Spell Ideas for next expansion

[deadman1204]

I know its a bit early, but the devs are already looking for AA ideas for the next xpac

1) I was thinking of a combination buff like rangers get - combine burnout with our current damage shield and the ice strike prism proc into one pet buff.

2) Souping up our rain spells. They are inherently more dangerous to use. Give them a bigger bank for their buck - but not less efficient.

3) Beam spells - can we just get rid of it. We are only gonna get so many spells, why waste one that is barely useful outside of farming grey stuff.

[Malleria]

Noooo, keep beam spells. If anything, ramp them up a bit, they're too weak Beams have a number of uses in the raid game.

[Danille]

Beams are some of the most important spells in the game.

Update our level 61 Elemental Barrier spell.

Few more magic spells in our arsenal - Beam/Fickle/and a fast casting

Pet dot/tap to return HP to the mage and a different one for mana

[deadman1204]

i never raid so i guess i didnt know there was a use for beam spells, good to know
It would be nice if elemental armor was updated too

[svenalo]

1. Elemental Cataclysm - ice/fire/magic nuke on the pet's target, similar to chromatic but going only after the 3 resists listed - dmg somewhat less than bolt, replacing shock line.
2. Summon Elemental Overlord - single new pet for the expansion - would be in concept like the old epic pet, but at the new pet level/power...basically a beefy air pet that can backstab. Could have it come already wielding nasty daggers (upgrades of the current ones in the weapon bag), etc.
3. Teleport To Elemental Plane - give us teleport spells to places with elementals.
4. Capture Elemental - allow us to capture an elemental and make it our pet, as opposed to summoning one.

[Piemastaj]

I think we should push to further the Thaumatize line. In all honesty I really like the spell how it is now, we get mana back and we dont have to hurt ourself or our pet. We should just try and focus on increasing the mana we get back from the spell so that it is somewhat on par for what wizzies/necros get back. It was mentioned in mage chat a few nights back to have it as the mage gets back half the mana that the nuke hits for or something along those lines.

Just my 2cp.

[Glaven]

Beams are some of the most important spells in the game.

Update our level 61 Elemental Barrier spell.

Few more magic spells in our arsenal - Beam/Fickle/and a fast casting

Pet dot/tap to return HP to the mage and a different one for mana

ok i gotta know why the EB suggestion....arent we all way over the resist cap at this point?

[svenalo]

Beams are some of the most important spells in the game.

Update our level 61 Elemental Barrier spell.

Few more magic spells in our arsenal - Beam/Fickle/and a fast casting

Pet dot/tap to return HP to the mage and a different one for mana

ok i gotta know why the EB suggestion....arent we all way over the resist cap at this point?

It would only help if it allowed us to exceed the cap. Or if they added corruption resists to its mix.

[Daiou]

I have seen over the year’s posts and comments saying that magicians are time consuming to build up in each expansion because the Devs need to make and tune 4 pets and then redo those pets for each tier of focus available.

So say there are 5 focuses for next expansion pets that’s 4 pets (without focus) and 4 pets * 5 focuses for 20 pets, total of 24 spells.

I don’t know how true that is but if it is, wouldn’t it be easier and beneficial to us (more time spent on our other spells) to have 1 pet, say air, and have 3 buffs that change the pet to another elemental?

So basic pet gets the focus, again using air pet as base gets 1 unfocused and 5 focused + 3buffs that either add HP/AC and reduce DPS, or reduce HP slightly but add a DD and backstab or reduces HP but adds big nukes. 1 pet + 5 focus +3 buffs gives 9 spells. Can either add a skin to those buffs or make a pet illusion spell.

We’d go from 24 spells to 10 spells (including illusion). I’d hope the time saved would then be invested in developing new spells.

Thoughts?

[Merlaina]

I have seen over the year’s posts and comments saying that magicians are time consuming to build up in each expansion because the Devs need to make and tune 4 pets and then redo those pets for each tier of focus available.

So say there are 5 focuses for next expansion pets that’s 4 pets (without focus) and 4 pets * 5 focuses for 20 pets, total of 24 spells.

I don’t know how true that is but if it is, wouldn’t it be easier and beneficial to us (more time spent on our other spells) to have 1 pet, say air, and have 3 buffs that change the pet to another elemental?

So basic pet gets the focus, again using air pet as base gets 1 unfocused and 5 focused + 3buffs that either add HP/AC and reduce DPS, or reduce HP slightly but add a DD and backstab or reduces HP but adds big nukes. 1 pet + 5 focus +3 buffs gives 9 spells. Can either add a skin to those buffs or make a pet illusion spell.

We’d go from 24 spells to 10 spells (including illusion). I’d hope the time saved would then be invested in developing new spells.

Thoughts?

I think the pets are different enough that it would be very difficult for them to change their behavior that drastically with just a buff. Say you wanted to have a buff that changes an air pet into a water pet. The buff would have to:

1 - Reduce AC by XX% (doable)
2 - Reduce max HP by XX% (Doable I think)
3 - Remove stun spell from ability list (never seen a buff do this)
4 - Add water nuke to ability list (also never seen this, but could be fudged as a proc)
5 - Add backstab ability (never seen this on a buff)
6 - Reduce dodge/block skill (I'd think doable)

It would have to be percentages I'd think since this would be something you'd want to scale with your pet focus. And that's just for air-> water. Air-> fire would be even trickier I'd think, since on top of those you'd have to change the pet behavior to not move while fighting.

I don't think the balancing of the current pets is quite as arduous as you have heard, and it's certainly less arduous than trying to balance a spell to have the same effect as making the different pets. Your basic pet is still the same, you just tack on extra AC/damage/HP/Mod2 cloak/levels depending on the focus of the pet. Sure they'd need some tweaking and field testing, but so would the pet/focus/buff plan. And worse say you are using one buff to convert air to earth, using percentages, and you find one focus level seems underpowered/overpowered for the focus level. What do you do then? You can't just tweak that pet, you have to tweak the base pet or buff, which will affect other focus levels of pet. The more I think about it, the more it sounds like trying to find an interpolation line/curve, which is probably more work than just making each pet its own so they can be tweaked individually.