The Drunken Friar

Reports:

1) 11/17/03 - Version 1.66 w/ feedback

2) 8/20/03 - Version 1.64 w/ feedback

3) 6/16/03 - Version 1.62 w/ feedback

4) 3/1/04 - Version 1.68 w/o feedback

Here's the Bonedancer TL report now with feedback (in red). Feel free to discuss the report in specific threads on individual issues.

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Bonedancer TL Report v 1.66 (11/17/03) (feedback 1/20/04)

Overall Concerns

1) PET AI and PATHING

- Ranged pets try finding "ideal" position before attacking.

This is something we're working on addressing. Agreed on it being an issue.

- Archer pets have long delay between redrawing bows reducing their DPS.

We'll need to check their overall DPS and make a damage or speed adjustment (or both) if it's not where it should be.

- Commander will ignore a healer pet being beaten on when defensive.

Defensive currently only defends the caster and the pet itself. I'll check into making it included other BD pets.

- Pathing in SI dungeons, caldera in Delling crater and in ToA underwater leads to extra agroing.

- Healer pets run away when they have agro. That does shake mob on them and just causes more agro getting close to other mobs.

This is very annoying, especially in dungeons where the pets can flee into walls. We're working on a fix.

- Commanders need to melee to have range pets attack. It's counter-productive for BA and Darkness specs.

The above are all bugs which should also be updated in the TL bug forum.


2) BONEDANCERS LACK GROUPABILITY

Suppression has one ABS buff that only benefits non-casters. Bone Army has no spells that can help anyone else in group and darkness only has body debuff which doesn't match any Midgard caster main dmg. The pet AI is often more of a liability in group in PvE. Damage output (especially AE) is lower than both RM and SMs without utility spells such as dmg add, double stat debuffs, PBT, CC, life transfer. Thus there is little incentive to group a BD except for supp ABS buff.

Groupability has come up a lot recently. We have to be careful when handling out groupability bonuses, especially to classes that can solo well. Last thing we want to do is infringe on the turf of support classes who make large sacrifices for their group benefiting abilities.


3) RAID and ToA USEFULNESS

- DoTs, debuffs, snare+dd and lifetap still suffer from higher resists on high level mobs and pets are easily killed and have pathing issues. BDs will often not summon pets in raids or only healers parked behind and will not use spells but use melee staff as it does more damage than spells on mobs above lvl 70. This is frustrating as far as BD's role in raids.

We're looking into this, although it's intended that certain affects will have a tougher chance of landing on a mob for PvE balance reasons.

- ToA mobs that are 100% resistant to CC, or even spells altogether are very frustrating. Especially those immune to main sources of dmg such as cold, matter or body. The quest NPC AI not being sensitive to agro management is an issue for BA/Darkness specs.

Make sure to note any remaining instances of mobs like this in the TL forum so we can look into them. Many of these cases have already been addressed.

- Mobs over lvl 75 are about immune to spells. Role of BD is then to use staff and melee and if supp to provide an ABS buff bot

Mobs are only immune if there are not enough attackers. We're looking into the situation in the hopes of making it less unforgiving.


Spec-specific concerns

1) DARKNESS SPEC ISSUES

- pet AI issues noted above are a problem.
- nuker pets face too high resists in PvE due to their lvl vs level of target. Nuker uses lifetap but doesn't need heal component usually.
- commander running in melee for allowing range pets to attack leads to extra healing downtime
- Baseline DD 50 makes spec nuke removes attractiveness of spec DD+snare (especially on lvl 65+ mobs).
- no group oriented abilities and not much more dmg than supp/dark template.
- AE debuff from debuffer is a hazard. In PvE, it agroes nearby mobs and in RvR, it's uncontrollably breaking mez for little effect.

We can look at the DD+snare in the dark line as well as the AE debuff issue. The other issues have been addressed in above feedback.

2) SUPPRESSION SPEC ISSUES

- power issues due to overlapping of base DD (low specced) with lifetap to get decent DPS in RvR. It's an issue for larger scale RvR where battles last long enough to run out of power

All casting classes have power issues in long lasting large scale battles. We can look into this if you thinl these issues are more significant for BDs.

- focus AE snare: no AE component so gets worse as you gain spec (higher upkeep for no additional effect).
- pet-only ablative buff is too costly at high level for effect.
- ABS buff is very costly in power and no indication on when it drops since cannot be cast on self (self abs is better).
- STR/DEX debuffs on same timer as lifetap

We can look into addressing these.

3) BONE ARMY SPEC ISSUES

- no group-oriented spells and low dmg output in groups
- archer pet has 40% of DPS of soldier pet due to redraw delay
- pet damage supposed to balance for lower DoTs (62% Ment/Cab dmg) doesn't translate into RvR due to survivability of BA BD (no CC or lifetap) and CCing of pets and ease to just ignore them.

As mentioned above, we'll look into these issues and make appropriate adjustments.


Other Issues

Resilience of Death RA is just too weak to be worth having/using. The +100 CON results in about +25% absorb on pets but does nothing to boost pet effectiveness (no extra damage or CC resistance). It does not work primarily because pets are so ineffective that they are not considered serious targets in RvR. Defensive pet buffing is not helping BDs so none use this RA especially with 30 min timer.

Here's the latest TL report incorporating changes since 1.62. Most issues are the same. I didn't not repost my 1.62 report and tried to make further arguments and present new ones for issues such as the weaknesses in BA and Darkness where I disagree with the dev feedback given that things were not planned to be changed.

The last part on pet summoning cost is related to a PM to devs asking them to consider switching minion summoning costs to absolute values instead of % to be more in line with the power of the minion summoned (i.e. a lvl 15 pet shouldn't cost the same power as a lvl 37 minion) and reduce the issue of pet summoning power costs which is especially acute when you lose all of them due to a pathing bug and have to resummon (such as at milegates say).

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Bonedancer TL Report v1.64 (8/20/03)


OVERVIEW

Since 1.62, Bonedancers have seen a few of their minor bugs fixed but the issue of bugs, especially pet AI ones, is still the main problem faced by this class. Other significant issues center around power costs, lack of group attractiveness and clearly defined RvR role as well as the issue of magic resists shared by all casters but specifically related to popular cold, matter and body magic resists.


CONCERNS

1) Pet AI

Aside from the aggressive mode which has been fixed, the AI issues for BD pets remain the same as bug-reported before. Among them, the total lack of synergy of range pets with commander, the pet on doors broken AI, archer DPS, healer not reporting agro, pathing in SI dungeons and Caldera, pet in-fighting due to style effects are still hurting the class.


We're continuing to try and repeat, identify, and fix remaining BD bugs. Keep bug /appealing any new ones you've identified.


2) Low level suppression performance

There is a concern about suppression BD performance in lower BG levels and a gradual range reduction on lower level lifetap spells was proposed to curb this issue while preserving PvE effectiness. Status quo in 1.64. As per previous feedback on the 1.62 TL report, Mythic is looking into this. Update on this process would be nice.


I wish I could say that a lot has happened here, but it hasn't. I know that it's little consolation to those who are affected by this in the BGs, but this has been a lower priority as we focus on high end RvR issues.


3) Bonedancer lack of groupability

Nothing in 1.64 changed anything about group-friendliness of BDs so same issues remain. This ties to the lack of clearly defined role for BDs in groups. Dmg output is unremarkable, support is non-existent except the weak ABS buff at high suppression spec. Survivability is worse than SM or RM (no CC or PBT) for darkness and Bone Army specs. Even suppression survivability is not significantly better than other casters in RvR. It's very good 1-on-1 but due to pace of RvR, usually minor in larger scale battles. As of 1.64, this is still a major issue.


We're been thinking about ways to make BDs contribute more to a group. This is not something to expect in 1.65, however. As far as survivability goes, let's revisit this after 1.65 and take a closer look.


4) Lack of raid role

No change in 1.64 on this issue. The penalty applied to all non-pure DD spells hurt BDs significantly since the only pure DD spell BD have is baseline darkness. All other damaging spells suffer from that penalty. With lack of support, BDs have nothing to do in very high level raids except use their staff and if supp-specced be an ABS buff bot. Due to how focus buffs work currently (clamped at spec level), BDs using the baseline darkness DD are also hit by increased power cost (except the very small population of high dark spec BDs) on an already power inefficient spell line. The choice is then get 100% resisted with lifetaps or DoTs, or get 90+% resisted on dark DD with large power drain.


Please retest the non-pure DD penalty on Pendragon. That should have already been addressed. We don't have any plans to change how focus staves work, so if this is still an issue we'll need to find other solutions.

As of 1.65b, this was not fixed on Pendragon as demonstrated by Cab TL on lifetap and DoTs compared to DDs.


B) SPEC-SPECIFIC ISSUES

1) Darkness

No change in 1.64. I'm not sure how the situation of darkness is not seen as an issue based on how unpopular the spec is. The commander-range pet lack of synergy is critical to this spec. Pets not assisting the commander in all occasions and using CC-breaking AE spells makes thema poor addition to the dark BD arsenal. With no AE dmg, DD+snare spec spell doing no more than baseline spell and absolutely no group support, I cannot see why you'd spec in this line that based purely on dmg spells alone has a lower dmg output than full suppression with secondary dark spec.

It's difficult now to separate the bugs from the design issues with BDs, which is why we've been putting so much emphasis on getting bugs fixed. Also remember that since we have 39 classes and upwards to 200 spec lines, we have to prioritize what we focus on to the best of our ability.


2) Suppression

Apart from healer pets not reporting agro to commander when attacked, and as feedback indicated, this spec is in solid shape. It has the only group support of the class with ABS buff. It however has some power issues mostly due to the fact it has to rely on secondary spec for recastable damage and this secondary line has only spec level-clamped focus bonus. One way to alleviate this power concern would be to make the higher level ABS buff(s) group versions with doubled power cost. It also shows no message when the buff goes down which is annoying considering the BD cannot cast it upon herself (lower than self version and not stacking). Also, the AE focus snare is still broken (no AE).


This is something we've been looking at with regards to group friendliness. Nothing definitive to report yet. As far as the bugs go, make sure they are bug /appealed.

3) Bone Army

I disagree with the feedback in previous report claiming that the utility and survivability of BD in this area prevent changes to this spec. BA survivability in PvE is good due to agro management from pets. But in RvR, the lack of CC or lifetap makes this spec survivability very low. Also, this spec has NO spells castable on group or realm mates offering no utility value. Like most "pet lines", this spec relies on pet dmg to balance for weaker spell dmg. This has no been improved in 1.64 with pets still being easily CCed, killed quickly due to con or simply ignored for their low dmg output. Thus the trade-off pet dmg-spell dmg is unbalanced for BA BDs. Solutions could include making the pets resistant to CC (no impact on PvE) and slight increase in AE DoT dmg (from 62% Cab DoT to 75-80%) which has more use for RvR than PvE. increasing spec group support could be done by making the damage add realm castable (would not impact solo PvE).


While I understand the concern, I have to honestly say this is not something we're going to be focused on in the near term.


C) NEW ISSUES

No new issues resulting from changes in 1.63-1.64.


D) OTHER ISSUES

1) Main bugs remaining (reported and not mentioned above):

- Healer pet can get broken when taking multiple damage As above.
- Minions become unresponsive after commander is sent to attacks doors.
- Suppression lifetap is on same timer as str/dex debuffs.
- pets fighting each other in some circumstances.

color=red]Bug /appeal these.[/color]

2) Power usage for BDs is very high

Regardless of specs (except the less than 1% split dark/BA templates), BDs will be faced with using baseline spells as source of secondary damage, be it DoTs or DDs. The focus effect being clamped at spec level thus hurts most BDs either on DoTs or on DDs resulting in even lower power efficiency. This being a major concern is reflected in the prioritized choice of RAs, many BDs bypassing Mastery of Concentration - RA otherwise considered a must by most casters - in favor of MCL 2+ Raging power. I'd propose the spec limitation on focus to be lifted to alleviate somewhat those concerns. If this is not appropriate due to its effect on other classes, then I'd recommend looking at reducing some of the power costs, such as of the AE DoTs, of pet summoning and of ABS buff (make it group castable). Also of concern brought up to you in recent PM, is the cost of minion pets being the same regardless of minion level/effectiveness and the proposal to switch to absolute power costs.


If there is a problem with power cost, then the solution is to address the root of the problem by reviewing the power costs, not by changing how focus staves work. Write up a report of all the power costs you think are out of whack along with what you think they should be and why, and we'll review it and make any necessary changes.

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My read on the feedback is summed up by:

1) We got to make sure more bugs are removed from the class and so if you experience some, make sure to /appeal them. It's obvious this is a big obstacle to getting anything else changed so this has highest priority still.

2) It seems like the issues with darkness spec are becoming obvious which is a good thing. Once the bugs mostly in pet AI are removed, I think it'll become apparent that spec is still lacking.

3) Group friendliness is also getting looked at, not for 1.65 but it's something that Mythic is aware of for BDs. The more suggestions I got in that area, the better so that I can present options. Suppression is the spec that'd be designed for more support but that's also the most popular spec. Group friendly suggestions for darkness and BA would be very good.

4) Resist rates in raids. This is also getting exposure and we know they are working on it even if it didn't make it in yet but that's something that should be a reality soon, making DoTs and lifetaps and snare+dd landing as much as base DD.

5) Power costs:

The focus situation is working as intended so not much we can do about it. Pet buffs provided some relief but I think there are still a few dark spots:

- the pet ablative buff is a given as extremely costly for what it does at higher levels, could use power cost reduction and/or made group version.
- ABS buff in suppression should get a group version. Using 40% power to cast it on whole group isn't too fun and very costly.
- pet summons. Fixed % for lowbie capped level pets is unfair. Power cost should be commensurate with performance of pet summoned. (i.e. it should take you about as much power to summon 2 top level pets or 3 lower level ones)
- darkness snare+dd. considering darkness pets ruin the snare, cost could be tuned down a bit to make a case for it. May not be needed if power regen chant is introduced in darkness spec though.

Could use some more if you think some spells have wrong power cost.

6) The bad news first. I'm not sure how to present the situation with BA in RvR but I'm not getting thru with devs. The good news then, suppression is probably not gonna get changed even at low levels very soon. Mythic most likely took into account the fact that most casters are relatively more powerful in BGs but their main priority is high-end RvR.

Here's repost of the version 1.62 TL report with Mackey's feedback in bold.

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Bonedancer v1.62 TL Report: (6/16/03)


OVERVIEW

Bonedancers (BDs for short) are cloth casters with widely varying issues depending on their specs. The differences between spec behavior in PvE and RvR are so profound that the issues are often spec specific. Like all cloth casters, BD performance is crucially linked to cold, matter and body magic resists which are at an all time high due to SC and constantly improving gear drops and quests. They have no CC (beside root) but limited ability to withstand melee engagement at cost of low and power-inefficient damage output in suppression and weak DoTs compensated by strong melee pets in bone army.

CONCERNS

1) Pet AI

Each spec has various issues linked to pet behavior. Ranged pets need to find their “ideal” position before starting to cast instead of casting right away. Archer pets have long delay between redrawing their bows reducing their DPS too much. Commander will ignore a healer pet being beaten on by a mob when defensive. Pathing in many SI dungeons, caldera in delling crater often lead to pets dropping below the ground or in the wall trying to position themselves to cast spells or shoot arrows. Healer pets can run away very far when they get agro after healing too much often leading to them running into other mobs. Finally the lack of ability for commanders to sit in defense while ranged pets attack is often counter-productive with the design of the spec (especially darkness spec).

Make sure these are all bug /appealed.

2) Low level suppression performance

This is a major reason for the outcry on suppression bonedancers. They are extremely powerful at low level (BG 0-1) due to scaling of BG-level RvR. They benefit from 1500 range lifetap instant interrupt even with no spec in suppression. There is no reason to give access to such a tool to specs other than full suppression and even then due to pace of RvR, this is an issue in BG 0-1 levels for full suppression bonedancers. To reduce the frustration of other players when faced with supp BDs, the lifetap could be reduced in range at low suppression spec. This would not hurt the caster tanking theme since it’d be usable for melee and would not alter downtime since other longer range spells are used for pulling. Tentatively, range 500 for supp 1,2,4,6,9. 700 for supp 13 and 17, 1000 for lvl 22 and 29 and 1500 for supp 37 and 47.

This is a very good suggestion. Will look into addressing this issue.

3) Bonedancer lack of groupability

Suppression has one ABS high-level buff that only benefits non-casters. Bone Army has no spells that can help anyone else in group and darkness only has body debuff which is of little benefit to other casters in realm except for BD lifetap. The pet AI is often more of a liability in group in PvE. Damage output is lower than both RM and SMs without utility spells such as dmg add, stat debuffs, PBT, CC. Thus there is little incentive to group a BD of any spec either in PvE or RvR. Making some of the pet buffs group/realm-castable could help (dmg add in BA, ablative pet buff in suppression). Letting some pet buffs extend to group could help (haste buff and DS from buffer pet). Adding a group-sharable minor power regen buff to darkness nuker pets could help as well.

Some good suggestions. We have no specific plans to add anything like this for the BD, but do plan on addressing groupability with TOA/RvR expansion.

4) Lack of raid role

This is somewhat of an issue shared with other casters but worsened for BDs who rely on DoTs and lifetaps. Beside darkness DDs, the BD lifetaps and DoTs suffer from extra resist code on lvl 65+ mobs and pets are easily killed and present management issues due to pathing. Many BDs will not summon pets in raids or only healers parked far behind and will not use spells but use melee staff as it does more damage than spells on mobs above lvl 70. This makes those raids an exercise in frustration or in going afk if BD is wiser.

As mentioned, this is a broad issue we are looking into. No hard and fast solutions yet, but definitely something we are aware of and looking to address going forward.

B) SPEC-SPECIFIC ISSUES

1) Darkness

As noted above in pet AI concerns, this specs has issues with both nukers (moving before nuking) and debuffer (AE debuff) pets. Also due to their levels (75% caster max) and the full resist code in PvE, darkness pets (all casters) have very high resist on any yellow and above con mobs. The spec relies on snare+dd for damage output which often lends itself to kiting. Yet, to have pets do any damage, commander has to get in melee (healing downtime) to get nukers/debuffers to cast on mob all of which either do no dmg or break the snare from BD. This is counter-effective. With introduction of base DD doing same damage as snare+dd, the spec lacks reason to spec in past reducing variance in DD. AE debuff should be single target for debuffer. Spec DD could either be higher dmg (209 base) or debuff+dd or remain the same with the addition of an AE spell to justify speccing in darkness.

Other then further bug fixing, we have no plans to change this line.


2) Suppression

Suppression is the most popular spec. PvE is right on target. In RvR, the spec addresses the survival problem faced by all casters but this makes the specs an annoying one to fight . Yet the interruption factor and survival are the only things going for this spec. The DPS of lifetap is the lowest DD of any cloth caster spec spell. To boost damage, supp BDs have to overlap with darkness DD or BA DoTs which doubles the power cost which is a large balancing factor in large scale RvR. Thus supp BDs are great 1-on-1, ok in 8 vs 8 encounters and weak in zerg vs zerg or keeps. The spec suffers from power wasting pet ablative buff at high level (counters about less than half a melee hit on pet for 8% power or so) and bugged focus AE snare (no AE effect at all).

We're currently happy with where this spec stands on the high end level. No plans for changes.


3) Bone Army

PvE is good solo even with broken archer pet. Issues remain in PvE groups due to pet AI but most are related to RvR and to lack of group friendliness. Pet damage just doesn’t translate in RvR because they can be disabled (CC or dmg) so easily due to low con. However, DoTs do not compensate for this. At level 30, DoTs are 75% of Cabalist DoTs and BDs have 2 minion pets of maxxed level (full BA spec). At 50, BD still have 2 max level minions (same relative power) but yet the DoTs drop to 62% Cabalist dmg. With this low DoTs and melee pets being the only viable ones in BA, their performance in RvR is very disappointing. I suggest a boost to 75% Cab DoTs for single target DoTs and 80% for the AE DoT. This AE DoT is used mostly in RvR so it would not affect PvE performance.

We can look into this further. Right now, we want to be very careful with changes to BDs in this area due the class' great survivabilty and utility.


C) NEW ISSUES

Mostly those arising from the new darkness baseline 50 DD in 1.62. This made darkness spec less necessary by making snare+dd 50 too expensive to get for returns. This was a boost of supp/dark templates which are very popular but a hit as far as reason to spec in darkness is concerned. It further emphasizes the need for darkness spec to get improvements outside of snare+dd.

We need to watch this further before making any decisions on it.


D) OTHER ISSUES

- Unique RA does not buff all pets as advertized Bug /appeal
- Pet-only AE buffs do not buff all pets as delve value shows As above.
- Healer pet can get broken when taking multiple damage As above.
- Wild Minion RA not available to BD makes impossible getting Minion control This will be changed.
- Minions become unresponsive after commander is sent to attacks doors Bug /appeal
- Suppression lifetap is on same timer as str/dex debuffs Interesting. Bug /appeal it. This is not by design.
- Focus AE snare has no AE component Bug /appeal this.


Good report. The biggest problems facing this class are the large number of bugs that need to be addressed. We're very leery to make major balance changes to the class until the bugs are all fixed so we don't end up in a where the class will have to be further balanced because we "over balanced" to make up for bugs that were later fixed.

Bonedancer TL Report v 1.68 (3/1/04)


Overall Concerns

1) PET BUGS

- Ranged pets try finding "ideal" position before attacking.

- Commander ignores healer pet being beaten on when defensive.

- Healer pets run away when they have agro. Useless but can agro more mobs or get in walls.

- Commanders need to melee to have range pets attack. Counter-productive for BA and Darkness specs.


2) BONEDANCERS RVR ROLE

There is currently very little need for a BD in RvR.

- low dmg output, no viable AE dmg => RM or SM are better for both in any spec but SM summoning.

- disruption factor => interrupts from spells greatly reduced since 1.68

- pets useless vs assist train = same overall survivability as RM/SM except without CC/PBT.

- no CC beside single target root (AE focus snare broken) => SM better (any spec), RM better in supp line due to AE snare/DD.

- power efficiency => RM or SM have spec spells with higher efficiency. BD pet contribution not making up for that in any line

- only support = ABS buff for supp spec. Supp RM better with croc tear ring for PBT.


3) BD ROLE IN EPIC PVE

- pet spamming in Mid is way behind Alb/Hib and BDs don't contribute much to it.

- DoTs, debuffs, snare+dd and lifetap still suffer from higher resists on high level mobs


Spec-specific concerns

1) DARKNESS SPEC ISSUES

- nuker pets face too high resists in PvE due to their lvl vs level of target. Nuker uses lifetap but doesn't need heal component usually.

- commander running in melee for allowing range pets to attack leads to extra healing downtime

- Baseline DD 50 makes spec nuke removes attractiveness of spec DD+snare (especially on epic mobs).

- no group oriented abilities and not much more dmg than supp/dark template (50 dark/20 supp has lower DPS than 47 supp/26 dark spec).

- AE debuff from debuffer is hard to control and mostly a liability (break Mez, agro).


2) SUPPRESSION SPEC ISSUES

- power issues due to overlapping of base DD (low specced) with lifetap to get decent DPS in RvR.

- focus AE snare: no AE component so gets worse as you gain spec (higher upkeep for no additional effect). Single target focus snare = useless.

- ingle target pet-only ablative buff too costly for effect. Unused.

- ABS buff very costly in power, unusable on casters and no indication on when it drops since cannot be cast on self (self abs is better). No clear indication of dmg reduction doesn't help perception.

- Lifetap performance not affected by ToA casting speed increases or extra dex. Lower relative performance compared to other casters since TOA.


3) BONE ARMY SPEC ISSUES

- pets not assisting commander (spread out and break CC from others in group).

- no group-oriented spells and low dmg output in groups.

- archer pet has 50% of DPS of soldier pet due to redraw delay (as shown in posted logs).

- pet damage supposed to balance for lower DoTs (62% Ment/Cab dmg) doesn't translate into RvR due to survivability of BA BD (no CC or lifetap) and CCing of pets and ease to just ignore them.


New Issues

- BD's role in RvR as interrupt factor decreased significantly due to lowering of spell interrupts to 2 sec.

- Banelord MLAs: only 3 shared timers for RvR and 8/9 useless for PvE.

- Convoker MLAs: Decrease in PvE usefulness due to pets no longer affecting non-enemy realm targets.

- with Magestic Will token effectiveness, little that BDs can bring to raid beside being an ABS bot. No real pet spamming.

- /nohelp prevents receiving heals from healer pets.

- spell damage from nuker pets now showing but not healing spells received.