In our quest for epic, we have to kill a high lvl mob in KK named Undertow. Undertow is lvl 49 and the epic can NOT solo it. When Undertow is Dire Charmed, he makes a far better pet and the epic, and this is WITHOUT buffs.
Now, let's think about ANY lvl 49 mob in Luclin. All the mobs have tremendous amounts of hit points and after one of them is Dire Charmed, DS'd, and Buffed, not much stops it.
Personally, my view of the epic pet is a bit off from the CURRENT real thing. As difficult as it is, it SHOULD backstab (replacing water pets), it should obviously stun, and nuke. It should also NOT have 3K hps, but more like 5K. The damage shield is OK-at best. For those who don't know, tanks can get DS's in excess of 3x that of the epic. The largest change I thing should be made is the epic pet should regen FAR faster than any other pet; at least 2x faster.
As it is atm, I'm attempting to go though our guild and group with folks in small groups to show them what the epic is REALLY good for. Since verant appears to have never played a mage to lvl 60 and done these quests, I believe it's my responsibility to show folks what I can do.
Anyone who doesn't know, in FG, an epic mage lvl 59 can solo TWO of the Deep Cavern Lotus's while most other lvl 60 toons can't solo ONE. On the other hand, almost ALL other classes can solo a Fire Giant in Sol B, except the mage and wizard. I still think it's INSANE that magic won't work unless you're in melee range. Did verant install a dampening field? It can't be lack of risk. Imaging the risk you're under if you are in the Fire Giant spawning area solo to begin with.
Pathing is a truely simple thing. If a pet is following you, have the pet FOLLOW YOU...step by step. Don't let ANYTHING get in its way. If we stop and make a 90 degree turn in a tight space, allow the pet to go THROUGH the way...ANYTHING that's between him and his master. If a pet is not directly following, and out of a 10' range, have it run like any mob would. This sounds like a perfectly acceptable fix to me, as it would prevent many of the stair/slope problems that exist in many zones. This would make us a bit more tolerated on planes raids.
I certainly do not believe anyone at verant is stupid, but please show some common sense and just implement some fixes to KNOWN problems.
A Little Mage Q & A with Alan
Here are a few answers to the burning Mage questions from Alan on Developer's Corner today.
I think the mages in this game have waited long enough. And now the quotes from the Fan Faire are even more disturbing.
Explain your passion for hating mages?
I can't explain it because we don't hate mages. I can't even imagine how you could think such things. There is no reason nor point to any one here 'hating' any class. We don't.
First off - why are so many zones non-Call of the Hero compatible?
Because the use of Call of the Hero in those zones allows characters to skip content that we do not wish to be skipped.
Grodin is quoted as saying he wished they never made the spell. Well that makes us mages hopeful for anything doesn't it? You made it. Now use it.
Well, based on the fact that Magicians don't like it when we disable the use of the spell in a few zones, and the fact that allowing the spell to work in those zones invalidates the whole risk/reward concept in the zone, I can certainly understand how the existence of this spell could be seen as troublesome.
However, we are not prepared to allow this one spell to prevent us from implementing interesting content. As I've said before, we'd rather disable one spell in a few zones than never explore content that that spell would invalidate.
It's not like we do much else. We have basically 2 nukes - fire/magic (some places those are useless), pet pathing is no good almost everywhere (no one wants you to use them thanks to that.)
Indeed, some NPCs are practically immune to either fire or magic. Very rarely, however, are both of those magic types highly resisted. And pet pathing isn't perfect, but it certainly isn't as bad as you make it sound.
It leaves us two things. Mod rods and CoH.
Mod Rods - well thats nice. Use my mana (which I can't use on nukes/pets anyway) for someone else. Effective yet boring.
Use your nukes and your pets. As I said, there are very few places where you can't use them.
CoH - better. I can get members into the battle who could not log in earlier due to good reasons. Effective, perfect etc.
This was the desired use of this spell, to let members of your raid join late. Sadly, that isn't the only use for the spell.
Secondly - You increase the drop rate on Magi P`Tasa in hate. Wonderful!! But now let's look at something else said. We don't want many mage epics floating around. But other classes you do? If they are epic make them somewhat equal.
Are you asking us to reduce the power of your epic?
The mage epic is hard, that's true. But it is hard because it's an excellent epic.
You told us to try things out before asking you about them. Well we have. We are upset, you are making mages a pointless class to play. And we have been asking - just give us a reason.
Havneq - 57 mage Tribunal
Mages are not a pointless class at all.
We'll certainly review them when we look at all the caster issues in the near future. And I'm absolutely willing to hear about your concerns. I would like to urge you all, however, to try to avoid exaggeration. Focus on specifics and solutions.
Fixes for the current mage problems, please consider.
First let me start off by saying this, when you increased the Melee of all of classes, rogue, monk, sk/pal, warriors, Bards you forgot the one class that relies on a pet as their main form of damage. Please seriously consider changing them(mage pets) to another table of damage. not making them hit for more damage, but hitting more than 50% of the time.
Next let me give a few suggestions for alternate class skills. The first i would like to adress is Mass Group Buff, This skill was given to a class that has 1 line of buffs in the entire game. In place of mass group buff: How about pet casting mastery? this would be a great opposite in place of spell casting fury mastery that wizards recieve. Pet will spawn with 3/11/20 more % of hp, ac, str, dex, instead of the normal pet template? maybe at level 3 the pet will have a chance to Crit like normal melee?
Another Skill that needs to be looked into is Frenzied burnout.. Suggestions: Increase the buff duration to 32 minutes. The current buff duration is 36 seconds and a recast of 72 minutes, chances to flurry and rampage, and with no explosion of damage at the end as is described in the advanced skills explanation. In its current form This skill is not completly worthless, but if you'll compare what its supposed to do with other class effects like enchanter dire charm, and the necro undead charm it falls way way short.
Thanks
Parsalin D'ayl
Tunare server
Let me start by responding to you last point first.
Frenzied Burnout is bugged. The explosion isn't working properly. We're trying to fix that.
Admittedly, Mass Group Buff isn't as useful to Mages as others. I'm not sure we can do something like you described as Pet Casting Mastery. I'm not sure that we can add power to pets like that. Even the focus pets don't really work that way. But I'll pass it on.
We didn’t really forget pets when we did the melee balancing. Pets have to be evaluated in conjunction with the caster and his spells. Evaluating pets will go hand in hand with the caster balancing that we're undertaking.
Pirotes wrote:
Absor,
I've been playing Everquest before Kunark came out at a time when you had to raid to camp the Sol B Efreeti. Recently I have been wondering what happened to class balance. As a Mage I am horrified by Dire Charm. I worked hard to get my epic and it's effect is outdone by some guy who exp farmed for less time than I camped Quillmane for. I could have sworn that it was a mage's ability to have the best pets and now a class with better mana regen, stuns and messes also has a higher damage output than me. I have seen enchanters charm mobs that hit for 120+ with far more hp than mine, who can buff their pets just as well as I do and slow mobs to boot.
I'm not calling for a nerf of dire charm, but I think mages deserve to have the best pets. If enchanters are going to be able to charm mobs, we should be able to make pets which can outdo their damage.
I would love to have some specific examples of NPCs that can be charmed using Dire Charm that are as powerful as you claim. I need specifics in order to be able to research what you claim.
Alan