Patch on TEST

[Calebe]

So we get rains unlinked and people are upset. what if it wasn't unlinked and we got nothing this last patch? Honest question, what then? Would some say they haven't reached us, or maybe not sure what to do, or would some say they over looked us and smurf they could have thrown us even a small bone to say, yes we are looking at you.

We got that small bone thrown our way and some are upset over it. In fact so much that:

It helps a tiny minority of mages at the expense of the entire class, yea great trade off. It practically IS a nerf, because it'll be used as an excuse for the on-going neglect of our more pressing issues. Nerf by stagnation is still a nerf.

How in the hell do you get at the expense of the whole class when a small bone or unnerf is thrown our way? I don't see it at all. It is a positive and not a negative. Is it huge and spectacular? No, some wanted it, and I am happy for them. Does it mean we are done? Of course not.

People need to look at the positive and not the negative, and smurf how a small change that was a positive to some can be called a nerf is just wrong. It isn't.

Does twincast need to work on RS pets? Yes. Do we need more pet survivability and DPS from pets? Yes. Do we need bigger nukes with a faster recast time, more mana regen? Yes and Yes. Can I wait for the next expansion for more mana regen? Yes. would I like the one spell we have made better? Sure but I lasted this long and I can wait. They know we are not happy with our mana regen. I trust them to make it better, or do something with pets to make us not need it, as the pets do more of the DPS, and live to do it. I trust them to be well aware of the issues in the next expansion because the mages that will be in beta will be sure they hear it and often. If we don't get it then it won't be for a lack of trying. In this case just be happy for what we got, and still ask for more, just don't complain it does make us look bad and ungrateful. They threw us a bone, now ask for the steak that went with the bone and we will be good.

Calebe

[qibrme]

yes and no. It also depends on the makeup of the people who post on the board and the ratio of whiners to realists too!

Exactly, being in good shape as a class allows the whiners to insert thumbs in mouth and be pacified rather than having the thumb out and crying thereby freeing up their hands for typing in the Class Balance forum

We typically have 5 mages and a druid in our raid group and when we run parses the 5 mages are typically in the top 10 dps!

We run mage heavy as well on raids the only difference is that we whine to the raid/guild leader to have an ENC in caster groups. So you might want to split half your mages into another group and put an ENC in group for their auras and crit spire.
Even if you don't have the ability to have enc's in 2 groups, dropping your lowest DPS mage to another group for an ENC should give better DPS results all around.

Only thing i have to whine about is that I have better gear than Calebe but he has higher stats.
Hey but he is best friends with Kozvar so meh /poke Calebe

Sued...

[qibrme]

Really. People are complaining about this change.
Look, this change had no overhead associated with it. All they had to do is to unlink the rains. Rains crit a lot, they are very efficient, and in upgrade-land they will do more damage.
As far as the group game, we don't know what that's going to look like in the future, yet. Nor the raid game, for that matter. The group game TODAY still has plenty of places to use them, and the solo game is the same.
Personally I like some variety - bolt fickle bolt fickle bolt fickle, oh a jolt and a RS too. These two guys, unlinked, add fun and flavor to the game.
It's a gift horse - we should not be staring it in the mouth. You would think they had nerfed something given the posts on the board here. (How dare they!)
Give me a break. Bara

Thought you quit AGAIN Bara... LOL when ya coming back to our server and guild?

Seriously guys need to save their energy for complaining about things that matter.
We did not loose anything with this unlinking and as a previous poster said, rains were part of my weave prior to the new spell refresh timer system being implemented.

As for uses for the rain spells, the group and solo options are obvious, but on raids our guild uses beam spells on a lot of events where all casters, mage, wizard use mass beams.
The unlocked rain spells may do more dps.. will need to test it.

Sued...

[Danille]

We typically have 5 mages and a druid in our raid group and when we run parses the 5 mages are typically in the top 10 dps!

We run mage heavy as well on raids the only difference is that we whine to the raid/guild leader to have an ENC in caster groups. So you might want to split half your mages into another group and put an ENC in group for their auras and crit spire.
Even if you don't have the ability to have enc's in 2 groups, dropping your lowest DPS mage to another group for an ENC should give better DPS results all around.

Only thing i have to whine about is that I have better gear than Calebe but he has higher stats.
Hey but he is best friends with Kozvar so meh /poke Calebe

Sued...

Yeah I agree for the really heavy DPS events like PG we usually run with 4 mages a druid and chanter.

[Malleria]

Does twincast need to work on RS pets? Yes. Do we need more pet survivability and DPS from pets? Yes. Do we need bigger nukes with a faster recast time, more mana regen? Yes and Yes. Can I wait for the next expansion for more mana regen? Yes. would I like the one spell we have made better? Sure but I lasted this long and I can wait. They know we are not happy with our mana regen. I trust them to make it better, or do something with pets to make us not need it, as the pets do more of the DPS, and live to do it. I trust them to be well aware of the issues in the next expansion because the mages that will be in beta will be sure they hear it and often. If we don't get it then it won't be for a lack of trying. In this case just be happy for what we got, and still ask for more, just don't complain it does make us look bad and ungrateful. They threw us a bone, now ask for the steak that went with the bone and we will be good.

Calebe

Obviously we're going to get something next expansion - that has never been called into question. Whether its what we actually want, or just another increase in the number of arrows we can summon at a time is another question. The point is, once beta starts, any chance whatsoever of our Underfoot spells being fixed is going to fly out the window. They've said it beta after beta: beta is not for fixing current problems. The bolded is exactly what they want you to think. They want mages to see they did something for us, and expect us to ease up on the pressure to fix our real problems. Then beta rolls around, and it's too late. And as I mentioned earlier, Thaumatize is going to hurt us. Badly. What reason do the devs have to give us even more mana regen if they think the status quo is acceptable? Even if they do agree it's underpowered, they're more likely to promise a retune after launch than give us something additional. Where does that sound familiar? I'm not eager to see us screwed over for another year+. You say ask for steak? How many mages are actually trying to communicate our needs to the Devs? Sure as hell not as many as other classes.

The overall point is: stop thanking them for crap, and start reinforcing the idea we need fixes to our real problems BEFORE beta hits.

[Voragath]

Does twincast need to work on RS pets? Yes. Do we need more pet survivability and DPS from pets? Yes. Do we need bigger nukes with a faster recast time, more mana regen? Yes and Yes. Can I wait for the next expansion for more mana regen? Yes. would I like the one spell we have made better? Sure but I lasted this long and I can wait. They know we are not happy with our mana regen. I trust them to make it better, or do something with pets to make us not need it, as the pets do more of the DPS, and live to do it. I trust them to be well aware of the issues in the next expansion because the mages that will be in beta will be sure they hear it and often. If we don't get it then it won't be for a lack of trying. In this case just be happy for what we got, and still ask for more, just don't complain it does make us look bad and ungrateful. They threw us a bone, now ask for the steak that went with the bone and we will be good.

Calebe

Obviously we're going to get something next expansion - that has never been called into question. Whether its what we actually want, or just another increase in the number of arrows we can summon at a time is another question. The point is, once beta starts, any chance whatsoever of our Underfoot spells being fixed is going to fly out the window. They've said it beta after beta: beta is not for fixing current problems. The bolded is exactly what they want you to think. They want mages to see they did something for us, and expect us to ease up on the pressure to fix our real problems. Then beta rolls around, and it's too late. And as I mentioned earlier, Thaumatize is going to hurt us. Badly. What reason do the devs have to give us even more mana regen if they think the status quo is acceptable? Even if they do agree it's underpowered, they're more likely to promise a retune after launch than give us something additional. Where does that sound familiar? I'm not eager to see us screwed over for another year+. You say ask for steak? How many mages are actually trying to communicate our needs to the Devs? Sure as hell not as many as other classes.

The overall point is: stop thanking them for crap, and start reinforcing the idea we need fixes to our real problems BEFORE beta hits.

So you know everything going on at SoE? You know what their to-do list is, who's doing what, the time involved, and what order projects are being pushed around in? You somehow know that a dev made this change and wasn't some pet project for an intern? You also know what pm's are sent, claiming not many mages are asking for help? Really? Man, Malleria, I don't know what's going on but you hit the deep end here, seriously. A lot of speculation over a whole lot of nothing. I think all the "mages r OP zomg nerf 'em" pages and the "what class you despise the most" have gotten to you. The devs said those posts don't influence them. Really, a change was made that some like and some don't. How it came about and what the impact was is only known to the devs.

[Malleria]

Obviously we're going to get something next expansion - that has never been called into question. Whether its what we actually want, or just another increase in the number of arrows we can summon at a time is another question. The point is, once beta starts, any chance whatsoever of our Underfoot spells being fixed is going to fly out the window. They've said it beta after beta: beta is not for fixing current problems. The bolded is exactly what they want you to think. They want mages to see they did something for us, and expect us to ease up on the pressure to fix our real problems. Then beta rolls around, and it's too late. And as I mentioned earlier, Thaumatize is going to hurt us. Badly. What reason do the devs have to give us even more mana regen if they think the status quo is acceptable? Even if they do agree it's underpowered, they're more likely to promise a retune after launch than give us something additional. Where does that sound familiar? I'm not eager to see us screwed over for another year+. You say ask for steak? How many mages are actually trying to communicate our needs to the Devs? Sure as hell not as many as other classes.

The overall point is: stop thanking them for crap, and start reinforcing the idea we need fixes to our real problems BEFORE beta hits.

So you know everything going on at SoE? You know what their to-do list is, who's doing what, the time involved, and what order projects are being pushed around in? You somehow know that a dev made this change and wasn't some pet project for an intern? You also know what pm's are sent, claiming not many mages are asking for help? Really? Man, Malleria, I don't know what's going on but you hit the deep end here, seriously. A lot of speculation over a whole lot of nothing. I think all the "mages r OP zomg nerf 'em" pages and the "what class you despise the most" have gotten to you. The devs said those posts don't influence them. Really, a change was made that some like and some don't. How it came about and what the impact was is only known to the devs.

The evidence is in precedence. Look at how much attention is given to issues that stir up a lot of interest. Similarly, you can look at their responses both during and after beta's in regards to fixes for previous expansion problems. Really, how many times have you seen a Dev say they'll add it to "the list"? And how many of those things have actually been solved? Look at the delays in raid tuning, the monumental screw ups that have needed nerfs, the ever-shrinking Dev team (Zat confirmed yesterday that we've lost Rytan, who's typically been sympathetic to Mages). I haven't hit the deep end, I'm just fed up. They've made changes to spells that are generally acknowledged as good additions to the respective classes, and forgotten changes needed to spells that have been close to worthless. We've been through 3 different spell Devs since UF beta. The theory that they know about the issues and will work on them eventually is wearing thin, and quickly approaching it's deadline. At this point it's more likely they either believe the spells to be fine (which seriously hurts our hopes for more mana regen); or they believe they're 'good enough' to leave unchanged and hope no one notices with all the hype with the new expansion, at which point we'll be back to the same problem as UF beta - namely a spell dev (if we're even that lucky) that responds maybe once a week, probably won't be interested in discussing the lack of mana regen because he'll have a quick look in his class notes, see the bullet point saying they don't see mana regen as an issue, and fob it off.

OR, admittedly, there is the chance if they decide to make Thaumatize into a regular spell that gets the typical copy/paste upgrades, we might have a chance of arguing for a larger return on the new spell. I sincerely hope this is the case. But honestly I don't see a retune of our spells coming up. I'm sorry if you see that as ranting (well, it is ranting), but that's how things are looking. I guess we'll just see.

(PS: in regards to the suggestion above they'll be increasing the power of rain spells - I hope you're right. And I did comment on that in the thread )

[qibrme]

Obviously we're going to get something next expansion - that has never been called into question. Whether its what we actually want, or just another increase in the number of arrows we can summon at a time is another question. The point is, once beta starts, any chance whatsoever of our Underfoot spells being fixed is going to fly out the window. They've said it beta after beta: beta is not for fixing current problems. The bolded is exactly what they want you to think. They want mages to see they did something for us, and expect us to ease up on the pressure to fix our real problems. Then beta rolls around, and it's too late. And as I mentioned earlier, Thaumatize is going to hurt us. Badly. What reason do the devs have to give us even more mana regen if they think the status quo is acceptable? Even if they do agree it's underpowered, they're more likely to promise a retune after launch than give us something additional. Where does that sound familiar? I'm not eager to see us screwed over for another year+. You say ask for steak? How many mages are actually trying to communicate our needs to the Devs? Sure as hell not as many as other classes.

The overall point is: stop thanking them for crap, and start reinforcing the idea we need fixes to our real problems BEFORE beta hits.

The issue about getting worked up over underperforming spells that do not get tuned before the next BETA is IMO an issue of "is it worth it" to the DEV's.
Last expansion was a rare exception in that we did not get level increases so the spells from the prior expansion were still relevant to new game content and we could also still hunt the previous expansion's mobs for fast EXP.

When new expansions come out we normally get level increases and the appropriate spell upgrades or new spells/AA's that allow us to handle the increased difficulty.
The question is, at level 90, how many 81 to 85 spells will most level 90 players use?
The same can be said for every 5 level separation that exist in the game.

"Thaumatize is going to hurt us" This should be a new line of our spells.
IMO in BETA the push should be to get the new level 90 spell to be 4X, 5X, 9999 times as powerful as the initial spell we currently have.
Regardless, the new spell will be better than the current one and with that in mind, no one will ever go back to using Thaumatize again. So why spend the time to "fix" (FIX = give them what they want, not what SoE DEV's feel is appropriate) it at this point might be what the DEV's are thinking. The upgrade will be the FIX. Again it might not be what we want, but that is the way most things have gone in this game since forever.

We ask for everything and keep asking then find inovative ways to continue being the best class in the game with what they give us.

Hey if i wanted it easy with DEV's giving me the ability to do everything in the game while taking a nap, I would have rolled a NECRO

Sued...

[Voragath]

OR, admittedly, there is the chance if they decide to make Thaumatize into a regular spell that gets the typical copy/paste upgrades, we might have a chance of arguing for a larger return on the new spell. I sincerely hope this is the case. But honestly I don't see a retune of our spells coming up. I'm sorry if you see that as ranting (well, it is ranting), but that's how things are looking. I guess we'll just see.

(PS: in regards to the suggestion above they'll be increasing the power of rain spells - I hope you're right. And I did comment on that in the thread )

Making Thaumatize a copy/paste and fixing the regen by giving it a much larger boost than normally would be given for such a spell would be a much better fix and save some dev time rather than looking at the current spell and boosting it. This is what I have always figured would happen.

I also don't remember where all spells were said to be tuned and that all classes would. I remember only a post saying that Rytan was in charge of spells and would be fixing those that needed fixing soon. Then they ninja'd Rytan out the back door and put Ngreth in charge. That is not a good sign either but Rytan has been in and out since before FreeRealms. Ngreth is good but now has a lot on his plate so we will have to stay focused and we'll get what we want. His attitude has always been to be liberal with the players. Perhaps, that's why we see any changes at all! It's quite possible our requests have fallen on deaf ears for the past year and now we have someone listening.

I say, hold your horses until Beta rolls around. If things are not looking up, the community should go full bore with the mage beta testers on getting our needs met /nod

[Merlaina]

I will say Ngreth has always been one of the most responsive devs, doing a very good job of communicating with the community. I know on EQTraders me and a couple others asked him to lower the requirements on the cultural seals to 81, and lo it happened! Always nice to have a dev that you know is listening to player feedback. If he's in charge of spell adjustments that's a big relief to me.