Writer's Critique!

[sauruman]

This thread will be to discuss language in the last form of the top ten. If you would like a subpoint added that you think I missed and so on, this is where you post it. This thread isn't to ask for more top ten items to be added/removed, but rather to discuss language. This is the lawyer's thread of sorts!


Feel free to tear this thread apart gramatically if I botched something.

Without further introduction...............


The new top ten

1. Willful Death
Willful Death needs modification to become a viable alternate ability. Currently, Necromancers are relied upon to survive raid wipes and act as backup puller. Willful Death promised to help in these realms. However, in its current state, giving the ability only a 25% chance to fire, it does not deliver.

Necromancers have seen an eroding in their niche as a pulling class steadily with the introduction of new expansions. Monks have a 100% chance to FD though a spell, if resisted, and a 50% chance if not. Bards have fade. Shadowknight’s- the Necromancers hybrid- have a heightened ability to survive due to their higher mitigation, AC, and HP. These constraints have placed Necromancers squarely at the bottom rung of the pulling ladder, through relatively little to no increase in pulling tools. Modification of this AA could change all that.

Necromancers should have the same chance or, at the very least, 100% if resisted and 0% if not. This will increase the Necromancer's chance of surviving a wipe and make them more effective pullers when a monk or bard is not available.


2. Channeling Mastery
Contrary to some notions, every Necromancer is damaged quite often, or subject to some form of stun (AE or physical damage). Due to our ability to tap back this damage, it is actually beneficial and helpful for the Necromancer to soak up some damage from time to time, alleviating traditional holy trinity constraints. Necromancers are relied upon to survive raid wipes, pull, and damage, and this ability would tremendously help in this regard.

Other intelligence casters received this AA while Necromancers did not. Like other intelligence casters, Necromancers have very poor defensive skills in the form of AC and Dodge. We need CM to increase the possibility of a successful Death Peace or timely lifetap against mobs that can easily one-round us. CM has the potential to be all intelligence casters' niche for survivability, in the same way a plate tank might consider AC to be their survivability mechanism.


3. Lowering of DoT resists
Necromancers are punished more relatively by high mob resists then any other class. Necromancers rely on stacking several DoT lines (poison, magic, fire, disease), and almost constant recasting of various spells within those lines.

High resists to one or multiple lines of spells in a single encounter regularly render us almost completely ineffective. In addition, the reliance we have on debuffs continually through long-term fights as well as multiple mob short fights, makes high to complete resists a familar sight to high end raiding Necromancers.

Increasing the following Damage Over Time spell resist modifiers in this manner would go a long ways towards mitigating this issue:

* Dread Pyre, Pyre of Mori, and Night Fire (-100 currently) to -200

* Corath Venom, Chaos Venom, and Blood of Thule (-50 currently) to -100

* Ancient: Curse of Mori, Dark Nightmare, and Horror (-30 currently) to -75

* Grip of Mori and Chaos Plague (-50 currently) to -150

* Desecrating Darkness and Embracing Darkness (-20 currently) to -50

Scaling might not be appropriate in lower level versions of these lines of spells, due to the concept of high resists only coming about in full force since PoP.

Disease also needs additional work. While it is our most efficient line theoretically, it is the most commonly resisted. Many NPC's in raiding and group content are entirely immune to this type of damage. Additionally the low damage return and lack of high end disease spells make these altogether undesirable.

Lifetap needs to be restored to the "lure" it once was with a resist check -300 or so, versus the -200 that Soulspike and Ancient Touch of Orshilak currently have. Many encounters in the game currently resist lifetap at an extreme rate (cleric 2.0 for example), making us incapable of even tapping in order to stay alive.

A resist ward might be a method to increase the rate at which our spells land, similar to the wizard's familar. Or, this resist ward like quality could simply be added to our current pet, adding to its limited desirability in raiding situations.

The addition of another debuff like we received in Omens of War would only exacerbate 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.


4. Mind Wrack upgrade
The abundance of mind wrackable mobs in Omens of War and more recent expansions has finally made Necromancers desirable past our ability to damage in grouping situations. MW does not limit the Necromancer to merely providing mana to a group. It is fairly easy for a Necromancer to stack this spell along with their normal dot rotation, while receiving a minor penalty in mana by reallocation. A few changes to this ability and an upgrade that scales with current mana needs will allow this to continue and give us a niche in group and raid situations.

Instead of having this spell resisted some of the time, make it unresistible, or with a considerable resist check of -400 chromatic. This will help alleviate the issue of the twitching necromancer, due to the reliability of the MW landing. A MW upgrade will also allow for a phasing out of the twitch line of spells due to better mana returns.

A shared timer between MW and the twitch spells would also make it unlikely for Necromancers to be asked to twitch, though the option would still remain, an idea embraced by much of the community.

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).

Moving MW along with our other short-term necromancer groups 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.


5. 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 its extremely short range, long load time, and low duration. 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.

A possible fix for this issue would be increasing the duration of this buff to over an hour, increasing the casting range of the spell to 100 or more, and lowering the loadtime to a few seconds. The recent extremely marginal increase of a few minutes was not enough, and not even noticeable. While this is under review, please include any changes to the mage pets as well- as they suffer with us on this narrow issue.


6. Lifeburn upgrade
Lifeburn remains a high-risk ability while the damage is minimal. Usage of this puts the Necromancer at 25% life, putting the necro 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. While lifeburn has scaled in that it hasn't been hardcapped, it has not scaled significantly enough to reflect the dramatic increase in raid encounter's HP and increases in all classes dps.

* Halving the re-use timer of the Alternate Advancement Ability and allowing the ability to crit would increase the viability of the ability, through upgraded lifeburn tiers using essentially the same mechanic. This would also give a little more burst dps when possible, as this is the one area the Necromancer cannot currently deliver. One solution would be to tie criticals and worn focus effects to lifeburn, allowing lifeburn to scale as the player does.

* Alternatively, allow for a line of Alternate Advancement Points via several expansions that would scale lifeburn. This proposed version would be "capped" in that it could not crit and would be "use at your own peril."

Kunark: Lifeburn taking 3000hps, dealing 9000 damage

Planes of Power: Lifeburn taking 6000hps, dealing 18000 damage

Gates of Discord: Lifeburn taking 9000hps, dealing 27000 damage

Either of the proposed methods would ensure lifeburn becomes more competitive in high end situations, while keeping in tact its high-risk to use.


7. Pet changes (fix bugs, increase IQ, adjust for raid content)
Pets need a tweaking in many aspects, which is a shared item between classes. Here I will outline some of the universal and class specific issues the pet faces, and what is needed to fix the most basic issues with ownership. This is the critical doorway for making pets become more universal in use, instead of situational and rare in the raiding environment especially.

Interface Overhaul
All pet commands from prior expansions need to be added to the pet window. This is crucial for casters due to the fact that we are constantly casting something, and pet hotkeys manually made from the alternate advancement window are not usable during casting. The commands we would like to see added to the window are: suspend minion, replenish companion, pet hold, pet feign, and pet focus.

Simplify Pet Commands Via Triggerable Pet Hold Mode
Pet hold should be a triggerable "mode" instead of demanding a hotkey after every battle to ensure proper control. While on "hold" these pets shouldn't accrue an aggro list making spamming of "pet back off" hotkey necessary.

Adjustment For Raid Content
Pets need to be boosted in such a way to allow their use on raids without overpowering them for soloing or grouping content. Some mechanism or perhaps an AA needs to be developed to severely mitigate the effect of AE type effects on pets, otherwise they simply demand too much healing to be of use. A suggestion from the community has been 90% or more mitigation on these AE type of effects so long as the pet is not at the top of the aggro list. This wouldn't overpower our pets. Pets shouldn't be able to OT during raids, but they shouldn't be worthless on every fight with an AE, or AE rampage. This is literally the dramatic type of overhaul our pets would need to be viable in a raiding environment, as most any AE rampage or AE type spells since PoP have had the potential to one round our pets, and pet rune type spells simply don't protect the pet long enough to resolve this issue.

Intelligent Pets!
Make our rogue pets automatically attack their enemies from behind. Our best pet for several expansions has been a rogue type. If not placed precisely at the back of the creature, his damage is more then halved.

Necromancer Class Specific Issue- Pet Feign Alternate Advancement Ability Bug
The pet feign alternate advancement ability does not wipe an aggro list. The caster should receive a message after two minutes indicating that the pet no longer has aggro, similar to our own message.


8. Parity of DoT Crits
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 Damage over Time spells. Necromancers feel they should receive specialization in damage over time spells through an exlusive AA line, I.E. an Affliction Mastery of sorts allowing for a higher chance to crit relative to other classes. While other classes use dots on occasion, it remains the Necromancers sole occupation.


9. Cosmetic changes (different lich model, different pet, new horse)
While a new look does not add any help to our damaging bottom line, it sure adds a whole new level of enjoyment!

While liched, necromancers cannot receive illusions from clickies or from enchanters. This limits our ability to roleplay, as it is imperitive our class remains liched at all times, being we are balanced around that spell. The community would like at minimum to see a new lich that doesn't look like clicky items easilly obtainable by any player, or a lich that shows gear displayed anatomically correct over our bones. The most popular idea endorsed would be an "illusionless lich" with the exact same attributes as our current versions, allowing for us to change our look with the rest of the players.

With so many cool models spanning from PoP to DoDH, a new pet that looks representative of this amazing content would go a long way to rekindle our status as Masters of the Undead. A "monster summoning" type spell for undeads would be an amazing way to continue the incredible legacy of WTD. At minimum, finding a muzzle for our current spectre muzzle would win appreciation in many circles as it would allow many players to turn sound on once again.

Masters of the Undead should have downright scary minions they ride from place to place. A line of aa, or a quest involving the receiving of such a new mount would be fitting, and in this possibility it should be shared with other evil classes.


10. Screaming Terror Upgrade
A new mez spell will let us keep rare and vital group utility that we had with Screaming Terror. An upgraded version would not threaten game balance. Coded to work less reliably and for a shorter duration then the traditional mezmerize, it would help the necromancer step up when demanded or traditional CC not handy.

For example two versions could be implemented:

* Haunting Terror: Level 65 spell that works to level 68, with a modifier of -10, a recast time of 3seconds, 1% chance to memblur, and a duration of 5 ticks

* Night's Terror: Level 70 spell that works to level 73, with a modifier of -10, a recast time of 3seconds, 1% chance to memblur, and a duration of 5 ticks

This line should have new versions readilly available if/when the level cap is raised.

[Xislaben]

Resists: "Solutions to this include making DoT spells innately less resisted than DD spells"
Many creative ideas have been put forth, but wouldn't it really be easiest for devs to alter the resist checks of our spells themselves? That would be the best possible solution. I don't want to have to sacrifice a dps gem for a utility spell.

PVP's a whole nother story, you don't even need great resist to resist everything but pyro and splurt, but those are all seperate resist checks that I don't really care too much about.

[Jebasiz]

Lifeburn...
If this Item *has* to stay, lets make it worth while.
Currently on test, for manaburn wizards have a tierd mana burn system under evaluation.

I'm not sure on exact specifics but what I"d like to see for is something along the lines of:

Level 1: Lifeburn taking 3000hps, yielding 12000dmg.

Level 2: " " "" 6000hps, 24k dmg

level 3: " " " " 9000hps, 36k dmg

Refresh in 90mins, 1 necro per minute (max) per mob.

[Rijak]

Originally posted by Xislaben@Dec 21 2005, 11:14 AM
Resists: "Solutions to this include making DoT spells innately less resisted than DD spells"
Many creative ideas have been put forth, but wouldn't it really be easiest for devs to alter the resist checks of our spells themselves? That would be the best possible solution. I don't want to have to sacrifice a dps gem for a utility spell.
i agree 100%

on the rest, way too wordy and not "different" enough to inspire any more attention then these issues got over the many months they were up... i'd put aside your self-imposed deadline and work on a true re-write (i'll even try to help myself if i have the time)

especially where the resists issue comes in... give at least one real example of a raid and how the DPS numbers pan out... saying "few spells land in the MPG/tacvi/anguish/depths raid content" is much too vague

[Jebasiz]

Your argument for "resists" should include parsing, not just ours..but ask your guildmates (other necros too), you're rogues, berserkers, monks, wizards, mages and rangers should all contribute to parses. That way, you can see(and show other people) the direct effect of resists on necromancer dps. Duration of encounters and how other people are geared affecting our performance are different issues entirely and don't belong here.

You should also approach each encounter from Tacvi, Anguish, DoN, DODH different ways, and in combinations of different ways..to show the devs that it's not due to unwillingness to adapt.

Words are great...you used way to many, but it's better then it was. Numbers, examples and hard facts are better.

On fights that they're reluctant to change, or make changes to us that makes us more effective, you need to argue for more versatility (both presently in game, and those that will come in following expansions). At no point should we become twitch bots..or simply chaining lifetaps imo.

Stayed up late so I could get something out to a few necros on necrotalk, you know who you are...


Made me laugh, tks.

A short, concise, pointed argument that is easy to read and comprehend is much easier and more enjoyable to read then a long, windy, repitious diatribe. It's also less for us "to pick apart" which is to your benefit.

I appreciate your effort and the fact that you stayed up late last night, probably to shut a few people up, but once again...the necromancer community is pretty unforgiving(PM's about this thread and the previous one are available if you want them!) and you have some damn big shoes to fill. Sissl was an amazing class rep, with a simply incredible(if not uncanny) ability to process large amounts of information quickly, comprehend what that information was, and assimilate it into something that many people could read, understand and support.

This "rough draft" isn't there yet.

[Jebasiz]

SK’s for instance would greatly appreciate upgrades in this realm as well, as their pet is even more situational then ours and therefore they would put less stock in keeping pet haste up.



Sk's have a long pet buff. It's also more mana efficient/time then ours. Heh.

[Xislaben]

I like short and sweet:

1) Dot Resist - Necro dps is by far more adversely affected by spell resists than any other class, please make our spell resists better.

2) Willfull Death - 25% max chance to not have FD broken is insulting. Please increase this % dramatically or at least offer refunds to those who have purchased it.

3) Lifeburn - The damage LB does to current content and its hp tap recourse is laughable, and since manaburn gets an upgrade, why cant this?

4) Pet Buff duration - This is terribly short, please increase the timer, 3x or more would be nice, and this is simple to do.

5) Channeling Mastery - Why don't we get this when other int casters do? Gimme!

6) Mind Wrack upgrade - Larger amount of mana, maybe MGB-able, goes to the shortbuff window, irresistable, shared recast with twitch/mw, long recast timer.

10) DoT Crits - We dont crit with dots as much as DD casters do with DD's, Gimme!
--------------------------------

Please add to #6 "for the love of Bertoxxulous do away with the crappy load timer!". If it's as bad as MW I may not bother to load it for raids, as I'd just have to sacrifice another dps gem, which I do not want to do. I suspect they'll say no to #6 out right anyway.

[Ankhe]

OK this is been bugging me all day. Can you correct the spelling in the title? Writer not Writter. I am sure is just a typo, BUT, it is very ironic and its driving me insane. :o

[Aryse Andenter]

Originally posted by Ankhe@Dec 21 2005, 10:14 PM
OK this is been bugging me all day. Can you correct the spelling in the title? Writer not Writter. I am sure is just a typo, BUT, it is very ironic and its driving me insane. :o
I hear you on that one, Ankhe ;) fixed

I will take a better look at the write ups as soon as I get a few minutes together, but my initial impression is just that its long... any way to get the full point across in a more concise manner?

[sauruman]

Level 1: Lifeburn taking 3000hps, yielding 12000dmg.

Level 2: " " "" 6000hps, 24k dmg

level 3: " " " " 9000hps, 36k dmg

Refresh in 90mins, 1 necro per minute (max) per mob.

This will be a subpoint I believe. This would be a great way to keep the ability on par with manaburn, which IMO is where it should be.

As for making the list more concise, that will be something I look at as the deadline approaches.

I am considering adding language for all items up for vote, if clarification is needed, otherwise I'll wait till the final vote is in. The language will go hand in hand with what was in the various polls/threads on these two sites.

Thx Aryse for subject line edit... I can't edit the subject line!

[sauruman]

I like short and sweet:

1) Dot Resist - Necro dps is by far more adversely affected by spell resists than any other class, please make our spell resists better.

2) Willfull Death - 25% max chance to not have FD broken is insulting. Please increase this % dramatically or at least offer refunds to those who have purchased it.

3) Lifeburn - The damage LB does to current content and its hp tap recourse is laughable, and since manaburn gets an upgrade, why cant this?

4) Pet Buff duration - This is terribly short, please increase the timer, 3x or more would be nice, and this is simple to do.

5) Channeling Mastery - Why don't we get this when other int casters do? Gimme!

6) Mind Wrack upgrade - Larger amount of mana, maybe MGB-able, goes to the shortbuff window, irresistable, shared recast with twitch/mw, long recast timer.

10) DoT Crits - We dont crit with dots as much as DD casters do with DD's, Gimme!

While I'll be striving for a concise write-up, it won't be that short by any stretch. It needs to be presented in a highly organized professional way, or our pleas will be ignored. Organization on the document will be extremely important.

[Xislaben]

Originally posted by sauruman@Dec 22 2005, 12:07 AM
I like short and sweet:

1) Dot Resist - Necro dps is by far more adversely affected by spell resists than any other class, please make our spell resists better.

2) Willfull Death - 25% max chance to not have FD broken is insulting. Please increase this % dramatically or at least offer refunds to those who have purchased it.

3) Lifeburn - The damage LB does to current content and its hp tap recourse is laughable, and since manaburn gets an upgrade, why cant this?

4) Pet Buff duration - This is terribly short, please increase the timer, 3x or more would be nice, and this is simple to do.

5) Channeling Mastery - Why don't we get this when other int casters do? Gimme!

6) Mind Wrack upgrade - Larger amount of mana, maybe MGB-able, goes to the shortbuff window, irresistable, shared recast with twitch/mw, long recast timer.

10) DoT Crits - We dont crit with dots as much as DD casters do with DD's, Gimme!

While I'll be striving for a concise write-up, it won't be that short by any stretch. It needs to be presented in a highly organized professional way, or our pleas will be ignored. Organization on the document will be extremely important.
Certainly each explanation should be detailed and convicing, but I find a nice short list of that the problem is, and what the proposed solution would be, to be very handy.

[Tryal Anderror]

I think In the resists thing you're going to want to be much more specific on what we want improved to what.

Our DoTs have basic resists that just don't evolve upwards over time.
Our level 1 Lifetap is -200, our level 70 Lifetap is -200, Same with Lifetap DoTs
Our level 10 Fire DoT is -100, our level 70 Fire DoT is -100

Our Poison and Diseases do get a small upgrade, They're a Zero check from 1 to 60, and -50 from 60 to 70.

That's what should be happening to all our DoTs, and the lifetap as well.

I would simply suggest Giving each spell line approximately a 50% improvement to the resist checks. This would help stop the more annoying and costly random style resists, and only make them resistable by mobs that were actually fully intended to resist that line.

I would have the Fire Line continue at -100 until hitting Funeral Pyre of Kelador, Night Fire, Pyre of Mori and Dread Pyre. where they would become -150 checks.

Fire lands pretty well in general, so it wouldn't confer an advantage on most mobs, but would help us get DoTs on mobs who do resist the Fire sometimes, and reduce our dependance on waiting for Fire debuffs.
A fight that comes to mind in the Jelvan encounter, where Fire does land, but at a lower rate than normal.
The -150 check would still allow the mobs who are not intended to be hit by fire to resist it fully.

The Poisons I'd like to see a bump up to -75 with the top 2 or 3 Poisons, BoT, Chaos and Corath.
Poison doesn't need a huge upgrade, but just needs to become more reliable. Many people don't use these spells even when they land because they are still resisted a good portion of the time. Given the Cost of some of these spells, it's incredibly wasteful to get randomized resists.
A -75 check would not make it land on anything it didn't hit before, but simply make it a more viable and efficient spell to use in both large fights and in xp situations.

In the Magic Line, Lifetap DoTs and Lifetaps themselves used to be considered almost Lures with their -200 check. However now as mobs have advanced this is no longer the case as much, though I do not believe that was the intention.
Many mobs now partially resist the Tap and Resist lifetap DoTs frequently that are not actually immune to magic. Increasing these to a -250 for LifeTap DoTs and finally making Lifetap the Lure it really is at -300 would help out. Again, this would not cause them to land on anything intended to be immune, but make them work consistently in high MR situations, as they were generally intended.
Fights come to mind like Hanvar, which takes lifetaps, but partially resists or resists them a lot.
The Curse line is -30, which could also be just minorly adjusted to the area of -45
At -30, even against the lowest MR mobs, you still get many resists, enough to ruin a lot of the efficiency of the spells. Again, this would not allow it to be used in any situations it wasn't intended, only to more consistantly rely on it in a fight.
The snares, I'm sure everyone would like something as simple as a bump from -30 to -40. I wouldn't want resists eliminated here, since that's supposed to be part of the danger of soloing and snare kiting....but I would like to see a minor increase in landing which could help prevent the RNG from giving us 7 or 8 resists in a row at times which is just silly on mobs it usually lands on. Also, having a snare we can trust just a little more allows us to use it in groups at the end of a fight instead of first thing for safety reasons.

The disease line could use a more extensive overhaul. It shares the 0 check from 1 to 60, and -50 from 60 to 70 that Poison has, but that simply doesn't match the uses and effectiveness of the spells.
Diseases have always been longer duration, low damage, high efficiency. That's the Theory. But That theory totally breaks down if you get resists, because then the efficiency part of that equation is totally gone.
A suprisingly large number of mobs have high disease resists, presumably because they are balanced to resist the disease line of slows, which makes sense for many encounters.
This one applies to both us and Shaman, but we need a considerably bigger check on diseases. Given the low damage they do, I think it would be ok for them to be landing on some of the fights they currently don't, and would be looking for atleast a doubling of the Resist modifier in this situation to -100.
Can also be extended to Mindwrack, where even the -200 gets resisted a suprising amount on mobs when we know it can theoretically land. A bump to -250 or -300 there should be first and foremost to any proposed improvement of that line.


I think if you don't get specific on what we want and why, it'll just be like talking to a wall and I don't think the whole head start and DPS and comparison to DDs thing is the best way to approach it.

The rest look generally ok, though Channeling Mastery could be expanded to give more situations in which we end up getting hit a lot to justify our needing the Channeling mastery. There's largely a perception that Enchanters are the only casters who get hit a lot, and the Mages, Wizzies and Necros do if we mess up. But there are many situations where us taking melee damage is actually the plan and part of our role. If we're left out of something the 3 other casters get, they better have a real reason.

[Jebasiz]

A lot of other classes have a similar "lack of scaling". It'd be a fix, but they'll probably say it'd make us to efficient outside of a raid. Can't hurt to bring up, but if it was that easy to fix, wouldn't it of been done last time we brought it up?

[Rijak]

Originally posted by sauruman@Dec 21 2005, 07:07 PM
While I'll be striving for a concise write-up, it won't be that short by any stretch. It needs to be presented in a highly organized professional way, or our pleas will be ignored. Organization on the document will be extremely important.
really...

i suggest you take a look at the wizzy issues list (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=wizardbalance&message.id=882)... you might change your mind ;)

[UsulDaNeriak]

i am no native speaker, so i am not authorized to critizize the text in detail.

however, too much text. much to much. WHERE IS THE BEEF?
less text and blabla please and more of a clear message and requirement.
if i would be a dev, i wouldnt be able to undertsand, what necs really like to get now?

keep it short, simple and absolutely clear. just tell em, what we want.

this is too much blabla around the beef, sorry.

more direct please. not so much politeness. i know you cant slap the devs into their face like they deserve. but where did we end with sissl's endless politeness?
find your own way sauruman: clear, short, simple, politically correct. but no mercy, we are necromancers!

try to describe the entire nec top ten list on 1 page (printed). now look at it and if something is unclear enhance to 1.5 pages. but latest now. ***** END OF MESSAGE ****

i like xislabens list, even if i think its too short :lol: and not politcally correct. but a good start. just an idea: a short 1 sentence summary on the top, like xis did and then a paragraph detailing it a bit. but again keep it short.

Usul

PS: look at jebs proposal for lifeburn. no blabla, just pure beef. thats at least a starting point.

[sauruman]

Ok, I modified several items in this form, and cut down on reptitive language. Lifeburn is now a LOT more concise for instance, borrowing from a lot of your suggestions.

Currently I'm working on the wording to an item one re-write with Jeb. Please bear with me there. Its the most important item and there is a fine line there between making sure we make our case, and understate the value of the item.

Tryal, I'm going to steal a lot of the wonderful work you have done thus far in this thread. I really like your approach to the problem. I think some combination of the stuff Jeb and I have been discussing in PM's along with discussing something along the lines of a 50% increase to resist counters IS the way to go. Thats a coding thing we could see on lucy to be sure the changes work, and would be a SIMPLE coding change. I really like your thinking in this matter so far.

Xis you got it 100%
Many creative ideas have been put forth, but wouldn't it really be easiest for devs to alter the resist checks of our spells themselves? That would be the best possible solution. I don't want to have to sacrifice a dps gem for a utility spell.

[sauruman]

Resists item updated! Its short, its sweet, does it have meat (couldn't resist :o ).

In particular, please tear up this paragraph. THIS IS THE MEAT. It needs to be perfect.

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 and curse -50, and disease 0. 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 -400 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.

[Xislaben]

Originally posted by sauruman@Dec 22 2005, 04:33 PM
Resists item updated! Its short, its sweet, does it have meat (couldn't resist :o ).

In particular, please tear up this paragraph. THIS IS THE MEAT. It needs to be perfect.

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 and curse -50, and disease 0. 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 -400 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.
I dislike very much asking for such a small change.

DN and Horror are -30 check, snares -20, a 50% increase would put them at -45 and -30 respectively. This so small as to be useless honestly. Even PR -50 to -75 is really nothing much of a change. Scent of Midnight lowers pr and dr by 55, and even then spells are hard to land... Wizards have better resist checks than we do (-300 for some spells), and they're asking for better resists as well.

Ask for another 100 off everything, see what they give :)

Or don't ask for any specific amount, but rather ask for significant improvements...

Tap -200
FR -100
PR -50
Curse -30
Snare -20
DR -50

What I'd like to see minimum on spells over lvl60:
Tap -300
FR -200
PR -110
Curse -75
Snare -50
DR -110

[sauruman]

I'll be toying with language in the week or so to come, after polls are closed. You guys can monitor and continue to contribute to this process. Resists needs to be the strongest item. I don't know HOW specific we want to get, but with the current version I just put up its pretty specific I think. I'll keep looking at it and tinker changes as need be.

[UsulDaNeriak]

resists. sounds better, still a bit much text. and you lost the big disadvantage all dotters have. we cant chaincast 1 line like a nuker, we have to stack several lines.

lifeburn sounds ok.
just for next expansion: lifeburn IV: 12.000 for 48 K)))

Usul

[sauruman]

Who knows about lifeburn just yet. I PM'd a Rashere and Rytan with the wording to get their feedback. I'll move in the direction that seems likely. I don't want us misleading ourselves into thinking that 36k lifeburn is possible, without some Dev feedback for sure.

[Xelgadis]

Funny how Touch of Innoruuk is MR-500, and we've never seen a lifetap with that kind of resist mod heh. I see no reason why Touch of Orshilak can't see a similar resist check (it's an Ancient, ie. special... sorta.) Besides, the upgrade over Soulspike is pretty pathetic, might as well make the upgrade more worthwhile, if not in damage then in resist modifier.

[Jebasiz]

They have a longer duration pet buff then us too. I believe their group tap (mana/hp combination) from GoD is unresistable..so they can "tap" mana from mobs that we can't.

[Felicite]

Originally posted by Jebasiz@Dec 22 2005, 11:12 AM
I believe their group tap (mana/hp combination) from GoD is unresistable..so they can "tap" mana from mobs that we can't.
I also believe that is true. They can get mana from a rock.

[Jebasiz]

That's professional courtesy though..that's ok. SK, Rock..Rock, SK? same thing.

The fact that they can get mana off an orc pawn is more troubling...Rock, that's fine.

[Jebasiz]

Will need to be re-written, but just some ideas.

7. Utility- Necromancers have always been able to fullfill multiple roles. We can, or used to be able to function as servicable CC, pulling, debuffing, heals, beneficial group taps and controling undead by mez, atk slow, and charm. A significant portion of this community would like several aspects of our "utility" to be upgraded to a point of usefullness.

Mindwrack and our group heal over time taps have not scaled with content over the last several years. AE damage, melee dmg, hp and mana pools have grown exponentially while the ability of the necromancer class to replace hps and mana have been stagnant. Other classes continue to have skills updated, while ours have aged to uselessness. That or were never even given to us. A "LULL" would not only be appreciated, but would mesh well with what we are "all about". (If someone who has mastered death can't "lull" something, something is wrong).

Screaming terror- tops out at level 55..that's 15 levels and 4 years ago.

Mind wrack - level 58, casters(top end geared) had 4k mana then, they have 13k now..we have the same tool to aid in their regen.

Night stalker - was seriously underpowered from the day it went to test(if not before), even not taking that into account, most characters have gained 20-35% more hps since then..yet we have the same group tap for them.

Degeneration - while we know a stat tap would be something a large majority would never use, a tap that increased melee dmg or gave a raw hp buff (even for a short duration) would be desirable(without any serious stacking issues please).

AC taps - we got one..it's insignificant and almost impossible to land now.

With the exception of mindwrack these spells rarely(if ever) grace our spell gems. That's several lines/abilities that have aged to a point where they are utterly useless.


(feel free to add anything you feel I missed)

[sauruman]

Keep in mind I'm not clumping all these items together like that. MW will have its own item in the list. ST will have its own item in the list. All group taps have its own item in the list. This will allow for quick swapping out of items, without being hindered by a complicated process. We COULD have grouped all these together, but I opted not to do so.

[Tryal Anderror]

Originally posted by Xislaben+Dec 22 2005, 04:48 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Xislaben @ Dec 22 2005, 04:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-sauruman@Dec 22 2005, 04:33 PM
Resists item updated! Its short, its sweet, does it have meat (couldn't resist :o ).

In particular, please tear up this paragraph. THIS IS THE MEAT. It needs to be perfect.

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 and curse -50, and disease 0. 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 -400 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.
I dislike very much asking for such a small change.

DN and Horror are -30 check, snares -20, a 50% increase would put them at -45 and -30 respectively. This so small as to be useless honestly. Even PR -50 to -75 is really nothing much of a change. Scent of Midnight lowers pr and dr by 55, and even then spells are hard to land... Wizards have better resist checks than we do (-300 for some spells), and they're asking for better resists as well.

Ask for another 100 off everything, see what they give :)

Or don't ask for any specific amount, but rather ask for significant improvements...

Tap -200
FR -100
PR -50
Curse -30
Snare -20
DR -50

What I'd like to see minimum on spells over lvl60:
Tap -300
FR -200
PR -110
Curse -75
Snare -50
DR -110 [/b][/quote]
I certainly agree the upgrading Horror or Snares to -45 and -30 and such are not overpowering upgrades, but I think you'd be suprised at the exact level of effectiveness you do experience with just that little bit of an improvement to the resist check.

The best way to parse that type of tiny improvement is to find an SK and get him to use Aura of Darkness (-10 to all resists) on your target, then just chain cast snare and horror, now compare those resist rates to those without the debuff on.

It's not enough to make them land like 100% of the time, but I think you would be suprised at the amount of difference experienced.

The reason they'll be more hesitant on the MR over any other resist is because so many raid level debuffs exist for that attribute. I think the total debuffing can reach up to -250.

It doesn't hurt to ask, But those checks are so low that its likely a very concious decision to keep them low, rather than an oversight like the rest of the spells. That's also backed up by the fact the Horror line is much newer relative to the others.

EDIT: I Think the way its written now is much better btw, gets the point accross more clearly and consisely, without leaving anything out.

[sauruman]

I certainly agree the upgrading Horror or Snares to -45 and -30 and such are not overpowering upgrades, but I think you'd be suprised at the exact level of effectiveness you do experience with just that little bit of an improvement to the resist check.

The best way to parse that type of tiny improvement is to find an SK and get him to use Aura of Darkness (-10 to all resists) on your target, then just chain cast snare and horror, now compare those resist rates to those without the debuff on.

It's not enough to make them land like 100% of the time, but I think you would be suprised at the amount of difference experienced.

I would strongly advise against eyeballing a difference in resists, dps, etc. You simply need a large sample pool to know for sure. For instance, many times in PoFire I would encounter 7 or so snare resists on a single mob before I controlled it. The likely scenario however is snaring landing within the first 1-2 casts. But the resists stick with ya.

If you want to parse a difference, make an excell spreadsheet of 100 casts with and without the buff. That should provide a sufficient range to allow for those kinds of incidents. For more accurate referencing, expand the range.

Great suggestion overall Tryal. I definitely think even a tiny change in resist checks would signal tremendous differences in how our spells land.

[sauruman]

Added language to cosmetic changes, screaming terror upgrade, and pet changes items.

Resorted the list to be more in line with community support by numerically numbering them by support received.

Modified language to channeling mastery and resist items.

[Errelin]

I would love to see changes in resists on our dots. I can't tell you how many times i've gotten mad at over and over resists. Specially our magic dots.

[Xelgadis]

In DoD, resist issues are far less than they were in OoW, to the point I feel they're tolerable. While it should remain something that will need to be addressed, I'm happy to see that the 2 most important issues (to me, at least) have been moved to the top 2 slots above resists.

As far as Willful Death: whether or not the delivery will make a difference is unknown to me, but outright comparing it to Stonewall and Nerves of Steel, and demanding that Willful Death be brought up to that level of effectiveness is not out of line as I see it.

[Tryal Anderror]

As a general writing issue, I think I'd lose the little Roman numerals in all the sections, because they don't actually denote the numbering of points or anything and often arn't on the same topic.

The first few look fairly good in their current form, I might add a little something to try and stress the importance of the Channeling Mastery thing, in the attempt to make the AA seem like it won't overpower us, it almost ends up coming off as if It's not that important or helpful either. We know we really want this to intentionally take aggro and tap tank things, and maybe we don't want to say that...but pretending it's only for accidental aggro or to channel death peace makes it sound unimportant.

For the Lifeburn one, i think our strongest argument is based on the hp of current mobs. I appreciate that we're trying to lump this is with the Manaburn upgrade, but I think we do ourselves a bit of a disservice to just say 'we'll take what they get'.
I had thought we were just looking for Lifeburn to do 3x the Caster's hp, instead of a fixed amount. I also think the best arguments in Lifeburn are that mob hp rises much faster than Our HP, so that was the justification for the upgrade as well. The current stuff about the risk is also good.

The Pets: Something that seems to have gotten left off, but I recall being discussed alot is just the Pets sharing owner attributes in terms of Spellshield, DoT shield, Avoidance etc... as well as sharing resists. This would get us a lot of the mitigation we're looking for but is more likely to be accepted than the request for like a 90% mitigation outright.

The rest is fairly good I think, though I ultimately disagree with a lot of things that actually made the list....full consensus usually just leaves everyone unhappy.

I'm not sure how the communication actually goes with the Devs, but something I think that should be encouraged to is to try as much as possible to ellicit immediate 'Yes' or 'No' answers from the Devs, so that if they are going to, or not going to do something on the list, we can get it off and replace it with the next issue.

[sauruman]

The first few look fairly good in their current form, I might add a little something to try and stress the importance of the Channeling Mastery thing, in the attempt to make the AA seem like it won't overpower us, it almost ends up coming off as if It's not that important or helpful either. We know we really want this to intentionally take aggro and tap tank things, and maybe we don't want to say that...but pretending it's only for accidental aggro or to channel death peace makes it sound unimportant.

What I'm trying to emphasize in the way I've written that item thus far is that our class is on the edge of aggro and actually getting it is normal. We therefore need more devises to help manage it (the consequences of getting aggro). The second part I'm working on adding is that since we are pretty poor at taking damage in relation to plate, chain, leather, we should have other means of survival reinforced. Our dodge is so low thats a no go. How we live therefore is by FD working on a very high frequency, which this would increase. So I'll be adding to this a bit more tomorrow.

For the Lifeburn one, i think our strongest argument is based on the hp of current mobs. I appreciate that we're trying to lump this is with the Manaburn upgrade, but I think we do ourselves a bit of a disservice to just say 'we'll take what they get'.
I had thought we were just looking for Lifeburn to do 3x the Caster's hp, instead of a fixed amount. I also think the best arguments in Lifeburn are that mob hp rises much faster than Our HP, so that was the justification for the upgrade as well. The current stuff about the risk is also good.

Thank you for the feedback there. We do NOT want to come off sounding whiney, and having any relation to the wizard MB would be a bad way to go. I'll look at how to adapt that language to distance it and keeping the two strongest arguement- that of the risk and the increase of mobs HP- more into account.


The Pets: Something that seems to have gotten left off, but I recall being discussed alot is just the Pets sharing owner attributes in terms of Spellshield, DoT shield, Avoidance etc... as well as sharing resists. This would get us a lot of the mitigation we're looking for but is more likely to be accepted than the request for like a 90% mitigation outright.

Terrific idea, and I remember that coming up several times. This is the item I've been fussing over more then anything else. I need to adapt the language here a bit as well, as it comes off as asking for stuff without enough justification, perhaps. Its very difficult dealing with pets to begin with, considering the literal laundry list there is currently with them.

[sauruman]

Added to pet the following subpoint:
A second idea proposed by the community is tying the modifiers the caster has to our pets in order to give our pet the advancement it needs to survive, as its master receives upgrades. Since a caster cannot stroll into high end raiding without prior expansion gear, the same principle applies to pets. Currently its as if Jobaner is being asked to go fight quarm literally naked, and the damage he takes reflects that. Modifiers like avoidance, shielding, spellshielding etc could be tied to pets in the same way that resists are shared. If possible, simply code the tying of these modifiers in as a raid leadership ability, or inactive until in a raid. This would result in a dramatic upgrade in raid survival, but not an unbalance in soloing and grouping content since the dps increase would be marginal to non-existant.
I worry the entire pet class issue is getting too wordy. Any ideas in how to retain all the incredibly important ideas and suggestions embedded in it, while considerably shortening the length?

Criticize and discuss!

Also, changed part of the potential lifeburn change to:
6. 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. While lifeburn has scaled in that it hasn't been hardcapped, it has not scaled significantly enough to reflect the dramatic increase in raid encounter's HP. Lifeburn in its current form does not make a dent in the creature being attacked, and due to its risk associates too high of a degree of risk for the low reward it yields.
i. Allowing for a scaled lifeburn through new aa's would alleviate this low cap on damage equivalent to the caster's HP.
Level 1: Lifeburn taking 3000hps, dealing 9000 damage.
Level 2: Lifeburn taking 6000hps, dealing 18000 damage
Level 3: Lifeburn taking 9000hps, dealing 27000 damage
ii. A second way to upgrade this ability supported by the community would be:
- Removal of the recourse since this small heal provides no significant remedy to the necromancer and actually results in stacking issues
- Allowing worn foci to increase damage produced
- AA's the caster posseses to would scale into the % chance of a focused lifeburn allowing for crits and destructive fury
- Halving the re-use timer

This would be a 3 to 1 ratio instead of a 4 to 1. Note that the 4 to 1 was a tremendous longshot, and needed working. If developers decided to take up on the lifeburn upgrade idea, its highly unlikely they would increase it that dramatically, and so part of the purpose of the list is to provide practical and reasonable potential solutions in order to provoke debate among the developers. Scaling it down a bit I think does accomplish that. Also, having three tiers would still mean that the top two tiers would be usable in raid environments, while the third would be the only one that would be scaled down sufficiently to not do significant enough damage to be mentionable (although I would bet all three would still be used by every necromancer out there so long as the recast timers weren't tied together).

If you have a better counter idea let me know. The 4 to 1 just seemed too unreasonably high. Maybe the 3 to 1 is too low. Discuss!

[Rijak]

this is not specific enough (or even 100% truthful):

1. 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 drop aggro including spells, 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. Given the difficulty of using such a triggered AA, it would be highly situational, and not unbalanced, but not nearly as useful as the former suggestion.

try this (there is no reason to mention re-FDing, that is an argument against an improvement, and the "triggered" option sounds more like a nightmare than an improvement... i also took out the "scouting", as this is typically a rogue role and thus another argument against a change):

1. Willful Death

Willful Death needs modification to become a viable alternate ability. Currently, Necromancers are relied upon to survive raid wipes and act as backup puller. Willful Death promised to help in these realms. However, in its current state, giving the ability only a 25% chance to fire, it does not deliver.

Monks have a 100% chance to FD though a spell, if resisted, and a 50% chance if not. Necromancers should have the same chance or, at the very least, 100% if resisted and 0% if not. This will increase the Necromancer's chance of surviving a wipe and make them more effective pullers when a monk or bard is not available.

[Rijak]

2. Channeling Mastery

Other intelligence casters received this AA while Necromancers did not. Like other intelligence casters, Necromancers have very poor defensive skills in the form of AC and Dodge. We need CM to increase the possibility of a successful Death Peace or timely lifetap against mobs that can easily one round us.

[Rijak]

3. Lowering of DoT Resists

Many encounters that we face regularly render us almost completely ineffective due to mob resists.

Lifetap/lifetap dots have -200, fire -100, poison -50, disease -50, curse -30. Increasing these modifiers by 50% would help address this issue.

Disease also needs additional work. While it is our 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.

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 (cleric 2.0 for example), making us incapable of even tapping in order to stay alive.

The addition of another debuff like we received in Omens of War would only exacerbate 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.

[Rijak]

i'd suggest removing the "bard box" part, since it is basically unprecedented, but that's your call

4. Mind Wrack upgrade

The abundance of mind wrackable mobs in Omens of War and more recent expansions has finally made Necromancers desirable in grouping situations. A few changes to this ability and an upgrade that scales with current mana needs will allow this to continue.

Instead of having this spell resisted some of the time, make it unresistible, or with a considerable resist check of -400 chromatic. This will help alleviate the issue of the twitching necromancer, due to the reliability of the MW landing. A MW upgrade will also allow for a phasing out of the twitch line of spells due to better mana returns.

A shared timer between MW and the twitch spells would also make it unlikely for Necromancers to be asked to twitch, though the option would still remain, an idea embraced by much of the community.

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).

Moving MW along with our other short-term necromancer groups 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.

[Rijak]

5. Pet haste duration increase, load time decrease, range of spell increase

Pet haste has taken a spell slot from the Necromancer due to both its short duration and long load time

Increase the duration of this buff to over an hour, lower the loadtime to a few seconds, and increase the casting range of the spell to 100 or more. The recent extremely marginal increase of a few minutes was not enough, and not even noticeable.

[Xislaben]

How about make MW recourse an AE effect :)

[Rijak]

6. 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-health aggro or AOEs if the timing is not precisely executed. Damage needs to be increased in relation to risk.

A scaled lifeburn through new AAs would alleviate this low cap on damage.

Level 1: Lifeburn taking 3000hps, dealing 9000 damage
Level 2: Lifeburn taking 6000hps, dealing 18000 damage
Level 3: Lifeburn taking 9000hps, dealing 27000 damage

[this whole system does not make sense... what if you have 5900 hps? do you die at L2? it should remain based on your current hp, but have a multiplier... i.e. at L1 damage is your hp x1, L2 your hp x2, L3 your hp X3]

A second way to upgrade this ability would be:
- Remove the recourse since this small heal provides no significant remedy to the necromancer and actually results in stacking issues
- Allow foci to effect Lifeburn
- Allow AA's to effect Lifeburn (crits and destructive fury)
- Half the re-use timer

[Rijak]

i think the whole "pet on raids" thing is pointless, but if we must include it, stick with the AOE mitigation tack

7. Pet changes

All pet commands from prior expansions need to be added to the pet window. This is crucial for casters due to the fact that we are constantly casting something, and pet hotkeys manually made from the alternate advancement window are not usable during casting. The commands we would like to see added to the window are: suspend minion, replenish companion, pet hold, pet feign, and pet focus.

Pet hold should be a triggerable "mode" instead of demanding a hotkey after every battle to ensure proper control. While on "hold" these pets shouldn't accrue an aggro list making spamming of "pet back off" hotkey necessary.

Pets need to be boosted in such a way to allow their use on raids without overpowering them for soloing or grouping content. Some mechanism or perhaps an AA needs to be developed to severely mitigate the effect of AE type effects on pets, otherwise they simply demand too much healing to be of use. A suggestion from the community has been 90% or more mitigation on these AE type of effects so long as the pet is not at the top of the aggro list. This is literally the dramatic type of overhaul our pets would need to be viable in a raiding environment, as most any AE rampage or AE type spells since PoP have had the potential to one round our pets.

Make our rogue pets automatically attack their enemies from behind. Our best pet for several expansions has been a rogue type. If not placed precisely at the back of the creature, his damage is more then halved.

The pet feign alternate advancement ability does not wipe an aggro list. The caster should receive a message after two minutes indicating that the pet no longer has aggro, similar to our own message.

[Rijak]

no comment on 8. Parity of DoT Crits since the whole thing doesn't really make sense... would it not be simpler to just ask if the current critical affliction etc. line could be boosted across the board?

[Rijak]

9. Cosmetic changes

While liched, Necromancers cannot receive illusions from clickies or from enchanters. This limits our ability to roleplay, as it is imperative our class remains liched at all times. The most popular idea endorsed would be alternate "illusionless lich" spells with the exact same attributes as our current versions, allowing us to change our look as other players can. These would not replace the old spells, but be in addition to them.

Our spectre pet model is outdated. With so many cool models spanning from PoP to DoDH, certainly we can be given a new pet look representative of the times. Our spectre also remains a nuisance due to his constant dark ramblings, leading many necromancers to turn off sound in EQ altogether (along with other classes as well). Please give us a /pet muzzle command to turn off pet sounds if we wish.

Masters of the Undead should have downright scary minions they ride from place to place, possibly a skeletal mount. A line of AA, or a quest that would allow us to earn such a new mount would be fitting for our class (and possibly SKs as well).

[Rijak]

10. Screaming Terror Upgrade

Screaming Terror, while never a replacement for true CC, was a useful utility spell for Necromancers pre-L55. Upgrade the spell in a few steps all the way up to L70 mobs. The same way in all respects to ST, so as not to make it too powerful, but with a higher level cap on the mobs it can effect.

[Rijak]

less is more :P

[sauruman]

OK

I considerably modified all items on the list wording wise, and took a lot of the extraneous wording out. I'm finally extremely pleased with the way its worded, especially the more difficult issues to word like Channeling Mastery and Resists.

Tell me what you think! Don't hold back!

[Nirruden]

A new mez spell will let us keep rare and vital group utility that we had with Screaming Terror. An upgraded version that works to level 70 would not threaten game balance. Coded to work less reliably and for a shorter duration then the traditional mezmerize, it would help the necromancer step up when demanded or traditional CC not handy.

I don't like the wording on this at all, particularly the bolded sections - it smells of "fear upgrades" to me.

(Suggest the following replacement for a draft, or use Rijak's if brevity is important.)

10. Screaming Terror Upgrade
Lower level necromancers had the ability (via Screaming Terror) to manage a portion of in-camp crowd control. This did not interfere with the game balance of Enchanters, as they are capable of controlling far more numerous foes, much more reliably and for longer sustainable durations. At those levels, necromancers were (rightly) inferior for mezmerization ability, but could provide somewhat reliable emergency crowd control assistance.

However, after promising that Screaming Terror would be upgraded to affect modern content, no further action has been taken by the developers. Necromancers do not feel that the ability to provide backup or emergency in-camp CC adversely affects the more adept crowd controlling classes. As such, we wish to see the earlier promises made to the necromancer community fulfilled by adding a spell that is an upwards scaling of the previous spell, Screaming Terror. This spell should retain the casting cycle times and ranges of the previous spell (thus limiting the number of controlled foes as severely as for the original spell) while scaling upwards to cost more mana and affect higher level foes reliably.

[Xislaben]

Originally posted by Nirruden@Jan 5 2006, 02:27 PM
A new mez spell will let us keep rare and vital group utility that we had with Screaming Terror. An upgraded version that works to level 70 would not threaten game balance. Coded to work less reliably and for a shorter duration then the traditional mezmerize, it would help the necromancer step up when demanded or traditional CC not handy.

I don't like the wording on this at all, particularly the bolded sections - it smells of "fear upgrades" to me.
I agree. If the upgrade were less reliable and lasted a shorter duration it'd be a waste of a spell gem, exactly analogous to our new fear spells. What a fucking waste, shorter than 3 ticks, less % chance to blur?

"it would help the necromancer step up when demanded or traditional CC not handy"

Bullshit. What you're really asking for here is a screaming terror downgrade that just works on higher level mobs and which would likely be a suicide spell. No thanks.

Speaking of our new fear spells, why isn't fixing those on our top 10? Are we resigned to accepting them as are (ie pretty worthless) and allowing soe to think that they actually did us a favor by 'giving us fear back'? Or are we just so used to not fearing now that we don't care?

EDIT:
I misread that I believe, it's an 'upgrade' meant to be less effective than the ENC mez's I believe now, and not meant to work less reliably and for a shorter duration than Screaming Terror itself, as I originally interpreted. If it's either less than 3 ticks duration and lands poorly like our undead mez or ST (no resist adjust), however, I doubt I will mem the spell beyond inital testing. In fact, 3 tick duration is terribly short anyways, I'd like to see 5-6 tick duration.

[Rijak]

my thought is that it would be identical to ST, just upgraded on what level of mob it could effect

this would still leave chanties as primary mezzers due to resist mods and duration

[Tryal Anderror]

In order to be effective at all it'd have to work up to level 73. No Raid or Mission or XP spot I ever do has anything 70 or below, and its usually all Red cons.

It's cute to have a little upgrade, but it would provide no benefit in anything we currently do, only when revisiting old content.

As for the Fears, it was never right to use fear really. Aggro kiting has always > Fear Kiting in terms of efficiency in killing, so I think it is something that no one cares at all if we have. The only benefit I could think of would be if they let it work on summoning mobs who we could keep feared.

[Jebasiz]

A singular upgrade is almost worthless the way they keep on pumping out expansions. The level will probably go up in september and we'll be in the same position again...

We should ask for a commitment from SoE to upgrade this line and to keep it current. Not a short-term, one-time fix.

[Nirruden]

EDIT:
I misread that I believe, it's an 'upgrade' meant to be less effective than the ENC mez's I believe now, and not meant to work less reliably and for a shorter duration than Screaming Terror itself, as I originally interpreted.* If it's either less than 3 ticks duration and lands poorly like our undead mez or ST (no resist adjust), however, I doubt I will mem the spell beyond inital testing.* In fact, 3 tick duration is terribly short anyways, I'd like to see 5-6 tick duration.

The problem, as I see it, is that it can be argued that by coding it to affect nothing at all (max level 1, resist mod +100, Duration = 1 tick, and so forth) it is exactly what's asked for: shorter duration, and less reliable than any Enchanter mesmerize.

If one is to use words like "shorter duration" and "less reliable" in the hearing of SOE developers, one needs to be VERY BLOODY SPECIFIC about how MUCH shorter, how MUCH less reliable, etc. That's the problem - leave this request AT ALL vague or scantily defined, you'll get a "fear upgrade" out of it. THAT is why I have a problem, not because I misunderstood what was meant or written.

[Nirruden]

Originally posted by Jebasiz@Jan 5 2006, 08:19 PM
A singular upgrade is almost worthless the way they keep on pumping out expansions. The level will probably go up in september and we'll be in the same position again...

We should ask for a commitment from SoE to upgrade this line and to keep it current. Not a short-term, one-time fix.
You can ask, but frankly, I'd be amazed if we get the singular upgrade, let alone any committment worth more than the wet toilet paper on which it would be written. SOE, IMO, has the track record of a compulsive liar in the "promise" department.

...but as an eternal optimist, feel free to put a request for such an ongoing upgrade committment in there - I just wanted to point out that our fear "upgrades" are upgrades, from a certain point of view. I'd rather not have a similarly upgraded mez spell, though, which is the point I'm trying to make. We need to be cautious about the wording we choose - they will more than happily give us exactly what we ask for if it's useless.

[Rijak]

ST lasts 3 ticks and has no resist mod

from glancing at the higher level chanty mezzes, they seem to last 6-9 ticks and have a resist mod of -10... they also typically cap 2-4 levels above the level of the spell and have a much better memblur %

i'd say a L65 ST that still lasted 3 ticks, still only had a 1% memblur component (we have FD), had no resist mod and effected mobs up to L68

then another upgrade at L70 that was the same but effected mobs up to L73

it'd leave some gaps, but chanties have to deal with that too

it would not be terribly useful, short of interrupting casters as others have mentioned elsewhere, but would be something

[sauruman]

Extremely good points guys! I'll clean that up.

[sauruman]

Added some minor changes to lifeburn language, resists, and screaming terror (proposed specific spells). I will be submitting this list in the early afternoon tomorrow, as its due on Monday, so consider this the final warning. Give it a good read through and let me know.

[Nirruden]

Originally posted by Rijak+Jan 5 2006, 10:00 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Rijak @ Jan 5 2006, 10:00 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>it would not be terribly useful, short of interrupting casters as others have mentioned elsewhere, but would be something[/b]
I don't regard the ability to interrupt casting as a "not terribly useful" thing. I regard it as a valuable tool - as with several other abilities we've lost or let lapse over the ages. (Undead lull! Power taps! Life transfer!)

I think the specific spell examples look all right, though I'd make a changes to the bolded areas of the item itself:

<!--QuoteBegin-The Draft
A new mez spell will let us keep rare and vital group utility that we had with Screaming Terror. An upgraded version would not threaten game balance or existing class roles. Coded to work less reliably and for a shorter duration then the traditional enchanter mezmerize, it would help the necromancer step up to fill a group need when demanded or when traditional (remove: CC)crowd control is not handy.

For example two versions could be implemented:
Haunting Terror: Level 65 spell that works to level 68, with a modifier of -10, a recast time of 3seconds, 1% chance to memblur, and a duration of 5 ticks
Night's Terror: Level 70 spell that works to level 73, with a modifier of -10, a recast time of 3seconds, 1% chance to memblur, and a duration of 5 ticks

This line should have new versions readilly available if/when the level cap is raised.[/quote]For reference, bolded areas are what we're asking to be changed:

Screaming Terror
Spell Type: Detrimental
Skill: Alteration
Mana: 60 (Changed to: Unspecified Increase)
Target Type: Single
Casting Time: 2.60
Duration: 3 ticks (Changed to: 5 ticks)
Recast Time: 6 (Changed to 3 seconds)
Resist: Magic (0) (Changed to Magic (-10))
Fizzle Time: 2.25
Range to target: 200
AE Radius: 0
Interruptable: Yes
Location: Any
Time of Day: Any
Reflectable: Yes

Memblur: 1%
level cap: 55 (Changed to 68/73)

All in all, I like the proposed changes. The increase in duration and decrease in cast time are probably essential in modern content. The inability (or nearly) to memblur is offset by FD, as it was with ST. The rest of the changes are pretty reasonable, though I note that -10 to MR probably isn't going to land very well without some notable MR debuffing - like tash. It'll work, but might take a cast/FD cycle or two to get an add locked up. That's good, though, as it makes us secondary to enchanters for add control - and let's face it, we're not enchanters.

[Rijak]

Originally posted by Nirruden@Jan 6 2006, 03:22 PM
That's good, though, as it makes us secondary to enchanters for add control - and let's face it, we're not enchanters.
not that i don't want it all, but -10, an increased number of ticks and better recast time would give us a spell that was practically just and good as chanty single target mez... something they are not going to do to a class that has already lost a lot of lustre due to nerfs (much more than necros)... that's why i'd keep it at 3 ticks and the same recast... though the -10 is negligable

but we could ask for it... i certainly wouldn't say no :P

and i say "not terribly useful" because it would not be useful against the challenges we are typically up against... mezzing, in general, is designed to CC mobs a few levels below the caster, thus the poor resist mods, even for chanters (just ask a chanter)

necros, by our nature, tend to fight mobs at or near our level... so the "resist factor" will hit us harder... thus, even if we got the -10, it would be a interrupt effect that was far from reliable

[sauruman]

I think on something like mez if its not coded right it will be worthless. I.E. fear. I'd like rather to see enchanter mez be damn near unresistable, but they aren't, alas. I feel for 'em.

Ours would be less good for three reasons.
1) recast timer
2) shorter duration making our dps severely suffer while mezzing and making chain casting a must (it would be a trade-off in that situation so to speak)
3) Lower mem blur component

If they give us the upgrade with less of a modifier it will be alright, but I'd like to have a spell thats useful for dodh/don/oow grouping necros. Lets face it, without a significant mez, it will highly situational and perhaps worthless. I loved the idea you guys had of giving specific stats to the spell for them to consider. I want to make sure they know we are serious and that we get something as an end product thats useful so we don't have to wait another year for a result.

[UsulDaNeriak]

actually, as it is written down, i do not agree to the lifeburn topic.

jebs advise was nice but it is leading into the wrong direction. lifeburn has to stay scalable, like the devs think it is. even if we all know, it doesnt scale accordingly. sorry jeb, but i did think about your genious idea a bit. honestly, it isnt genious. it is like a kind of suicid for the entire necromancy at the end.

to get a static lifeburn like the new manaburn is a mistake. and should never be our goal.
we would loose an advantage our lifeburn already got.

lets just work on the existing lifeburn. let it crit, all foci working and a good nec is over 30 k dmg.

so what do we ask for more?

this alternative is already described by sauruman. but it should be more clear, that this is the favourite.

just my last 2 cp about this top ten list.

Usul

[Rijak]

Originally posted by Doc Hollidazed@Jan 10 2006, 09:41 AM
Why not use Jeb's idea AND make it scalable. First AA does 100% of your hp. Second does 150%, third does 200% etc =)
good idea ;)

[Jebasiz]

It wasn't my idea. It's basically a copy and paste of the wizard mana burn proposal. With "mana" exchanged for the word "life". It was more to display my disgust for the initial stupidity of this list. It was meant to be stupid. The stupidity of it was just further compounded by our "fearless class correspondent" nerfing it in his proposal to SOE.

I really couldn't give two shits and fuck what happens. There's 2 changes on this list I care about. The rest is bullshit, and yes..I'm disgusted.

Edit: In the original form that I posted at a 4:1 ratio, it'd actually be a stronger lifeburn that's what currently available for most people..and there would be no reason to not make a 12k and 15k version should those hps be available in another year or 2. (I know 12 is available now..but I think atleast 90% of the people that are 12k buffed, would get low health agro and die immediately following lifeburn..thus making it impractical except for a kill shot, which means that 90% of the time it'd be used would be on a guarenteed win, and average guild dps on a guild that can gear a necro to 12k hps is around 15k dps...so congrats you saved the guild 3 seconds..assuming you don't have a lot of dps attrition from deaths.)

[sauruman]

OH NOS JEB DOESN'T LIKE THE LIST LETS REWRITE IT!!!!!

>insert strange photoshopped image here plz<

[Xelgadis]

While the endearing attitude is a nice touch, it isn't exactly an attitude that one in your position should display... now go put on a pretty face for the public like a good politican.

Jeb is not the only one who thinks the list sucks (I'm not even going to dignify it by calling it a steaming pile of shit anymore). That fact has been pointed out to you multiple times, by multiple people, and not just on message boards either. Willingness to listen (as you have essentially stated), with closed ears, is pointless, yet that seems to be your approach to things. Listen to the wise words that have passed your way, you may learn something.

One day I figured what the hell, I KNOW every inch of the necro class, what could be the harm.
Pretty arrogant words to come from anyone. What could be the harm? The harm could be that we get someone in your position who thinks he knows his ass from a hole in the ground, when in reality he doesn't. I will credit you on one thing, however; you are very knowledgable in the art of speaking much, yet saying little... such skill reminds me of papers I wrote in High School. After High School, most people learn how to express their thoughts and ideas without all the whimsical bullshit that adds unnecessary filler, perhaps you should try doing the same.

In any case, welcome to EverQuest Congress, Sauruman. I hope you enjoy the hotseat as we continue to stoke the flames.

[Jebasiz]

Originally posted by sauruman@Jan 11 2006, 12:02 AM
OH NOS JEB DOESN'T LIKE THE LIST LETS REWRITE IT!!!!!

>insert strange photoshopped image here plz<
About the reaction I expected..although I thought you'd atleast use some semblence of correct grammar.

Is everything you do for your RL as much a disappointment as this list?

I understand it's a "community list" and not everyone would benefit by every change, but even when representing a community if they're asking for things that wouldn't be beneficial or even be detrimental, it's YOUR JOB to know the difference and convey that to people asking for stupid shit...and then suggest things that would help them(and their level of playing/raiding/gearing/experience).

That is what you didn't do and why you failed.

Nice immature reaction though.

[Xislaben]

I always get a kick out of Usul's "strange photoshopped image"(s) and wish he'd post more of them!

[Felicite]

Originally posted by sauruman@Jan 10 2006, 10:02 PM
>insert strange photoshopped image here plz<
I dunno.. this part made me laugh.

Now I need to get fresh coffee.

And a towel.