The Magician's Tower

Your right we do need burst dps, and I did post we do need burst DPS, and I suggested and still do, a magic based spear type spell so on fire immune mobs we have options, on non fire immune as long as not on same timer, we would have 2 very high damage bolt type spells to weave. The issue as we all know with bolts is the time to delivery. You cast it, but unlike the typical DD spell it travels to the target, lands and the damage is recorded, so DPS drops as you add in cast time, and travel time to target. True it may not be much, but at times it can be if your max range. Something to take into account. It just isn't the damage it does, or cast time, you need to factor in the travel time as well. Personally I like watching a lot of bolts go flying out and headed to the target. I like the visual and while it hurts DPS it is how a bolt should and does perform. A loss of DPS for the huge range it grants us. A fair trade off.

To compensate, a lower recast timer, and a shorter cast time would help our DPS because of the flight delay time. Burst is what is needed, and that while 2 bolts would help DPS is not helping burst as the damage would not be burst, but like all spells settle into a stead DPS stream, not bursting to high levels.

To get that we need something on a timer that when triggered would cause the effect of a fire focus but up the base of the spell cast by a fixed amount then let other focus's raise it even more.

Example, you activate the AA, you cast a nuke with a base 1000 damage. The AA is a 50% boost, that spell now casts at 1500, and then all other focus's add in to max it out. I am not sure if that is in game or can be added. We do know they can put a minimum on a focus so a 25%-60% is possible. So it should be doable. If not then the AA would make our nukes do a focus of 75-120%, so they always have a 75% boost for the duration the effect is active. They can't do less then a 75% increase up to 120% increase before other aa's and such boost it more. (Resists would still factor in).

As I said these are just numbers used to show the point and idea. They can scale it for a mage, for a wizard etc... Make it an activated AA, so the regular focus's are needed when not in use. There is your burst DPS increase. A set minimum increase on any and all nukes cast (unless resisted). Actually they could add in a base modifier or resist check and make it way less resistible.

Or as I said before an AA to make forced rejuvenation perm for 1-2 minutes chain away as if insta nukes for us. You get the idea though, something activated, and don't worry about the group game. No other class when they got upgrades cared one iota if it made the group game easier, we shouldn't either. Remember the only difference for a wizard that groups over raids, is the focus and rank 3 spells. All aa's are the same, as they are for us. So don't even consider it, or suggest an upgrade and then a nurf to balance it. Self defeating, we need DPS upgraded, and if it helps all mages so be it. Wizards upgrades help groupers as well as raiders, as does the necro. Same spells, same aa's minus rank 3's and that is the only difference. The necro DPS is not wanting on raids, and wizards are hurting but not near as much as mages on burst. They get help on burst it will help the grouping wizard. So it will be for the mage.

Calebe

I will agree with what you said, but we have something those classes do not which makes u have to consider the group game when tuning. Our pets do tank very well, and with more pet power the better they can tank. Which is the whole reason why I think the nuke focus would be the better/safer route to go. Granted it might be more wizard like, but roughly half of our DPs now does come from nuking.

For increasing our Nuke damage through spells/AAs, no we should not consider how it will make the group game. Because as you said no other class had to go through that, I just think we need to caution when we talk about increasing pet power X amount because that will greatly influence what we can do in terms of tanking and DPS from a grouping perspective. Would hate to get into another SoD fiasco with constant nerf threads on eqlive.

The idea that "you give up X if you get Y" which seems to happen both in the developers' work and (oddly) in the Mage collective consciousness, and we could find ourselves in the soup again.

I asbolutely do not buy the idea that "Mage pets will be fine - they will continue to boost them defensively as they have in the past 3 expansions." No, that's a bad assumption, in addition to being a logical fallacy, and add to both of those the fact of being proven EXACTLY FALSE several times in the past. And that is when Tirranna was still playing (a Mage dev from my guild.) And she couldn't stop it.

Sued said it best when she mentioned that we are dealing with a particular Dev (who is NOT a Mage), who has gained prominence, and who is most decidedly overworked. He merely needs to walk into a conference room and say what he has read about Mage "consensus" and throw in loaded words and things can change on a dime.

It can happen that easily.

It has happened that easily.

Baramos

wow you guys are reallly paranoid. way to hold onto the past for real lol. and we cant be F'ed anymore than we already are. we arent highly wanted in good raid guilds. our burst dps blows and we were highly ignored in beta to make our dps go up where its needed. burst. our pets got lil something and are fine. our sustained is nice but we got no burst. lets try for that because its needed then go for anything else we need. stop holding on to yout paranoia because its sad.

Doesn't really matter, the devs don't read these boards. And even if they did it's a fair assumption Aristo can't read, so he won't understand what the argument is anyway.

Lets put some numbers behind this. EM11 water pet fully buffed out does around 6k dps for 3-4 mins. RS pet full out does around 4-6k dps entire fight (assuming you have a clue and are chaining it). Add both together and at least for me... my spell damage is higher.

Now lets look at the pets vs nukes argument. This one is pretty simple to me. Lets look at stronger pets first. Well, we totally don't need stronger pets for group content.. they are almost OP'ed for it now. Sure its neat doing some old world raid solo with your pet, but thats not balanced. So stronger pets will upset the group balance even if we got NO OTHER UPGRADE.

Now lets look at the stronger pets issue from a raid stand point. Many mages report there guilds don't let them use pets that much, or its common to get told NO PETS on a raid. So that extra dmg wouldn't work for ALL MAGES, just some of us. So thats not all that great ether!

Now lets look at the stronger nukes idea, well.. both groupers and raiders get to take full advantage of it equally. Very rare have I been told on a raid "NO MAGE NUKES!".. so I think were safe there. So looks like a win win here.

Lets also look at the pets again. Anybody that says they are not strong enough now is crazy. Tanking 2-3 yellow mobs at a time with no healer is strong enough. People saying were "broke down wizard wannabes"... is crazy too. I out dps wizards now. I don't have to be a freaking wizard to do dps, needing more nuke power isn't making us freaking wizards. The entire thing is stupid.

The sad fact is.. mages aren't getting asked for be in raids anymore. Why? Cause we are currently so freaking low on burst dps. When the top 10 guilds in EQ say "we only need 1 mage for rods" that sucks badly. When even somebody as clueless as elidroth (letting his record for stupid choices speak for itself) sees were low on burst damage its time to see it for the problem its become.

Anybody that says / thinks mages aren't powerful enough in group game is clueless about this class, yes I said *clueless*. We only need raid burst dmg to fix us. Were fine in almost every other way, we do find in group fine in solo, and find in raid sustained dps. We get our asses spanked by almost everybody (even pallies) in 90 sec burst fights. A freaking pet isn't going to fix this people. A pet that could push out dps far enough to make up for our burst would so be OP'ed in group content it boggles the mind how any mage couldn't see it.

Would I like for there to be a "mage friendly" way for us to get dps... SURE I WOULD. But common guys, you have seen the current devs screw up time and time again do you honestly think they are going to be able to do much more than add a new nuke to fix this? *Think about it*

Savil

Lets please try to return to the topic at hand instead of debating whether or not pets are considered a dot or not. That can be its own thread if you so desire.

Guys,

Erollisi Marr flew into the Mage Tower forums and she deleted the HATE that was rampant in this thread. She expresses her apologies if some of the remaining message appears a bit out of sync, but asked me all to give you her blessings.

Now she left me a few arrows with instructions to shoot those who add more hate to this thread so don't make me go looking for them or you may find yourselves skipping down the street tossing dasies over your shoulder and humming fairy tunes.

I have to agree with Savil, our pets hold true to their purpose. I only have a EM 8 pet and can tank MC/SS named all day. The only think we need are new spell foci/AA to help. I personally would like more ranks in Fire Core and also see our elemental illu be redeemed by having more relevent effects (fire form-dmg boost, water form- a mana reduction, etc). That way we can change forms to fill the needed role.

Yes, many might not agree but I'm one of those mages that play a mage because of the pet. If I needed to do 80% of my dps from nukes, I really might as well roll a wizard. It's also been a long time since someone has told me, no pets on raids (not saying it wont happen) so I do believe we can burst through our pet.

What do you think of an AA like this:

Frenzied Annihilation.
2: Decrease AC by 800
4: Increase Haste v3 by 60%
7: Increase STR by 150
9: Increase ATK by 1000
10: Increase Chance to Hit by 60% with All Skills
11: Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 600%

Duration: 60 secs
Not affected by Focus
Not stackable with FBO (separate timers)
Refresh: 30 mins

Now these numbers are all made up, but here's my intent. For 60 secs (calling that the typical duration of a true burst) the pet quadruples it's DPS output and it's ability to tank is cut in half. Yes I know, suggest something good along with something bad, however since everyone including fellow mages seems to think pets are way overpowered in group/solo game, there must be a deterrent to using this in the group/solo game. So if the typical pet under FBO cranks out 5Kish DPS with EM11, using this will bump it to 20Kish DPS for that 60 secs. It will also deter raid leaders from ever saying no pets allowed, or at least I would hope so.

If that isn't enough to close the gap, you could also add another hit or 2 to the "of many" line, so our burst is now 2 fold.