Top ten list

[sauruman]

First, I want to thank everyone that contributed to the discussion. It is time to narrow in on a list, and get something to SOE. This method won't be perfect, but its pretty reasonable and done in a matter representive of the discussions we have seen on the various forums where we have been conversing.

The purpose of this thread to to ask for a narrowing of the list. This list is fairly narrow in its reach, allowing for individual items to be addressed and quick addition/removal of items as they are addressed, as this is my intent. From what we've seen through voting on these and eqnecro forums, numbers 1-6 enjoy the majority of support of the community. Whereas numbers 7-14 have the majority of the community's approach but not all the necros. I dropped several items from the list already that didn't have broad approval from the community. Thus, four item must be dropped from the list between numbers 7 and 14.

1. Lowering of DoT resists - rewrite

As EQ and the encounters in the game have grown in scale, so have the defenses of the mobs we encounter. Despite the fact that you have updated our resist debuff lines, we feel that the vast majority of the encounters that we face regularly render us much more ineffective that what is acceptable. The complicated method in which we "stack" dots and require the constant recasting on creatures, reliably low resists are necessary to compare to other classes in short and long-term damage.

A "simple" fix is increasing the modifiers currently on our spells, and limiting the resists on creatures in future expansions. Fire currently has a mod -100, lifetap/lifetap dots have -200, poison -50, curse -30, and disease -50. Increasing these modifiers by 50% would fix this issue. Disease additionally, needs work. While in theory it is the most efficient line, it is the most commonly resisted. Many NPC's in raiding and group content are entirely immune to this type of damage, coupled with the fact that this line is the lowest dps of all our lines. Finally, lifetap needs to be restored to the "lure" it once was with a resist check -300 or so. Many encounters in the game currently resist lifetap at an extreme rate, although in these situations it sometimes does land, making us incapable of even nuking and staying alive self-sufficienty.
Alternatively, a resist ward has been suggested by some necromancers in order to give us a better chance to land our spells. This would be similar to the wizard line of wards. An additional idea would be attaching resist-ward like qualities to our current pet, making it more desirable, especially in raid environments.

No one fix is universally accepted, but everyone does agree that this is the most important issue that our class wants fixed, and many other classes share our plight. The addition of another debuff like we received in Omens of War would exacerbate instead of alleviate this problem, as this would take a spell slot away from the necromancer that relies on stacking every dot conceivable as fast as possible on creatures to be effective.


2. Willful Death
Willful Death needs modification to become a viable alternate ability. Currently, Necromancers are relied upon to survive raid encounters, recover their raids, pull, and reach dangerous depths of dungeons. Willful Death promises help in these realms, however in its current state giving the ability a 25% chance to fire, it does not deliver.
i. When a necromancer is feigned, it is unclear whether there is a spell being cast on the necromancer at all, or if that spell will break their FD until it is too late. This leads to a split second reaction imbedded in the best of necromancers to re-FD as soon as they are cast on, making the low % something necromancers don't even consider due to the risk involved.
ii. Necromancers have seen an eroding in their niche as a pulling class steadily with the introduction of new expansions. Monks have the ability to have a 100% chance to channel spells when FD line, bards have fade, and Shadowknight’s, the Necromancers hybrid, have a heightened ability to survive due to their higher mitigation, AC, and HP.
iii. Two potential solutions have arisen in the community. The first and by far the favorite is bringing this ability to a passive chance to channel spells when feigned at a rate of 90-100%. The second alternative method would be a triggered version with an immediate trigger and a short reuse time that would give the Necromancer the ability to channel all spells for a short period of time.

3. Lifeburn upgrade
Lifeburn remains a high-risk ability while the damage is minimal. Usage of this puts the Necromancer at 25% life, putting the caster in extreme danger of death by low-life aggro, add creatures in the event, or by Area of Effect spells if the timing is not precisely executed. The damage produced simply often does not coincide with the risk.

Allowing for a scaled lifeburn through new aa's would alleviate this low cap on damage equivalent to the caster's HP. This suggestion is similar to the new manaburn on test:
Level 1: Lifeburn taking 3000hps, yielding 12000dmg.
Level 2: Lifeburn taking 6000hps, 24k dmg
level 3: Lifeburn taking 9000hps, 36k dmg

A second way to upgrade this ability is the removal of the recourse and allowing worn foci and AA's the caster posseses to increase lifeburn damage, allow a % chance to crit, and reduce the recast timer.


4. Pet haste increase, load time decrease, range of spell increase
The short duration of pet haste has taken a spell slot from the Necromancer. Due to the long load time of the spell, swapping this out for another damaging spell while it is on the pet is unreasonable, since this would equate to constant spell swapping and more hassle then the pet is worth. Keeping pet haste on a pet even with duration worn foci is highly difficult, as Necromancers are one of the few classes that did not receive AA’s to increase the duration of beneficial buff casts. Our pet is already very high maintenance, and this is another level of complication.
i. A possible fix for this issue would be increasing the duration of this buff to over an hour. The recent extremely marginal increase of a few minutes was not enough, and not even noticeable, but does help bring this issue to light. Decreasing loadtime would help in this ability to move this spell from every Necromancers spellbar, by allowing swapping in and out. As a final and long-term solution, smart buffing would be best. When a pet is cast, it could already simply "detect" the amount of mana the best pet haste costs from the necromancers spellbook, and the buff would be on the pet until it dies.

5. Channeling Mastery
I. This would provide another further path to increase necromancers’ survivability, pulling utility, and disparity in AA allocation in the Depths expansion. Other Intelligence casters received this AA while the Necromancers did not. Necromancers could benefit highly from this ability in that most of our current deaths come from incoming melee damage in the form on a stun, and few deaths happen outside of that for the experienced Necromancer. An experienced necromancer does take considerable damage by accidental aggro and just by wise offtanking, which where this ability would considerably help. If our Death Peace ability fails and we are on the bleeding edge of aggro, this ability would help give us the possibility of survival.

6. Mind Wrack upgrade
The changes to Mind Wrack in the Omens of War expansion and the recent expansions allowing this spell to universally land have made the necromancer the class to group with for classes with a manabar. A few changes to this ability and subtle increases could ensure the viability of this ability in future expansions.
i. Instead of having this upgrade resist some of the time, make it irresistible, or with a considerable resist check of -400 chromatic. This would help alleviate the issue of the twitching necromancer, due to the reliability of the spell landing. This would allow for a phasing out of the twitch line of spells. Since Mind Wrack also gives mana back to the Necromancer, and since it cannot be chained, a Necromancer using Mind Wrack could still focus foremost on doing DPS, while contributing to the most basic struggle for mana. A shared timer on this MW upgrade would also make it impossible for Necromancers to twitch in higher content, an idea embraced by some of the community so long as this change is applied to an upgrade instead of the existing spell.
ii. Some Necromancers have suggested a MGB form of this ability, allowing for a Necromancer form of MGB Paragon. This would especially help in lower tiered raid content where twitch remains important (but not necessary) and provide for relief.
iii. Moving MW along with other short-term buffs to the bard box would help with the people that always have full buffs, and thus allow Necromancers to not have to spam the group asking for removal of excess buffs. This would also fit in with the ideal of the short-term bard box.
*7) utility (Group taps)
*8) Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content)
*9) Undead utility upgrades (nukes, dots, slow, mez, lull)
**10. Parity of DoT Crits (Currently being evaluated)- NO CHANGE IN THIS FORM
With Omens of War, the DoT casters got AA to bring them in line with the “non-specialized” DD casters (Mages, Druids etc.) However, just like Wizards happen to be specialists in, and undisputed masters of Direct Damage type spells, so do Necromancers feel that they should fill the same role for Damge over Time spells.
I. Either a clarification that SOE does not feel that Necromancers are specialists
in the same way that Wizards are, or address this disparity (an innate chance to
crit, and an AA tier that catches Necromancers up to Wizards in terms of %
chance to crit). Also the AA Destructive Fury does not currently affect DoT crits,
only DD crits. Necromancers feel that either making this AA affect both types of
Damage (preferred) or another AA line for DoTs would be appropriate. This would be a so called “destructive fury” for necromancers.
*11) Cosmetic changes (different lich model, different pet, new horse)
*12) Swarm pet controls (another UI window, or linked to /pet attack)
*13) Screaming Terror Upgrade
*14) Summon corpse upgrade (across zones summon prefered as this had the largest % of the vote)

Please include the numbers you would like to see dropped from the list, and feel free to provide justification if you like. I could not do this fairly and comprehensively in a poll format without it getting extremely confusing, so I opted for this reply with your choices to drop format.

PM ME IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO HAVE YOUR OPINIONS PUBLICLY KNOWN!!!!

This thread will remain open until the 26th of December at noon est. Then your welcome to chime in on the writer's critique and help verse the language (this process already started). After submitting the final list, we will move to phase three, constant evaluation of the list including removing items and replacing them as we see fit.

[Dranul]

9: Don't see as too useful. Sure, I like the idea of being "masters of the undead," but at the same time...there's so few content that is undead and we can already handle pretty well anyway. If they gave an AA or spell that made me want to go to a place that has undead, maybe, but if it's just finishing lines like paci and undead dots, that can wait.

10: This has always been the line between wizard and necro dps; they rock the shorts, we rock the longs. Plus, I'm just not sure you *can* do much.

11: Can wait. That's all I can say.

14: Also not a critical issue.

6: I don't want it dropped, but I would like to see the idea of MW going to the short buff window put onto that little sublist.

Edit - Down to four items.

[sauruman]

6: I don't want it dropped, but I would like to see the idea of MW going to the short buff window put onto that little sublist.

Terrific idea! I'll put it in the writeup.

PLZ PLZ PLZ limit the items you suggest dropping to 4. For my sanity and all those kittens who will die from the confusion that would otherwise ensue.

[UsulDaNeriak]

before i post my vote i like to point out a mistake. at least i dont understand this point.

10) Parity of dot to dd in short term fights.

this was not what we discussed afaik.

we discussed, that dot crit and dd crit should have the same chance/max propability, e.g.
- some aa are just working on nukes
- wizz got an innate crit chance to nukes additionaly.

this has nothing to do with short term fights or dot vs. dd dmg at all, imho.

however, great job Sauruman.

Usul

[UsulDaNeriak]

thats really hard. all these issues are worth to be solved. no nonsens on the list anymore. so great job sauruman.

so here is my vote:

kick #7: utility
our debuffs are worthless and the grouptaps have been seldomly worth to load even in older times. why to upgrade something which wasnt required at all. beside mw and perhaps groupheal.

kick #9: undead spells
i am afraid that the devs are very convinced, that they improved our undead spells just lately. and they are not willing to go any further. and the real issue are not the spells, its the availability of undead mobs, especially if it comes to named mobs.

kick #12: swarm pet control
honestly, if you use them with a brain, it is not so much an issue, that they are working like a chanter pet after mob is dead. i rather like to see an entire new concept for pets as mentioned below.

kick #14: summon corpse
i dont see, how we should get something better than already impelemented with guild lobby. i see a high risk for exploits and i dont know why i should like to get an upgrade here at all. because the ones i would perhaps like to get, will never get implemented.

---------------------

just some additional comments for your write up:

ad 10: dot vs.dd
as i mentioned already, this was not what we discussed afaik.
we discussed, that dot crit and dd crit should have the same chance/max propability, e.g.
- some aa are just working on nukes
- wizz got an innate crit chance to nukes addittionaly.
this has nothing to do with short term fights or dot vs. dd dmg at all, imho.

ad 8 and 12: pet issues
i would have combined these 2 topics. what we need imho is a full review and revamp of the way pets do work in eq at all. how they are controlled, their dmg, their resists, their models their roles in different situations (raid, group solo) and whatsoever.
perhaps, this is a point you should discuss with other pet class correspondents (mage, bst,...) and come back with a united approach. i know, thats a challenge sauruman, but you asked for one applying to this role). i dont say you should change the top ten list now. but you could talk to the other correspondents in parallel and start also an initiative about pets at all in parallel. an initiatve whith really revoloutionary ideas about pet mechanics. nothing easy. thats why we need united power of all pet classes to make sony think about it.

ad 6: mw upgrade
i guess the majority agreed to an increase. perhaps a sizeable, which means it grows regarding to manapool (% of manapool, not a fixed ammount). i doubt they will agree on MGB. but nice to ask for. just dont make it the major subtopic here.
and dont forget the idea to have a shared timer with twitch line. i dont like to talk about twitch again. here, it is just a compensation for increased mw mana from sonys point of view. and we catch 2 birds with 1 stone.

13: screaming terror
the devs already announced that officially (eqlive, sony forums,...). even more than once, during the phase they revamped fear spells. so this is not just another wish, it is asking sony to fullfil already made official announcements. remember them about this fact, please.

Usul

[Dranul]

Edited down first post to four items, Sauru.

[Rijak]

i think how these requests are worded is of major importance, but i assume that will be posted/debated too (the resist and parity issues especially)

1) Resists ~ KEEP
2) Willful Death % increase or triggered version for short duration ~ KEEP
3) Lifeburn upgrade (allow aa's/foci to work, shorten recast timer) ~ KEEP
4) Pet haste dramatic duration increase ~ KEEP
5) Channeling Mastery ~ KEEP
6) MW upgrade (unresistable, MGB'able, or just a sizable increase) ~ KEEP
*7) utility (Group taps, debuffs) ~ DROP ***see note below***
*8) Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content) ~ KEEP
*9) Undead utility upgrades (nukes, dots, slow, mez, lull) ~ DROP
*10) Parity of dot to DD for short term fights ~ KEEP
*11) Cosmetic changes (different lich model, different pet, new horse) ~ KEEP
*12) Swarm pet controls (another UI window, or linked to /pet attack) ~ DROP
*13) Screaming Terror Upgrade ~ KEEP
*14) Summon corpse upgrade (across zones summon prefered as this had the largest % of the vote) ~ DROP

summary: drop 7, 9, 12, 14 (with the exception of group lifetaps

***note: i think group taps and MW should be combined in a "utility" issue... both need upgrades, and in a similar fashion

i also noticed you dodge the twitch question... i don't blame you, it's like social security debates in the US :P

however... polls and comments suggest that the split is about 50/50 between those wanting to keep the spells and those wanting to drop the spells... and of those who want to keep the spell MANY do not like it used during combat

either this time, or next time when an issue is to be replaced... i'd like to see us ask SOE about the two resolutions that have been suggested that might solve the twitch-during-combat issue:

a ) twitch can not be cast on a person who is on a mob's hatelist

or

b ) twitch is blocked in certain zones/encounters

[UsulDaNeriak]

i strongly advise to NOW....

bury twitch forever. no rezz no zombies,......please.

there is NO common opinion amongst necs about it.

and sony doesnt care. from sonys point of view, twitch will die over time anyways.

so let it die, with respect.


Usul

[Rijak]

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak@Dec 18 2005, 01:13 PM
so let it die, with respect.
i'm not one to keep my mouth shut about anything... but i respect your opinion, so i'll let it rest... grudgingly :P

[Sathras]

KEEP*7) utility (Group taps, debuffs)
KEEP*8) Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content)
KEEP*12) Swarm pet controls (another UI window, or linked to /pet attack)
KEEP*14) Summon corpse upgrade (across zones summon prefered as this had the largest % of the vote)

[daephyx]

Drop 7, 9, 12, 14

My reasoning has been articulated more or less by above posters

[Tryal Anderror]

As I read that whole List, I can't help but think that very little of that matches what we've been talking about at all.

The only 2 I'd Uniformly agree with are Channeling Mastery and Resists.

The rest seem similar to what we've discussed, but somehow written wrong.

Wasn't the whole point of the Mindwrack issue supposed to cover twitches as well? If it doesn't, I don't want that brought up.

Also, The Lifeburn upgrade seemed to be something people wanted...but AAs and Foci working? That's like a very small increase. I don't want that, I want an actual upgrade.

The Pet changes I want in there, But with more focus on it as an XPing and soloing tool and making it match that better.

Parity on DoTs to DDs...I think most of us meant Resist rates and Crits, not Parity on short fights. I just want to be able to land them and have them match Nukes in crit percentages. So this just seems written wrong also.

Summon corpse upgrade: Again, I want this...but not how it's written there. I definately do NOT want to summon someone accross zonelines. I want to summon a corpse in the zone with me when the player isn't. One is a utility for our benefit, the other is only a Utility which people will bug us for all day.

I'd want to drop #11, 12, 13 and 14.

But i'd want to see #2, 3 ,6, 7, 8, and 10 Totally rewritten and #1 Given Very specific suggestions.

I think the key here is to give totally implementable suggestions to the Devs, and try to avoid making suggestions that will end up hurting us.

[Tryal Anderror]

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak@Dec 18 2005, 06:13 PM
i strongly advise to NOW....

bury twitch forever. no rezz no zombies,......please.

there is NO common opinion amongst necs about it.

and sony doesnt care. from sonys point of view, twitch will die over time anyways.

so let it die, with respect.


Usul
That's a non-raider's opinion. Twitch will NEVER die unless it removed. Even if people have 30k manapools,

[Xislaben]

Most important:
1) Resists

What I would like:
2) Willful Death % increase or triggered version for short duration
3) Lifeburn upgrade (allow aa's/foci to work, shorten recast timer)
4) Pet haste dramatic duration increase
5) Channeling Mastery
*8) Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content)
*11) Cosmetic changes (different lich model, different pet, new horse)
*12) Swarm pet controls (another UI window, or linked to /pet attack)

Drop these for all I care:
6) MW upgrade (unresistable, MGB'able, or just a sizable increase)
*7) utility (Group taps, debuffs)
*9) Undead utility upgrades (nukes, dots, slow, mez, lull)
*10) Parity of dot to DD for short term fights
*13) Screaming Terror Upgrade
*14) Summon corpse upgrade (across zones summon prefered as this had the largest % of the vote)

[Errelin]

Resists, is all I have to say.

[Felicite]

Drop 7, 9, 12, 14

[Jebasiz]

Combine 7 and 9... drop 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14. I agree with tryal, alot of this isn't written how it was discussed. Either re-write like..all of them or leave us the way we are.

[Aryse Andenter]

Get rid of #10, 11, 12 and 14.
I want a new pet/lich model, but it isn't top ten material for me, I'll just keep my fingers crossed for the next expansion. Swarm pets isn't an urgent issue, maybe see what the other pet classes think. I don't care if I can summon corpses across zone lines. Now if it was to summon a group member's corpse when they weren't in the zone, I'd want it on the list. But as that option, I don't care for it.

Also, as Usul, Tryal and Jebasiz said - these are worded differently and don't feel like the same things that we've been discussing up until now.

[sauruman]

As I read that whole List, I can't help but think that very little of that matches what we've been talking about at all.

The only 2 I'd Uniformly agree with are Channeling Mastery and Resists.

The rest seem similar to what we've discussed, but somehow written wrong.

Wasn't the whole point of the Mindwrack issue supposed to cover twitches as well? If it doesn't, I don't want that brought up.

Also, The Lifeburn upgrade seemed to be something people wanted...but AAs and Foci working? That's like a very small increase. I don't want that, I want an actual upgrade.

The Pet changes I want in there, But with more focus on it as an XPing and soloing tool and making it match that better.

Parity on DoTs to DDs...I think most of us meant Resist rates and Crits, not Parity on short fights. I just want to be able to land them and have them match Nukes in crit percentages. So this just seems written wrong also.

Summon corpse upgrade: Again, I want this...but not how it's written there. I definately do NOT want to summon someone accross zonelines. I want to summon a corpse in the zone with me when the player isn't. One is a utility for our benefit, the other is only a Utility which people will bug us for all day.

For the sake of elaborating, I'll go into a little detail on how I approached this.

Mindwrack needs to be changed somehow to make it work in a way that it could phase out twitch etc. So some of the things discussed to do that is make it land on anything, upgrade the amount it does maintaining the ratio, possible MGB, and moving it to bard box. If I missed something with that, let me know. But I think that covers it.

Parity on Dots to DD's.... this is a complex issue and will be worded in a way similar to Sissl wrote it. I don't want to reinvite the wheel here, without going into detail (at least I had thought...) we all are on the same page as to what this means. The one thing I would add as a potential solution to this problem is a destructive fury for dots type idea, that polled with strong support here.

Summon corpse upgrade barely made it as a voting choice. The reason it did add it is because if we elminated other choices, it would have polled strongly. Thus, I chose the strongest polling idea (across zones while grouped, compared to magus which polled lower in both forums) and posted that.

Lifeburn is another problem. Instead of saying "fix it or else" like the wizards did and taking two years, I thought that we might suggest a productive fix. Reduce the timer to like 30mins or less, allow foci to work, get rid of the pitiful recourse. This is ONE route we can take, and I intend to suggest others as I write this item into the list. Its not set in stone that is how it will be written.


Guys I left the wording of these items somewhat ambiguous for a reason. We have discussed these items in polls for weeks, and I know where we stand as a community on the specifics. This is about weeding out the less desirable items from the list.

And no, I don't want to have EVERY possible item we voted on somehow added into the list. That would mean SOE would be asking for a top 100 list. Personally, I think the nec is doing quite well, and we can narrow our focus to 10 items just fine.

Phase 3 with be a constant re-evaluation, and we will knock off the weak items as they become evident, or as Rashere gets back to me on the new list, or as new much more important issues pop up, if they do. These changes will take place in a polling method similar to what we've seen thus far. I won't ever act underhanded, and I'll always do my best to act openly when making these extremly far reaching kind of changes.

I understand some of you may not like a few items on the list and may be in the minority on a particular issue and are upset your item didn't make the final cut. I also understand the few of you that only care that 2-3 items are on the list and don't care about the rest. But I have to ask you guys to vote in the manner I asked for, requesting the four items to drop from the list.

[Mallakith]

Doing a good job saru in an attempt to agree lets get it down to 10 then work on the wording of em ;)

*7) utility (Group taps, debuffs) DROP
*8) Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content)
*9) Undead utility upgrades (nukes, dots, slow, mez, lull)
*10) Parity of dot to DD for short term fights
*11) Cosmetic changes (different lich model, different pet, new horse) DROP
*12) Swarm pet controls (another UI window, or linked to /pet attack) DROP
*13) Screaming Terror Upgrade DROP
*14) Summon corpse upgrade (across zones summon prefered as this had the largest % of the vote)

THis leaves us with sensible option, while I want a different pet to boner id rather we got something more worthwhile than a different graphic.

Pets on raids are my bugbear, I got pet hold pet focus pet getof the fking corpse aa's and still dont summon a pet on raids cos hes not worth the effort. Put it at 7

Parity of dots and dd's I read as same chance to crit.. possible innate crits if this is what is meant position 8

Summon Corpse upgrade I suggested a self only upgrade to the AA which might work making it possible to summon our own corpses across zones once per game day (maybe 2 days).. 9

Undead utility really because its the least bad of the options i would put it at 10!

little of my reasoning and the order id put them in... keep it up Saruman )

[Nirruden]

Thus, four item must be dropped from the list between numbers 7 and 14.
Drop these:
*8) Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content)
Reasoning: My pet is a purely subsidiary damage add and speedbump. I am the master, and it's my job to keep him under control. The only thing worth keeping in this section is the bug fixes, and we shouldn't have to point out that they're bugged (/pet focus vs. /pet hold, etc.) to get this fixed. This is not a top ten worthy issue at present.

*11) Cosmetic changes (different lich model, different pet, new horse)
Reasoning: Yawn. I'm a bringer of death, not a winner of fashion shows. I don't care if I'm dyed purple and wearing a yellow thong, so long as my spells hurt things and I can help my groups.

*12) Swarm pet controls (another UI window, or linked to /pet attack)
Reasoning: I'd like them, but not as much as some of these other things. Not today, but maybe for the next list.

*14) Summon corpse upgrade
Reasoning: I am not your fscking monkey. Go visit the guild lobby, or quit dying.

[Saenayar]

Drop 9, 12, and 14. Reword 10 please, it is a bit misleading. 11 would be nice to have, but I would rather get something other than a graphics upgrade. New graphics are not going to help me kill *insert mob name here*. I would not want to scarifice a potential "real upgrade" for a cosmetic one.

Saen.

[BlackHeart]

Drop

7, 9, 12, 14

Reasons as others have already mentioned

[Eyez]

I would drop 9, 12, 13, and 14.

[Jebasiz]

Originally posted by Tryal Anderror+Dec 18 2005, 04:54 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Tryal Anderror @ Dec 18 2005, 04:54 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-UsulDaNeriak@Dec 18 2005, 06:13 PM
i strongly advise to NOW....

bury twitch forever. no rezz no zombies,......please.

there is NO common opinion amongst necs about it.

and sony doesnt care. from sonys point of view, twitch will die over time anyways.

so let it die, with respect.


Usul
That's a non-raider's opinion. Twitch will NEVER die unless it removed. Even if people have 30k manapools, [/b][/quote]
Usul does raid. He's not on the bleeding edge of content, but he does eventually get through most of it.

He raids with a smaller force, having people in roles that aren't always optimum and as far as I can tell does quite well for himself.

If ANYONE should need more mana/twitching it's his healers..not Trialty's. That is a crutch your guild uses to compensate for bad mana management or piss poor raid leading(perhaps some combination of both). It's NOT the entire community's problem. It's yours, as long as you stay guilded there.

(BTW..that's a BIG reason why Ckador is in Assent..and not Trialty). If that's not a *hint*. I don't know what is.

[Tryal Anderror]

Originally posted by Jebasiz+Dec 20 2005, 12:36 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Jebasiz @ Dec 20 2005, 12:36 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Originally posted by Tryal Anderror@Dec 18 2005, 04:54 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-UsulDaNeriak@Dec 18 2005, 06:13 PM
i strongly advise to NOW....

bury twitch forever. no rezz no zombies,......please.

there is NO common opinion amongst necs about it.

and sony doesnt care. from sonys point of view, twitch will die over time anyways.

so let it die, with respect.


Usul
That's a non-raider's opinion. Twitch will NEVER die unless it removed. Even if people have 30k manapools,
Usul does raid. He's not on the bleeding edge of content, but he does eventually get through most of it.

He raids with a smaller force, having people in roles that aren't always optimum and as far as I can tell does quite well for himself.

If ANYONE should need more mana/twitching it's his healers..not Trialty's. That is a crutch your guild uses to compensate for bad mana management or piss poor raid leading(perhaps some combination of both). It's NOT the entire community's problem. It's yours, as long as you stay guilded there.

(BTW..that's a BIG reason why Ckador is in Assent..and not Trialty). If that's not a *hint*. I don't know what is. [/b][/quote]
That's pretty much the entire point, people like Triality Do continue to use it, and many other guilds report the same thing.

Triality would have just continued to go on with it had we not arrived...and the fight is all that much harder since they'd been left by Ckador.
They have a tendancy to villianize anyone who leaves them, so him going villianized anyone else who came in and sugested the same things.

It is the community's problem because it's effecting people well beyond this backwards guild. Someone recently posted a whole 'newbie raid guide' listing twitching as Necro's main role. It's still a very prevalent thing out there.

And beyond that, as long as some people are using it, fights can't be truly designed as if they arn't.

I'm Hate, I know how to do things without 3 entire classes at the utmost efficiency...but it doesn't mean everyone does.

[Raidjin]

Drop 7, 9, 12, 13

[Xislaben]

Twitch:
I don't get it, its a matter of math, and more or less straight forward math at that.

Unless there's a ch chain, twitching is pretty useless, and in fact detrimental to the raid as long as you can land spells and do at least respectable dps on the mobs.

Do they say more or less, "Yes I see twitching a PL/AHL spamming clr is virtually pointless, but I want you to do it anyway" ?

[sauruman]

Why the hell are we talking about twitch here?

Any further talk of it will get those posts deleted, as we are straying off topic here. Lets stay on point. If you want to talk about twitch I understand... its a huge problem to some of us. Start another thread, don't do it here, however. I am a proponent of free speech, but bringing up twitch in every thread is just lame. Let it die or open another thread to talk about your twitch concerns, your choice, just stop posting about it in this thread.

[FCseven]

Originally posted by sauruman@Dec 18 2005, 09:20 AM
*7) utility (Group taps, debuffs)
*8) Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content)
*9) Undead utility upgrades (nukes, dots, slow, mez, lull)
*10) Parity of dot to DD for short term fights
*11) Cosmetic changes (different lich model, different pet, new horse)
*12) Swarm pet controls (another UI window, or linked to /pet attack)
*13) Screaming Terror Upgrade
*14) Summon corpse upgrade (across zones summon prefered as this had the largest % of the vote)


*7) utility (Group taps, debuffs)-Drop
*8) Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content)
*9) Undead utility upgrades (nukes, dots, slow, mez, lull)-Drop
*10) Parity of dot to DD for short term fights
*11) Cosmetic changes (different lich model, different pet, new horse)
*12) Swarm pet controls (another UI window, or linked to /pet attack)Drop
*13) Screaming Terror Upgrade
*14) Summon corpse upgrade (across zones summon prefered as this had the largest % of the vote)-Drop

[Rijak]

Originally posted by sauruman@Dec 20 2005, 03:00 AM
Why the hell are we talking about twitch here?

Any further talk of it will get those posts deleted, as we are straying off topic here. Lets stay on point. If you want to talk about twitch I understand... its a huge problem to some of us. Start another thread, don't do it here, however. I am a proponent of free speech, but bringing up twitch in every thread is just lame. Let it die or open another thread to talk about your twitch concerns, your choice, just stop posting about it in this thread.
relax... you can just skim over those comments if you like... deleting stuff always causes more problems then it solves

[Jebasiz]

Originally posted by Rijak+Dec 20 2005, 09:34 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Rijak @ Dec 20 2005, 09:34 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-sauruman@Dec 20 2005, 03:00 AM
Why the hell are we talking about twitch here?

Any further talk of it will get those posts deleted, as we are straying off topic here.* Lets stay on point.* If you want to talk about twitch I understand... its a huge problem to some of us.* Start another thread, don't do it here, however.* I am a proponent of free speech, but bringing up twitch in every thread is just lame.* Let it die or open another thread to talk about your twitch concerns, your choice, just stop posting about it in this thread.
relax... you can just skim over those comments if you like... deleting stuff always causes more problems then it solves [/b][/quote]
SILENCE Rijak...HE's the CLASS CORRESPONDENT and can do WHATEVER HE WANTS!

If roles of necros on raids isn't a class issue, I don't know what is. If people want to discuss that topic while people are deciding what topics stay and go for a list that goes to Devs, then there's no better place for it.

The fact that YOU find that inconvenient doesn't mean a goddamn thing. The fact that the THREE people that posted on it ALL said your list was poorly written probably has more to do with your little "power trip" then anything else is fucking pathetic and juvenile.

Please continue to misrepresent what we voted for on your following lists. If nothing else, it'll be entertaining watching your lack of understanding of the game/this class and seeing how far a hole you dig us before you're removed as the class correspondent.

(God I hope this post doesn't INVOKE HIS WRATH!)

Edit: Asshole.

[Xelgadis]

Originally posted by sauruman@Dec 18 2005, 04:20 AM
*7) utility (Group taps, debuffs)
*8) Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content)
*9) Undead utility upgrades (nukes, dots, slow, mez, lull)
*10) Parity of dot to DD for short term fights
*11) Cosmetic changes (different lich model, different pet, new horse)
*12) Swarm pet controls (another UI window, or linked to /pet attack)
*13) Screaming Terror Upgrade
*14) Summon corpse upgrade (across zones summon prefered as this had the largest % of the vote)
To be brutally honest, you can drop more than just 4 from that list:

7) Keep this I suppose since people seem to think we really need them. Yay for more spells we don't really need an upgrade to.

8) Drop. The pet changes people incessantly whine about affect not only necromancers, but all pet classes. As such, we should collaborate our efforts with the other pet classes and drive for a change as one voice, not as a trickle of many voices, we're more likely to be heard then.

9) Drop. While the ample ammount of undead in this expansion is nice, there's still far from enough in the game to really be bothered with pushing this item.

10) Keep... grudgingly. There's a balance, if you get them to put our focus more toward the shit trash clears (ie. short fight), you may well end up sacrificing our long fight stamina in order to remain balanced. In my opinion, the shortened cast times were enough to address this issue... but give people an inch and they take a mile. Besides, it appears that Domunus will already further address this issue to some extent. I don't think we really need to push much harder on this issue; just give them time, the miracle might have been shoved up sideways so it'll take a little longer to pull it out.

11) Drop. I grow weary of the occasional cosmetic change or 'bolt on' feature to the existing graphic engine. Emulating DX7 calls is pretty slow, when they can rewrite the entire engine to make remotely decent and -efficient- use of DX9. When the devs get to a point of overhauling the graphic engine, I'll worry then about cosmetic changes. Until that happens, we need not concern ourselves with this issue as it isn't an -issue- at all.

12) Drop. We've done fine thus far without them, we'll continue to survive without them. Also, this is something that affects not only necromancers, this affects all classes that can drop swarms. So, like I said with the remaining pet items; if the class really feels that this is a necessary item to push the devs about, propose this to the other "swarm" classes and get their support, then drive for it as one uniform body.

13) Drop. We've done fine thus far on NPCs that are post-55 in level, we'll continue to survive. Besides, any upgrade given to us will immediately become obsolete when they raise level caps again, effectively returning us to square one. Realizing that, I look at this *cough* issue, and ask the question; what's the point?

14) Drop. While it would be nice, it'd create too many avenues for potential exploit (same with mages pushing for xzone CoH). The argument can be made about flagging zones/areas/etc. til people are blue in the face. The reality of it is that the devs don't see all possibilites, and endless "fixing" will occur as a result. I'd rather not hassle with it.

Yeah, it's more than 4 items... but alot of the proposed items aren't necessary, not by any means. I'd rather see changes that will age well, rather than be pointless an expansion later.

[Sivas]

My votes for what to remove:

(1) Resists -- I don't see them actually changing this. We have lots of hard to resist spells already (lifetaps/drains and our fire line). If the mob is highly MR or FR we lose a lot of dps but that's true for other classes too, like mages, and is intended, imo.

(3) Lifeburn -- I'd like to see this fixed, but I don't anticipate that they would make it much more use than it is now.

(7) Utility -- As others have said, the utility concerns are addressed by other parts of the top 10.

(9) Undead upgrades -- These are useful too seldom to be worth a top 10 spot.

==================
I'm surprised that so many voted to get rid of (12) swarm pet controls. I think this would be one of the more fun changes that we could get. Being able to control our swarm pets would give us another option for what we can do during a fight instead of casting and letting them go. Plus, it would be good for controlling push in certain situations, making the swarm pets more generally usable. I do like the idea of getting together with the other pet classes to uniformly approach this issue.

I also agree with the others who have said that the Corpse Summon skill would be most useful if we can summon corpses of people not in the zone (with their consent). We should change that wording. Also, the wording of the DoT/DD parity should be changed as others have suggested.

Sivas

[Jebasiz]

Our wake the dead and swarm of death pets are like what 30dps on average? so like with everything optimum fighting a blue con..after it dies, IF there's another mob already there and waiting to be attacked we loose like 180dps(probably much much less) for whatever is left of the duration of those pets.

I could really care less. These abilities are just graphically enjoyable..that or speed bumbs, there only real use is interrupting chealing mobs..that or gaters(sometimes). Neither of those apply early enough on to matter on a second mob.

[Xelgadis]

Given the choices we have availble, we don't need a Top 10, I'm sorry to say... we need a Top 2:

1) Willful Death

2) Channeling Mastery

Those are the only 2 things on the list that I see being worth a shit. The rest of the list can be flushed with someone's stash for all I care.

-----------------------------------------

This post has been brought to you in reply to the PMs to say how I really feel about the list. ;)

[Xagyg]

I'm with Xelgadis. Most of the stuff on the list is so useless, it's nearly impossible to pick just 4 things to drop. The only ones I'm really interested in seeing fixed / improved are Channeling Mastery and Willful Death.

[Jebasiz]

LOL, how sad is that?

Of 14 items, 2 are universally agreed upon. One of them I don't view as even an "issue" but more of a fix. Willful Death should of never been implemented in it's current state.

I'd like overall utility added, since we do seem to "pay a price" for the utility we get, I'd like to "get my money's worth". I enjoy the odd CC role once in a while..that and it's a "principle-thing" to me. If you're going to say something is a certain way, it should goddamn be that..and stay that way until such a time where they come out and say it's not intended to be that way anymore. As long as I get mez, charm, debuffs and group taps..I expect for them to work well.

Other then that..the 2 things Xelgadis mentioned are all I really would argue hard for. If that whole combine 7 and 9..and ditch 6-14 didn't tip anyone off.

The rest were from the existing list..or listed differently(like they were already part of the list). This isn't YOUR list. It's the community's.

Also a 2nd top 10 list should be made as a collabrative effort with shaman, mages, and beastlords. A "pet class top 10." They're as reluctant to use their list for issues that this list could/should include as we are. That does not mean those "issues" that some of us (not me) feel strongly about, shouldn't be addressed.

I'm not unreasonable...a top 10 list where everyone thought everything was great and necessary simply will not happen.

However, the way these other issues are worded, screams "I'm shooting for a "C" in 5th grade english class". It's true, you'll get to junior high with C's...but this simply is not satisfactory here.

Don't reply with "it's not finished", "I said it would change" or the like. You're asking us to form opinions with what you wrote.

If you don't have the time, patience, ability to form an appropriately written list..have someone else do it. I'd suggest Xelgadis, Usul, Mephistopheles, Xagyg or the like..maybe ask each of them to take 2-3 topics we're discussing and they could write them for you.

Atleast then, we wouldn't be given a steaming pile of shit from which we choose the direction our class takes in the future.

[UsulDaNeriak]

guys, stay cool.

this is not the final write up. just a list of 14 points with 14 titels (just half a sentence). i recommend that you make your vote and give some comments for write up. this is just for prioritization now.

i expect, that sauruman will finish the final write up, after prioritization is done and will show it to us before he sends it to sony. then, i hope we will all see, that he did understand, what we discussed and what the opinion of the majority was.

and regarding Mr. Tryal. i am raiding a lot! even not in a big uber guild. but in my guild, necs are called dmg dealers, even the youngest members are able to do the math and would never ask a nec in combat for twitch. and if they are asking during downtime, they say first "please" and "thank you" afterwards. on the other side our necs do mw whenever they can, and if this damn mob resists everything, we go into twitch mode, of course. but this is our decision. i say it again: if your guild tells you to twitch: teach/change your guild or fire them. such simple.
the poll showed clearly, that there is no majority for any side in our nec community. so no chance for sauruman to do anything. let twitch alone!

Usul

PS: and why we talk about twitch in this thread sauruman? easy answer. its a thread about our top ten. twitch was polled and didnt make it even into the top 14. so it is a valid topic in this thread. even if i agree, that its not worth to discuss about it anymore. hold on, perhaps about a shared timer with mw, as a compensation for a better mw. i guess at least nobody did disagree to this shared timer idea ;) . text could be as follows, as part of our mw request:

"we are aware that you devs already stated on latest fanfaires, that you are afraid about the amount of mana in the game already and you like to limit it. so we like to offer as a kind of compensation for a better mw, that you put our sedoulous line (twitch) on a shared timer with mw. that means every nec cant twitch while waiting this 1 minute for mw refresh"

sorry for my no-native english.

[Xebitikz]

1) Resists
2) Willful Death % increase or triggered version for short duration
3) Lifeburn upgrade (allow aa's/foci to work, shorten recast timer)
4) Pet haste dramatic duration increase
5) Channeling Mastery
6) MW upgrade (unresistable, MGB'able, or just a sizable increase)
7) utility (Group taps, debuffs)
8) Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content)
9) Undead utility upgrades (nukes, dots, slow, mez, lull)
10) Parity of dot to DD for short term fight


Those are my top 10, in no particular order.

[Ecol]

1) Resists
2) Willful Death % increase or triggered version for short duration
3) Lifeburn upgrade (allow aa's/foci to work, shorten recast timer)
4) Pet haste dramatic duration increase
5) Channeling Mastery
6) MW upgrade (unresistable, MGB'able, or just a sizable increase)
*7) utility (Group taps, debuffs) DROP
*8) Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content)
*9) Undead utility upgrades (nukes, dots, slow, mez, lull)
*10) Parity of dot to DD for short term fights DROP
*11) Cosmetic changes (different lich model, different pet, new horse)
*12) Swarm pet controls (another UI window, or linked to /pet attack) DROP
*13) Screaming Terror Upgrade
*14) Summon corpse upgrade (across zones summon prefered as this had the largest % of the vote) DROP

I like the idea of combining some of the similar ones. I also liked the idea of getting with other pet classes and maybe putting pressure with them.

[sauruman]

Just because you don't like the list doesn't mean the list sucks. Not everyone is gonna agree on every item. I kept a few items out that I would have personally liked on the list, even. This list is about what the community wants as a whole, not as a representation of a margin of the population. This list has to be 10 items, no more no less.

Willful death, resists, and channeling mastery appreciate pretty much the entire support of the community. That is a victory since other classes can't agree on one item in common. We aren't those other classes tho.

After those few items in common, it gets much more complex. At that point I suppose you have to start asking yourself several questions when looking at the 4 items to drop from this list.

-Is DPS all that necromancers do?
-Should necromancers have utility available in upgraded lines like they once enjoyed?
-Are looks as important to the enjoyment of the game as numerical parses?
-What minor simply coded changes would make playing the game that much easier for you without unbalancing our class?
-What items were mis-sold to us, I.E. we aren't happy with in their current state?
-How should our role on raids change with new content, and what is it on much older content?

Answer these questions and I believe you'll feel much more comfortable with what items to drop from the list.

Really I don't understand people getting so bent out of shape that twitch isn't being addressed. It doesn't enjoy support of the community clearly. I would like it out of the game entirely and go towards revamping encounters and upgrading MW. Instead of that, SOE is just flat not upgrading it. Backchannels are still open, and if a new more effective approach pops up, we'll go from there.

If your not 100% happy with the list, thats a part of what Phase 3 is about. We can move out items that got a no from SOE or just become addressed over time, and replace them. This is a list where we show a new approach to todays issues. Once we get an answer, we'll go from there.

And if you think I'm on a powertrip... Check out the polls. The data backs me up, does it back you up? I'm not here to dictate how the class should be played, but to be the communicator between SOE and YOU, help you and SOE make sense of things that are lost in communication, and keep in touch with the players foremost.

[Jebasiz]

When a list is posted with 14 items with the intent to narrow it down to 10, and a significant number(who happen to be some of the most experienced) of people come back with 2-6 they like...well that list does indeed suck.

Reguardless of my personal feelings, a well written list of ten topics that were thought through and worded correctly would yield better results. It should be hard, damn hard(if not impossible) to have people pick just ten. Instead the difficulty here is finding 10 items of the 20 or so polled that weren't fucked up by the author of this list.

Items written like:

1. Resists.
What about them? To what extent do you want to take this issue? Are you going to go tell SoE we want bigger resist modifiers on all our spells? Are you going to tell them to lower raid level content's resists? What in the blue fucking hell are you doing with this item? How can we confidently support something when we have NO IDEA what's in your little mind.

Other problems.

Lifeburn- You are ALL over the place for this. Focii effecting lifeburn? So the average mid-raid level necro gets a 30% - 40% focus on a 10-11k lifeburn? Whippee shit..recast timer, what is reasonable? An hour? 90 mins? If this stays and it comes back with a 90 min refresh instead of the 2+hours it is now..it shouldn't be on this list. Again..what are you thinking(what did you take from the feedback of this community)?

10 parity of dots to dd? For what? What aspect? When someone brought this up(it may have even been myself..if this is what you got from my poll) Crit damage increase? Innate chance to crit? That's not parity..it's fundamental differences in how dots work and how DDs work.

Wizards get an innate chance to crit(IE a level 10 wizard can crit a nuke..not often, but he can. WE have to wait until we train spell casting fury, which is first available to us at level 55). For us to get a crit dot, we have to train critical affliction..what's that? Req'd level 65? FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE! not parity. Parity is a wizard parsing 1200dps for a 8 min fight and us parsing 900dps for that same duration(completely imaginary numbers..and yes they're quite stupid).

Destructive fury is far and away a better dmg enhancer for DD casters then it is for us..when I made that poll, it was to see if there was support to push for DF to work on dot crits, people like usul suggested the innate chance to crit for dots.

It's NOTHING like what was listed in the poll, that had a good degree of support.

Pet changes...how do we/you plan to approach changes to our pets? Make that 50 dmg lifetap 75? (Want a pre-emptive fuck off?) That's what SoE will come back with if you go to them and start stuttering like a goddamn retard. Them selling you on a reason not to change anything, or on a quick fix is less work for them, and they'll try to do it every chance they get.

Screaming terror shouldn't be a stand alone topic. That was stated on the polls.

Summon corpse and swarm pet controls are just utterly retarded.

If you're going to create a list, it has to be written intelligently for the community to make informed decisions. Not thrown together between recess and gym.

[Jebasiz]

Originally posted by sauruman@Dec 20 2005, 03:00 AM
Why the hell are we talking about twitch here?
Any further talk of it will get those posts deleted, as we are straying off topic here.* Lets stay on point.* If you want to talk about twitch I understand... its a huge problem to some of us.* Start another thread, don't do it here, however.* I am a proponent of free speech, but bringing up twitch in every thread is just lame.* Let it die or open another thread to talk about your twitch concerns, your choice, just stop posting about it in this thread.
And if you think I'm on a powertrip

Here's your power trip...Threatening to delete posts that are discussing NECROMANCER ISSUES, in a NECROMANCER CLASS ISSUES (the label) FORUM.

Solely because YOU don't think it belongs here. Maybe a bit out of place? Perhaps, but nowhere near the degree to warrant active moderation.

What's in bold is a threat of censorship. It's also worded as a warning. Who the fuck are you to do either to me, Tryal or Usul(or anyone else for that matter)?

[Qedd]

Drop ...

#9 -- I'd like more power against undead, sure .. but I doubt we'll see it. Clerics would complain too much, heh.

#12 - swarm pets aren't really meant to be controlled in the first place. A non-issue to begin with.

#13 - I doubt they'd address this to anyone's satisfaction, so it oughta be skipped or rolled into "Utility".

#14 - the lobby works just fine, and cross-zone summoning would just beg for exploitation



Also .. I think there's too much focus on short-term damage. That's not and never has been our forte. That's what the DD casters are for. Sure some fights are shorter now with the increase in melee DPS/nuke power and trash-mobs die too fast for us to stack dots on, but raid mobs and even most commonly grouped nameds are still "dot-friendly". That's where we're supposed to excel. So, maybe a combining of #1 and #10 into one more concise statement regarding resist rates AND increased crit-potential/power would be more useful to address the issue .. considering both directly impact our long-term DPS and would benefit short-term, as well.

Same with #4 and #8. Until they increase our pets' survivability on raids and even against higher-end grouping content, they're more of a hassle than a benefit and having a longer buff for them is not that useful to a great many of us .. since it dies from one AE or rampage round anyway most times. Having the buff on the list ahead of the general fix is back-asswards and will really only show benefit for some solo and group use .. and even then just as a convenience more than anything else. These should be combined or switched in position, imo.


* Edited to address the updated list *

[sauruman]

I clarified some of the issues, especially 1-6 with a prelim write-up. Feel free to change your votes if this helped clarify issues etc. The votes will be locked down come the 24th, however.

[Rijak]

Originally posted by sauruman@Dec 20 2005, 08:42 PM
-What minor simply coded changes would make playing the game that much easier for you without unbalancing our class?
- the ability to zone with lich

- alternate versions of our top two liches with no illusion component

- fix the pethold attack bug

- twitch doesn't stick on anyone who is on a mob's hatelist

- AE IV and AEV augs at DoN vendors ;)

[Sivas]

Sauruman, thanks for updating the list to include details. That does help decide which should be removed. But I think you left out the most important change to push for on lifetap: a drastic decrease of the timer. With a 20 minute timer it would actually be useful in more than just raiding situations. Without the timer decrease even doubling the damage output would make it add miniscule overall dps and wouldn't be enough for a "last 1%" type of use on a raid mob. For this skill to be worthwhile, it needs to be usable in more situations.

Sivas

[Jebasiz]

Originally posted by Sivas@Dec 21 2005, 02:54 PM
Sauruman, thanks for updating the list to include details. That does help decide which should be removed. But I think you left out the most important change to push for on lifetap: a drastic decrease of the timer. With a 20 minute timer it would actually be useful in more than just raiding situations. Without the timer decrease even doubling the damage output would make it add miniscule overall dps and wouldn't be enough for a "last 1%" type of use on a raid mob. For this skill to be worthwhile, it needs to be usable in more situations.

Sivas
But I think you left out the most important change to push for on lifetap

You're talking about lifeburn?

[Fayed]

IMO:

1) Lowering DoT Resists
~~Don't see it happening. SOE sees it as a way to limit our power, which it is.
~~~~REMOVE

2) Willfull Death
~~Personally Don't have. Have heard it's not worth the brain waves to even think of getting. Needs To be fixed.
~~~~STAY

3) Lifeburn
~~Personally Don't have. Heard its getting more and more useless as time goes on. Need revamp.
~~~~STAY

4) Pet Haste
~~Yes they need longer duration( 1 hr at least). If 1hr long then recast is ok atm. Personally dont have a problem with the distance on it.
~~~~STAY

5) Channeling Mastery
~~Usually when I die in non raid situations is due to beeing stuned when tring to fd. If i could channel through it, that would rock. No reason we shoulden't have this aa.
~~~~STAY

6) Mind Wrack
~~ Good Spell, should be a spell line. Spell line = more versions above and below MW. MGBable would be nice and give a real reason to get MGB.

7-9) Not on list so no comment atm.

10*) Parity of DoT Crits
~~We are the kings of DoTs IMO, so we should get a chance at the naturall ability to crit. how can we not be the Kings of dots, 90% of our offensive spells are dots.
~~ STAY

I like the idea on teired LB like the trial MB on test atm.

[sauruman]

Sauruman, thanks for updating the list to include details. That does help decide which should be removed. But I think you left out the most important change to push for on lifetap: a drastic decrease of the timer. With a 20 minute timer it would actually be useful in more than just raiding situations. Without the timer decrease even doubling the damage output would make it add miniscule overall dps and wouldn't be enough for a "last 1%" type of use on a raid mob. For this skill to be worthwhile, it needs to be usable in more situations.

Sivas

Thx very much for the comment, I forgot it by accident for sure. In the future, comments like that go in the new thread, titled "writer's critique"

[Jebasiz]

1. Lowering of DoT resists (Part of the proposed first pass with class re-envisioning posted on EQLive on 3/14/2005)- UPDATED WITH SECTION C AND D AND CLOSING COMMENTS AMENDED
I. In order to attain adequate DPS, DoT spells must be stacked, and in a timely manner (i.e. as close to the start of a fight as possible). Resists can affect Necromancers in 2 ways:
a. DoT spells incur a penalty that is greater than the lost time a DD resist entails, as we lose not only the time / opportunity to stack more DoT spells on (the same as Wiz lose) but also lose time in which our spell takes effect (less ticks elapse) which DD spells do not worry about. In a fight, time means more to a Damage over Time caster than any other equivalent damage dealing class. Many classes have methods to “front-load” their damage (e.g. Kyv Strike line) – shorter fight lengths are a DoT caster’s enemy, not friend. It is a unique challenge for DoT casters that as they improve and progress through content such as Anguish or Tacvi, that the proportion they contribute to a group lessens as their guildmates get extra gear, rather than increases. Their actual contribution may increase (i.e. they generate more DPS), but their DPS gains have the potential to be proportionately less than their guildmates, if the fight shortens to the point where one or more DoT spells are not completing, or are not running long enough to be comparable to swapping that DoT out for a nuke cast, which is the least efficient / effective way Necromancers can deal damage.

b. Encountering Mobs that are highly resistant to certain types of magic will again affect a class that is DoT dependant more than it would a DD caster or melee for that matter. A DD caster that encounters a mob that is resistant to all but one line can pick the best / most efficient spell of that line and chain cast it, perhaps taking somewhat of a hit in DPS due to it not being his most efficient spell. A DoT caster usually must stack multiple DoTs across several different resist lines in order to attain anywhere near his max DPS. Being forced to stack backwards within the same line of resists has a very large detrimental impact to a DoT caster’s dps, often forcing the caster to go back to spells he had 15 levels below his current level. Solutions to this include making DoT spells innately less resisted than DD spells, (see above, was #5) or to add more resist lines so that necromancers have increased flexibility when choosing lines to stack, such as a new cold resist DoT (Currently being evaluated). Note that this may not be an effective solution as many current mobs are highly resistant to ALL lines except for one.

c. Resists debuffs have not resolved this issue for necromancers. Necromancers in the interest of effectively getting a head start in raid and group situations land their spells before even basic debuffs are casted. Without full raid debuffs, few spells land in the MPG/tacvi/anguish/depths raid content. Secondly, NPC’s that resist either poison OR disease cannot be debuffed by necromancers at all, including many targets in Tacvi and anguish.

d. Resist ward has been suggested by some necromancers in order to give us a better chance to land our spells. This would be similar to the wizard line of wards. An additional idea would be attaching resist-ward like qualities to our current pet, making it more desirable, especially in raid environments.


Closing thoughts
DoT resists have become the way to control Necromancer DPS in theory. In reality, debuffs are hard to come by, and our line is next to worthless considering creatures need to be disease and poison vulnerable. In the instance we can actually use our debuff, it requires yet another spell slot to memorize, and shows no tangible difference since resists were just increased to coincide with the new DR/PR debuff we received in Omens.
If further encounters will be introduced into the game of this nature, perhaps they could not be resistant to more then one line of spell out of the poison/fire/magic/disease lines, or in those situations these creatures are resistant, that the necromancer be given a niche to fill other then potentially twitching or chain lifetapping.



I would like this written again. Developers(we'd like to think) and necromancers are both very well aware of what incredibly high resists do to our ability to land spells. Hopefully a vast majority of the people who would read this also understand the impact of those resists to our dps.

I don't think you need to spend 3 large paragraphs stating it. People will lose interest and ultimately not see the point/change you/we want to get across to people. This is a very common way in which writers misrepresent themselves. It also gets a lot of people standing in the unemployment line IRL. The target audience for this list is very important to keep in mind when you're writing it. It'll allow you to be alot more concise, and give you a very "direct" avenue of which to convey your points(read: all the background information is extraneous shit, and needs to be flushed).

I'm not suggesting this as an actual written topic to take to SoE, but I'd like you to look at something along the lines of...

As EQ and the encounters in the game have grown in scale, so have the defenses of the mobs we encounter. Despite the fact that you have updated our resist debuff lines, we feel that the vast majority of the encounters that we face regularly render us much more ineffective that what is acceptable.

Resist ward has been suggested by some necromancers in order to give us a better chance to land our spells. This would be similar to the wizard line of wards. An additional idea would be attaching resist-ward like qualities to our current pet, making it more desirable, especially in raid environments.

No one fix is universally accepted, but everyone does agree that this is the most important issue that our class wants fixed.

That'd be about all I'd do for this. Maybe add some parse info, just make it concise and make the numbers add up to prove us/yourself correct.
They're either going to accept your idea or not. There's noway of knowing what they'd implement to resolve this issue.

Edit: I wrote this at 1am in morning, after being up for 21 straight hours in about 5 mins.. If you think it sucks..that's cool, let me know. I'm not to sure on the content of it, but the scope/size of it is probably close to being appropriate.