I've been gone for over a year and I have some questions

[Leji]

Hi, essentially I missed pretty much all of the EoF, I just came back to the game after receiving that free month subscription and I'm considering giving the game a go with Kunark. Anyway, game mechanic wise, I've got a bunch of questions. I realise that If i would go on and read a few dozens pages of the forum I would get all the answers, but do me a favor and bear with me for a minute.

1 - Back when I quit likely the biggest issue faced by the class was the relatively low stats cap, effectively killing the power of our buffs, especially when comparing with straight hp buffs. Has this been fixed?

2- I noticed the pet buffs are now always up whenever the pet is up (no more rebuffing when zoning, yay). But, is there a way to turn that off? I mean, as much as I like that buff, the agro generated on the pet from Aura of Warding in fast pulling groups used to be able to be one mean annoyance.

3- Just wondering, is there some upgrade to torpor from advanture pack or whatever? Or any new spells for that matter?

4- Did they change the "cast between swings" mechanic? That one made the Blackscale Maul (101-572, delay 8.0) a favorite of many.

5- Wow, Umbral Trap is now an AE spell. Still no upgrade for that one? Does it still stack alright with Lamenting Soul?

6- Talking of Lamenting Soul and Umbral Trap, they now have a straight DPS debuff value?! Those debuffs used to be godly against raid encounters, how do they perform now?

7- Shrieking Haze and Lethargy, those two are still in %, right? Still stack to the 50% debuff cap?

8- Any gameplay changing item one should look for in EoF? Did I miss any other particular mechanics I should be notified of?

Thanks much for the help!

[Banditman]

Lejina wrote:

Hi, essentially I missed pretty much all of the EoF, I just came back to the game after receiving that free month subscription and I'm considering giving the game a go with Kunark. Anyway, game mechanic wise, I've got a bunch of questions. I realise that If i would go on and read a few dozens pages of the forum I would get all the answers, but do me a favor and bear with me for a minute.

1 - Back when I quit likely the biggest issue faced by the class was the relatively low stats cap, effectively killing the power of our buffs, especially when comparing with straight hp buffs. Has this been fixed?

The single biggest problem is that in a min/max guild, you're never going to buff as many HP as a Defiler.  The AA's for a Mystic do help close the gap considerably.  A good Mystic is a better choice than an average Defiler.  Given equal gear, equal skill, a Defiler is still the slightly better choice in a MT group.  However, if your guild doesn't have a Defiler, a Mystic will not be the difference between winning and losing an encounter.  We do just fine in a MT group.

2- I noticed the pet buffs are now always up whenever the pet is up (no more rebuffing when zoning, yay). But, is there a way to turn that off? I mean, as much as I like that buff, the agro generated on the pet from Aura of Warding in fast pulling groups used to be able to be one mean annoyance.

My understanding is that they are bringing some changes to that particular mechanic which will have the buff auto terminate when combat ends.  Now, I haven't actually SEEN this change, just heard about it.

3- Just wondering, is there some upgrade to torpor from advanture pack or whatever? Or any new spells for that matter?

I believe class specific AA's were the big thing with EoF, and there hasn't been any large scale content addition since then.  The word on the street is that all of our spells, including ancient teachings, are upgrading in the new tier.  This will probably mean Quiescence for us, which is a good thing.

4- Did they change the "cast between swings" mechanic? That one made the Blackscale Maul (101-572, delay 8.0) a favorite of many.

The Blackscale Maul is still a favorite, however, take a long hard look at the line of AA's that give you combat arts to replace your damage spells.  Combined with the Shaman AA that makes every swing a critical hit, the Blackscale Maul becomes a MONSTER.  My average auto attack hit last raid was 1680 HP.  However, because the combat arts cast so quickly, I've now aquired a much "faster" 2H weapon, and parsed a couple fights of over 1000 DPS for myself.  I usually average about 750 DPS solo'ing.

5- Wow, Umbral Trap is now an AE spell. Still no upgrade for that one? Does it still stack alright with Lamenting Soul?

No upgrade.  Still stacks.  Don't look for an upgrade, for some reason they consider this a "percentage" based spell and those spells have stopped upgrading.  Not sure what that means for Haze / Soul.

6- Talking of Lamenting Soul and Umbral Trap, they now have a straight DPS debuff value?! Those debuffs used to be godly against raid encounters, how do they perform now?

Just cast them.

7- Shrieking Haze and Lethargy, those two are still in %, right? Still stack to the 50% debuff cap?

No.  Haste and DPS are both raw values now, though for some reason I have yet to discover the Devs still consider it "percentage" based.  I don't know why.  I suppose the reasoning runs along that there is a cap on Haste and DPS (200 I believe) that when reached equates to a 125% increase.  It's very convoluted.

8- Any gameplay changing item one should look for in EoF? Did I miss any other particular mechanics I should be notified of?

Mitigation is way different.  Generally between 5 and 6k the curve creates a serious case of diminishing returns.  This applies to both physical and all magic mitigations.  I believe the cap is like 11k, at which point you get 75% mitigation of damage.

Thanks much for the help!

[Leji]

Banditman wrote:

Lejina wrote:

Hi, essentially I missed pretty much all of the EoF, I just came back to the game after receiving that free month subscription and I'm considering giving the game a go with Kunark. Anyway, game mechanic wise, I've got a bunch of questions. I realise that If i would go on and read a few dozens pages of the forum I would get all the answers, but do me a favor and bear with me for a minute.

1 - Back when I quit likely the biggest issue faced by the class was the relatively low stats cap, effectively killing the power of our buffs, especially when comparing with straight hp buffs. Has this been fixed?

The single biggest problem is that in a min/max guild, you're never going to buff as many HP as a Defiler.  The AA's for a Mystic do help close the gap considerably.  A good Mystic is a better choice than an average Defiler.  Given equal gear, equal skill, a Defiler is still the slightly better choice in a MT group.  However, if your guild doesn't have a Defiler, a Mystic will not be the difference between winning and losing an encounter.  We do just fine in a MT group.

So I take it there is still a relatively low stat cap. I figured they would have did something about it by then, at least increase it or something. For a class so highly dependant on stat buffing, it's a major hinderance.

2- I noticed the pet buffs are now always up whenever the pet is up (no more rebuffing when zoning, yay). But, is there a way to turn that off? I mean, as much as I like that buff, the agro generated on the pet from Aura of Warding in fast pulling groups used to be able to be one mean annoyance.

My understanding is that they are bringing some changes to that particular mechanic which will have the buff auto terminate when combat ends.  Now, I haven't actually SEEN this change, just heard about it.

So no turning off for the buffs eh?

3- Just wondering, is there some upgrade to torpor from advanture pack or whatever? Or any new spells for that matter?

I believe class specific AA's were the big thing with EoF, and there hasn't been any large scale content addition since then.  The word on the street is that all of our spells, including ancient teachings, are upgrading in the new tier.  This will probably mean Quiescence for us, which is a good thing.

4- Did they change the "cast between swings" mechanic? That one made the Blackscale Maul (101-572, delay 8.0) a favorite of many.

The Blackscale Maul is still a favorite, however, take a long hard look at the line of AA's that give you combat arts to replace your damage spells.  Combined with the Shaman AA that makes every swing a critical hit, the Blackscale Maul becomes a MONSTER.  My average auto attack hit last raid was 1680 HP.  However, because the combat arts cast so quickly, I've now aquired a much "faster" 2H weapon, and parsed a couple fights of over 1000 DPS for myself.  I usually average about 750 DPS solo'ing.

Yeah, I started messing around with those Mystic specific AA's, insta cast melee attacks. Those definitly give some usefullness to that Spinebreaker I got in Deathtoll back then. I got all tingly inside when I noticed they removed the restriction on the AA abilitis reguarding the need to have specific weapons equiped. Man, to switch around weapons just so i could trigger leg bite and the likes was annoying.

5- Wow, Umbral Trap is now an AE spell. Still no upgrade for that one? Does it still stack alright with Lamenting Soul?

No upgrade.  Still stacks.  Don't look for an upgrade, for some reason they consider this a "percentage" based spell and those spells have stopped upgrading.  Not sure what that means for Haze / Soul.

Ah, from the information tool I understood they were "hard" numbers, making them alright on trash mobs but likely weak sauce on tougher mobs. So from what you're saying here, they scale with the damage output of the mob. Am I getting that right?

6- Talking of Lamenting Soul and Umbral Trap, they now have a straight DPS debuff value?! Those debuffs used to be godly against raid encounters, how do they perform now?

Just cast them.

7- Shrieking Haze and Lethargy, those two are still in %, right? Still stack to the 50% debuff cap?

No.  Haste and DPS are both raw values now, though for some reason I have yet to discover the Devs still consider it "percentage" based.  I don't know why.  I suppose the reasoning runs along that there is a cap on Haste and DPS (200 I believe) that when reached equates to a 125% increase.  It's very convoluted.

That stuff reminds me a lot of the mechanics used in WoW : straight up numbers actually giving a fluctuating % result pending on the level of the target. I figure it's something similar going on here.

But those two slows, they still do stack, right?

Any known debuff caps? Back then, the maximum we could debuff mobs was pretty much 50% accross the board.

8- Any gameplay changing item one should look for in EoF? Did I miss any other particular mechanics I should be notified of?

Mitigation is way different.  Generally between 5 and 6k the curve creates a serious case of diminishing returns.  This applies to both physical and all magic mitigations.  I believe the cap is like 11k, at which point you get 75% mitigation of damage.

Yeah, that's definitly different than when I was playing.

Thanks much for the help!

[Banditman]

Get over the HP buffing thing, really.  The difference is largely irrelevant once you get all your AA's.  You might be talking about 300 HP difference in a tank with 11k HP.  If you know your stuff, and the Defiler doesn't, you will be a better choice.  A MT Mystic will spec differently than a DPS group Mystic, and these things matter.The formula for stat cap is 15 x Level + 20 . . . so currently the stat cap is 1070.  It goes to 1220 with RoK.You can't simply judge Haste and DPS debuffs so easily.  You've got to look at the whole picture.  Instead of thinking in percentages, look at each as a sliding scale that runs from -200 to 200.  It's never been stated what the debuff caps are post EoF that I can find, but if we assume that the 50% rule remains in effect . . . you're looking at a debuff cap of 80.Now, the trick here is that it's not so simple as just saying that once you get 80 points of debuff on a mob you're done.  What if the mob has a buff that gives him +50?  Now, you'd need 130 points of debuff to hit the debuff cap.  You've simply got to stack debuffs on the mob and assume they are needed.This whole scenario has *nothing* to do with the level of the mob.  Everything still stacks, but the overall effect is extremely difficult to measure.  Does the mob have inate Haste / DPS buffs?  Does it have visible Haste / DPS buffs?  Does it proc a Haste / DPS buff?  You just don't know.The simplest answer is to use the debuffs if you're having trouble with a mob, or if you're in a raid where every little bit is important.

[sompet_eq2]

The ward from pet proc is automatically turned off when you finish fighting.edit: since GU #36Strength 4 - Aura of Warding: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet. Triggered ward effect is removed soon after combat ends.