Blood magic

[Jebasiz]

Some of you may know already, but in an effort to inform everyone..
The Blood Magic AA is something that I always thought was great in concept, but really wasn't introduced to us in a way that was readily usable. To change that I spent a good amount of time talking to Nodyin(the AA dev) and he seemed to agree that it was too costly to use.

To that end: It shouldn't cost obscene amounts of life to cast our spells while bloodmagic is in effect. They fixed that. For people who are just inquisitive by nature, the AA would keep triggering, and after I believe it's 4 procs they'd stack. Each proc was a sequentional % upgrade in damage you'd incur per mana for the cost of the spell you used. Which could (and often did) reach over 400% of the spell cost.

Now, when they fixed it, they essentially removed the procs that were causing the icons to stack(anything after the 4th proc), which was the effect I was after..but had the side effect of shortening the overall duration. When you ask for a fix, even when you're lucky enough to recieve it..you have no idea how they're going to go about making that fix. I've talked to him since, and he's going to re-evaluate after TBS launches(he doesn't have time to balance the duration).

I've asked him to double the duration of each proc(I figured since he halved the number of the procs, if he doubles the duration of the existing procs..we'd end up with a similar duration ability..due to the infamous RNG, bloodmagic used to last 3-5 mins(typically), with an absolutely minimum of 2 mins 48 seconds(perfect world, no lag) and a maximum around 8mins(each proc firing on the last tic of the previous proc, since it fires close to every other cast..that'd really never happen).

Sorry for the long explanation, but I do think that once it's finally tuned..it'll go from an AA that really isn't that valuable, to one that we use a ton to help us sustain our damage for a while longer.

I would appreciate any feedback, and/or suggestions for fixes..if you'd like to see something I didn't mention.

(I did mention the shaman AA that's a 1 for 1 hp/mana conversion and a set 5 mins..but we're not shaman, it just seemed like a decent comparison point)

[Auree]

Interesting.

However, I'm sort of confused by this in several ways.

first of all (to me), Shamans get an Cani as a spell, plus they can cani as an AA. That *is* their body-to-life conversion. The concept of blood magic, but the shaman version, is wholly more suited to a necromancer than a shaman. A duration lich on a spell-by-spell basis for when we are oom. I think it's ironic (frustrating) that we're known for not going oom, yet shamans have much better methods of achieving this using concepts I find better suited to a necromancer.

Then, for the necromancer version, they add the good chance for a double proc. why!? How can we possibly spend the equiv of 3k mana in a round of casts and lose 6k+ of hp? it's simply not possible to recover from that. esp if there any aoe.

I think my worst was 4 casts to get the double proc, but then, even lifetap is extremely detrimental. we cannot hold onto our lives even casting a lifetap, our best way of recovering hp. one time, I had 3 procs running. it's really frustrating for something this worthless having soo much potential. We ought not be needing to "compare with shamans" ... ours would need to simply have more functional usability to even balance out the fact we have only a low mana/hp ratio lifetap to regain HP.

Back to the shamans (yes, this is a comparison, and yes, I'm entirely frustrated that it is even needed), they still have every means of self regen, from patches to HoT, and they all cost a only a fraction of the HP needed to heal themselves to full HP.

The difference is wholly the balance of usability. The way it's set up for us, a lifetap would need to be much more efficient for the mana cost... or yes, drastically reduce the cost of using blood magic in the first place.

second, if we get a second proc, it should simply overwrite the first one, certainly not add 2 or 3 procs to multiply the health use by 2 or 3 (the hp cost already is something like 1.5x the mana). That makes it pointless. If anything, and I'm serious, shamans ought to have had that detrimental effect, not necromancers. In fact, why would shamans get this at *all* when they use spell cani, and they use AA cani. Just improve their cani to the point where they have endless mana... and give us a unique and appropriate aa ability which would just happen to be what shamans now have, in addition to their spell cani & AA cani.

okay. I'll stop here for now, as the fix seems rather frustratingly pointless, so let me experiment a little & post back. I actually wrote a bit regarding the points you made, but it's not really appropriate tone, so I'll look it over later & repost.

[Jebasiz]

OK..erm, perhaps I didn't convey what I was trying to effectively. If that's the case I sincerely apologize but this is what happened.

I talked to nodyin in beta alot, and I asked him to look at this AA due to it's lack of usablity AND great potential. He saw what I saw and asked for a recommendation on how to fix it, and I said eliminate stacking icons(which is what was causing an absurd amount of damage) so it's viable for everyone.

When he removed the procs that were causing the icons(and damage) to stack, he shortened the duration of the ability. My previous post was to inform everyone that this ability is A) more user friendly and B) unintentionally made shorter. Part B, should be temporary for reasons I already described in my previous post.

The discussion I had with him about the shaman AA, was just a balancing point that I thought would help him determine a length for Blood magic, and possibly make it even more efficient for us(although the latter is doubtfull). I have asked for more levels of this AA that improve efficiency, duration and shortening the refresh timer(that hopefully will come to us when we recieve more AAs).

[Aegrusnecrox]

You're kinda freaking out over nothing Auree.

BEFORE we discussed the AA with Nodyin, there was the stacking icon issue, AFTER we discussed the AA with Nodyin, there is no more stacking icon issue, and the total duration of the AA appears to be halved.

The non-stacking icon thing is a nice bug fix, the halved duration is an accident.

Lets all calm down.

-Egg

[Auree]

okay.

I re read a few times, and I see the fixes you refer to are in beta?

BEFORE we discussed the AA with Nodyin, there was the stacking icon issue, AFTER we discussed the AA with Nodyin, there is no more stacking icon issue, and the total duration of the AA appears to be halved.

The non-stacking icon thing is a nice bug fix, the halved duration is an accident.
Okay. I did miss that in the original post. Also missed that this was the beta being referred to. I read your post to say that they would limit the procing of additional BM effects to a max of 4 stacked....
Now, when they fixed it, they essentially removed the procs that were causing the icons to stack(anything after the 4th proc), which was the effect I was after..
...should read anything after the 1st proc?


I tested 2x last night (was all the time I had for it), and sorta seemed the chance for a double proc was reduced? I used 70th lifetap as my test and kited a LB mob with darkness & lifetap. 1st attempt it didn't get a double proc until almost 40 second mark (that is was a new great record for me). 2nd attempt didn't proc a second one at all. So, yes. the chance to reduce has gone down greatly, or it's the same & I was horribly unlucky before. It's often for me to have proc'd a second BM effect stacked within 20 seconds of activating the ability, leaving a 40 second cool down til I can return to one active effect.

They did fix that GoM now works during blood magic. that is soo very appreciated. Previously it would ignore GoM procs.

Blood magic also subtracts the hp after the spell effects happen. For example, the 70th ancient lifetap with a single BM effect heals 400 more HP that what it costs, but the HP cost is subtracted after the heal is complete, so will be at -800hpish HP chaining that lifetap. Is this allow is to cast a lifetap and not die on the initial hp cost of the cast?

I thank-you very much for working with them to make this more usable! Spending AA should be on a bonus to help us be better in a raid or group situation, not potentially cripple us & have us sit it out.

I've not used Blood Magic much at all since before PoR was released, as I decided it too crippling, and begun to rely on the vet AA instead. I did use it one time in a 3 person group about 2 weeks ago, and I still found it frustrating, esp when a shaman & me both cast ours at the same time (I had the second proc at about the 4th tick).

I reread my original post, and it's ummm ... fine. :rolleyes:
at least the points were valid. :P

[Brahman]

Here is kinda how i see this, yes i'm going to compare to the shammies. like it or not, there is another class with this ability already and so discussing it in context is relevant.

Shammies get this ability, and for them it is so powerful that they can continually cast without any downtime. To the point that they pop it when they are oom, continue doing their job unhindered and by the time it wears off they are at or near full mana again.

Is that overpowering? I honestly don't know but I think we should aim to get as close to that as possible for ourselves.

I'm not sure what combination of duration, ratio, whatever is really needed to achieve that right now, but I think this should be very achievable without to much trouble.

[Jebasiz]

Originally posted by Brahman@Feb 13 2007, 01:35 PM
Here is kinda how i see this, yes i'm going to compare to the shammies. like it or not, there is another class with this ability already and so discussing it in context is relevant.

Shammies get this ability, and for them it is so powerful that they can continually cast without any downtime. To the point that they pop it when they are oom, continue doing their job unhindered and by the time it wears off they are at or near full mana again.

Is that overpowering? I honestly don't know but I think we should aim to get as close to that as possible for ourselves.

I'm not sure what combination of duration, ratio, whatever is really needed to achieve that right now, but I think this should be very achievable without to much trouble.
I don't know how far Nodyin is willing to go with it. I'd like a cannibilization type of AA next expansion, that in conjunction with this and a better lich, may very well result in that type of mana recovery...I'm just not sure we can go from where we are now to "there" all at once.

You may not like me, but you know me better then to think that I'm going to place undo limits on us in my conversations with anyone. I just don't think expecting that much of a change from this one AA is practical atm. If we got the lich I asked for during this past beta..perhaps, but this AA wouldn't be so central to how we perform then anyway :P.

Once devs make up their mind on something, it's damn near useless to continue arguing the point. It doesn't stop me all the time, and I'm confident this AA will improve(again), it's just to what degree that is in question.

[Drazzminius]

What is the duration of Blood Magic? I'm thinking about getting it shortly (mostly to test out after reading all the posts), but wonder how long the effects last.

[Jebasiz]

It's one minute base...it can proc and reproc which makes it last longer. I don't know what it's capped at anymore.