Topics to be discussed at Fan Faire

[Danille]

I will 2nd and third this request.

If the magicians going to Fan Faire can get the DEV's to answer this question, it would be huge IMO.

I am not saying we will like the answer, but if their answer is less than upper mid range, I would like the questioning to include asking the DEV's for their justification on our placement.

Sued...

I'll post the answer to that exact question from every developer asked.

[Malleria]

TBH you already did. Here it is again:

They'll never answer that question.

[Calebe]

The devs said we need a dps boost. What we got didn't work or get us even close. I was optimistic and said wait and see, fire core with a spear boost could have worked. It didn't, and as said hurt our sustained DPS as well. If the fire core boost actually related into a big jump in DPS during it's duration it would have been what we asked for. So now the devs have 2 things on the plate we need to ask for. The DPS boost we sorely need and a way to get back our sustained we lost.

I would ask those at fan fair, to ask for a bump in mana returned on harvest or more mana returned on the rod to off set the new mana required on spear, and to ask for more help in our burst dps. A necro in our guild on Al'Kabor did over 42,000 DPS and 12 million damage. No mage got close to that, and their solo game is as good as a mage, not to mention more ways to survive we lack. We need a boost in DPS, but not at the cost of soloing. We need help in the raid game, and solo/group game that if it goes bad we can burst DPS to try to survive and be competitive. It is the mage way, mages only had a pet and gate to avoid death. We have gained some more defensive but not anything close to other casters. We are still the same. We need to burn mobs down fast or die. In raid game we need to burn hard and fast or be useless. It is how a mage always was and still is. It goes bad, you burn the mob down fast, in raids the same burn hard and fast or be replaced bu those that can. We lost that, we need it back.

Mages are meant since day 1 to be not onlya soloing class but one to be wanted for our DPS as well. We chose the class because of those 2 reasons. we DPS hard, we solo with the best of them. We gave up almost all of our defense that a necro gets to dps in bursts, and out last a wizrd in sustained. We have lost burst and now sustained is hurt. we need help.

Calebe

[Aumeldarie]

New stuff Quote:

Aumeldarie we asked for burst damage increase and we are getting it. It may not be optimal at all, but it is an improvement and it is needed. Some people thought any incrase would have to wait for the next expansion, and some of hoped for this one. We had no idea but the thought by some as Eldiroth said Mages needed more damage we held out hope for this expansion.

The good news, is we are getting it this expansion and possible more in this expansion. That is way better then some expectations, way better in fact. Does the extra mana hurt? Of course, but lets not be ungrateful, lets not stop asking for an augment for spear. Lets ask for a mana decrease once numbers roll in for the increase we see, how long mana holds out etc... We are moving in the right direction. Over all I can't wait for a patch to see the results of these changes, so we can parse and work on the next set.

It is always easy to say well you could have done this or that. That will always be true. The thing to remember is something was done, and it helps us in the area we needed help in the most. Burst DPS, and as a side it helps the group and solo game by more damage per cast, and killing mobs faster. Sure it comes at a mana cost, and some extra down time but with OOC regen, not a huge burdon. Maybe the answer is not to ask for a mana cost reduction that may anger wizards, but maybe ask for a increase in our harvest to return 1000 extra mana and the rods to return 8500 mana and not 7500. That could help offset the mana cost of the new spells. On the plus it helps anyone that gets a rod, so a boon to the raid as a whole.

Lets think of all avenues to off set mana cost that wasn't touched on yet.

Calebe

Current post Quote:

The devs said we need a dps boost. What we got didn't work or get us even close. I was optimistic and said wait and see, fire core with a spear boost could have worked. It didn't, and as said hurt our sustained DPS as well. If the fire core boost actually related into a big jump in DPS during it's duration it would have been what we asked for. So now the devs have 2 things on the plate we need to ask for. The DPS boost we sorely need and a way to get back our sustained we lost.

I seriously don't understand how anyone could have been optomistic about this. They gave us the numbers it was obvious that it wasn't going to work out to be what is needed. 811 extra damage and a slight increase to fire core was never going to be what we need to compete in burst and it was obvious that the extra mana was going to hurt more than help overall. Good to see that you are ungrateful now too.

[Aumeldarie]

On a side note has anyone noticed an increase in agro when using spear that the 751-811 extra damage shouldn't cause? It couldn't be because of something they did to fire core because I always run silent casting with that and that is not the time I notice it.

[Calebe]

If you read the change:

Fire Core:
Starting with rank 2, I'm increasing both the minimum damage bonus, and the maximum damage bonus.
Rank 5 now looks like this:
Min Bonus raised to 30% (from 1%), Max Bonus raised to 90% (from 70%).

This results in an increase from 35% to 60% (a 25% increase) damage bonus for Fire Core as sample size approaches infinity. As always, these values are subject to change depending upon testing results.

What I said is wait to see if this helps. It didn't, but it did sound promising. From the text a straight up 25% boost, but in practice it was not nearly noticeable. I cautioned and still do, not to criticize any upgrade (when some didn't expect anything till next expansion), and see how it pans out. It didn't but it was and is a step in the right direction. Devs took note of our plight, posted here, and then did something to try to help. It failed, and we lost some ground in sustained damage. Yet it shows they know the issue, tried to address it, and we need to keep pushing for more fixes. To yell at SoE, to put them down, to be rude buys us absolutely nothing but it can and will cause them to say why bother and ignore us. we don't want to be ignored. we want to be fixed.

The only way is to keep asking, showing them the issues, BE RESPECTFUL, but persistent. Yelling and screaming, swearing at the devs may make you feel better, but all you do is alienate them and in turn they can give us the finger and do nothing.

Back on topic how can going from 1% minimum boost to 30% be considered (without testing) to be minimum? It isn't, it turned out it was, but till it went live no one knew. Yes I was optimistic but I also said we need to test to see how it worked. If we go negative on any changes before testing we lose all credibility.

Calebe

[Danille]

Thanks Calebe.

A few questions.....

If FC rank 5 looks like this:Min Bonus raised to 30% (from 1%), Max Bonus raised to 90% (from 70%)......

What should the ranks and respective Min Bonus/Max Bonus be raised to in a way that would have our burst DPS ranked where it belongs?

And because our main function is DPS should our burst DPS be behind a Wizzy/Rogue, but in front of Necros/Beastlords (the other two pet classes) then all other classes?

If So how much behind the wizzy and rogue and how far infront of a necro?

Are there some classes who have burst DPS ahead of a mage who should be behind us instead? What classes?

Are Pally's burst dps still beating us, or did they fix that issue?

[Calebe]

Honestly I am not sure how big a boost to fire core is needed to bring our burst up to where it should be. The increase from 1% minimum to 30% seemed huge, and in reality it wasn't. So 60% minimum boost and a max of 120%? Without testing not sure but 30% minimum doesn't equal a 30% more damage per cast. So it needs to go way higher to have any benefit at all.

As for where we should fall historically it has always been:

1: Burst dps wizard - mage - necro
2: sustained dps necro - mage - wizard

The amount varies per expansion but if you use a % then 15-20% would be acceptable. We would be 15-20% below a wizard in bursting DPS, and over time exceed a wizard. The necro would exceed all casters by the same amount and actually go higher the longer the fight lasts. The longer the fight goes the more a mage will close the dps gap on a wizard and eventually pass them if mana is out on the wizard and mage and the pets take up the slack. The percentages can be argued but can use that as a base frame.

Calebe

[Piemastaj]

I proposed atleast a 50% increase before, and it got shut-down. We needed a higher minimum then we got, and I told Elidroth this. I think the biggest problem with the FC change was we are not seeing the top-end of it enough. For example, I am not seeing the avg 80k nuke I think I should be seeing. When I tested it and such I couldn't break 77k with just my abilities, and I believe that is 1 of the issues with it. The top-end should be raised to over 100% (it was proposed by I think Malleria to me that we get a 150% increase on FC overall), us not seeing the 90% increase on the top-end is where our BURST hurts. You can obviously see the minimum got increased, if you parsed before and after that part is the sustained part of the disc though.

I also told Elidroth of a way to increase FBO since our pet DPS is getting low, and FBO is a burst disc for it, but have yet to hear word back from him yet again. I would like to see this get done aswell, so that we are 'balanced' like some mages want us to be.

As to where we should be, we should w/o a doubt be able to break 50k with stars-aligned. Fairly certain I have seen a parse from every DPS class of said class breaking that mark. That is for this expansion, I am assuming 80k+ is in the ball-park next expansion, so we should probably be shooting for 60kish ball-park with the correct ADPS classes. IMHO we should not out-DPS a ber or a wiz period, that is to say an equally skilled/geared one with the exact same ADPS used. Those r the only 2 classes I can see we don't need to out-DPS, but seeing as they will be hitting 80k probably we shouldn't need to worry about that.

As for sustained, we shouldn't be losing to any1 but a necro. Which isn't the case right now, BLs and rangers will out-sustain us and that isn't right imho. Beasts rely more on their nukes, rangers rely on nukes also. We are supposed to rely heavily on our pets (in sustained we do), which is the reason why we are seen as more of a sustained class because we have our pets.

That is all imo, but I think most of it should be accurate. We should not be top-teir DPS, and I am fairly certain that no mage is asking for that. We should be in the second teir though since we do use nukes which is a burst component. To me Wiz/Ber are the top-teir DPS classes, everyone else should be a teir below them (and I think this will get rectified next expansion by Elidroth's comments on here and the current nerf going in for rangers). That does leave a lot of classes in the second-teir, but all the other classes can do something effectively other then DPS and I think we should all be innerchangeable.

I have sent several PMs to Elidrtoh about our current issues, and still have yet to hear word back from him on them even though we were 'promised' more things to come during this expansion....

[Danille]

Thats for the detail Pie, very helpful.