NDA Lifted

[Savil]

Thats cool. So basically from what I've seen....

RS pet DPS is parsing low, and they still didn't fix the HP spawn in code (all pets spawning in with less than full hps depending on AA). This will continue to get worse as time goes on (and more aa's are added) and pets will tank worse on group / solo and take less to kill in raids. This was an issue that elidroth actually said he wanted to fix last year....

Looking over the spells:

* They will soon run out of things to call malo...
* New shielding spell actually looks like an upgrade for once..
* Would have like to see more of an upgrade on bolt
* DS line is still a complete *joke*
* The inv stone thing is just too funny
* Nice to know they continued all the DPS lines that almost no mage (with a brain) uses.
* Strike of Many has so many issues its hard to see it as anything other than a nerf to the class's DPS. Once this spell is fully parsed out people will see what PJ and I see now.
* WOW I can summon arrows without handing them to somebody! In all of my EQ time as a mage I've summoned arrows for somebody like 3 GD times.
* Are the anti summoned nukes linked to last exp's?
* New rods blow
* New renewal is WAY lower than it should be.. still. Hell 22.7 is less than what it should have been LAST exp. The same issues can be seen with the normal heal as well. They are still way less than they need to be.
* New stance spell might be interesting, was there a new rank for aegis (aa) added or still at 7 hits? Did they nerf the stacking / lockouts?
* Clickly pets that are smurf dps (PJ's parses) ... can they at least be weaved into 1.5 global recast time?
* New gather is a complete JOKE. Should be doing way more mana regen.
* New spear doesn't look too bad, is it linked to the old one?

Basically besides cast pets (unless I'm missing something) we really didn't get anything new / exciting. Kinda a letdown. I was hoping at last 1 kick ass new thing, and all I'm seeing is more copy / paste.

From what I've seen of the AA's its more of the same ... Maybe something cool will hit in DEC, I'll start holding my breath now with PJ and see what happens.

I clearly haven't parsed this and haven't even talked it over with PJ that much, but I'm going to guess with the nerfs and the "upgrades" we still don't break 60k dps. I'm going to bet most mages will fail to break 40k dps even with the new changes. Thats a FAR cry from the 20k DPS the class needed to stay with the other DPS's in VoA.

Crappy spells, AA's, DPS. Great direction so far :/

Savil

[Savil]

Just remembered this: remember all the info they asked us for about mage spells on the mage board for EQ live? Go back and reread that stuff... look how much info was completely ignored. Pretty much all of that time mages put in answered that request was wasted. :/

Savil

[svenalo]

1. Steelstance locks out Aegis as it did, Aegis didn't get any improvement.
2. The Spears are unlinked.
3. The info was asked for by Eli...but he only does the AA's. The bulk of our problems are not coming from there, really, but from spells and so on...
4. As I have said before, what VoA gave us was likely largely locked in a year or more ago...we need to be asking NOW for what we need in expansion 19 and 20 - waiting until fan faire or beta time is FAR too late in the development process.

[Piemastaj]

1. Steelstance locks out Aegis as it did, Aegis didn't get any improvement.
2. The Spears are unlinked.
3. The info was asked for by Eli...but he only does the AA's. The bulk of our problems are not coming from there, really, but from spells and so on...
4. As I have said before, what VoA gave us was likely largely locked in a year or more ago...we need to be asking NOW for what we need in expansion 19 and 20 - waiting until fan faire or beta time is FAR too late in the development process.

Sven, I asked for the current Fire Core change over the summer. And it still isn't where I think it should be. We waited 2 years for Companion of Necessity to get changed so it wont die (I am still not sure it wont die splitting a named and adds, even brought it up with Eli). We have asked for numerous things and issues over the years to either get told it is impossible or just no. It isn't about when we ask for it at all. It is about when SOE wants to throw us a bone, and until we get rid of pets that will likely be never. Pet code is terrible, and wouldn't surprise me if we suffer because we rely on them more then anyother class does. Not that I am suggesting we get rid of pets, just giving my thoughts.

Those new clicky pets are like .5 sec cast or insta, so easy to work them in anywhere.

[Voragath]

Thats cool. So basically from what I've seen....

Basically besides cast pets (unless I'm missing something) we really didn't get anything new / exciting. Kinda a letdown. I was hoping at last 1 kick ass new thing, and all I'm seeing is more copy / paste.

From what I've seen of the AA's its more of the same ... Maybe something cool will hit in DEC, I'll start holding my breath now with PJ and see what happens.

Savil

The quoted part happened to basically every class. It wasn't a mage thing

As to the rest. DS will never be viable. Suggestions are just that and the devs are the final word on that and it does suck when good suggestions are passed on but it's not always because devs hate us. Some of our suggestions have gone missing because of a lack of a mage CRT. The spells were pretty much copy paste and the arrows too. It was more work for Aristo to make one of any of our 5 pets than it was to make any other spell we had, even knew ones. The new clicky pets are basically a copy of SoR. Who cares if they add in copy/paste. Let them die. They aren't worth discussing.

Rods, anti-summon nukes, harvest, and renewal still being worked on. The reason the aa rods were untouched is because every other class has too much mana regen and are using very little. A mod rod increase would help us but make every other class basically have necro mana pools.

There are more aa's coming out in december.

[jalany]

easiest way to fix that is up gather enough that it gives us the mana regen needed or even possibly make it so that the old SA uf augs are mage only and not limited to 86. they could even do the copy/paste that they love so much to change the augs.

[Savil]

I get it that the other classes got copy and paste stuff vora... and I get it that mages were not the only class that got screwed / ignored. The part your *missing* is I don't care about other classes, I care about mages. I also care about the fact that the other classes were not in near the smurf that mages were to start with. So when mages were screwed it had *far* greater impact to our class than it did to the others.

Not really that hard to understand is it?

Savil

[Voragath]

I get it that the other classes got copy and paste stuff vora... and I get it that mages were not the only class that got screwed / ignored. The part your *missing* is I don't care about other classes, I care about mages. I also care about the fact that the other classes were not in near the smurf that mages were to start with. So when mages were screwed it had *far* greater impact to our class than it did to the others.

Not really that hard to understand is it?

Savil

No, I got it. What I was doing was pointing out a trend. What good is it to complain that our class got screwed when everyone did? It's done. It's time to look at what we have and what needs to be changed. Instead, you are raging about stuff that's nonsense to rage about. EG: Who cares if they upgrade our free target nuke? Why bring it up?

The only raging I see anyone should be doing over spells is our high mana cost and smurf regen compared to every other class in the game. And the fact that our "of many" line got changed.

You see the difference there? You raged at everything and I narrowed the focus down to what we use and what matters. That creates a framework to work in so that we can have a target. Raging about everything gets us nowhere and makes us lose focus as a class.

[Savil]

I didn't really "rage" ... I don't have near the investment you guys do anymore The way I see it is simple: While I understand what your saying in that you feel everybody got screwed equally .. *I* see it as mages did indeed get screwed more because we were so far behind to start with.

The crap upgrades I'm seeing will hurt mages more overall in the long run than they will hurt other classes. The fact that we got *smurf* for mana regen again and our spells cost even more the go around just puts on that much more hurt.

*It all matters*

I agree as a class we have to pick areas to bitch about the most and see those get atten first, and I think that those areas you have said are good areas to start yelling about. IMHO we have little and tons needs to be changed.

I see nothing in this release that will ensure raid mages are asked for ... or even wanted besides the old "we want 1 of them for super rods" and to have somebody around to laugh at (for the really smurf mages). This was the expand that the devs told us they would start working to fix our class. We started requesting things MONTHS ago to head this kind of release off. I see nothing changed for that yet.

IMHO pretty much all the hope for mages rests on PJ's shoulders. With any luck he can do enough parses to shame the devs into actually fixing things next go around.

Savil

[Piemastaj]

We are getting some help in the mana regen department in December. We are also getting some help in DPS aswell. Also, some of the things we are getting will allow for more branching out for later on and such. For mana right now, Shawl MIGHT be required if you intend to use our weave on raids for any extent of time over 2ishminutes. I haven't been able to test glyphs yet with our new weave, so our mana situation could be different then what I am thinking. As it stands though, in a Sepulcher group that was just tearing stuff down (shammy, bard, Beastlord, Ranger, mage, warr) I had to med 5 or 6 times in a 4 hour period with consistent pulls. That was w/o casting both spears also and I have 200 shawl mana proc and SS 1hander mana proc.

I am 95 now so will be grinding out my AAs and getting raid foci to really see what is going on with our mana and DPS though. I would say with our current stuff now 60k will probably be reachable with adequate gear/AA/spells that is. December patch will probably increase that some aswell.