Here's the feedback from Mythic on the report. Let me start by stating that getting feedback is a fabulous thing, and will help refine the reports. The first round is always the roughest. I will take this information to heart and promote alternate ideas and issues as data processed. This new track we are headed in will not have immediate repercussions, but will be a long process of refining the final product.
Mythic's Responses in Brown
My reply to Mythic in Green
Overview
Cloth casters, seen as the primary threat in RvR situations, actually suffer the most penalties in RvR, and though we remain the first ones killed, we no longer have the damage output to actually warrant this. Our damage output is reduced by massive amounts of resists, and as Runemasters, we only have one form of CC (root) which is readily Purged, we are finding ourselves unable to kill as effectively at range, and we're 100% vulnerable in close quartered combat.
General Concerns
Resists - Magical Attacks are negatively affected by virtually everything from natural racial resists to Realm Abilities. With the advent of SpellCrafting most people are seeing a climb in the resist rates in the game for every damage type. We are looking at least a 26% reduction in damage across the board, no matter what the spec path. This flat 26% rate is actually increased by armor types, racial types, and Realm Abilities. Casted resist spells are simply the icing on the cake. A system of diminishing returns should be put into place for the buffs, which are what cause the MR Resists to gut the capabilities of the casters.
Resists are being reworked. (as in resist buffs, debuffs, etc)
It's good to hear we will be seeing something done regarding these issues.
Interrupts - Interrupts are devastating to the caster. It effectively negates our ability to do anything, and those with Quickcast are being interrupted even while using that now. We've all seen the logs of mezzed/stunned/rooted (even dead) players still interrupting a caster. There appear to be inconsistencies in the Interrupt System that need to be further explored. No one should be chain interrupted from a single attack, nor interrupted from an attack to which they are immune (CC).
I don't have the space to go into it here, but I posted on the TL forum how interrupts work. Basically, if someone with a speed 8 weapon hits you, then keels over dead 1 second later, you will still have a chance to be interrupted for the full 8 seconds. We have no plans to change this system. RvR and PvE are all entirely balanced around the premise that casters will have a *chance* to be interrupted when under attack (they also have a small chance of getting a spell of despite being attacked), and to change the fundemental way this works would require redesigning the entire combat system in DAOC.
It may seem unfair that a slow weapon user can interrupt someone for many seconds, but consider the alternative. Few people would use slow weapons if people could get casts off inbetween swings, and most people would instead opt to use the fastest weapons possible. While the current system may be frustrating at times (like anything else in competitive-based games), it's the most balanced way we can do things short of totally redesigning how DAOC combat works.(as well as rebalancing every class and mob in the game).
I know, there are still a couple of anomalies that I'm trying to nail down, but agree that the over all system cannot be changed. Thank you for the explanation however, while many will not like it, at least they will see what the official standpoint is.
Power Consumption - As it is harder to kill targets in RvR, more and more mages are finding themselves out of power during fights. The <50% power penalty is a severe penalty as not everyone has access to the high level (and high cost) power regen Realm Abilities preventing them from being effective for long periods of time. Melee fighters do not suffer from this same penalty as mages since Endurance regens at an incredible rate. This puts us behind the curve in both PvE and RvR.
I think you have a tough case trying to paint Serenity and MCL as high cost power regen RAs. There isn't really a <50% power penalty as much as there is a >50% power regen bonus for robed casters. This bonus was put in to help allieviate the long down time waiting for power to regen for those who can be judicious enough in their power use to remain above 50%.
To compare how tanks use endurance to how casters use power isn't a valid way to look at things. If the next hero report said that casters should burn power when sprinting to make things "equal," I'd reply in the same way. The two are not designed to work the same way.
I've never heard about a >50% bonus... or at least had it explained that way. I will look closely at my Runemaster and Warrior with their downtimes for Power and Health. I could swear they were different, but right now it's just a "feeling" that I have and don't have the data to back it up.
Specline Issues
Bolts – The damage scales horribly against higher AF making them practically useless to throw at anything other than other casters and rogues. A Runecarving spec'd Runemaster will actually hit less with his bolt against most enemy targets than with his baseline Direct Damage spell(s). Bolts also suffer from the normal outright resists which read as misses, pile these situations on top of that makes for some very upset bolt casters, who's primary damage spell is so situational as to only being truly useful in solo PvE. Since RvR is the EndGame in DaoC, the class defining spell should at least be somewhat viable in RvR.
Bolts are designed to be most effective on cloth casters and rogues. If casters need more effective ways to kill tanks and hybrids, we can look to find another solution for this, but bolts aren't it.
Bolts have the same outright chance of resists as DD spells do, with many added benefits.
Right now, we're happy with how bolts stand, and will be watching them carefully once the new resist changes go in.
I must admit that many of the bolt casters are fairly happy with the changes to bolts, expressing some concern over the "missing 10%" (damage against casters is down roughly 10% from pre1.62). Have no fear, we too will be watching the resist changes and how they affect our bolts as well 
Root blocks Snare - Suppression Spec Runemasters live and die by their DD/Snare. Currently, we are unable to slow a target that has been rooted, seeing as our damage spell both has a lower delve value and higher power cost this can be hazardous in PvE and is ruinous in RvR. Basically, this means that a Suppression Spec Runemaster is actually being penalized for using our only form of CC. Allow the spec DD/Snares can overwrite the regular snares.
We have no plans on changing how the immunity timers here work nor to allow a layering of CC effects.
Ugh, this is a pretty major deal for the DD/Snare users (not all are Supp RMs). I will see if I can find a better way to articulate it on the TL Boards.
Confusion - More correctly I should say the lack thereof. Over time Confusion spells have had 6 distinctive changes (not all were nerfs) to it, but most recently with the advent of SI an entire zone per realm has every mob in it flagged as confuse=no. The recent addition of the rock giants in all three realm's frontiers are also set as confuse=no as well. This spell has virtually no use in RvR, and now even the PvE aspects of this spell are being removed. See also this
thread regarding confusion and its changes. Allow for Confusion spells to be capped at the 100% random version on all but Quest/Epic Mobs (and their guards). This at least restores a part of this spells functionality.
No plans to change how confusion works, but will pass the the confuse=no concern to the world team.
Talked to Mackey, he said that he is currently unaware of any plans to change confusion, but that doens't mean there aren't any unfinished ones. Aphex, or Kwea mentioned hearing of changes planned a while back, but nothing fleshed out.
Resist Debuffs - These were placed on an instant cast time and the duration shortened accordingly. When it was determined this was too overpowering the cast times were reset to 2 seconds, however, the duration of the effect was not increased back to its former state. Combine that with the fact they were removed from the general resists to magical resists the durations are actually much shorter, often being worth only one cast. Please return them to the original durations, or return them to the general resist table so that those who use these spells get full effect from them.
No changes here outside the overall resist buff/debuff review.
Just FYI, once the new resist buff/debuff changes go in I may ask for them to be restored to instant cast, as they will no longer be the overpowered spell that they currently are. But then that will be a bit down the road when everyone sees how things work again.
Raven’s Bolt/Legion – These spells do not have much use in RvR as the return isn’t worth using considering the cast time, power cost and only 10% debuff. Scale the debuff portion of the Raven Lines (Targeted and AoE) from 10% (first tier) to 19% (final tier).
We'd be willing to look at this in the future, but not right now. Bring it up again down the road.
Excellent.
Combination Spells and DoTs vs. Targets - Extensive testing completed by the Cabalist and Bonedancer Team Leads proved conclusively that they have a higher chance of being outright resisted by a target, and that the effect scales horribly when facing higher level targets. This fact severely hampers casters that rely upon those spells (like Suppression Runemasters) in both RvR and PvE. Combination spells (DD/Snare, DD/Debuff and Lifetap) already have lower delve values to them, lowering their chance to hit is not needed. Remove the %to-hit penalty assessed to combination spells and DoTs
Revisit this after any changes to global to-hit chances are put in.
Will do.
New Issues
Spells %to-hit in PvE - With the recent group combat changes casters have seen a drastic rise in the over all resist rates in PvE, most especially high end PvE, like Epic Dungeon raids. It has grown to the point where many high level raids are being cancelled, or disallowing general casters as they cannot contribute to the raid.
We're aware of this and looking into fixing it. This is not easy because the block/parry change was actually a bug fix, not a design change. This bug fix had an affect on to-hit and how people were used to fighting in PvE. We're working on a solution.
I agree that the bug cannot be "replaced", but in the mean time, many raids are being cancelled, and most of those the are going on are excluding casters, unless they have pulsing bladeturn, as they "appear" to provide nothing to the raid. We know that they provide a bonus to the %to-hit when they get a resist, but why use a caster who will be resisted 90% to 100% of the time when you can use a melee type that will only miss 60% of the time? Everyone is eagerly awaiting a solution to this problem. I will bring up some ideas on th TL Forums for discussion later.
Other Issues
Spell Resist graphics associated with the “already has that effect” messages.
Explain the issue here in the next report or on the TL forums. I can understand this one being confusing. For example, Spiritmaster joins a group with a Runemaster. The Runemaster casts Runic Shield (Group Bladeturn), since the Spiritmaster already has his self BT up, he will get the "spell resisted" spell graphic. Minor, but annoying nonetheless.
Diminishing radius on AoE DD
This is by design and we have no plans to change it. Feel free to make a case however. Will do. Kwea, break out the pen and paper and prepare to baffle me
Darkness/Suppression AoE DD Cast times
Detail out the issues here in the next report, if you feel it's worth the space. I spoke to Mackey regarding this issue, he agrees that it provides an unfair advantage. I think we can expect a change soon.
Item Problems
No known item problems at this time.
30/06/2003, 20h59
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