The Magician's Tower

These are the spell ideas we have for the HoT expansion. I will adjust the desirability rankings as we refine them.

As of May 4, we have an OVERWHELMING CONCENSUS:
Mage #1 priority is our pet, our pet, our pet - the meaner, beefier, the better. AA's should enhance the pet, but out of the box they should already rock. The standard for them rocking, as set in SoF, is a mage with a pet from the current expansion can defeat blue con mobs of the current expansion WITHOUT the pet being focused and WITHOUT a merc healer.
Mage #2 priority is mana regen, whether it be from super mod rods, vastly beefed up Thaumatize, vastly improved water elemental form, and the like. The only exception is a big NO if it was an extension of the pet reclaim functionality.
After those, it seems the next most common desire is making elemental forms useful again.

Besides upgrades to the existing lines, here are the ideas. First is the requester (tons'o'folks if a lot of people said it), then the spell name/idea, then any description/explanation. They are grouped according to desirability.

As of June 10, based on the various discussions, the following seems to be the desirability of the various AA ideas.

MUST HAVE

Upgrades of the existing pet lines, with the pets adhering to the "rocks" definition in Mage #1 priority.
Upgrades of the existing fire nuke lines
Upgrades of the existing magic nuke
Upgrades of the existing pet buffs
Upgrades to our mana regen capabilities


HIGHLY DESIRABLE

deadman1204 - combo pet buffs - 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.
danille - upgrade to elemental barrier (61 spell) - allow exceed cap and possibly add corruption resist
danille - some more magic based spells in arsenal - a beam, a fickle, and a fast cast.
danille - pet dot/tap - one for hp, one for mana; cast on pet and hp/mana goes to mage
piemastaj - thaumatize improvement - more mana
merlania - individual pet weapons instead of bag - upgrades of existing, but individual spells for each, spell summons 2 weapons, target pet and pet equips them
lifnuker - a hulking bodyguard type thing for pets - should pop out baby water or air pets, would add some dps
(SOE)ternada - extend malo line but give it a fire additive focus instead of magic - most of our damage spells are fire based...
(SOE)ternada - extend earthen stance line - make sure, though, the absorbing portion needs to be properly scaled to current mob DPS
(SOE)tasslium - reverse call of the hero - send mage to the group
(SOE)tulisin - Riftrain - Combine the nuke-multiplying properties of the "of many" line with the wave-nature of rains to create a rain spell that causes more waves of damage when there are more pets on the target. Additionally, give this rain a small chance (%5?) to proc a swarm pet on each wave. This creates a sort of self-enhancing DoT-like mechanism wherein a magician could slowly build their way to a stronger spell over the course of a fight.
(SOE)tulisin - Bolt of Bolts - Kill two birds with one stone by shoring up the conjuration side of things while introducing another bolt (always a class-defining feature of magicians). A fast-casting conjuration bolt could replace the rather bland "generic fast fire nuke" we have now. If possible, making it physical damage would realize the dream that every mage has had since they first cast their low-level "You summon a big sword and hit the mob with it" spell and were disappointed to see it counted as non-melee damage.
(SOE)tulisin - Chaotic Reclamation - Reworked version of our anti-summoned line that has the anti-summoned restriction removed from the base spell. Instead, when it hits a construct/summoned mobtype, it gives the magician a mana recourse (the summoned mob is being deconstructed into base components and salvaged), and a small chance of "big boom" damage (32K at 2 % is probably too low for modern content, maybe increase that). The idea is basically to convert an existing extremely situational nuke to one that can be an option for standard play, but retains its use in bane situations.
svenalo - mod rod for endurance - like the one that returns mana for hp, this one would return endurance for the melees.


NICE TO HAVE

svenalo - 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.
deadman1204 - souped up rain spells - They are inherently more dangerous to use. Give them a bigger bank for their buck - but not less efficient.
redius - targetted gravity well - self explanatory
merlania - defensive line of pet weapons - one that adds 50-100 ac and 1000-1500hp but no procs
merlania - upgraded Wrath of elements - old spell from Velious...bring back a upgraded version, but it should be unfocused/unaffected by aa's (meaning we don't want the aa's for DoT's)
(SOE)tasslium - extend cauldron line - new items (like a mod rod that returns endurance) and more powerful stuff of the existing


FLUFF

svenalo - Teleport To Elemental Plane - give us teleport spells to places with elementals.
svenalo - Capture Elemental - allow us to capture an elemental and make it our pet, as opposed to summoning one.


UNSURE

None at this time.


TOSSED (with reason in brackets)

svenalo - Summon Elemental Overlord - a 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. {concensus was we should keep all the pets we have, just improve usefulness of some of them}



editted 5/17/10 to add merlania
editted 5/24/10 to add merlaina, lifnuker
editted 5/25/10 to synchronize with SOE forum ideas
editted 5/28/10 to add tulisin
editted 6/10/10 to put in first crack at desirability rankings

bump - updated 5/25 to show ideas from SOE forum - synchronization

updated 5/28 to show tulisin's ideas that were over at SOE

Updated 6/10 to put in a first crack at desirability rankings based on the discussions/comments here and over on the SOE forums. Discuss away so I can get this to a point where I can post the final list here and over there hopefully before the fan faire.

Very nice work. I'll think about this a couple days.

Thank you.

Baramos

On the priority #1 pet section, you might want to add that the mage should be able to take on a blue con without focus, merc, or pet AAs (though standard pet buffs are fine). I don't want them expecting every mage to have max pet AAs to be able to take on a blue con.

For priority #2 you might want to push for a large INSTANT/SHORT DURATION mana regen. One of the big complaints about mana regen now is in raids, we get killed, we come back useless. About all we can do is summon a fire pet and say "go kill sparky" and then sit and med for the rest of the encounter. We need something so that if we die we're able to jump back into the fight like pretty much every other int caster class. Super mod rod would work for this, or a much beefier thaumatize pet.

My personal favorites for other spells, from most important to least (excluding upgrades to already existing spell lines):
Mod rod for endurance - since there's not many ways to increase endurance in a fight this would make us more desirable in raids again, and still useful for grouping
Combo pet buff - Collapse 3 spells into 1? Yes please. Would reduce spell gem juggling. Keep the regular DS as well and just don't let them stack.

Better support for other classes - Hasn't been mentioned yet, maybe because we've been in the mindset so long that we just don't buff other classes except for DS that we forgot it's a possibility. I'd like to see a "wow, that buff/debuff makes mages really desirable" buff/debuff. Maybe make the iceflame guard line PC targetable. Maybe add an aura that gives melees a fire proc. Maybe let the pet /guard players so they can help tanks. Maybe give each pet type a buff they cast on group members. But we need something to make us more desirable in both group and raid situations.

Merlaina wrote: Mod rod for endurance - since there's not many ways to increase endurance in a fight this would make us more desirable in raids again, and still useful for grouping.

How about just adding endurance to the existing mod rod? I don't like the idea of yet another set of summons to have to mem.

svenalo wrote: redius - targetted gravity well - self explanatory

Surprised to see this down the rankings. The amount of options such a spell would give us is staggering. IMO move it up to highly desirable, though it's doubtful they'll work on new mechanics in a level increase expansion.

how about a targeted buff we can cast on players and pets, that gives them a weapon proc that summons little earth pets, like the swarm weapons do.. earth pets could maybe proc snare?

EDIT: Wrong section, check master AA section.