Make buffs overwrite specific areas they are higher in but allow the lower effects to remain like Pre LU 13.  If I buff WIS and INT and another caster buffs INT and AGI, together we get INT, WIS and AGI but only the highest single number each grants to the group.  Caps will still be hard to reach but we all can still contribute something.

Single target effects:

Problem:

Chanters are designed to need a Catalyst for their damage.  I personally like this concept but the way it is currently implemented makes if very difficult for an Illusionist to do DPS without constant switching of PC targets and many of our best single target Conc buffs can not be utilized effectively due to group make ups.

Solution:

Make Haste, Spellshield and Prismatic Discord Raid castable like Dynatism is currently.  This will allow us to use our tools in the most efficient manor without constant switching of targets.  Our DPS is lame without these tools.  I feel we deserve the ability to actually use them efficiently.

Spellshield:

Problem:

No longer useful.  It reflects damage at PC level not Epic level so the damage output is marginal.  It is a defensive spell but no longer defends against anything worthwhile.  Charm still hits which is potentially the most deadly spell.  It shields about 1 in ten fights and offers very little since the last patch.  Not worth casting IMO.  It is only group castable so if not in MT group on raid, and with the lack of group enhancements, we are not often there anymore, it is a wasted ability.

Solution:

Restore it to its previous form.  Eliminate the ability to reflect the One ability that was causing 450k hits.  Make it raid castable. 

 

These changes would put Illusionist back to where they should be and still maintain some balance.

Keep in mind that the stifle drain and mez that I asked to have fixed would not all be able to be used at the same time unless the Illusionist was Highly skilled and even then would be reduced in effectiveness as most of them are not effective unless there are multiple Classes assisting, i.e. drains and stifles.

Message Edited by SunTsu on 11-22-2005 11:18 AM

[Pins]

I like those changes. Now if only a DEV would read and do something similiar.Btw color Shower is 12s duration.

[jun]

Personally, I would rather have 2 different bags of tricks (so to speak).  I think it would eliminate confusion around which spell lines to use in which encounters.  So, we basically have 2 lines of spells.  Those effective against Heroic and below; and those effective against Epics.  It should be as clearly defined as possible which line of spells are effective (if at all) against a specific target encounter.

 

So, if you are raiding and going against Epics, by all means, load a hotbar with epic-based spell lines.  Load a separate hotbar for group/solo Heroic and below encounters.  Don't mix and match.

 

I don't think it would be asking much, and may prove to clarify some issues on expected behavior if they were divided specifically to match encounter types.

 

I could see something like the following spell line divisions:

 

Mez/Stun

 

Mez would be used against Heroic and below encounters.  We should be able to manipulate the minds/behavior of those mobs.

Stuns would be used against Epic encounters.  While we cannot mez these significantly stronger mobs, we SHOULD be able to stun them effectively.

 

 

Stifles/Drains

 

Drains (includes Daunting Gaze) would be used against Heroic and below encounters.  We should be able to significantly drain the power pools of these mobs.

Stifles would be used against Epic encounters.  Again, while their power pools are so immense, we should be able to significantly reduce their usage of them via stifling their ability to draw on that power source.

 

Honestly, I don't want to over-empower our class, I would rather have our abilities match/counter the abilities of the enounters we fight.  To take a single one of these spells out of perspective and attempt to alter its effect to a 'harder' encounter would simply make the 'lesser' encounters trivial.

 

 

Power regeneration does seem to be lacking.  However, I have yet to combine my Insight (adept III) with Savante (adept III) and watch the regenerative effects on my group.  I will say this though.  The only really obvious issue I have noticed is that the Berserker class is almost impossible to keep powered up during steady fights.  Most other classes have certain 'restraints' that do not allow them to go as wild as the melee classes who are expected to throw everything at the target creature in order to maintain consistently top percentage hate ranking.

 

As mentioned, just about every class in the group must restrain themselves (specifically high DPS classes) to avoid stealing agro from the tank.  So the question really becomes, how do we balance a regen between the button-happy melee classes and the rest of the group?  Perhaps a directed regen?  A buff that allows a single melee class (tank) to siphon power from a mob they are engaged with.

 

Possibly, something like this would 'balance' the amount of power required to maintain constant agro, while not providing an 'endless' power pool for other group members.

 

 

As for the other points you made here... I will use those abilities and think about what you have posted.  Great insight on these issues SunTsu!  I really like your posts!

 

VR

Kailen

Message Edited by junzu on 11-22-2005 04:19 PM

[KniteShayd]

YAY!  I agree, would love buff stacks too! aven if we only get the secondary effect. no one would complain about dps at all if we could have good changes like this, let alone our class in general.  i swear devs and spell makers should get fired and we should be the ones to make the spell requirements. lol.

[tawek]

Roamin Nome,

 

Nice positive and specific post.  I think posts like this are what will spur the devs into making changes.

 

What's best about it is you haven't asked for that much.  Though I think the Color Shower on named epics is a bit too powerful.  With that I could neutralise a quarter to a third of an epic groups specials, which is pretty over-the-top for a single player in a 24-player raid.  I doubt they'd do that unless they upped the epic resists on Color Shower dramatically.

 

One thing I'd like is for our one-second cast time stun.  If letting it stun epics is too powerful, let it interrupt epics.  The interrupt itself might be useful, but the main benefit is if the named epic is grouped with adds, I wouldn't need to switch targets to stun those adds.

[SunT]

We had  a training ability Pre CU 13 that stifled Epics for almost exactly the same amount of time.

If we were not overpowered then we would not be overpowered with this ability.

Haveing nothing affect Epics make them one dimesnional.  Adding debuffs and ways to manipulate their output is half the fun of the raiding.  It makes for complex strategies that keep you on your toes and bring lots of fun and challenge to the game.

No Illusionist or three illusionists could chain stifle a mob.  It would take 4 and they would need serious coordination to pull it off. 

Even then, SOE could add mob abilites to some of the mobs that can be cast while stifled.  Problem solved.

[Azamien-Dermorate]

and we all know how much we would like to shut SunTsu up :smileytongue:

 

/JK hehe

 

some really good idea's post here

[Gyukst]

Well thought out.  Concise.  Examples and scenarios.

Well done.

Too bad the forum is /ignore by devs.

[Zulsak]

Finally, after wading through hundreds of whiney, ignorant posts in this forum, one person is able to offer some intelligent insight into our issues. Your solutions are well thought out, and make a lot of sense.Excellent post. Now lets just keep this near the top of the pile, so the devs don't get stuck reading all of the crap.

[Azamien-Dermorate]

---

Zulsak wrote:Finally, after wading through hundreds of whiney, ignorant posts in this forum, one person is able to offer some intelligent insight into our issues. Your solutions are well thought out, and make a lot of sense.Excellent post. Now lets just keep this near the top of the pile, so the devs don't get stuck reading all of the crap.

---

yea well that was kinda my point.  We had lots of posts that were well though out and inteligent posts that were ignored since DoF was released.   We then after being ignored for months and feeling like we have little left to say thats constructive that hasnt already been said (and already ignored) start to just complain... then we get a forum mod to say 'dont put up negative posts; be constructive'  ....well we have tried that, and those posts are still around .... but nobody responded to any of the postive ones and its hard to stay that way without getting any type of responce.

Lets just hope that someone read some of these posts and things will be better in KoS 

[Fizwi]

Do you think we would get more attention if we typed them up all pretty with an official-sounding title? (a la Kendricke's posts in the Templar forum?)Seriously, I'd be willing to mess with the formating and let SunTsu repost it as something like "The Illusionist: Compiled list of bugs, issues, and suggestions".  Maybe then we can PM the forum gods and get it stickied.

[Fizwi]

Ok folks, here's a rough draft of what I'm talking about.  Respond as you see fit...

The Illusionist: A compiled list of bugs, issues, and suggestions

The following is based on content originally outlined by SunTsu, and subsequently revised and reformatted, in the model of Kendricke's "Holy Book of Templar", by Fizwick.  The ideas below are the product of not one person, but attempt to reflect the majority opinion of the wonderful Illusionist community.

I. ILLUSIONIST BUGS:

Bugs preventing the Illusionist class from performing its function as apparently intended.  These include not only mechanical "does not work" bugs, but also abilities with no apparent use, and situations in which the illusionist has no apparent use.

A. Power Drains

Problem: illusionist power-drain abilities (and power drains in general) serve no apparent purpose in the game as it exists today.  Solo, it is faster, safer, and more efficient to decrease an enemy's health to 0 than to do the same to his power first.  Heroic enemies, and especially epic ones, have power pools far too large to be drained realistically, as having power is binary -- a mob with 20% power can dish out as much damage as one at 100%.

Solution: increase the amount drained across the board, but especially versus heroics and epics.  This, properly balanced, will provide an alternative strategy for taking on difficult encounters.

B. Group Buffs

Problem: recently a patch altered the way in which mage group buffs stacked.  The patch description states that only the INT portion of the buffs wouldn't stack.  However, as it stands, any and all aspects of the buffs don't stack.  An Illusionist INT/WIS buff doesn't stack at all with a Conjuror mitigation buff, for example.

Solution: allow the buffs to stack as intended, with each single highest stat buff applying.

C. Control Spells on Raids

Problem: many control (mez, root, stun, stifle) spells were originally listed as having alternate or diminished effects on epic targets.  As it stands, these spells -- comprising the majority of the enchanter spellbook-- have no effect, and are completely useless on epic targets.  This is a vital issue for the Illusionist class.

Solution: many solutions have been suggested on the enchanter forums.  Possibilities include:

• Allowing control spells to effect epics at a much decreased duration, requiring many enchanters with supreme coordination to achieve meaningful results
• Attaching different "epic-only" debuffs to control spells, providing them with less powerful but still useful purposes.
• Allowing only Color Shower (a short-duration DoT and stifle) to effect epics.
• Designing more epic-level encounters with "lieutenant" or "trash" mobs that are susceptible to crowd control.  Alter existing encounters to fit this paradigm.

II. ILLUSIONIST ISSUESNot bugs per se, but balance problems, spells that could use adjustment, and other non-game-breaking but still important issues.

A. Power Regen

Problem: Illusionists have the lowest power regeneration potential of any power regenerating class (enchanters/bards).  This difference can be mitigated only by using our power-tap spell, Devitalizing Stare, however, in its current state, Devitalizing Stare has too long of a cast time to justify its power returned.

Solution: decrease the cast time on Devitalizing Stare, making it more appealing to cast in combat.

B. Single-target Buffs on Raids

Problem: single target buffs, such as Prismatic Havoc (melee proc), Spellshield (reflect), and Legerity (haste), are not castable on raid members.  Illusionists rely on such buffs heavily (especially Prismatic Havoc) to achieve respectable DPS.

Solution: make these buffs castable across the raid.  This is already the case with another of our buffs, Dynamsim (spell proc), and it works very well.

C. Spellshield Effectiveness

Problem: Spellshield is no longer useful in any situation.  As an offensive tool, it reflects spells at PC level, which is miniscule (given that the NPCs use scaled versions of low-level spells).  As a defensive tool, it provides protection in a very small number of circumstances, and completely excludes Charm, potentially the most dangerous PC spell that NPCs cast.  Also cannot be cast across raids.

Solution: return Spellshield to its prior functionality, allowing it to reflect a variety of NPC abilites.  Review the small number of instances where Spellshield was overpowered and flag the overpowered abilites as unreflectable.  Make it raid castable.

III.  ILLUSIONIST SUGGESTIONSIdeas suggested by members of the Illusionist community to expand upon or add to non-critical areas of the game.

A. More Illusions!

Suggestion: It's our name, for cryin' out loud!  Give Illusionists access to more illusions, and more interesting ones at that!  Who really signed up for this class to be able to turn into a human?

Version history:[1.17.06: initial draft based on SunTsu's "These changes would shut me up" post]

[KaltenAlTh]

Under bugs add.

1. Why can I use the Prismatic Strife spell to advance a HO but not finish a HO?
2. Blink needs to be changed to not pull agro from NPC that are not already agro.
3. Dispell, doesn't well... Dispell anything off mobs.

Under issues add.

1. To easy to reach the Int cap making our +int buffs fairly pointless on raids.
2. We don't have a good 'Finish off the HO' nuke that is high damage, I would be happy to have a 800 damage'ish nuke at adept1  (with long recast timer) that I could just use to finish off the HO for that extra HO damage.  While not spamming it for a big DPS boost becuase it's a long recast timer.
3. We don't have agro transfer spells like a Coecer but we do have Blink and Barrier of Intellect.  Both are nearly completely useless and do not reduce hate enough.
4. There are tons of buffs that benifit melee classes but so few that benifit casting classes.  Both Illuionists and our brothers the Coercer and to a lesser extent the bards too need to have a wider range and more effective caster buffs.

Under suggestions add.

1. Why is the Mana Cloak spell sound so dam loud, people litterally get upset at me for using that spell.
2. I really still want a spell that debuffs all magic resist types, similar to the way that Hex of Choas Dolls work but faster casting and slightly more effective.
3. I'd like a mental debuff that doesn't do damage (think wither hope spell but no dot) so that I can debuff mez'd mobs.
4. The visual animation for mez is to hard for people to see in group.  Need a more obvious visual queue like the hammer for stun.
5. The visual animation for stuns (the hammer) needs to run quicker so that you don't see it 2 seconds after casting the spell but when it's actualy cast.
6. Group cure arcane spell?
7. Being tall helps me CC better for targeting and just plan better vision and we get no new Illusions spells from 50-60 so what about both a Single target and Group cyclops illusions?

Message Edited by KaltenAlThor on 01-17-200612:42 PM

[Azamien-Dermorate]

looks good Fizwick

 

As far as the Illusions,  I know its been mentioned before but usefull illusions like the ones from EQLive (werewolf and scarecrow and imp?) that had usefull effects would be nice.  Differnt illusionis with differnt effects or proc's for differnt types of classes would be sweet.  Have one have an inanate regen (health and power), one a dps proc, one that had an agro reducing proc.   Ofcourse with the /hideillusion command this would just turn into another buff so should make it that the illusion has to be displayed to get the effects :smileyvery-happy:

[ScamprinSlippy]

I agree with Azamien-Dermorate, an illusion with a practical use (besides changing height) would be incredibly nice.  We should be getting around three new spells in KoS, and I would love to see one of this type.  I think it would make every illusionist happier

[StaticLex]

---

You could not Chain stifle an epic unless you had four on a given raid and they were working in perfect unison.  If this was attained then it should be rewarded and admired rather than nerfed.

---

 

Well, this kind of thing is a nice idea but the reality is guilds would just recruit 5 or 6 illusionists and trivialize content.  Because that's what people do in this game.  If there is room to exploit something, someone will do it.

[Pins]

---

StaticLex wrote:

---

You could not Chain stifle an epic unless you had four on a given raid and they were working in perfect unison.  If this was attained then it should be rewarded and admired rather than nerfed.

---

 

Well, this kind of thing is a nice idea but the reality is guilds would just recruit 5 or 6 illusionists and trivialize content.  Because that's what people do in this game.  If there is room to exploit something, someone will do it.

---

Except that means there'll only be 3 or 4 guilds worldwide with illusionists

[SunT]

Bruisers can stun Epics.  How many Bruisers do youhave in your guild? 

Illusionists could do this very thing pre LU13.  How many Illusionists do you have in your guild?

Your theory is disproved by history.

If you can assemble the number of folks in the correct mix of classes to chain stifle or stun an epic and can coordinate it then you should be rewarded not penalized.  It would be an enourmous undertaking and the raw numbers for the classes simply do not exist at this time.

[KaltenAlTh]

---

StaticLex wrote:

---

You could not Chain stifle an epic unless you had four on a given raid and they were working in perfect unison.  If this was attained then it should be rewarded and admired rather than nerfed.

---

 

Well, this kind of thing is a nice idea but the reality is guilds would just recruit 5 or 6 illusionists and trivialize content.  Because that's what people do in this game.  If there is room to exploit something, someone will do it.

---

Couldn't you just recruit 5 or 6 good healers to heal a MT and trivialize content too?  Would this be an exploit?  If not, why is it an exploit when the same thing is done with Stifles?  Wouldn't you like to have both methods as a viable way to win fights?

Message Edited by KaltenAlThor on 01-19-200607:43 AM

[StaticLex]

---

Bruisers can stun Epics.

---

 

Oh?  What are the stats on the stun.  Cast time, re-use time, and duration.

 

 

---

Illusionists could do this very thing pre LU13.

---

 

Yeah and now they can't?  I suppose it was changed for the hell of it, no rhyme, no reason.

 

 

---

If you can assemble the number of folks in the correct mix of classes to chain stifle or stun an epic and can coordinate it then you should be rewarded not penalized.  It would be an enourmous undertaking and the raw numbers for the classes simply do not exist at this time.

---

It is not difficult to coordinate stuff in this game.  Heal rotations in EQ1 were probably 100 times more complicated than anything required in EQ2 yet people frequently pulled it off.  And the fact that there are few illusionists in the game is a very poor reason for letting a potentially bad game mechanic go un-addressed, to say the least.

 

---

Couldn't you just recruit 5 or 6 good healers to heal a MT and trivialize content too?  Would this be an exploit?  If not, why is it an exploit when the same thing is done with Stifles?  Wouldn't you like to have both methods as a viable way to win fights?

---

"5 or 6" healers don't prevent hundreds of thousands of damage from happening with one spell.

[Pins]

---

StaticLex wrote:

---

Bruisers can stun Epics.

---

 

Oh?  What are the stats on the stun.  Cast time, re-use time, and duration.

 

 

---

Illusionists could do this very thing pre LU13.

---

 

Yeah and now they can't?  I suppose it was changed for the hell of it, no rhyme, no reason.

 

 

---

If you can assemble the number of folks in the correct mix of classes to chain stifle or stun an epic and can coordinate it then you should be rewarded not penalized.  It would be an enourmous undertaking and the raw numbers for the classes simply do not exist at this time.

---

It is not difficult to coordinate stuff in this game.  Heal rotations in EQ1 were probably 100 times more complicated than anything required in EQ2 yet people frequently pulled it off.  And the fact that there are few illusionists in the game is a very poor reason for letting a potentially bad game mechanic go un-addressed, to say the least.

 

---

Couldn't you just recruit 5 or 6 good healers to heal a MT and trivialize content too?  Would this be an exploit?  If not, why is it an exploit when the same thing is done with Stifles?  Wouldn't you like to have both methods as a viable way to win fights?

---

"5 or 6" healers don't prevent hundreds of thousands of damage from happening with one spell.

---

Bruisers can stun epics for around 5s every 60s, so get 14 bruisers, stun the epic to death. And prior to the revamp, a single Coercer could chain stifle an epic, or 3 Illusionists could chain stifle an epic Encounter. Hard, but it was posible, but never got nerfed. Of course after LU13, till around LU14, we could solo chain stifle a mob for nearly the entire time.Yah, there were people out there that used the ranger root/trap, and the stun poisons, but you could do it without it, but meh, nothing will change.

[SunT]

---

Illusionists could do this very thing pre LU13.

---

 

Yeah and now they can't?  I suppose it was changed for the hell of it, no rhyme, no reason.

 

 

 

 

The point is, it never happened then.  So why would it all of a sudden happen now?  You could use bruisers to do it right now but nobody is.  It is a silly flawed argument that you share with Moorguard.  You are both wrong, history has already proven it.

 

And the CH chain in EQ1 was far from complicated, lol.  Everyone had the exact same spell on the same timer and all you did was tweak the number and delay depending on the dificulty of the mob.  But it is a good point.  SOE is only concerned with stacking abilities when it does not include healers.  Tank and many healers is the only acceptable method to them.   No imagination.

[KaltenAlTh]

---

StaticLex wrote:

---

Couldn't you just recruit 5 or 6 good healers to heal a MT and trivialize content too?  Would this be an exploit?  If not, why is it an exploit when the same thing is done with Stifles?  Wouldn't you like to have both methods as a viable way to win fights?

---

"5 or 6" healers don't prevent hundreds of thousands of damage from happening with one spell.

---

First your premise that a single cast of 1 stiffle could stop hundreds of thousands of points of damage is just plan silly, at most we would stop a limited subset of Combat Arts and not stop things like Dragon Breath attacks.  We might cut the damage output of a mob down a few 1000 or maybe a few 10,000 with one spell cast but that's it.

And healers don't "prevent damage" but they sure as hell counter it or mitigate it.  Just like the stiffle would do.  They do it every single raid I've been on since the beginning of time in EQ2.  It's amazing really they counter damage with wards, reactive heals, health buffs, mitagation buffs, avoidance buffs and lots of other things.  Yet illusionist are stuck with maybe 2 spells types that could do similar things.

Instead of your prespective being "we can't allow one spell to trivilize an encounter" which of course is a false statement, you should be looking at it like this instead: 

Their is nothing wrong with alternative ways of winning fights and using different strategies, just becuase SONY has not had the forsight to design a Stiffle system that is as diverse as the healing system does not mean that they shouldn't or that it's somehow wrong to stiffle.

Message Edited by KaltenAlThor on 01-19-200609:37 AM

[StaticLex]

---

You are both wrong, history has already proven it.

---

 

The only thing that history has proven is that eventually someone will exploit it and brag about it on the web somewhere and then hundreds of people will be whining and crying for a nerf, blaming SOE for not having to foresight to see that it was going to happen blah blah blah.

 

 

---

Everyone had the exact same spell on the same timer and all you did was tweak the number and delay depending on the dificulty of the mob.

---

 

Hardly.  Raid lag and fizzles made using a timer completely unreliable.  Newb guilds who expected to go up to a mob, set a timer and just cast wiped repeatedly until they figured this out.

 

 

---

Tank and many healers is the only acceptable method to them.   No imagination.

---

This I agree with.  However it doesn't mean they should let one class cheap kill a large chunk of the raid content in the game.  THAT is a silly arguement.

 

---

First your premise that a single cast of 1 stiffle could stop hundreds of thousands of points of damage is just plan silly, at most we would stop a limited subset of Combat Arts and not stop things like Dragon Breath attacks.  We might cut the damage output of a mob down a few 1000 or maybe a few 10,000 with one spell cast but that's it.

---

A 1,000 point combat art x 24 raiders x 10 times for 240,000 damage during the course of the battle, completely nullified by one class using one spell out of their book.  Obviously a mechanic like this is intended to damage everyone in the raid to give healers a role.  But that shouldn't matter as long as illusionists are happy.

 

---

And healers don't "prevent damage" but they sure as hell counter it or mitigate it.  Just like the stiffle would do.

---

Healers don't accomplish what they do with one spell out of their book.  This is what you can't seem to grasp.  I am not saying SOE shouldn't come up with a more intuitive way of allowing stifles to be used, like possibly giving a mob a cumulative % chance to have it's next combat art be stifled, but they should at least not leave a loophole in the game for players, who are so motivated, to exploit.

[SunT]

---

StaticLex wrote:

---

You are both wrong, history has already proven it.

---

 

The only thing that history has proven is that eventually someone will exploit it and brag about it on the web somewhere and then hundreds of people will be whining and crying for a nerf, blaming SOE for not having to foresight to see that it was going to happen blah blah blah.  Eventually...like after one year?  Never happened. 

 

 

---

Everyone had the exact same spell on the same timer and all you did was tweak the number and delay depending on the dificulty of the mob.

---

 

Hardly.  Raid lag and fizzles made using a timer completely unreliable.  Newb guilds who expected to go up to a mob, set a timer and just cast wiped repeatedly until they figured this out.  This is what Druid fast heals were for.  Filling gaps.  Worked for us thru PoF but what do I know.  Clerics were bored in EQ1.  CH chains were a drag.  So you needed to recast every few rounds big deal.  I never said you could automate them without risk of fizzle.

 

 

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Tank and many healers is the only acceptable method to them.   No imagination.

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This I agree with.  However it doesn't mean they should let one class cheap kill a large chunk of the raid content in the game.  THAT is a silly arguement.

 

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First your premise that a single cast of 1 stiffle could stop hundreds of thousands of points of damage is just plan silly, at most we would stop a limited subset of Combat Arts and not stop things like Dragon Breath attacks.  We might cut the damage output of a mob down a few 1000 or maybe a few 10,000 with one spell cast but that's it.

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A 1,000 point combat art x 24 raiders x 10 times for 240,000 damage during the course of the battle, completely nullified by one class using one spell out of their book.  Obviously a mechanic like this is intended to damage everyone in the raid to give healers a role.  But that shouldn't matter as long as illusionists are happy.  You are under the same assumptions and misconceptions that every other hack that has come to argue this is out of balance is.  We never asked for every single Epic ability to be stopped by us.  We never asked for stifle to work on an AoE.  We suggested and recomended that they tweak raid content to keep it challenging by adding mob abilities that cannot be affected by stifle etc.  You guys who read three words and then make huge commentaries like you know what you are talking about are humorous to me.  Why don't you go check the thread in spells/combat arts about it.  It is 5X as long as this one and has all of these arguments already for your reading enjoyment.  The method of balance that I have suggested many times before has been to tweak the mob not nerf the player. 

 

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And healers don't "prevent damage" but they sure as hell counter it or mitigate it.  Just like the stiffle would do.

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Healers don't accomplish what they do with one spell out of their book.  This is what you can't seem to grasp.  I am not saying SOE shouldn't come up with a more intuitive way of allowing stifles to be used, like possibly giving a mob a cumulative % chance to have it's next combat art be stifled, but they should at least not leave a loophole in the game for players, who are so motivated, to exploit.  Sorry, but when did effective use of ones skills and spells become an exploit?  If the ability has been granted and it is being used to the maximum of its potential it is not an exploit.  It is good game play.  Is it an exploit for a Conj to solo heroic named?  Is it an exploit for a Conj to farm instance zones for masters?  Is it an exploit for a Conj tnak pet to have More aggro retention than any tank alive?  Is it an exploit for a Conj to the Highest DPS of any class when they are a T4 DPS caster?  Is it an exploit for a Conj to ahve some of the best mage raid buffs? 

And we would be happy to take our abilities over the course of several spells.  In fact on this board, if you were to actually read it, you would see many suggestions about stacking chanters to accomplish something or adding portions of debuffs to many dif spells so you had ot cast a variety of them to get an effect.

We are happy to do that.  We just want to do something other than [Removed for Content] DPS.

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[KaltenAlTh]

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StaticLex wrote:

You are both wrong, history has already proven it.

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First your premise that a single cast of 1 stiffle could stop hundreds of thousands of points of damage is just plan silly, at most we would stop a limited subset of Combat Arts and not stop things like Dragon Breath attacks.  We might cut the damage output of a mob down a few 1000 or maybe a few 10,000 with one spell cast but that's it.

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A 1,000 point combat art x 24 raiders x 10 times for 240,000 damage during the course of the battle, completely nullified by one class using one spell out of their book.  Obviously a mechanic like this is intended to damage everyone in the raid to give healers a role.  But that shouldn't matter as long as illusionists are happy.

 

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And healers don't "prevent damage" but they sure as hell counter it or mitigate it.  Just like the stiffle would do.

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Healers don't accomplish what they do with one spell out of their book.  This is what you can't seem to grasp.  I am not saying SOE shouldn't come up with a more intuitive way of allowing stifles to be used, like possibly giving a mob a cumulative % chance to have it's next combat art be stifled, but they should at least not leave a loophole in the game for players, who are so motivated, to exploit.

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First I'm not wrong.

My Terrifying Vision spells Stiffles for 8 seconds, Color Shower is 12 seconds and Drain Though stiffles for 14 seconds.  You're telling me you know off a mob that does 240,000 damage in 8 seconds to a guild that knows what it's doing?  Seriously please name this mob, I'd love to know what it is.  Let me look in my logs here from last night....

The keeper of the keys = 883dps, Prismatic Captain = 273dps, Moonchild = 316dps, The Purple Piper = 540dps, the Pattern Juggler = 625dps, Fire Witch = 1100, the Black Queen = 1700dps.   I don't see anything even closely resembling 240,000 damage in 8 seconds, I do see the Black Queen doing 340k'ish damage in 3 minutes.  None of those are doing anywhere near 240,000 damage in 8, 12 or even 14 seconds.

Breaking down that 340k damage from the Black Queen, 200k of damage came from normal peirce autoattack damage with no use of combat arts.  So that 200k would not be blocked by stiffle, Dark Visage did about 100k of damage in that 3 minutes, SONY could tag that as a "special attack" that wouldn't be effected by Stiffle and that 100k wouldn't be mitigated by stiffle.  Curse of Insanity would probally not be stiffle'able either so take out that 7k of damage.  Leaving 33k damage in 3 minutes that comes from Lightning Burst, Storm of Lightning, Blaze, Static Pulse.

All I'm asking for is that if the enchanters on the raid keep the Black Queen stiffled the entire 3 minutes of the fight that the 33k damage wouldn't be done.  That's it.  Not 240,000 damage just 33k for 3 minutes of perfectly timed, well played debuffing with Stiffle.

 

Now onto your point about healers.

Your saying that healers use more then 1 spell to heal but this thread has lumped my ablity to stiffle with 3 spells Terrifying Vision, Color Shower and Drain Though into 1 spell.  Again the misinformation and misdirection, sure sure healers use more then 1 spell to heal.  SO what?  We use more then 1 spell to stiffle!  /gasp

Anyways StaticLex I'm glad we agree on the point that Sony could have made system up to allow stiffles instead of just plain removing it across the boards for all Epic fights.

Same applies for stuns, power drains, roots... ect.  Instead of Sony really addressing and balancing this they just turned it off.  Imagine the uproar in the healer community if SONY had desided that wards, reactiv heals and health regens where just to hard to balance and turned them off for epic fights like they have done for stiffles, stuns, CC ect for Enchanters.  The healers would be burning down buildings in Qeynos and Freeport.

 

 

[Kurg]

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StaticLex wrote:

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Couldn't you just recruit 5 or 6 good healers to heal a MT and trivialize content too?  Would this be an exploit?  If not, why is it an exploit when the same thing is done with Stifles?  Wouldn't you like to have both methods as a viable way to win fights?

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"5 or 6" healers don't prevent hundreds of thousands of damage from happening with one spell.

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Wrong ... on Crushbone Lady Vox was killed by a raid who has: 1 tank and 23 healers ... was a loong fight, but easy win (and that was pre DoF, with max. lvl 50)

[trenor]

Holy moley thats a lot o healage.

[Azamien-Dermorate]

LOL who in their right mind would bring one tank and 23 healers ... thats had to have been the most [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] raid ever

[Polg]

heh three words

 

Team Mana Burn

 

For those not familiar with those three words.  It was a guild that formed in EQ1 that was the caue of the immunity timer for mana burn to be placed in.   A guild composed entirely of wizards that would simply do a raid count down and would cast mana burn.  (all mana in casters pool is converted into a single one shot damage spell)  It was an AA for wizards.   Needless to say after Vox, Naggie and countless other named mobs getting one shotted was a bit overpowered.   So while at present there may not be numbers, I do think they learned a few lessons from the past.   Do i agree with the changes they made? no.  However that guild will forever live in history to prove that given time, people can and will exploit anything.