The Magician's Tower

pandax wrote:

Ninven wrote:I always had this idea that we could get 2 buffs that we cast on our pet. One buff takes our power (dps ability) and gives it to the pet, could be the form of higher enhanced minion, but the main idea is the pet will tank/dps better. The other one takes power away from our pet and gives it to us. makes our dps more powerful, while lowering the overall ability of the pet. Ofcourse if the pet dies whichever effect is on will fade. This promotes more versatility for the mage and also promotes the bond between the mage and his pet.

How about a spell that buffs the pet so it does significantly more damage but gives you a simulations silence?

Say a 90 second duration with a 15 minute reuse. Allow it to give the pet "non-disced rogue" level dps.

This would help the mage's sustained dps while not overpowering the burst abilities.

The downside of course is that you would have no ability to heal your pet nor gate or anything of the sort.

I don't ever want to be silenced in such a manner. That's just insane.

Ninven wrote:I always had this idea that we could get 2 buffs that we cast on our pet. One buff takes our power (dps ability) and gives it to the pet, could be the form of higher enhanced minion, but the main idea is the pet will tank/dps better. The other one takes power away from our pet and gives it to us. makes our dps more powerful, while lowering the overall ability of the pet. Ofcourse if the pet dies whichever effect is on will fade. This promotes more versatility for the mage and also promotes the bond between the mage and his pet.

I love the bolded, and the spirit of the idea. It is excellent and exactly fits my own ideas of the Mage/Pet symbiosis.

However, and Calebe alludes to this above, we need to always shy away from any idea that has some "this or that" or "give and take" inherent, because atrophy and attrition have historically been a problem. We do not want to ingrain that in developer thinking and their posture to Magicians because the collateral damage can be too high at the onset, and worse, down the road.

There was a guy who used to write on the old Mage forums, forget his name - Razzmataz or something, but he said something years ago that sticks with me today, particularly in the aftermath of the Mage plummet which started in PoP and nearly killed us off.

Anyway, he was speaking to the context of the (seeming) predisposition of Mages to "ask for a new BLING" and offer to give up "BONG". He encouraged Mages to look at the Necro class, who hide all their power under a bushel, can do almost anything, are extraordinarily powered, and always say "WE WANT". You will never hear a Necro say I'll give you this if you'll give me that. You may as well ask for a Necro parse.

Yes, WE WANT UPGRADES. Upgrades in pet power, pet tanking, and spell power, and we do not want to atrophy and fall to the back of the pack, but to keep the status quo.

That means WE GIVE UP NOTHING. Who knows how far they would take that idea. I don't.

And I don't trust them.

We want scaled increases in our Pet.

Our criterion for the pet is that a Mage should be able to solo (not Molo) a dark blue mob in new content with his out-of-the-box pet. That was the Standard at the beginning of EQ, and after hard fought battles, it was where we were returned in OOW. It is where we need to be in Thule. From the get-go. Out of the Box.

We do not want to give up anything to keep the status quo, or to achieve a boost.

Just say no to "this for that".

We need to amp up our DPS.

We want to be desired in groups. I don't see much of an issue there. But our Raid desirability is hitting a nadir. That means DPS. Pet. Spells.

Scaling.

Scaling Scaling Scaling.

The big issue we'll be facing in Thule is SCALING in Pets, in Spells, in Abilities. That is job one.

The extras come afterward.

We shouldnt be brainstorming Ideas here on what to ask for

there are threads in each section full of ideas. Lets keep this thread focuses on how we are going to utilize the idea's we have hashed over already

deadman1204 wrote:We shouldnt be brainstorming Ideas here on what to ask for

there are threads in each section full of ideas. Lets keep this thread focuses on how we are going to utilize the idea's we have hashed over already

It doesn't matter where we brainstorm, as long as we brainstorm. Sometimes you're reading in a thread and get a Eureka, and want to post immediately in that context. It will all percolate for months until beta starts and hopefully by that time someone will emerge to organize things. Kirium was always good at that. Wire's fantastic but MIA. A lot of the Mages here I know will be in beta. I hope someone forceful and dynamic and present can put things into a nice package that we can sign off on, in spirit if not in fact. On this forum. Not Sony's.

Baramos

We already have the pet the pet and the pet always the pet etc in the lists - in every list no matter the topic I put that right at the top. If they (the devs) don't get the message from that, well, I don't know what other sledgehammer to use.

We need dps. Period. DPS from pets, and more mana regen for more sustained nuke dps. We already missed the boat on burn dps. That forum post listing desirability should be an eye opener.

Imho, we can get instant dps increases by fixing 3 issues that were already discussed in past betas and STILL have not been fixed

- make Servant twincastable
- add a haste component to Arcane Distillect
- mana regen - like serious mana regen not that crap we got so far...

svenalo wrote:We already have the pet the pet and the pet always the pet etc in the lists - in every list no matter the topic I put that right at the top. If they (the devs) don't get the message from that, well, I don't know what other sledgehammer to use.

Excellent. Please keep doing that and don't let up. Thank you.

Problem with "the devs" is that is not just one entity and their job functions shift. The new spell dev from last beta was terrible. He was unresponsive, didn't understand the issues, didn't respond to cogent feedback, and made a train wreck out of spells.

Our pet dev used to be Rytan once upon a time. He introduced the pet-as-DoT (which hobbled us for years) but over time his view gradually shifted. He's seasoned and more prudent now, but I don't know if someone took over from him. I do know he was promoted. If someone new is on the trail we need to help to mold his expectation from the Mages and his own posture toward the class.

Your sledgehammer approach is a valid one. Lots of sledgehammers clanging in unison is even better. Maybe we can get Maxwell's Silver Hammer going, too.

Anyway, as I say, we need to be saying that in beta, in unison, all the time. All the time.

All the time.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". -Albert Einstien

Think about that quote, with each and every step we take towards and during the upcoming Beta. I would hope we can press forward with a unified front this year.

We need to know exactly what we want and then press for it the best we can. Remember that while you may be in one camp or the other (casual or raider) we really all can benefit from positive changes in Pet Power and Tanking ability, DPS (burst, burn, and sustainable), and Mana Regen.

Lets Try to not squabble over the casual/ raider issue. If you have a great Idea that would work well for raiders, think about the casual game as well. When I brought up Pet Foci in last beta I pressed for 9-11 for raiders as well as pushing for 4-6 for casual players. With Wire and I pressing that issue we got what we asked for even if the type 3 augs didn't happen.

Often times we receive answers that are not satisfying from the devs. When you reply to ask for more information keep your wits about you.

I guess that's all I have to say for the moment.

Aither (formerly known as Dongin)
Firestormers- Povar

We have so many aa's and spells now to improve the power of our pet, I can't even remember them all, e.g, fortify, burnout, host in a shell, earthen stance, and on and on. We need a coherent strategy instead of adding piecemeal aa's and spell imo. Why can't we just get a raw increase to our pets and nukes? It is getting that way for our dps too with spires, cores, twincast, etc. The game is badly designed when most of my skill is just trying to remember a when to click a list of dozens of different things to increase the pet power. It is getting to where I don't even have time to click on all of these when I'm trying to burn a mob, much less remember them all.

Exactly, we need 2 - 4 very simple points on stuff that is actually actionable. This is a ton more likely to succeed than asking for more stuff. All we need imho is fixes to abilities we got that were half finished and never completed.