Just when you thought they couldn't do any more to Spirit Masters...

[Roo Stercogburn]

This might apply to Cabalists, possibly Sorcs, I don't know. SM's just got a big kick in the teeth with 1.50.

Mez effectiveness gets reduced, ok, I can see the point of that. Mez resists get increased, that too. Tanks get endurance boosts, self heals and things that make them more combat effective. These too are nice toys to get and help make melee fights take longer.

Hmm, if you're a caster, the only chance you have is to keep the enemy at bay. Thats what mez and root is all about.

General caster realm abilities give us a faster power regen (of use outside fights, not really during) and a little extra damage on spells.
Concentration for non-interuption of spells - nice but not great: by time you are getting attacked close up your getting damaged so fast that won't matter too much. Quickcast timer reset? Nice, not great. Will get you out of a hole once in a while, but not going to change that much in pitched battles.

Every single SpiritMaster-specific realm ability is pet based. Here's why they are a bunch of abilities that will rarely if ever get used:

1) NOBODY in RvR is stupid enough to go for the pet. They always go for the caster. Pet is useless.

2) Sever The Tether can now remove your pet from the field of battle. All those spec points in pet (both level and ra)... wasted. 8 seconds to resummon pet... your dead while trying to. Pointless.

3) Pet cannot kill an even con oppnent in RvR. If they had some snare ability to hold him there, possibly. If you could tackle RvR opponent like PvE (pet holds agro so long as you stick to debuffs and so forth and no dd) you might have a chance. Reaslistically, opponent comes straight at you and again ignores pet.

4) Mez resistances, purge etc. SM is mezzer and lifetapper. (Ignoring future patches for rez and area nuke) Mez effectiveness reduced without any compensation in other areas. Remember that the SM has been underpowered since day 1 in RvR. Solo PvE god, RvR limited use (Keep raids and scaring backstabbers only main areas where they shine).

5) Most of the abilities that have been given to other classes directly combat the effectiveness of SMs. It's been made harder for SMs to affect enemies, yet easier for enemies to affect SMs.

6) In a future patch SMs get a pbae nuke. Thanes are always complaining that they can't use their area nukes in RvR because it breaks mez. Lets give a mez class the ability to nullify themselves. Nicely thought out that one.

7) Don't mention ranged area mez. The cure mez and purge abilities decrease the effectiveness of this when it comes to SMs. Mez is the common deciding factor in battles so I have no problem with purge and cure abilities to prevent the mez/pick-them-off-one-by-one battles. Its the fact that so late in the day a ranged mez ability is given to SMs just as its effectiveness is taken away.

8) Spirit Pets no longer able to enter keeps. The spirit pet is a ghost. Ghosts are known for their abilities to walk through walls (in literature and film, not real life). So. A caster class that can summon ghosts but the ghost cannot do what Casper can do with ease. Other classes will be able to charm Bloodletters that can climb walls, enter keeps and kill the defenders. SMs can no longer send in pet? Nice balancing. Keep raids was an area where we were good. Ability removed.

From DAY ONE the Spirit Master has needed some group friendly spells and abilities. We can be good in groups (debuff on pull, backup heals, dd on mob), but give a group a choice between a runie and an SM and the SM gets at best a polite apology.

How about a group lifetap? Enemy lifetapped and heal split between group? How about an area lifetap that affects a group of enemies? Not a major change to the playstyle of the class, but a group benefit that would be appreciated and help a class that's had difficulties because a) not many know how to play properly and b) the benefits to a group are not readily apparent. (Debuffing a mob is hard to explain to many. I usually have to sit out a pull and watch the group suffer before they see the difference and I'm not keen to do this when it takes a full team effort to take down most of the stuff that gets pulled by groups. I've watched a LOT of SMs play their chars and they treat them as runies without pbt and long range attacks).

This isn't a complaint about a lack of new toys, this is pointing out that the benefits are not there but the damage to the class is great. The effectiveness of the class has been damaged by the abilities given to others with no real compensations. A subtler nerf than most but yet another reason that there are only 5 lvl50 SMs on Prydwen and you're not likely to see that many more (5 more on way that I know of, none others that are in the 35+ range)

All the RA stuff that is specific to SMs is only of use in PvE and even there doesn't increase the class's group-friendliness.

Abilities:
Minion Control: Your pets take 3% less experience per level gained in this ability.

At level 50, who cares.

Wild Minion: Grants 5% chance for a pet to critical hit per level of this ability.

Enemies don't attack pet, they attack you. You're dead before the pet can do enough damage regardless. Ability bypassed.

Mastery of the Art: Additional 3% per level casting speed when casting spells. Please note that the minimum allowed spell casting timer is 2 seconds – this ability will not allow you to go below this hard cap.

Most SM spells are 2 second cast. Useless.

Whip of Encouragement: Your pet moves at twice normal speed for 60 seconds.

Useful for getting pet to enemy so they can sever the tether quicker.

Excited Frenzy: Your pet attacks at 50% faster than normal for 30 seconds

If enemy is blue or green con POSSIBLY is useful. Against even con foe, you're still dead. Remember that pet doesn't do fast damage but steady damage so in PvE it works, but not RvR.

I think with the addition of realm abilities, Mythic have probably given Spirit Masters the final killer blow. I can only assume that they were added as a 'nice idea' and because its a less played class, nobody bothered to check how useful they would be AND they didn't weigh up the negative consequences of all the abilities handed out to other classes.


I would be happy to admit to being wrong if someone can point out how?

 

[Danya]

Cabalists get pretty much the same deal.
Sever the tether is a mentalist only RA btw, so you only need worry when faced with mentalists (not exactly swarms of them). Of course it still doesn't fix the other problem SMs have... mez the pet, and kill the SM.

 

[old.Noita]

My 2Euros worth:

Mezz effectiveness, having RvRd most of today (patch day) I havent noticed my group, single target or root spells having any less effect than before. The same people resist them now as did before in general and I still manage to catch many in my sticky web. Example: 8 Albs camping Ygg gate late tonight, 4 of us, me only mezzer...result...8 dead Albs...0 dead Middies. All Albs either rooted or mezzed, taken out 1 at a time. Worked a treat, I got 4 kills and about 2k RPs

Faster power regen...FANTASTIC... I spent on Aug Acuity II, Serenity IV, and Mastery of Magery II, xtra piety and dmg with MoM means my base dmg has gone thru the roof (Im Dark Specc to level) and with Serenity IV I have my own PoX, which stacks with healer PoX btw and has cut my DT by 50% at least!

Mastery of Concentration, in conjunction with AoEdds upcoming, especially in keep defence, looks great, but agree...otherwise its of VERY limited value. As casters are usually a tank/stealthers first priority in RvR we dont last too long when being battered about.

QC timer...agree, a bit of a nothing really.

Sever the tether...VERY limited, how many mentalists will bother spending the points necessary to get this when they have better things to spend their points on? Few I bet...dont think this is a worry.

Pet cannot kill an even con opponent in RvR? What? I have 8 points in summoning and mine does it regularly...last night Krissy...Alb caster...orange con to me so probably purple to my pet...she mezzed me...missed my pet...pet ran off killed her dead! Tonight in DF, some Albs camping Mid DF Entrance...I spotted the cleric...yellow con...sent in pet...pet prevented him from casting and got him to 50% before Durgi and I finished him off. I dont know if my pet would have soloed him but I wouldnt bet totally against it either!

Agree SMs are underpowered but........

(Keep raids and scaring backstabbers only main areas where they shine). ????????????

You are kidding right? A few weeks ago I soloed 2 red con Albs at Ygg gates, pet kept caster at bay while I nuked the Tank to death and then went for caster mate. A few days later I soloed Red con (at the time) Aevar then me Bodond and Foadon finished his 2 mates off. Under the right circumstances, SMs are as RvR effective in ANY situation, be it open field RvR, MGs, Keeps take/defence etc etc. If you get the right circumstances and the right oponent you win if the reverse prevails you lose. Its as much down to luck and making your own as it is to any other factor, in my opinion. And this goes for every class in the game.

PBAoEdd...excellent...High DMG table...but agree, limited use...can see it being essential in keep defence...2 SMs with it in a Lord Room with 331 dmg!! One such Hibbie caster at Blendrake I think, a few weeks ago kept 16 Middies at bay with AoEdd by doing exactly that. However, one of the reasons Thane AE is berated in RvR is that its DMG is negligble outside of its absolute centre, and is seen as breaking a mezz for almost 0 gain... SM AEdd will be on a far higher dmg table and will be more damage effective at the higher levels than the comparable Thane/Runie AE. Also note, its PB so its a different tool for a different job/circumstance and will be effective in areas where other AEs arent.

Ranged area mezz....yes please Dont forget, just because someone has purge or de-mezz doesnt mean they cant be mezzed again, and not everyone you come across will have purge, its on a 30min timer I think (or 15 cant remember), to get purge you have to spend 10 RA points, thats an entire realm level of points. Its a lot to spend on a single item, and really speaking, only those with heaps of RA'pts will get it and they are likely to be more mezz resistant anyway. Personally I cant wait to get a CC spell that will allow me to have a chance of mezzing people without having to take enormous risks by getting up close and personal with a 300 rad PBAoE mezz. I believe this comes in the Dark specc line...again great...Dark specc SMs will now be able to share the burden of healers in CC, both in RvR and PvE. Sure it may not be as effective post 1.50 as it could have been pre 1.50, and yes maybe it has come a tad too late but as far as Im concerned, if I can mezz just one person in a crowd 1500 distance away then its been a good expenditure of mana/power whatever. And I think everyone agrees that mezz has been overpowered and has been too much of a match winner but as I said above, my existing mezzes arent really noticably less effective than they were before this patch and I hope this new mezz spell will be the same.

LOL....ghosts not being able to walk through walls.... hmmmm.... how ludicrous is this? When I first heard about this I thought it was a wind up...but obviously not...we are after all SPIRITmasters and NOT SOLIDmasters!!!! FFS Mythic...WAKE UP!!!!!!!! You really cant give us a Ghost and deny us its *Ghostliness* Can you?

SM specific RA's well...yeah they are a bit of a let down and are PvE centric, even then they are of VERY limited use from what I can see. I certainly wouldnt waste any points on them, but then Im quite used to having a shite pet and have adapted my game to compensate for its shortcomings. Personally, I like my SM, I think she is a powerful caster with a great deal to offer groups, RvR or PvE. Yes we can debuff and yes we can nuke, I seriously out damage higher level tanks and I certainly dont consider my SM to be a runie without a bolt or pbt...at the end of the day bolts are VERY limited in use PvE or RvR...Long range pulling PvE otherwise it gets blocked by an attacker and the same in RvR unless you get a clear shot at someone strayed from the herd, or wandering round soloish. What some runies offer amongst other things is pbt, and that is pretty essential to a grp, and I see the logic in having pbt Runies over SMs in Tank focussed grps especially when there is only one Healer/Shammy in the group. Pbt saves lives and saves the healer a great deal of work.

Roo: I think you have painted an unfairly bleak picture of Spiritmasters here and one that certainly wont encourage more people to play this admittedly underplayed class. Apparently according to Mobius and others, there are at least 15 SMs between 40 and 50 and I know of many more in their mid 30's. Its also nice to see many people creating SM alts now and I cant help thinking that its down to people like you, Belorfyn, Xiantrec, Wilda and Zchez who have shown that despite many shortcomings, Spiritmasters can be a really good class to play with many things to offer in many different circumstances.

Possible fixes? Well as I said Im pretty happy with my SM, the only thing I would like would be a pet the same level or close to my own like other *Pet Owning* classes in other Realms. Apart from that, maybe see hidden....considering we as casters are usually pretty high on a stealthers hit list or....considering the fact that some Tank classes can now spend RA'pts and get a root/snare maybe we should get a move or two for our staves? But, these things will never come, so I just keep playing, keep compensating and keep enjoying Noita. Shes great fun and she certainly didnt get 130,000 realm points from keep defence

Nothing above represents anything other than my opinion and is not intended as a slight or criticism of anyone holding a contrary view.

 

[kr0n]

Noita dont brag with your gimp stories Id still beat ya anytime

 

[dunderklumpen]

jikes... this resistm mezz and mezz nerfing SUCKS:.. i am lucky if 1/3 of my mezz sticks.. regarldless con.. i had a graycon resist my me yesterday!:... ffs its sick.. Skalds survive only by their mezz :/.

 

[old.Revz]

Giant simulcrum > a ghost

 

[Solid]

this patch and future patches dont effect whether mezz sticks at all.

Why are peopel goign on about omg my mez dont stick as much? its nothign to do with any stat and mythic has not changed Mez Stick chances. It is and always has been level based.

Roo I feel for SM's, on US a group of SM's copied their chars to Pendragon and started a guild called "Fix My Class" and sent daily emails to mythic askign for the fixes they desired.

It seems to be workign as they have had response from mythicn aknowledging 80% of the concerns are valid.

IMO Ra should not be confined to a spec line, they should be universal to the class and be as useful regardless how you spec, it seems SM's have a lot of pet buff RA's when Pets are of limited use in RvR.

I would have liked to see a group lifetap, or a GT AoE trap liek the runies get, but a lifeTap one.

We can only hope

 

[Danya]

Originally posted by old.Noita
Possible fixes? Well as I said Im pretty happy with my SM, the only thing I would like would be a pet the same level or close to my own like other *Pet Owning* classes in other Realms.

Um, druids get a 75% level pet all others get an 88% pet (including SMs). The only classes to get yellow pets are people with charm and cabailists new realm ability. And charm is a whole different thing from a pet you can pop out of the air anywhere.

 

[Old Nicodemus]

Nothing new here really.

Go have a look at the US boards and all of your concerns have already been aired. One reason why we are getting new spells in the upcomming patches was because of the general lack of ability that SM's were percieved to have.

Solid is right about mezzes. I was in malmo last night mezzing the normal bad puppies of the lair, I've worked out that I can mezz them about 75% of the time. Was still the case last night.

Dannyn is also right, we don't need to have equal con Pets. What we DO need is a longer range for our commands. If you want a better pet, spec summoning and get better buffs. Would help though if summoning actually had any decent spells in it.

My 2 pence worth is that if I wanted to deal Uber damage I would have been a Runie. I wanted to play a Spiritmaster for the challenge. I respect all those that have gone full Darkness and I applaude them the skill they demonstrate in RvR. However if Mythic had actually thought about our class a bit more then more people would not specc purely in one aspect of it. The class should be renamed Darkmaster as that sadly seems to be the only thing people bother with.

Nicodemus
Spiritmaster of over 40 Winters
Non Uber Darkness specced Spiritmaster

 

[SilverHood]

at least your not paladins

 

[trigali]

I don't know, call me crazy but although she is only 20, I'm in love with my SM.

In PvE it's a great soloing character, which presents the added value in my eye of requiering a little bit more subtelty when playing it than pure melee characters (no offense to tanks ).

In a group, I have actually been in situations when I am the one who saves the healer's butt thanks to our limited ability to heal.

When specced Suppression (which I plan on doing), the combo of single and AE debuffs (when possible) that stack give me a 90% success chance against a solo mob, if not more.

We all agree the pet is pretty useless but I still find it really good to at worse deflect the aggro away from me, at best actually handle an add on his own.

I was grouped the other day with a skald, and we could chain pull orange mobs and take on reds with no problems, and got little downtime too.

I am yet to test Cili in RvR (I'll go say hi in Thidranki tonight, see you there ) but look forward to working with a healer: her group mezz plus my AE debuffs should be a nice combo, allowing (hopefully) all tin-heads and tree-huggers to be picked up on by one by our tanks.

I actually like my SM much better than my gimped SB !

 

[Danya]

Debuffs break mez btw, so mez + ae debuff could get messy if you don't get it right.
I definitely agree with the commands thing, my charm spell has longer range than the pet commands, nice work mythic!

 

[trigali]

Good point. I root pull of course, not mezz pull... so in that scenario I manage to embarass myself again.

Still. I love Cili. Plus she is cute !

 

[Eliz]

What SM's did get tho was the most beautiful epic armor of em all.

 

[old.Belorfyn]

Not gonna make long post I'll just comment about some of the things.

The thing about quickcast is not the faster casting, atleast not for me. It's the fact that it is not interruptable unless mezzed or paralyzed during casting.
Quickcast + lifetap has saved my life more times than I can count and new 2nd quickcast ability (which I have) is great.

Roo. You didn't mention that in your post so maybe you don't know about that. It's worth trying if you didn't

Serenity too, I think, is great.

Both spiritmaster only abilities (Whip of Encouragement and frenzy thingy) would be great but they don't work. The speed buff on spirit goes off when it goes into combat. Else it would be great when someone is chasing you and both have sprinted (= spirit has fallen behind).

And about enemies not attacking spirit in combat : If they can't catch you (as they can't when spirit is attacking them = no speed and you use sprint), they'll have to fight the spirit. And they do.
Spirit seems to be quite nice in melee. I don't think it should be able to solo high levels because there's also the spiritmaster and his nukes. Would be kinda unfair don't you think.

 

[Freia]

Originally posted by old.Noita
My 2Euros worth:

Mezz effectiveness, having RvRd most of today (patch day) I havent noticed my group, single target or root spells having any less effect than before. The same people resist them now as did before in general and I still manage to catch many in my sticky web. Example: 8 Albs camping Ygg gate late tonight, 4 of us, me only mezzer

huh?? ok im only level 42 but common!
my ae bites some times you know..

this is offtopic but i would like to add that the two other mids were a 50 thane (Thundar) and a 40 warrior (Cid) and all albs but one were red to me. it was one of the funniest times i've ever had playing daoc.
more!! more! give!!!

 

[Quemine]

Mastery of Concentration sounds like a nice RA to have when you're a darkness specced SM, you can keep casting those lifetaps for another 15 seconds when someone is hitting you...

That's the first RA I'm gonna get, serenity and mystic crystal lore sounds like two other good options. Now I just need a couple 100k realmpoints...


Quemine / Cui

 

[old.Second]

you should do like theurgs do=)

i send of the pets while hes running at me(in your case its send pet and lots of dots) and then run like hell=)

last time i checked the pet dont stand still but runs after the bugger and hits him in the back. And while u run he gets DOT'ed. Whoever is stupid enough to stand still and watch the pet kill someone in rvr? hit and run is the clue

HIT'n'RUN hehe

Like i did to Iziz a few lvls ago when she was veeery red to me

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

One of the reasons a lot of changes won't have been seen yet is because people are taking a lot of time to check what the Realm Abilities do before making the big decision what to choose. It will be over the next few weeks before the changes are more obviously apparant.

I did know qc makes a spell practically uninteruptible. Its why SMs are dangerous to backstabbers that can't oneshot us since we just mez them and deal with them at our leisure (when it goes right, it doesn't always )

The problem isn't the basic nature of the class. It's what Mythic have done to it by handing out specific RvR-useful features to nearly every other class in game that makes it harder for SMs to affect them, while making SMs more vulnerable to their attacks and abilities. Thanes complain that their RA are not that great: they are at least useful in RvR. SMs have been handed a plateful of abilites that are ONLY of use in PvE. The irony is that you have to gain those abilities in RvR. SMs will only spec the general caster abilities or generic abilities (as confirmed above by Noita and other SMs I've talked to). The active abilities have ... wait there are no active abilities for SMs. Possibly spec purge so that you are a mezzer that can cure yourself of mez. Even thats not a class specific ability so all classes can get that in addition to their own enemy-affecting abilities.

If you play a Spirit Master at all, its fairly obvious that caster realm abilities were aimed at other casters for the most part and SMs got lumbered with them as they fall into the general caster class. If there wasn't a 2.0 second hard cap on casting, then yes, Mastery of the Art would be useful, but since most SM combat spells are 2.0 sec cast and in future I believe debuffs will be insta... this really is yet another skill to scratch off the list of possibles.

The coming pbae nuke that is coming is appallingly out of character: Runies blow stuff up - its what they do and we love them for it, bless 'em. SMs are meant to be devious and slippery, inhibiting enemies to the benefit of their comrades. An area lifetap, even if the hitpoint transfer ratio was really low would be much more in keeping with the spirit (ahem) of the character. Basically Mythic are taking abilities from Ice Wizards and Healers and quickly bolting them onto Spirit Masters, ignoring the basic nature of the character and any supposed roleplay elements as well.

Appropriate abilites for SMs would be more like:

Channeling - SM can transfer power to friendly caster
Endurance transfer - SM can transfer endurance to realm buddy
Endurance drain - SM drains endurance from enemy (counterbalance to second wind)

Spec Line Skills:

Group Lifetap - Lifetap enemy and heals split between group
Area Lifetap - Lifetap all enemies in area.

These are way more in keeping with the character and actually have some benefit. To be any use in RvR Endurance drain would have to be insta and on timer.

Given the choice between Channeling as above and Minion Control, what would you choose? (Channeling would also help make SMs more group friendly. Healers are always going to zero power at critical moments).

I'd make the group and area lifetaps suppression based, no big surprise there (I'm dark specced in case you think I'm after the toys for myself).

Just to be controversial: SMs should DEFO have access to True Sight. Sorry, but the whole idea is that SMs sense the ebb and flow of life around them and can tap into it to help it or destroy it. True Sight is actually in keeping with that. I'd make it expensive though in RA points. Actually I'd given a true sight-like ability some thought previously and figured that maybe SMs should have a focus spell Sense Spirit, where they have to stand still and do nothing and they can detect hidden characters in a small area, i.e. they can contribute to group defence but making the same group vulnerable to area mez to counterbalance it. Lets face it pbae mez uncovers stealthers anyway so it saves me spamming the hotkey for it at milegates.

You'll notice that out of the RAs I've suggested, only 1 is directed at enemies and even that isn't a damage spell, the rest are group benefits. The spec line skills are suggested as alternative to being a Midgard Ice Wizard in all but name.

But agreed, the armour is very voodoo and cooler than any other epic armour I've seen. I'll now have albs and hibs ganking me so they can get a close up of it.

Mu <coughs>.. hh...mooh<coughs>..muha... nope can't do it today.

 

[Jenkz]

Originally posted by old.Noita
Pet cannot kill an even con opponent in RvR? What? I have 8 points in summoning and mine does it regularly...last night Krissy...Alb caster...orange con to me so probably purple to my pet...she mezzed me...missed my pet...pet ran off killed her dead!

Kris is a bloke btw *has nightmares of Battle Sister!! cries from Laird, shudder*

I agree with you about pet classes. Yellow light enchanter ripped my smite cleric apart when i was about lev 44, i mezzed him + not his pet, pet straight on me whacking away for 30 seconds while he's mezzed.

My infil alt wont touch a yellowcon spiritmaster as them damn pets wont leave stealthers alone

 

[~Mobius~]

you guys write to much!
no wonder my sm is gimped, i dont read this sort of stuff

 

[trigali]

Originally posted by Roo Stercogburn
The problem isn't the basic nature of the class. It's what Mythic have done to it by handing out specific RvR-useful features to nearly every other class in game that makes it harder for SMs to affect them, while making SMs more vulnerable to their attacks and abilities. Thanes complain that their RA are not that great: they are at least useful in RvR. SMs have been handed a plateful of abilites that are ONLY of use in PvE. The irony is that you have to gain those abilities in RvR. SMs will only spec the general caster abilities or generic abilities (as confirmed above by Noita and other SMs I've talked to). The active abilities have ... wait there are no active abilities for SMs. Possibly spec purge so that you are a mezzer that can cure yourself of mez. Even thats not a class specific ability so all classes can get that in addition to their own enemy-affecting abilities.

[...]

Appropriate abilites for SMs would be more like:

Channeling - SM can transfer power to friendly caster
Endurance transfer - SM can transfer endurance to realm buddy
Endurance drain - SM drains endurance from enemy (counterbalance to second wind)

Spec Line Skills:

Group Lifetap - Lifetap enemy and heals split between group
Area Lifetap - Lifetap all enemies in area.

Roo I disagree with some of your post. The Spiritmaster is a very good PvE class, a bit like warrior is a good PvE class. Warriors are harderto play (more frustrating ?) in RvR. In opposition, the SB is a bitch to level up in PvE but the frustrations of PvE are rewarded with great RvR efficiency.

I see SM in the same situation: great PvE player, it is somewhat logical to me that RvR might be a bit tougher for me. It's a fair enough trade off... this is a general comment of course and I don't mean to say I'll spit on any improvement

As to your recommended new skills... I only like the idea of the chanelling skill. But your other propositions transform the SM into a support class such as Shaman or Healer which it definitely is NOT meant to be.

The SM is a fighting class, not a support class and I would not want it any other way.

 

[Old Nicodemus]

The SM is a fighting class, not a support class and I would not want it any other way

Ummmm.


No.


We have always been a support class. We have 2 nukes LOTS of debuffs and a pet.

We mezz, root, heal, debuff, summon pet and do some nukes on the side. If you wanted a fighting class then a Runie would be it. We are a support char, always have been, always will be. Some people spec to darkness and play a runie type but without the benefits of PBT.

Come to think of it Healers, Shammies, Spiritmasters and Runies are all support Chars for the true fighters... the tanks.

Nicodemus

 

[VidX]

Err... ok, how would you say the RA's for Enchanters work out? 'Cause as far as I can see, we are in the same situation as SM's: all our class-specific RA's are pet based.

Personally I think you are seriously underestimatin the effectiveness of MoC (Mastery of Concentration Roo, just wait 'til SM's get the pbaoe, and you will love it. For example: the assassin doesn't kill you with the PA, you can QC your mez (after putting pet on passive) and sit for a while to recover some hp. Then hit the MoC button, and pbaoe the assassin away, or you can do it now with your lifetap.

MoC was the first RA I went for, spent 24 points getting it, and have never had as much fun as I did last night with 10 albs trying to melee me before I pbaoe'ed them to death!

With regards to your pets not going through walls, even though they are ghosts.... if they have no physicla presence, which they would not have to be able to go through walls, how do they do physical damage?

I hate going up against SM's, the only thing I can do is stun the pet and try and kill the caster before the 9 sec stun is up...

And regarding your area effect mez being reduced in effectiveness now, isn't all CC classes in the same boat? The main role of sorcerers is to mez, so are they a dead class? No, because not everyone will choose Purge.

IMO, the only pet class that got an any-way decent pet RA is the Juggernaut RA that Cabbies got, god I'd love a lvl 50 pet...

 

[Old Nicodemus]

Which sort of makes the point Roo was making Vidx.

It seems that most of the RA abilities that are pet related are really quite crap. It seems that the Juggernaut RA should have been an ability that all pet classes got not just one.

With regards to your pets not going through walls, even though they are ghosts.... if they have no physicla presence, which they would not have to be able to go through walls, how do they do physical damage?

Well.... good point... but they do do a Cold DD and a lifetap too so they could at least damage that way.

god I'd love a lvl 50 pet

Ummm... who is that keeps getting those damn Bloodletters? I have been reliably informed they con Orange to a lvl 50!

Nicodemus

 

[Danya]

Bloodletters are charm pets not summonable and hence are closer to the casters level due to lack of all the pet specific buffs / heals / etc. for them.

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

Vidx, yeh Enchanters are in the same boat, I just couldn't remember the name of the Hib summoning class when I created the post (sorry).

SMs are death on legs to backstabbers, but most of them now will spec purge since they know that their staple diet is casters and they finally get something that prevents certain casters from turning the tables on them. I suppose you could counter this with the second quickcast ability, so that you can mez again before they kill you.

Hopefully, there shouldn't be any need to set the pet to passive since 1.50 since the attacking mezzed bug is supposed to be fixed (I think).

My point about the mez effectiveness being reduced is not a complaint against purge, and the coming cure mez abilities. These are good things and will cause variation on the battle field and will end a lot of by-the-numbers battles. I have a problem with a lot being taken away and nothing given back, certainly not in 1.50.

Juggernaut looks really cool - Cabbies should be really happy with that one. I'd still rather have Junior charging around the battlefield after me for the most part - I guess its just what I'm used to. Actually, even a realm ability that let you choose pet and weapon when summoned would be better than what has been given to SMs.

If I was thinking up a Spirit Master equivilent of juggernaut it would be that for a short time, allowed a spirit to posses him, becoming a tank for a short space of time. Perhaps only 30 seconds since that might be really powerful. A zerking caster, how mental would that be? (This is off the top of my head, not thought it all the way through).

How about an ability to partially enter the spirit world, becoming almost ethereal and getting bonus to AF for a short time? (How cool would it look to be semi-visible just like your spirit pet for a short time?)

Imagination was all it took to give something appropriate to the class, instead Mythic just added glorified pet buffs. I genuinely believe little, if any, thought went into realm abilities for Spirit Masters - enchanters too if they are in the same boat.

Muses: I wonder if Shrouded Isles will let SMs summon spirits of the new races.

MoC is on the list of things to get. Possibly purge so I can come out of mez and return the favour. Once mezzed, purge, pbae mez for immediate threats, ranged mez for the rest... cure realm buddies of mez, clean up the enemies.

Will concede the possibilities may be there for the future.

But for now, Mythic have done to Spirit Masters what Tommy Lee did to Pamela Anderson.

 

[old.Noita]

Freia: Sorry was talking about an earlier incident than the one you and I were involved in, unless of course you have changed sex (they were all male) and guild they were all EoO. When I was grpd with you and those you mentioned there were 7 Invaders not the 8 that me and the 3 other EoO members dealt with. I grpd with you maybe an hour or so afterwards. But yes your mezz seemed to be as effective as usual.

Jenkz: Ooops ... apologies to Krissy then...but hey, how was I supposed to know? Dodgy Avalonian hair do, tall, slim and in a dress! Oh sorry r0be You have to admit, its quite an easy mistake to make

 

[old.Eynar_Vega]

Well m8, you're not the only class with a disappointing ra (i mean class-specific ra). Skalds for example have the most disappointing RA of all (and most complained about on US servers too). They get "Fury of the Gods" cost: 14.It's "a group damage-add spell that lasts for 30 seconds and stacks on top of other damage-add effects. This ability is percent-based, so its damage goes up with the user's level. Does not stack with Triple Wield or Rain of Fire/Ice/Annihilation." according to Mythic, but in fact it doesn't stack completely at all. It reduces the normal skald dmg adder by half, and nor does it stack with other classes' dmg adders. And even if it did work, it still wouldn't be an ability to look forward to at all. Besides that, it is completely nullified by other classes' RA, like the cleric's "Bunker of Faith" cost: 10 "A 30 seconds of 50% bonus to group's melee absorption, which means your group will be able to absorb much more damage than normal." So basically they can get an RA that nullifies it (and adds even more since skald's RA doesn't increase dmg output by 50%) for 4 skill points less....

Someone should explain Mythic's theory of logic someday...


uke:

 

[Danya]

Mythic has no logic. RAs are completely broken in so many ways it's astounding. Skalds did need a nerf though