I would like to start a discussion about Magicians and welcome all my Mod Rod casting companions, and others (I am looking at you enchanters) who have grouped with them some.
My main concern is DPS on a mage and a few other things. This is not a QQ post about mages being bad dps like beastlords (actually bad dps). Mage dps is fine under optimal conditions where the class pet is attacking, the swarm pets are out and not dying to aoes, and the mage is able to use both rains. However, it is uncommon to find these favourable conditions in most high tier fights and I am not asking that we be allowed to do 100% of our max damagae 24/7 either.
First up, mob movement. Since our rains are fixed and land where they were initially cast if the mob moves our mana and dps has just been wasted. At first, I wrote up various scenarios on how this makes us lose dps frequently but the post just got longer. Instead, I will mention two situations. One, where the mob itself, due to a fight mechanic,is constantly on the move and the second, where the fight has to be done so close that the rains hit the caster as well. Wizards, necros, and enchanters (AOD/Somantic Bond) do not have any issues with mob movement and not nearly as much trouble with positioning versus mobs. I would mention Rangers (I guess I just did) but I'll stick to comparison between pure casters.
Thoughts: I doubt anything could/would be done about rains being fixed and landing in the original spot. But, it is a matter of fact that Mages are pretty good at raining down on their foes without ever hurting their allies. Can we have mages not /cut wrist every time they are in close range with rains going...?
Question of curiosity: Why, as a game mechanic, do mages have to be hit with their own rains? What's the purpose? They do not get hit by rains from other mages if multiple in groups/raids.
Second up, enchanter mez (bards and necros go in this category). Lets assume mob movement isn't a problem. The second thing massively decreasing our dps is the need for enchanter mez. The mechanics of higher tier fights go against what the mage class is designed for. Our main chunk of dps comes from the relic and archaic rains. However, a lot of fights need crowd control and it's just not safe to use rains. This happens often enough to the point of being aggravating. The situation can turn ugly if the mage is already using rains and a new mob shows up that wasn't expected and now it's a ping pong fight between Mez/Rain. If there is a mess on hand and mobs need to be burned down one at a time, mages are stuck doing Bladewind/Elemental Barrage.
Thoughts: Since the current trend is to solve all our problems with stances, how about stances that allow us to switch between single target rains/double target rains/cough triple target rains cough. Single target rains will open up a whole new world for us and put mages and enchanters on good terms. If mages are to forever /cut wrist with their own rains than at least this will help alleviate that problem some times. Note that this stance should make spells cost less mana than it currently does with two rains going. Wizards get mana back on kill shots, necros give mana to whole group on kill shots, and enchanters have another mana pool to dip into. We just have a tiny bit of aoe conversion from elemental form so saving some mana here would be nice. Now, rains only hit two targets ever. Pretty choosy rains eh? To be honest, I am throwing the triple target rain stance idea out there because I have always disliked rains just hitting 2 targets. At a little bit higher mana cost, I wouldn't mind being able to hit 3 targets with rains.
Third, mages are not a burn class aside from some situational clickies. We have 2 settings - relic/archaic rains which are slow casting and Bladewind/Elemental Barrage for some meh single target dps. Mages tend to avoid casting single target nukes whenever possible because rains are more efficient for mana vs. dps. If mages have any sort of "burn" ability, I would have to say that it would involve our swarm pets, the AA and the Runic 1, both of which are nearly wiped out to higher tier fights within seconds. Did I mention you cannot cast runic 1 if there is any mezzing going on because that swarm pet rains if multiple targets are on agro list? When you combine the problems listed above with the slow casting of mage spells, you have a not so fun time with an otherwise fun class.
Thoughts: Please make swarm pets not die to AE damage that is everywhere these days. I can understand class pets are beefier and can take some damage but help us with the swarm pets.
Fourth, we have the slowest recovery time after a death and it is much more noticeable during raids and 6mans. It leaves the rest of group or raid waiting on magicians. This is primarily due to summoning and equipping the pet(s). As a mage, a portion of our dps comes out of the class pet and it is a must for us to get them ready. This is not the biggest issue I have but it certainly adds to the annoyance and that quality of sod life we are trying to achieve.
Thoughts: For all pet classes, pets get summoned with our strongest pet related equipment spells and buffs. A /cm addspell ID # for the spells we want the pet to automatically be summoned with.
Lastly, there are very few exceptions where a group/raid will say hm, a mage would be better for this fight than a wizard, enchanter, necro, melee, etc etc. Our stacking isn't as great as the other classes due to the problems I have discussed. We are not in need of any major over hauls, far from it. But if we mages could get some tweaks here and there that would be much appreciated.
Thanks for the reading.
/Yusuke
My main concern is DPS on a mage and a few other things. This is not a QQ post about mages being bad dps like beastlords (actually bad dps). Mage dps is fine under optimal conditions where the class pet is attacking, the swarm pets are out and not dying to aoes, and the mage is able to use both rains. However, it is uncommon to find these favourable conditions in most high tier fights and I am not asking that we be allowed to do 100% of our max damagae 24/7 either.
First up, mob movement. Since our rains are fixed and land where they were initially cast if the mob moves our mana and dps has just been wasted. At first, I wrote up various scenarios on how this makes us lose dps frequently but the post just got longer. Instead, I will mention two situations. One, where the mob itself, due to a fight mechanic,is constantly on the move and the second, where the fight has to be done so close that the rains hit the caster as well. Wizards, necros, and enchanters (AOD/Somantic Bond) do not have any issues with mob movement and not nearly as much trouble with positioning versus mobs. I would mention Rangers (I guess I just did) but I'll stick to comparison between pure casters.
Thoughts: I doubt anything could/would be done about rains being fixed and landing in the original spot. But, it is a matter of fact that Mages are pretty good at raining down on their foes without ever hurting their allies. Can we have mages not /cut wrist every time they are in close range with rains going...?
Question of curiosity: Why, as a game mechanic, do mages have to be hit with their own rains? What's the purpose? They do not get hit by rains from other mages if multiple in groups/raids.
Second up, enchanter mez (bards and necros go in this category). Lets assume mob movement isn't a problem. The second thing massively decreasing our dps is the need for enchanter mez. The mechanics of higher tier fights go against what the mage class is designed for. Our main chunk of dps comes from the relic and archaic rains. However, a lot of fights need crowd control and it's just not safe to use rains. This happens often enough to the point of being aggravating. The situation can turn ugly if the mage is already using rains and a new mob shows up that wasn't expected and now it's a ping pong fight between Mez/Rain. If there is a mess on hand and mobs need to be burned down one at a time, mages are stuck doing Bladewind/Elemental Barrage.
Thoughts: Since the current trend is to solve all our problems with stances, how about stances that allow us to switch between single target rains/double target rains/cough triple target rains cough. Single target rains will open up a whole new world for us and put mages and enchanters on good terms. If mages are to forever /cut wrist with their own rains than at least this will help alleviate that problem some times. Note that this stance should make spells cost less mana than it currently does with two rains going. Wizards get mana back on kill shots, necros give mana to whole group on kill shots, and enchanters have another mana pool to dip into. We just have a tiny bit of aoe conversion from elemental form so saving some mana here would be nice. Now, rains only hit two targets ever. Pretty choosy rains eh? To be honest, I am throwing the triple target rain stance idea out there because I have always disliked rains just hitting 2 targets. At a little bit higher mana cost, I wouldn't mind being able to hit 3 targets with rains.
Third, mages are not a burn class aside from some situational clickies. We have 2 settings - relic/archaic rains which are slow casting and Bladewind/Elemental Barrage for some meh single target dps. Mages tend to avoid casting single target nukes whenever possible because rains are more efficient for mana vs. dps. If mages have any sort of "burn" ability, I would have to say that it would involve our swarm pets, the AA and the Runic 1, both of which are nearly wiped out to higher tier fights within seconds. Did I mention you cannot cast runic 1 if there is any mezzing going on because that swarm pet rains if multiple targets are on agro list? When you combine the problems listed above with the slow casting of mage spells, you have a not so fun time with an otherwise fun class.
Thoughts: Please make swarm pets not die to AE damage that is everywhere these days. I can understand class pets are beefier and can take some damage but help us with the swarm pets.
Fourth, we have the slowest recovery time after a death and it is much more noticeable during raids and 6mans. It leaves the rest of group or raid waiting on magicians. This is primarily due to summoning and equipping the pet(s). As a mage, a portion of our dps comes out of the class pet and it is a must for us to get them ready. This is not the biggest issue I have but it certainly adds to the annoyance and that quality of sod life we are trying to achieve.
Thoughts: For all pet classes, pets get summoned with our strongest pet related equipment spells and buffs. A /cm addspell ID # for the spells we want the pet to automatically be summoned with.
Lastly, there are very few exceptions where a group/raid will say hm, a mage would be better for this fight than a wizard, enchanter, necro, melee, etc etc. Our stacking isn't as great as the other classes due to the problems I have discussed. We are not in need of any major over hauls, far from it. But if we mages could get some tweaks here and there that would be much appreciated.
Thanks for the reading.
/Yusuke
