Necro/Mage rebalancing going in the next patch (hopefully 11/6)

Cool, this went live. I'll have to do some checking out on it. One thing I've noticed that I haven't noticed since forever, but it looks like +damage worn effects do not effect elemental barrage.
 
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With the improvement of elemental barrage and bladewind (which were good!) there no longer seem to be any big point dps wise in doing rains at raids whatsoever?

A suggested solution would be to change rains to hit all targets in the struck area for a base value and then to spread the rest of the dmg equally across all targets. This would make more sense for a rain and make rains more useable (Which they risk not being now).

This is blatantly untrue. As a high tier mage and someone who can do basic arithmetic:

Damage Per cast Time of Mage Spells on a tier13 mage:
Archaic = 1240
Relic Rain = 1,067
Elemental Barrage = 962
Maelstrom of Electricity = 936

Before these changes the high end mage rotation was Archaic -> Relic -> Maelstrom of electricity. After these changes the rotation is Archaic -> Relic -> Elemental barrage this is a very minor change as far as overall dps is concerned, but the gap between barrage and maelstrom is theoretically a bit larger because I lack disease/cold focuses and the proper elemental tomes.
 
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(also unless it gets changed or got changed recently, you should probably look at silent halls spells...)

For necro at least. Also wizards dump on the other classes aoe wise in XP, you can just cycle jylls.
 
On helping mages AoE targets better, could change rains to not hit mez'd mobs, increase the range radius of the rain to hit a moderate grouping of mobs, increase total targets hit from 2 to 3-6 and spread total spell damage evenly among targets hit.
 
I always thought mages was suppose to shine vs 2-3 mobs. When we get to 6, Wizards are kings once more.
Necro are very good vs 2 raid targets (targets that lives more than 1-2 minute), even more so with the new faster cast times.

Ran my necro in an exp group, I couldn't really tell much difference. I did get aggro off the tank more than usual, but might just be the that he was boxing, and I wasn't assisting.
Mana still ran out super fast. In an exp group with like 2k+ dps from the rest of the group, with my necro trien to keep up by stacking 2-3 dots and setting up a pet lifetap near death, followed by AE (biggest nuke) + Spellsurge, but the mob dies before the dots do their payload, it's really rough on mana.
I invested 2k+ mana, doing so so damage, and even with my attempt to stack up 3 dot ticks + pet copy lifetap + AE + Spellsurge, a Wizard criting for 10k, just ruins my day very often, and I need all kills to keep up this sort of DPS attempt. Or my timing is just off, I try to Deflux with 2x Taesh bracers, hoping it will hit the spot, but some mage or bst pet, heck even my own cleric, takes the kill shot.

I have pointed this out before, and I suggested a solution with Dot's costing a %age of its total mana on cast, and then the rest is payed as the dots tick away. If a dot don't go full cycle (overwritten or target dies, dispell ect), the caster is not taxed full mana cost.
Either way, I like and apriciate this change, but it's not enough for me to play my necro, for anything but raids, and perhaps groups where everyone wants a necro for mana kills, and everyone backs off so I have a chance to get them.

Really hope the rest of the necro community feels differently though, cause necro is a fun and very challenging class to play.
I was actually thinking about a magic or unresistable AE with a clockwise push back (something fast, like 0.5 sec cast time, 20 seconds recast), to spread out mobs, so necros have a chance to actually see what targets they are dotting.
As is, I just toggle thrue them, but it is hard with 3+ mobs stacked on top of each other, with the exact same names. And if I fail at telling them apart, well I'm throwing away lots of mana per mistake I make :p


TL: DR
Thanks for the dot buff, much apriciated; but my necro is not comming out to play.

P.S.
As Rymy pointed out, I missed the part that this is in regards to raids.
Ignore this "feedback".
 
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RE Snake:

From my original post:
My primary re-balances revolve around making the Mage/Necro more desirable in a raid setting instead of the current situation which in 95% of situations, always favors the Wizard

I never mentioned anything about significant changes while grouping and I don't really plan to discuss this more since it's not directly relevant to the changes made. But I think based on your analysis, if you've concluded necros aren't very good in groups based on 1 group situation where you had a wizard and where the rest of your group members didn't prioritize the benefits of one of the strongest class tomes in the game, I don't think that's a very accurate analysis overall of how well necros do in group.

But back to the topic at hand, I still feel mages while in a better state, still might still be considered "Junior Wizards".
 
Thank you Rymy,

Been playing Tparim since 2005 apparently and the Magician class has seen some changes in the past. All for the better I'd same in some degree.

Tested all sort's of gear change's and different mobs to see the outcome in Barrage and Healing. Yes, rains will always be the issue around crowd control. But that's the nature of the game and always has been. I don't think making rains completely avoid a mezzed mob is a solution just to make the game easier. What you have done with these single target based nukes will save that predicament. They don't take ages to cast and even Barrage's boost with our Illusion to bring our DPS back up with our steady rains DPS feel's like a great balance.

And thank you x1000 for that little change in healing. I know that has been a continued discussion over the years about Magician's being able to chain heal their pet where a healer standing by their side wouldn't be needed. But this has caused many sad days when you've just watched your pet's health deplete and you've burned all your clickies, AA's, and your heal is still greyed out. Wave gooodbye and look the other way...

Keep up the good work, I like what you're doing.
 
Great Patch Rymy (and other patch maker folk). I did a few mobs in deepshade and it's refreshing to be able to actually play the class like it was pre-level cap. the summoning thing mostly, but the dot efficiency was great on the dps.
 
Part 2 going in next patch. This should conclude this re-balance unless tweaks are needed. Grey is what is current, green is what will be going in next patch.

Summary:
-Necro dps is looking much better. Runic pet is cool but could use a little love.
-Mage dps is better but I wanted to look at enhancing some of the mage's pet / utility to further justify a mage's existence, as well as improve some of the lesser used pets/elemental forms. Most of these changes will help lower level mages more.

Part 2a: The mage pet. Mage pet procs are boring. 90% of the time they will just choose the one with the best dmg, aka the fire pet. Additionally, the jump to runic fire pet damage is very huge. Smoothed that transition a bit. There are 3 different main "pets" the mage gets.

A) Pre-relic pet procs:
Fire: 5dmg + 1dmg per level >> 5 dmg + 4dmg per level
Air: 2 second stun, 5 dmg + .5dmg per pet level >> 5 dmg + 2dmg per level
Water: 20% slow, 5 dmg+ .5dmg per level >> 5dmg + 3dmg per level
Earth: 10 second root >> Some of the utility from this pet is rooting a target without doing damage so I didn't want to take away this utility. Adding a hate proc that does: 5 hate + 1 hate per level

B) Relic pet proc: 1 second stun, 15% slow, 190dmg >> 325dmg

C) Runic pet procs:
Fire: 600dmg
Air: 5 second stun 200dmg >> 425dmg
Water: 35% slow, 250dmg >> 500dmg
Earth: 50% snare >> 75dmg DOT component

Part 2b: The mage elemental form. The way the mage works is that you can cast an elemental form to enhance the mage and its pet. These changes are mostly focused on granting the mage a little more raid utility at higher levels, and also trying to give some small bumps to the mostly unused forms.

Air: Add a short duration proc that increases nuke dmg by 2%, see invis, 45 MR >> Nuke damage to 4%.
Earth: Ensnare proc, 200hp, 43ac, 45 PR >> 43 -> 100ac, 200hp -> 400hp (Lower ranks of these elemental forms increased proportionally).
Fire: 30ds, 15% overhaste, 200attack, 45FR >> 25% overhaste (Lower ranks of these elemental forms increased proportionally).
Water 2800, circle of healing proc, waterbreathing, 20hp regen, 45 CR >> 20 -> 40 hp regen (Lower ranks of these elemental forms increased proportionally).

Part 2c: Mage Utility. Mages utility has some cool aspects but drops off the higher level. The mod rod could use an upgrade.

Spell: Modulating Rod: Level 44 -> 34. (This spell will replace the current level 44 version).
NEW Spell: Modulative Conjuring: Level 50, "Ancient" Removed from name. Essentially the group version obtained earlier by mages. Obtainable from vendors.
Spell: Ancient: Greater Modulative Conjuring: Level 60. Summons a greater modulating rod 800 mana for 800hp). The greater and normal mod rods will have a shared cooldown. (This spell will replace the current ancient.)

Part 2d: Monster Summoning line of spells. The monster summoning line of spells are useless when mobs AE them and broken in long fights where they can summon multiple swarm pets over and over and keep stacking them on top of each other. The following changes are to make them more standardized (aka not useless in most situations and not broken in another).

1) Increase the health dramatically per level.
2) They will now go away after 2 minutes.
3) All the monster summoning lines will now share a cooldown.


Part 2e: Necro runic pet. The necro runic pet is unique but in most situations will run out of mana too fast do do anything useful.
Increased mana pool and flowing thought to scale much better from the necro's mana/flowing thought.
 
There's also 1 follow-up note I learned while playing with these mechanics: The mage elemental form your runic pet receives and the element form your pet is in are 2 independent entities. For pre-relic and runic pets, there are essentially 16 different combinations. For example:
  1. Be in water form.
  2. Cast a runic pet. (You now have a water pet).
  3. Cast fire form. (Your pet now is still be a "water" pet, but it gains the benefits of being in fire elemental form. Also, it will look like a fire pet. Yes, this is confusing).
Also note for example you can cast a runic air pet and enhance it with air elemental form, you just have to wait until the elemental form cooldown is up. This mechanic is easy to do for non-runic pets since the elemental form you're in has no bearing on the pet you create.

Also note, I believe (haven't tested this) that if you soulbound an elemental illusion and then cast a runic pet, your pet should should inherit the elemental form you were in when summoning the pet.
 
Part 2d: Monster Summoning line of spells. The monster summoning line of spells are useless when mobs AE them and broken in long fights where they can summon multiple swarm pets over and over and keep stacking them on top of each other. The following changes are to make them more standardized (aka not useless in most situations and not broken in another).

1) Increase the health dramatically per level.
2) They will now go away after 2 minutes.
3) All the monster summoning lines will now share a cooldown.

Is there any chance, if it's not a ton of work as this isn't a major issue. The size of MS3 could get toned down in size or even just something else with a smaller body. I actually rarely use MS3 because it's such a giant beast and can get in the way of everything visually often.

Again, thank you for all these updates. They're amazing! Can't wait to try them out.
 
Is there any chance, if it's not a ton of work as this isn't a major issue. The size of MS3 could get toned down in size or even just something else with a smaller body. I actually rarely use MS3 because it's such a giant beast and can get in the way of everything visually often.

Again, thank you for all these updates. They're amazing! Can't wait to try them out.
Think you mean 4, 3 is the orc. 4 is the cyclops. Also if you read his notes they'll share a CD after the patch
 
With the change making them last 2 minutes, what are the chances we can have the CD match the same so we can use a monster summon immediately again once it poofs? That way it allows us to always have one going during longer fights, just have to cast again after 2 minutes, but still not be able to stack them? Does that sound fair or was the intention to reduce dps from a summoned monster on longer fights?
 
The point was to buff them but not making them overpowered. Currently runic 1 pet crumples over from an aoe but on fights where there's none or its a frontal (like taesh 2.0) and multiples can be up it's pretty damn good. This is a good all around change to make them less situational, not sure why you'd be complaining?
 
Since the initial plan was to help make Necro's more efficient with sustained DPS, could I suggest we lessen the gap between the efficiency of DoT spells Necro's get? After running some numbers I've come up with the following list based on my damage per mana point:

Scitterpox - 325 mana - 5590 damage - 17.2
Claws of the Chill - 480 mana - 7750 damage - 16.15
Marlow's Cremation - 465 mana - 6126 damage - 13.17
Grip of Kaezul - 920 mana - 10618 damage - 11.54
Hand of Kaezul - 470 mana - 4120 damage - 8.77
Funeral Pyre of Malath - 450 mana - 3882 damage - 8.63
Caress of Sivyana - 505 mana - 3491 damage - 6.91

So topping the list now is Scitterpox (Being 10 ticks should make this the most efficient DoT) and at the bottom we have Caress of Sivyana (Being 4 ticks with a DD component makes sense at being the lowest). I would like to propose the following changes:

Replace the initial DD on Caress of Sivyana with the same damage as Torbin's Venom Blast and increase DoT damage as the same value as "Toxin" from Cryotoxin.
Caress of Sivyana - 505 mana - 5152 damage - 10.2

Give Hand/Spirit of Kaezul DoT's an initial DD lifetap that's half the current DD from R2, and remove the DD from Grip of Kaezul as it will gain the DD's from casting the two spells. Lower the mana to make it more efficient to cast the single spells over Grip.
Hand/Spirit of Kaezul - 440 mana - 5309 damage - 12.07

Lower mana cost on Funeral Pyre of Malath to make it slightly more efficient than the suggested Caress of Sivyana.
Funeral Pyre of Malath - 360 mana - 3882 damage - 10.78

Lower mana on Marlow's Cremation to bridge the gap between Archaic and Funeral Pyre of Malath
Marlow's Cremation - 440 - 6426 damage - 14.60

Scitterpox - 325 mana - 5590 damage - 17.2
Claws of the Chill - 480 mana - 7750 damage - 16.15
Marlow's Cremation - 440 mana - 6126 damage - 14.60
Grip of Kaezul - 920 mana - 10618 damage - 11.54
Hand of Kaezul - 440 mana - 5309 damage - 12.07
Funeral Pyre of Malath - 360 mana - 3882 damage - 10.78
Caress of Sivyana - 505 mana - 5152 damage - 10.20
 
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