Warlock Nil Crystals

[Elco]

OK SOE i really hope a dev or a gm will read this because i'm going to tell you all about the stupidest thing you have ever put in this game. Warlock Nil Crystals. I understand why they came about, all the classes needed spell components and it had to be even. I get that, but now that we are kinda into rok the use for these things is getting completly [Removed for Content]. I have to farm monks in pof, or goblins in runnyeye(which destroys lowbie content, imagine your about to pull the clay insurgent and a lvl 80 warlock only sees 7-9 nil crystals. I have to farm for an hour at least a day for these deep VP runs, or even a T1 raid night. Another thing we warlocks have no strength buffs so we are handicaped on bag space. i have a 15 slot bag just for nil crystals. This really pisses me off, and i know it pisses off alot of other people in game. Espically when i destroy the content for the lower lvl toons. I honestly look at it like this soe is destroying part of my game play why not do it to someone else. O and here is some math for you, in a normal trash raid mob i will burn 3-8 nil crystals on a fight while you give me 2 spells to replinsh 2 of them. WHAT THE FRAK IS THAT!!!!Well thats my rant about warlock nil crystals, there stupid, and i wish you would just take them out of the game, or maybe give us a nil crystal when we cast say absolution, and hell distortion, spells we are ALWAYS casting, not some small int debuff and a worthless hp debuff. Come on SOE you can try harderElcora80 warlockBefallen

[Burnout]

simply take the nil crystal thing out of game. no other class has such a painfull mechanic, the crystal spells aren't ubor so it would be ok to need special item, no nothing.kill the crystal need. you can still have them ingame, let's say as a warlock version of necro hearts....

[Alienor]

And while you are at it, please delete also the anguish essences from Necros. These things breed like rabbits luckily, so there is actually no reason to create these in the first place.

[Signal9]

Burnout wrote:

simply take the nil crystal thing out of game. no other class has such a painfull mechanic, the crystal spells aren't ubor so it would be ok to need special item, no nothing.kill the crystal need. you can still have them ingame, let's say as a warlock version of necro hearts....

Actually, several classes have the exact same thing. Nil crystals, Thoughtstones, Anguish essences... They all served as a limitation on our spells early on (need one or three to cast certain spells), but I'm not sure any purpose remains in keeping them in the game at this point.

[LadyGalasya]

I have to agree with the necro items...tis pointless. They are stupid easy to get and only 2 spells use them...one of which is a rez which uses ONE...not hard to keep 100 in my bags at a time

[Windowlicker]

I would like to know what value the Nil Crystals have for Developers.  Why are they still in-game?  Why have they not been removed?

As the poster above has mentioned, why are we encouraged to go destroy lower level content? 

I have better things to do with my time in this game then run around grey'd out zones AEing all the low level content for these crystals.  Even worse, is the fact we're decimating the area's low levels are trying to quest in to accomplish this.

If you REALLY REALLY have wood for these Nil Crystals, then please attach them to something like our Direct Damage spells.  I'd rather have to clean out my bags, then spend all my available online time farming these things so I can cast my regular spells.

[Zard]

Shadowknights (and maybe Paladins too?) used to have something similar, which was needed to summon their pet, but has since been removed from the game -- so there is a precedent for removing them.

[CoLD MeTaL]

My 'Lock says "Pretty please with sugar on top"

OR

I will turn you into a frog.

[Aurumn]

My coercer uses thoughtstones, however I have the opposite problem. The blasted things multiply like tribbles. I delete a couple stacks (99/stack) each play session. Doesn't seem like much of a limiting mechanic in that instance.

*edit: They also share the same graphic as Glimmering Material. Makes me look twice before deleting 'em.*

[MaCloud1032]

The SK ones use to be on % chance to proc so our was never a sure thing to have a stone to summon our usless pet.

[CoLD MeTaL]

The pally one was a % proc as well, but we needed it for one of our big self heals.  Sucked to run out, and was totally awesome that they removed it.

Nil crystals need to go away.

[Hellswrath]

Many of us have begged, pleaded, and bribed our way to getting rid of this mechanic to no avail.  However, I'll throw my vote in again on getting rid of a useless, irritating game mechanic.

[Signal9]

Hellswrath@Blackburrow wrote:

Many of us have begged, pleaded, and bribed our way to getting rid of this mechanic to no avail.  However, I'll throw my vote in again on getting rid of a useless, irritating game mechanic.

We have.

As a coercer, I generally wait till I have a 2nd stack of throughstones started.  when I have at least 5 in that stack, I delete the fill 99 stack, and move the 5 stack over.  I delete 6-10 stacks per night.

That is 600-1000 thoughtstones generated in a 4 hour gaming session.  I need 1 thoughtstone every 15 minutes or so for Mind's eye (4 per hour or 16 total for a 4 hour session), and they are required for few other spells (Encounter AoE mez takes 1, and channel takes 3).

We don't need 1000 of these per night.  With the infrequency that AoE mez and Channel get used, we rarely need more than 10 thoughstones at a time.

Simply put, this mechanic is not working well.

[Vonotar]

Hummm maybe I'm missing something with my Warlock... but what use are Nil Crystals?

[Terron]

Signal9 wrote:

That is 600-1000 thoughtstones generated in a 4 hour gaming session.  I need 1 thoughtstone every 15 minutes or so for Mind's eye (4 per hour or 16 total for a 4 hour session), and they are required for few other spells (Encounter AoE mez takes 1, and channel takes 3).

We don't need 1000 of these per night.  With the infrequency that AoE mez and Channel get used, we rarely need more than 10 thoughstones at a time.

As an illusionist I don't need anything for my AoE mez, but I use it quite frequently when soloing or in small groups, especially ones without a healer.

[CoLD MeTaL]

Banedon@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Hummm maybe I'm missing something with my Warlock... but what use are Nil Crystals?

Several Warlock spells require nil crystal to cast.

Rift, Netherlord, etc. 

If you look at spell description it says, 'requires nil crystal' to cast.

[liveja]

WoW has a similar concept for their Warlocks, & IMHO, it's equally stupid in that game.

[Rahatmattata]

Get rid of nil crystals or attach them to spells we actually cast.While we are on the topic of warlocks... fix the broodlings too... unless they already have (which I doubt). I haven't played my warlock in a month or so.

[Signal9]

Initially, the crystals of all types were to limit our ability to cast "major" spells too often.  In order to do that, the crystals were all temporary (they poofed shortly after you logged out).  You would start with 0, and have to build up a few before you did anything serious.

When they removed the Temp tag from the crystals, they removed any reason to have them.  If I really had a desire to do so, I could start the day with 3200 thoughtstones in one of my bags.

There is no reason for these legacy items to remain in the game.  They serve no purpose whatsoever, unless you consider inventory-bloat to be a desired outcome.

[LadyGalasya]

While I do not play a warlock I drop in my bid to remove the Nil crystials (Along with thoughtstones and Essences of Anguish) from the game. When I started my necro and got my first essence producing spell I thought "Wow I am really gonna need these things" turns out not so much. I ended up having something like 2000 in the bank before I got my rez at 48. *pout*

[Windowlicker]

A response either way on this would be appreciated.

[Rahatmattata]

My guess is there will be no response, nil crystals are here to stay, and the broodlings are working as intended.

[Mistress_of_Nihility]

I'm lost on why some warlocks think they have to farm low level creatures to up their supply.  After one hour of questing or dungeon crawling, I have at least three stacks in my inventory - which get replenished just as fast as I use them.

I don't mind them.  If I have too many, I just forgo casting the two spells that summon them for a bit.

[Rahatmattata]

Mistress_of_Nihility wrote:

I'm lost on why some warlocks think they have to farm low level creatures to up their supply.  After one hour of questing or dungeon crawling, I have at least three stacks in my inventory - which get replenished just as fast as I use them.

I don't mind them.  If I have too many, I just forgo casting the two spells that summon them for a bit.

Casting the 2 useless spells that give nil crystals is time spent you could be doing dps.

[Signal9]

Mistress_of_Nihility wrote:

I'm lost on why some warlocks think they have to farm low level creatures to up their supply.  After one hour of questing or dungeon crawling, I have at least three stacks in my inventory - which get replenished just as fast as I use them.

I don't mind them.  If I have too many, I just forgo casting the two spells that summon them for a bit.

Unfortunately for Coercers, the thoughtstones are generated by our best DPS spells, our reactives.

I literally have an inventory slot for the stones,  Once it reaches 99, and a new stack reaches 5 or more, I delete the 99, and start accumulating on the 5 stack.  I am never without thoughtstones.  the only time I don't generate 10x what I need is on raids.

[LionWilled]

Mistress_of_Nihility wrote:

I'm lost on why some warlocks think they have to farm low level creatures to up their supply.  After one hour of questing or dungeon crawling, I have at least three stacks in my inventory - which get replenished just as fast as I use them.

I don't mind them.  If I have too many, I just forgo casting the two spells that summon them for a bit.

For most Warlocks it isn't an issue.It is primarily a raider problem.The spells that GIVE us Nil Crystals are absolutely worthless.The spells that USE Nil Crystals are absolutely essential.Think the raid leader is gonna give 2 craps if your dps is slacking and you say "sorry boss, had to get in a few curses in there to get a few more crystals", "sorry my dps dropped, I didn't have time to farm for an hour to get enough nil crystals, so  I had to stop using gift etc", no, they will replace you with someone who can get the job done on demand with no issues.So a raider has 2 options, farm tons of crystals which is a timesink (and EQ2 seems to have a crusade against these, so it's only in keeping with current game direction to get rid of this time sink as well) and also disrupts lower level content. Or be lacking in the raid.It shouldn't even be an issue.Make all three of our dots give a crystal if the mob dies while they are on it.Make vacuum field give a nil crystal upon death of the mob if it is on it.No?Remove them from the game.

[Oidan]

Would be great to get a response to this post. Has many in the past with no response. Please look into this as the crystals are a completed waste of time to have to acquire with worthless spells.

[Mistress_of_Nihility]

Ah, I see.  I guess I don't understand that whole mentality either, since our raid leader is not an evil tyrannt parsing everyone's dps and docking them DKP if they fail to do a certain amount.

But whatever.  And the curses are actually debuffs.  When are debuffs not useful?

[Bakual]

Rahatmattata wrote:

My guess is there will be no response, nil crystals are here to stay, and the broodlings are working as intended.

apparently not:

"Dark Broodlings should now cast at the level of the caster." from Test Update Notes

[TuinalOfTheNexus]

Mistress_of_Nihility wrote:

Ah, I see.  I guess I don't understand that whole mentality either, since our raid leader is not an evil tyrannt parsing everyone's dps and docking them DKP if they fail to do a certain amount.

But whatever.  And the curses are actually debuffs.  When are debuffs not useful?

Curses only trigger when mobs die. While I agree that there's definitely an aspect to people not using the max hp debuff because it doesn't parse, whilst it does actually deal 4k "damage" from reducing hp pool, you're simply not gonna be killing mobs on raids at a rate that lets you summon crystals quick enough.

For one epic mob, you're gonna use 3-4 crystals and get at most 2 back. And obviously on named encouters if you're wiping you can use 50+ crystals and get none back. So if you want to play the class to its fullest farming crystals is a prerequisite.

It's fine that you're in a guild that doesn't care about DPS, but more hardcore yet equally valid playstyles will make the point that more DPS means faster zone clears and loot, and is a very good thing. And if your DPS is worse than a Conjuror because you can't use 3 key spells, then there's little point you being there instead of one.

The Nil crystals fall under the category of one of the game mechanics that can be worked around completely, but at the cost of annoyance and tedium. It's rather similar to Tower of Stone's shield damage, which is never an issue for a Guard over whether they use the skill, just an issue over the number of shields / patch kits / menderbots the raid has to carry round to circumvent it.