[Archmage] Playing the mechanic

[Telen]

The problem with instants reducing casts for all trees is while that would be great for healing and lifetap. Dps needs that cast to timestamp lance fury and your dots for burst. It would also give dps am and shaman an instant kb to add to all their other kiting tools. They dont need it.

[navis]

Well, a lot of serious ideas so far, I don't have nearly as deep of a understanding with my (35/40) AM, but I can share my experience so far..
I pretty much have tried to be a good ST and group healer and just have a bit of int to try not get disrupted too easily for Force attacks.
I find at this level there is no Tactic I would change out other than healing/survival ones.
I think the class is missing something like Rune of Serenity as well a AOE damage dot that don't require a tactic.

I like some of Penril's ideas and also agree to tweak some of the Force/Tranq, may be in order.
Cleansing light - build Tranq and at full Force can aoe cleanse (or something similar).

I don't agree that Heals should ever build Force, (or visa-versa) that's not good idea.. But maybe by using some lifetap spec the same result can be had?

Balance Essense - this is pretty underused for me and could be changed to aoe? I love this idea... /lol
Rain Lord could build possibly build Force or add a small aoe damage to it?

edit
Maybe add Balance Essense to Forked Lancing? Two BE instead of one would be much niceer.

[noisestorm]

It would also give dps am and shaman an instant kb to add to all their other kiting tools. They dont need it.

The knockback would still have a casttime of 1 second and like i said, there is no reason to NOT exclude some spells if theyre deemed too op. But as mentioned before, those were just some simple ideas with not too much thought to it in the first place. The mechanic itself is just sh*t and needs to be reworked into something more fluent. Because i dont believe reworking spells to adapt to a shitty mechanic is a better way...

[Penril]

I don't think the mechanic is that shitty. It is pretty much the same as WE/WH. Think about it.

- WE has some skills that build Frenzies. AM has some skils that build Tranquility/Force
- WE has certain skills which increase their effectiveness the more Frenzies he has. AM has some skills that increase their effectiveness the more Tranquility/Force he has.

The difference:

- WE has a Wounds debuff, a ranged KD, a self-heal and Witchbrew to choose from as a finisher.
- Heal AM can choose from an insta Silence and AoE punt. All his other DPS specs will do crap damage.
- DPS AM has a insta rez. His heal spells will suck, specially assuming the AM has Divine Fury slotted.
- If they decide not to use finishers, the WE can slot Frenzied Mayhem and gain 15% crit. The AM (both in heal and DPS specs) gains nothing by playing at full Tranquility or Force.

So basically, WE has a mechanic that lets him attack and, after a few seconds, rewards him with either 15% crit or a skill with a nasty debuff/burst damage.

The healing-AM, on the other hand, has a mechanic that gives him pretty much nothing if he is just spamming heals. Sure, he has a ST silence and a AoE punt. But what if a groupmate is being heavily focused by rdps? Or the enemy melee train is immune? The punt won't save him. The silence won't save him. In fact, if the AM stops spamming heals and wastes half a second in using a silence or punt, his ally might die. He is basically stuck at 5 Tranquility and gains nothing from it.

This is the reason why i suggested to make Healing Energy build Force. Healing Energy would be like Slice (Witch Elf) building Force (Blood Lust). And then the AM can choose from a variety of "finishers" (group heal, ST big heal, etc).

But now that i mentioned Frenzied Mayhem, maybe something like that could be implemented into the AM mechanic instead? For example, AM gains 3% heal crit for each point of Tranquility he has (and 3% less chance to be disrupted for every point of Force he has). Something like that.

[noisestorm]

But now that i mentioned Frenzied Mayhem, maybe something like that could be implemented into the AM mechanic instead? For example, AM gains 3% heal crit for each point of Tranquility he has (and 3% less chance to be disrupted for every point of Force he has). Something like that.

Unlike the WH/WE a heal AM has literally no incentive in actually using his Tranqu if he receives 15% bonus healcrit from it. I am still holding onto the fact that the Mechanic itself is simply sh*t and needs to be reworked into something else. No superficial bandaid will heal the crap that lies beneath it...

[Penril]

He would still use his Silence, AoE punt or Heal debuff. All of those consume Tranquility. And the +3% crit was only an example. It could be something else, or nothing at all and just change one of their shitty tactics into something similar to FM (i.e. a tactic that gives them a certain benefit when staying at full Tranq/Force).

To me, the mechanic itself is not that bad and we only need to rework some skills/tactics to benefit from it. To you, the mechanic is terrible and needs to be fully reworked. Agree to disagree?

[Telen]

I currently do use the mechanic.I think benefit to holding force would mean really you had to.
Really if you want the mechanic to be an active part of the playstyle you want that benefit from being closer to 0 than sitting at five. Using as mythic once suggested having Vaul benefit from either. So as you heal that benefit starts to reduce and you got to use shield or lifetap to get back to 15% crit. Or dps and you have to heal or lifetap to get that 15% strikethrough.

So you choose at what point the mounting effectiveness of an out of spec Vaul DPS or Heal makes getting back that 15% worth it. I think 2% per point would be enough to make using the force at 4 or 5 worth it to get back to 0.

[chaoscode]

I play a AM as my main and I use the AOE heal with a pocket healer on me and 4 tanks for keep defenses. Using the aoe push back is great if they try pushing. Set this type of def up in a few groups and u got one hard tank wall to beat down. At lvl 35 RVR 35 I can heal about 1.1k aoe and 2k+ crit. This has worked pretty well. The largest issue I have using this is the lack of LOS on some casters abilities and I start taking damage from things that should not hit me.

[gungnir08]

I currently do use the mechanic.I think benefit to holding force would mean really you had to.
Really if you want the mechanic to be an active part of the playstyle you want that benefit from being closer to 0 than sitting at five. Using as mythic once suggested having Vaul benefit from either. So as you heal that benefit starts to reduce and you got to use shield or lifetap to get back to 15% crit. Or dps and you have to heal or lifetap to get that 15% strikethrough.

So you choose at what point the mounting effectiveness of an out of spec Vaul DPS or Heal makes getting back that 15% worth it. I think 2% per point would be enough to make using the force at 4 or 5 worth it to get back to 0.

That's an intriguing idea about having Vaul move you in the opposite direction of your currently built-up resource rather than straight up consuming all of your Tranquility, like Asuryan spells currently do. It also makes some sense, given many of the lifetaps in that tree and their hybrid healing-damage nature.

With respect to fixing the mechanic, I think that if the developers here decide to rework the current mechanic, as opposed to making a new one from the ground up, the first thing that needs to change is the number of points that correspond to a maximum on either side of the spectrum.

If the mechanic is to put value upon twisting spells of different alignments in order to maximize its effect, the first thing that needs to happen is to decrease the opportunity cost of doing so. This would accomplish that objective by decreasing the number of GCDs one would have to commit to actually using the mechanic properly.

I think I mentioned this in another thread a while back, but what do you guys think about a simple -2, -1, 0, 1, 2 scale? Negative values could be Tranquility, while positive values would be Force, at least as we know them now. Of course, the effects of casting spells at the point of maximum mechanic contribution may need to be tweaked and/or dialed down a bit, but I think that this change could help make the mechanic more accessible to on-demand use, and therefore more attractive to exploit regularly.

This change would also increase the impact of changing Vaul's lifetaps, as per Telen's suggestion, since moving a single point in either direction would suddenly correspond to a much larger movement on the number line in general, so to speak.

I know that this conversation isn't likely to accomplish anything in-game, but it's fun to theorycraft like this when the opportunity arises.

[Jail]

I am sure Tentonhammer can help you out. He knows everything about every class ingame.