Post Patch 1 Spell Tests

[chuangpo]

Add them as you got them folks. Once we get it all collected, we'll buy Shrike a Guinness and then make him update his guide...

Changes
Madness - now works! We went and tried it on some Kipee and had great fun with it. Note they'll still chaage at you and maybe even get some attacks in. The main thing to watch out for is getting agro from his friends. You'll do more damage nukeing, but its great for comic relief...

Blind - Appropriately nerfed. Now it seems to actually need a link to make it effective and the success seems to be based on level. No more blinding lvl 200 critters with blind 1. Will require some more testing....

Additions
Concentration - Decreases the Spell interrupton and is added as an Option Stanza. I'm hearing some reports that mages will now get more interruptions, so this may be useful. I have lvl1 but haven't really tried it out yet...

[fiadd]

Creatures are definitely resisting spells a lot more often now - being restricted to casting the lv 100 elemental spells because of the magic amp availability, we found casting on level ~170 kippee would resist cold spells about 70% of the time (resist as in no damage message, not lowered damage).

I tried some link spells on level 50 yubos (using level 50 off affl spells and level 60 def affliction spells) - links formed about 50% of the time, tended to break in only a few combat rounds. Not sure if the creature beating on me is causing the link to break more often.

from what I observed:
blind does what it claims now - creatures have reduced accuracy and you can hit them more for max damage with it on.
madness works, kind of, in a way - it seems that even with the link in place there's still a check every attack and the higher the monster level is compared to the spell the less chance it will hit itself. Using the level 50 madness a level 12 yubo would hit itself at least 50% of the time, a level 50 yubo maybe 10% of the time, if that.
root works the same as before patch, except that you have to get the link first.
stun - same as root, didn't have someone else to beat on the mob to check if it's easier to hit while stunned.
fear - have to get the link for it to work
sleep - still worthless as it's a stun which can be broken by someone else doing damage to it

The biggest problem is that these all now need links to form, so are really only useful in groups, but you can only cast them reliably on creatures the level of the spell or below, which is somewhat silly to try fighting in a group. With the current progression of spells, you'll have times in your career when the highest level spell you can cast in these lines is less than your current level, so your xp will be abysmal. I think the spell mechanics are good, but they need to increase the level range the spells will work on, so that a level 100 mage can have a good chance at affecting a level 120-130 creature.

The level 100 missile/off affl template is still giving you xp only for elemental - this really needs to be fixed now.

[gralen]

The biggest problem is that these all now need links to form, so are really only useful in groups, but you can only cast them reliably on creatures the level of the spell or below, which is somewhat silly to try fighting in a group. With the current progression of spells, you'll have times in your career when the highest level spell you can cast in these lines is less than your current level, so your xp will be abysmal. I think the spell mechanics are good, but they need to increase the level range the spells will work on, so that a level 100 mage can have a good chance at affecting a level 120-130 creature.

Found similar problems but for some scenarios it's even worse: Sprightly Mektoubs (lvl50) resist Fear 4 cast by a lvl 51 Def Aff Mage over 80% of the time. Apparently you have to have Fear 5 (lvl55) to deal with these critters now but you can't get def aff magic xp because you can't link. Catch 22.

[brucejdc]

Found similar problems but for some scenarios it's even worse: Sprightly Mektoubs (lvl50) resist Fear 4 cast by a lvl 51 Def Aff Mage over 80% of the time. Apparently you have to have Fear 5 (lvl55) to deal with these critters now but you can't get def aff magic xp because you can't link. Catch 22.

Same probleme at higher lvl, using 140 dmg spells, i'll get resisted around 60% by 140-150 mobs, as we usually hunt 200+ mob the resist is more near 90%!

For now my only concern in fight isnt to help the team but to get at least 1 succefull spell to get the exp...

[jjm152]

Same probleme at higher lvl, using 140 dmg spells, i'll get resisted around 60% by 140-150 mobs, as we usually hunt 200+ mob the resist is more near 90%!

For now my only concern in fight isnt to help the team but to get at least 1 succefull spell to get the exp...

I tried pointing this out on the general boards but just got flamed to cinders and had people insinuate that I didn't know what I was doing

Right now I'm in the position of having none of my offensive affliction/defensive affliction spells working at all when I team with my guild mates. My nukes also rarely work, if I am lucky I will land 1 in 5.

Yes, I realize that the monsters are higher level than me... and I shouldn't be soloing them, but I'm not. I'm in a full team. Using just healing and melee fighting they were defeating things. I felt like I was the only person in the team that couldn't contribute in some way... unless I healed.

I am not a healer

All I want at this point is to be able to even team with my friends. This patch has basically taken the solo game and the team game away from my character. I have nothing left to do except harvest and craft. It really stinks.

Please don't flame me for this! I got enough of that on the general forums

[mallory]

I tried pointing this out on the general boards but just got flamed to cinders and had people insinuate that I didn't know what I was doing
<snip>

All I want at this point is to be able to even team with my friends. This patch has basically taken the solo game and the team game away from my character. I have nothing left to do except harvest and craft. It really stinks.

Please don't flame me for this! I got enough of that on the general forums

Wel, that makes two of at least that don't know what we're doing then jjm152, because I'm finding the exact same thing. I know a lot of mages are. It seems almost impossible to level your defensive/offensive affliction if you let it fall much more than a couple of levels behind your offensive skill. On the plus side though, at least soloing got easier for mages. Elemental magic is a breeze to level now. Except I don't want to level it anymore because then it makes it even harder to level the affliction skills! Aaargh!

I just have to hope that the Devs aren't done with tweaking yet and we see some more changes sooner rather than later. I can't believe they want to destroy grouping, given the amount of damage they've done to melee soloing...