LU13, Combat Revamp, and ZenFollow

So now that we've been working a while with the changes, we have had a chance to observe and determine what the impact has been. Some changes have been good, some bad, some stealth.

For a Conjurer, I've obtained stronger pets and pet buffs, and my primary root now has a 50 second duration, enabling me to recast a slain pet before the mob gets on me.

But have lost a majority of DoT's that were replaced by low-yield (200-400 damage) DD's. I seem to be doing about the same amount of damage as before, just in DD fashion instead of DoT. This effectively has turned me into a weak Wizard with a pet.
I really enjoyed having the difference in our classes with the different casting styles, but now that has gone away.

What have you noticed about your class or ability to play (or not play)?

Edit: Damn Hamster!!!

Edited, Wed Oct 12 10:22:02 2005 by Mearyk

On my dirge, I can use more buffs, but they are weaker, almost all are missing stats. I can do a massive debuff to my primary damage type, but so many of my abilities are usless in a quick killing group. Lanets are weaker, kinda a weird how my old low level version did a lot more damage then my higher level version, and the 20 seconds is too long for most fights.

Debuffs are much better now, and in long fights they can help, but fights are usually to short to make a difference. The only one I use is the one that is part of my snare to increase the damage of my 2 big attacks.

I dont like how my boons lost their defense increases, but my parry buff replaces that atleast for melees, tough luck casters and healers.

Overall my damage has increased, but my life taps were weakened, and lost my melee power drains. Making our spells one second cast helps a lot, and making our aoe worth casting was needed. Overall the damage increases are right, but I am not sure they are enough. It seems my conj was a much larger safty/damage aspect, and my pred at 16 already seems really high in damage compared to my dirge. But I really need to get them higher to better compare how they play.

I am very happy with the changes and have been from moment one.

My frame of reference includes a 36 warden, a 27 ranger and a 21 fury. All three do at least as well as they did pre LU13 in both solo and small group mode. I haven't been in any full groups since the CU but I can't imagine that that will be a problem for me either.

Speaking specifically, The ranger seems to dish out an even higher level of DPS now while taking less damage. Typically, I put him to work on yellow and white targets, (and a lot of blues), and he has become a solo killing machine! I was concerned at first that without the ability he might be more "risky", but he takes so much less damage now that it has proven to not be an issue.

The warden seems almost unchanged in terms of skill set and technique. The heals are structured a little differently but they do the same job or better. There is a definite improvement in offensive capability, so soloing and duoing are even sweeter than they were before. Typically, I go after white to yellow targets with the warden since I can self heal and groups of blues are also entertaining!

I have heard some high level wardens complain about the changes in our ability to heal "burst damage" but it has not yet become an issue for me.

To date, I have played the least amount of time with my fury. He is only lvl 21 (or maybe 22), so I see from him the fewest changes of the three. What I have been seeing is that while still a healer, he also has fantastic offensive skills and if he continues to develop, may well become my favorite toon to play.

I am so far elated by the changes. My illusionist went from mana battery to petmage/weak wizard/mana battery/debuffer. I have a great pet that stifles, dots, roots, stuns, scales to my level, and benefits from my mental mtitgation debuffs. Plus, i have a great proc buff that i can put on my pet which makes it do decent dmg. My nukes are not very strong, but become respectable when i dot with nightmare and spasm, which reduce mental mitigation in addition to doing dmg. The dots are pretty good, my root saves my life, Mez has shorter duration but short recast, and lasts for the duration if it lands. I can stun a whole group, mez one, root another, mez a third, letting me control an encounter as long as I'm fast.

Fights are tougher, but when you finally solo that (green) heroic, it feels Goooood! I've never been able to solo so well. I got a debuff, i don't have to cast breeze every 15 seconds, And i feel much more helpful in a group setting. Suddenly, I feel sought after. It feels good join a pickup group and have people compliment me on my work. On a good day, i can turn a 5 mob fight into a one at a time slaughter, keeping the rest on ice and buffing the party's mana and attack speed. And folks love my personae. In a FG group, my pet was doing so much work, I could have just /sit and we would have been fine.

I couldn't be happier. I think out of all the classes, we made out the best. As far as my zerker and bard go, they're only L13 each, so i can't talk much about how they changed, since I'm so low lvl. But the stances seem like a good idea, and My L13 Warrior kicks a lot of tail, i plan to duel people with him for food items. Bard doesn't seem much different, just more attacks on the same timer, and no root :(

Ohhhhhh i so feel for you !!!

I too have a templar, level 52 now, and along with monks I think we have been hit hard with the nerf bat. Not all is awful, but here are some changes that i noticed so far :

-I can solo better than before. Templar soloing ? I never thought i would get to solo that much. I must admit that my potency at soloing got higher. The reason I think is that direct heals heal for more, which is great in the first place, but is really not enough compared to all they took away from me (us).

-Mitigation and avoidance went WAY down. I had tanked Cithan for FBSS once in a party that didnt turned out so well at level 50. You can forget incredible overjoy feelings like that from now on. Not that I think that templars should tank, but that one time it was a blast for me, now all encounters are alike to me.

-Direct heals ARE more efficient ; as long as I keep my spells and equipment really up to date (everyone playing more than one character and noticing a bit knows that templars spells are among the most expensive ones on the broker, if not the most expensive ones.) However, i lost most of my group buffs. I only have 2 anymore, and i must admit i always thought it was strange to see a wizard buff more than me. It's even more true now. The group buffs they left are stronger, though. And they turned the other ones into 36 secs AoE buffs.

-Sadly, grouping became very dull to me. Reading through the posts i can see that everyone have a better time soloing, i dont know if the main goal of SOE is to make this game a solo one, but let me at least explain myself. If I am the only healer in group, I have all the problems the templar above me said, and also, with tanks getting hit more often, with vitaes that are now good for nothing or very close to be in heroic encounters, with tanks that have like 14% avoidance, once again if im alone out there to keep someone healthy, then its really all i get to do. They turned an intersting class into a 4 buttons character in heroics encounters that are worth it (not talking about greens here). I barely get to use my debuff line anymore, which makes me a one way character. If another healer is in the group then its not so bad, if not encounters for me are vitae-heal-heal-heal-vitae-heal-heal-(nuke to advance the HO, which quickly becomes the summum of all my night) etc.

-This applies to every class : they really should have told us what spells exactly we were going to lose prior to respec. I wouldnt have messed up so much picking spells thinking that i had better versions still in my book.

All in all, expansion to me was not so good as long as the changes go. I never was a solo fan, and now i end up soloing because it became more fun to me, which makes no sense at all (to me anyway). I understand they wanted to grey everyone out making everyone even more balanced than before (if ever possible), but if class specializations is all about becoming a heal-heal-heal-vitae-heal-heal-heal-vitae-heal-heal-manastone-heal-run out of power thing, im not buying it.

Someone on another board had some thoughts on Templar inadequacy. With the combat update, spells no longer increase in potency as you level. The low levels of a tier before the fourth, for example 41, 42, 43 or 51, 52, 53 are "hell levels" for Templars because we get our upgrades to healing spells around then and our Master II pick at 44. Until we do our spells are not equal to the task at the level we should be fighting.

Since I'm at 41 right now, it could be what I'm experiencing. If this is the situation, I think SOE needs to do some adjustment with spell levels to better distribute upgrades.