The feedback is in
red and my response is in
blue.
I would of had this up sooner, but I was on a buisness trip for most of this week and just got back.
Also note, that I do need your help with getting some logs. Those will be detailed further in the feedback. If you send in logs, please provide as much detailed information about the situation and statistics as possible, it makes my work easier and adds to the credibility plus improving the specifics of any case I attempt to make. Many thanks.
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Overview -
The Enchanter is a versatile class, and very near completion within the current system. Only a few tweaks and changes need to really be addressed with the class. Most of the problems for the class stem from general caster concerns; such as resists/low survivability/damage negation. Enchantment is however one of the lines perceived to be lacking in RvR, especially when compared to the other two lines. Enchant is still an excellent second spec; however, it lacks the damage output in RvR to be specced as a primary line by more than a very small minority of Enchanters.
Concerns -
1.) Low caster survivability in RvR. High resists, numerous interrupt methods, lowest existing defense, various ways to eliminate/decrease casted crowd control with abilities like determination/resists, and an increase of full resists (Since 1.62). This has led to a decreased caster survivability rate in open field RvR combat.
One of the things people often forget when discussing caster survivability is just how devastating a caster can be when left alone. This is one of those things that really makes DAOC fun; the ability to look forward to the chance to do tremendous damage to the enemy in battle if things go your way.
If we increased caster survivability overall, we'd need to greatly lower their damage output and utility overall. Look at the clerical classes in the game and how much survivability they have versus their ability to deal decisive damage.
What we are trying to work on is finding ways to encourage classes to protect their groupmates more. This will allow for casters in good RvR groups to enjoy the benefit of added survivability, without necessitating the need to lower their damage output.
I agree with this. Survivability as far as increasing HPs/armor shouldn't be happening but having our damage where it should be should. Such as the resist reviewal coming up I think will help a lot. I was more or less doing this as a handshake concern as it's already a known concern from the mages. I was just making it official from me. I know things are coming up to help resolve this. As well as like Mackey said, increasing protecting with teamwork implementation (Making protect usefull, etc.). So I agree fully with Mackey's feedback here.
2.) Pets being ignored in RvR. No innate resists, low damage output even fully buffed, and the fact that you can take out both the pet and the caster by killing just the caster, are causing pets to be ignored in RvR. This is critical because the underhill is supposedly the Enchant Enchanter's primary attack. The pet may be fully buffed, but players only have to kill its owner: a class in cloth with the lowest defense in the game. Furthermore, +con buffs affect a pet's ability to take melee damage; but as lower level, with no resists, pets take considerably more damage from spells and are easily neutralized with CC.
For the most part, we're feeling good where pets stand in RvR, specifically the enchanter pets. No plans to change this yet, but if a compelling case can be made we can look at adding a pet review to our large list of balance issues to work on.
I'll make a case, I should have enough information to help. Note that I agree that pets in regard to melee targets are very potent right now, it's the ease at which mages can eliminate pets (with no resists/low level) that concerns me, as well as some recent findings that resists arent' affecting pet's CC duration in RvR. That might help a good bit. My other concern I'll be making a case about will be the ease at which pets are negated by killing the caster, and if that's a proper concern. This makes robed pet casters primary targets to take down above other casters due to taking out 2 targets for the price of one. Perhaps have the pet last a little bit longer after the caster is dead which will change the priority levels' enchanters/cabalists/BD's/Sorcs/SM's find themselves at. In some extreme cases, I used to never summon a pet as it put me at a higher priority level against other tanks. I don't feel that that's the intent or goal of a pet, but perhaps I'm mistaken. I'll do what I can to make our case known in regard to the two birds with one stone issue.
3.) Immunity to a spell is causing interrupts. Currently if you have an immunity timer to a given spell (Mezz/Root/Stun/Nearsight) that spell can still be cast on you, and while it has no effect to your character, it will continue to interrupt you. Since a spell that you fully resist does not interrupt a caster, it's confusing that a spell you're immune to would. This has become a concern in large battles where AE CC is being cast over and over on a group of players who have become immune to that type of CC by any of the various methods.
The immunity timer was added to the game to prevent people from being chained stunned, rooted, mezzed, or nearsighted. It was not designed to prevent people from being interrupted when attacked. So this is working as intended. You're not immune to that type of attack, you are just immune to the effects of that attack.
We can look into this further if we feel AE CC is causing too many interrupts (perhaps a case could be made that it shouldn't interrupt at all), but the immunity timer is not designed to prevent interrupts.
Definately making a case here. I agree that casted spells should interrupt, BUT, there are situations in RvR that are allowing AE mezz/Stun/root to be too powerfull in negating casters with no ill effects. My primary concern is that you can chain cast AE mezz on a group of casters, and not only can you continue to mezz people who resisted, but this is the only casted interrupting AE spell in the game that doesn't break mezz/root. Plus, targets that run up to help you are immediately mezzed. It's the no ill effects, or downsides from doing this that concerns me, and that tanks once immune to a CC suffer zero ill effects from it, however mages/healers are still negated from it.
4.) Mages are encountering a large number of complete resists in high level/epic PvE encounters. With the changes to the to-hit code in 1.62, mages are finding it incredibly difficult to land spells on high level mobs, often times forsaking their spells to enter combat mode on the target so they can contribute to the raid.
We're looking into identifying exactly where the issue is here. In the tests we've run thus far, and the Live PvE raids many of us have been a part of, it seems as if the to-hit code is working fine. When enough people are attacking a Mob, they seem to be landing their spells as they should.
This is not to say there isn't an issue here, but to point out that it's not as simple as meets the eye. The need to /assist now is far greater then it was before this change, so we really need to be careful to make sure that we address a real problem, and not just an issue with mobs resisting spells when they are being attacked by too few people. I would like to get as much in the way of logs and experiences from the TLs and the community on this to supplement the internal testing we're doing here. If I can nail down some good examples of situations where casters are getting resisted a ton when they absolutely shouldn't be, we'll get it fixed.
Here's where I need your help. Email me some logs @ Tyfud@comcast.net with logs and situations where this is causing problems. Such as Galladora raids. Be sure to specify what level you are, what your current INT is at, what level spell you're using, and how many people are attacking the target (By doing a /who). Same with Dragon raids, and other high level/epic encounters. Legion is another good one. I would also like you to run OOM from casting spells on the target (And more than likely never hitting) and THEN using your staff to attack the target. This way we can compare/contrast on the raid with whats happening compared to the two methods of attack. I'll be doing testing and logs as much as I can too, but anything you guys can send me will help. It's important to send me that info as well as just sending me a log is too vague to make a case with. Thankya
Specline Issues
Enchant :
Enchantment is seen as unviable in RvR, lacking the necessary DPS output to keep up with the superior Mana/Light lines. In every case (except the new pet-only acuity and health proc buffs), another Hib class can provide the same spells. Many enchanters would like more spells that contribute to their group instead of just the pet. A few ideas: Make "Enchanted Armor" and "Beguiling Will" realm castable. Have pet-only item resist buffs, which stack on group-cast resist buffs. Increase the range of a pet's command tether by a small amount based on spec level. A buff, which allows the pet to take a certain amount of HP's worth of damage that the caster receives at the start of a battle, similar to an ablative ability, but it would transfer some damage to the pet's HP pool.
We're looking at maybe adding something to enchantment but am not sure when/if that will make it in. I'll let you know more when we have a better idea on what we're doing.
Good news to hear. It's apparent they know Enchant has issues. Hopefully some of those suggestions will go in. I'll at least be able to add in my 2 cents before the changes go in, making sure it's benifiting the Enchant enchanter as much as possible without overpowering the line
Light:
A very strong line with the addition of the DPS debuff; the only request I'd ask is that there be a final DPS debuff that is set to a higher level than is currently available. The primary issue a light caster faces is resists, which are being reviewed, and so we'll move on until the review is complete. A secondary issue is the attack speed debuff. Many feel that this spell is often not worth the casting, and in some cases detrimental to the Enchanter and their group due to frontloaded melee damage. If the haste effect gained by melee is not scaled however, it will cause their damage to increase significantly. A recommendation would be to have melee damage scale when hasted (current implementation), but only increase the swing time when attack speed debuffed.
We want to adjust how attack speed debuffs are working to make them more favorable to use, specifically addressing the fear of frontloaded damage by debuffed targets. What we're looking at is similar to what you describe here.
Very very glad to hear this. This was a large concern for me, and it's good to know that how I was hoping for it to be implemented will be. If melee damage styled doesn't get scaled from haste, then you're going to have melee doing obscene amounts of damage. However if you scale the damage up with the de-haste you give them more of a benifit with fronloading. The only good suggestion was this, and I'm glad that it's being looked into being implemented how I figured balance wise, it should be. This will also eliminate the debate on whether or not you should throw out an AE debuff, now there's no reason not to. This will also add signifigantly to a light enchanter's RvR arsenal. It's good to see that they were aware of the exact same concern that I pointed out
Mana:
Currently seen as the "Overpowered" spec, this label is given only because of certain bugs that exist. No longer being able to debuff RvR targets into negatives would solve many of these perceptions. I'd like to ask that this change occur in RvR only, as it was never seen as too powerful in PvE and adds groupability and versatility to high end PvE. The FDS (Focus Damage Shield) is also seen as overpowered in PvE while severely lacking in RvR. I'm opposed to moving this to the Enchant line, as that line does not need additional PvE only tools. Instead, balance out the RvR and PvE abilities of this spell. Aside from the PvE changes to the FDS mentioned in the last report/feedback, the focus component should be removed or modified (perhaps a chant), and made single target, realm castable to help its RvR viability.
Mana is very powerful spec and it's difficult to alter it's overpowered nature without fundamentally changing what the enchanter class has been for almost 2 years, which we definitely dislike doing for any class. The four things that really make mana enchanters overpowered is their powerful PBAE, effective baseline pet, baseline stun (affected by debuffs), and baseline DD (affected by debuffs). We're working on a way to address one of those four. We hope to narrow our changes here to one that affects the ability of enchanters to use their light based baseline DD with so much effectiveness despite being specced high in Mana. We'll announce the changes when we put them on Pendragon for testing.
Agreed completely with the feedback here. And I think that if what was snuck onto pendragon for a few patches goes live, it will help alleviate the debuff + nuke concern, and bring the mana line into balance. Not a lot else needs to happen, and I am thankfull that the issue of moving the FDS to enchant seems to have been dropped. It seems that they're also against changing fundamental aspects of a line which has been essentially the same since beta. Good news to hear and I agree wholeheartedly with Mackey's assensment of the mana line as it currently stands.
New Issues
1.) After 1.62 the resist rate/miss rates in RvR and PvE has gone up substantially. There must be some way to allow the block/parry rate to work as intended, without changing the fundamental resist/miss dynamic that every player has become accustomed to since launch date.
See above regarding PvE. If you feel there has been a substantial change in RvR, please start a TL thread on the topic after the dust from the report feedback has settled.
This is difficult to log, since I don't have the ability to run 1.61. If anyone can or has logs of hitting 50th level targets in RvR from pre 1.62 please let me know. I know that the resist rate has gone up, and it's not just after patch jitters. This is something that has been consistant, and I've noticed along with many of you. It changed once the to-hit code changed. Again, email me if you've got any pre 1.62 logs of hitting RvR targets over a decent period of time, and I'll cross-reference them with the post 1.62 logs. This is a large change, and it didn't affect just PvE.
2.) The Ally will stop and cast the health regen spell on every group member every 5-min. This makes it incredibly difficult to keep track of where the pet is, and if he's picked up aggro as you're running around the RvR frontiers. A suggestion would be to either have the health regen an instacast (like the compatriot/zealot's self buffs), or a group buff with a longer duration.
Let's handle this as a bug. Appeal it then follow up with me on it in three weeks.
Will appeal this when I get home.
3.) There seems to be a small change to either the powerpool of robed casters or the way focus items work in the game. It is costing more power to cast the same spells post 1.62.
Nothing has changed that should have caused this. If you can identify the differences, we'll definitely look into it. However, please remember that after every patch, we receive countless reports of how we increased miss rate, resist rate, endurance cost, and power cost, even when we've made no changes what-so-ever to that area.
Once again, I need to ask anyones help who has logs of possible power drains pre 1.61. I know for a fact I was able to cast 22 light nukes (45th level) on a door before I was completely oom. Now I can only cast 18 with just a sliver of mana left. Nothing changed in my equipment from 1.61 to 1.62, so it's obviously the system. I need some help with logs proving the case, otherwise we might not see anything come from this change. It also only seems to have affected robed casters since bards/wardens/druids have not noticed any difference in their power consumption, which leads me to beleive Focus was modified. I have a very old log of casting AF buffs until I ran oom, and then a recent log showing that I couldn't cast as many AF buffs before I was oom. But Focus doesn't affect baseline spells as much as specline, so it's tough to make an acurate case from that. Much appreciated.
Other Issues
1.) The DPS and attack speed debuff should be able to crit with Wild Arcana, however enchanters can't get the WA Realm Ability.
We can look at it in the RA review.
Appealed it as a bug (For the attack speed debuff not critting even with WA), so the primary issue here was that enchanter's didn't get the WA ra, and we have 2 debuffs that should have the potential to crit. I'll bring it up again during the appropriate review
2.) Group casted BT (not PBT) is overwriting caster's self casted BT
Confirm this on Live then bug /appeal. That is not how it should be working.
Appealing on live tonight. I tested this already before submitting the report and it was still behaving this way Friday before I left. I'll make the official bug report though.
3.) A release animation other than death for pets.
Noted for the art team.
Glad to hear this. A longstanding complaint from us, so I'm thankfull the feedback on this was positive
4.) More "Fluff" abilities for pets, such as talking through them, and having them perform emotes.
Noted for the art team. And talk to the RP TL as well. Many TLs have some good ideas on fluff stuff and I'd like to see you all work together and get us a solid list of things to consider adding.
Very glad to hear this, I'll get with the RP TL and throw some ideas past, to see what we can/can't do. At the least, I'd like to see more pet interaction.
5.) Allow the pet summons to be Ground Target based.
Due to potential problems, I don't see this happening.
Figured this was going to be the response, but it was such a popular suggestion I figured I'd go ahead and throw it in there. I can see some exploits with it, and even if made a specable ability it might still be too balance altering. Not dissapointed with this response, just primarily wanted to make sure that it wasn't going to happen in any fashion.
Item Problems
- The Galla Enchanter staff and Galla Enchanter armor when combined goes over the +Hits cap by 60 points. Please replace either the legs or the chest + hits with something more appropriate.
Noted for item team.
Documentation Issues
1.) The description of BAoD on the Herald RA list is slightly incorrect. Please specify that it also affects the "Group"
Noted for the herald communications team.
2.) BAoD Delvs for 35% in game, yet grants 36% in the resist window.
Go ahead and /bug appeal this, tho it will likely need to wait for the RA review to be addressed. 
28/08/2003, 23h57
