fransisco
Well-known member
Considering the thread in general about problems with spells, I thought I'd point out the issues with mage spells for 121-125. Specifically why the bad ones are bad, and what can be pruned if needed. While there are other spells that need improving, the purpose here is to point out the stinkers that wouldn't be missed much. I've included a few ideas to fix them, but otherwise just cut them and replace with new ideas.
summon valorous servant and valorous minion:
I forget these lines exist they are so bad. Both of these spells suffering from the same issues. They are single charge items that summon a pet that does soo little damage its not worth the bother. Even though you can summon them once while out of combat (and eschew spell gem issues), they do so little damage its not worth the bother. To be worthwhile, they both need to do significantly more damage, and have more charges.
Ideas to fix: 10 charges, and WAY more damage. Even with 10 charges, their damage is a rounding error on parses and not worth the time currently
Igneous veil:
A short term buff that just isn't worth the bother. It has stacking issues for SKs (dunno about warriors) and cannot be used on pets due to proccing issues. Lastly
the small amount of damage (which cannot be focused) makes this not worth the bother to maintain. Short duration buffs should be good enough to be worth the bother of managing.
Ideas to fix: increase duration, increase damage.
aegis of valorforged:
While this reduces the damage of 9 hits by 75k, it has a base casting time of 6 seconds, which makes it totally impractical in combat.
The best use of this (And the similar auspice of usira) is emergency shielding to catch up on pet healing. However a 6 second casting time makes this as useful as summoned bandages.
Ideas to fix: reduce casting time to 1 second or prune as a duplicate
Boiling Skin (and the summoned orb):
4 hit damage shields have no place in the game. They fill the same niche as a nuke, so in order for us to cast this, it would need to do MORE damage than the worst nuke in our rotation, which happens to be the spear. However ALL nukes are focused, critable, lucky crits, have adps, and have can lead to many sympathetic procs. Even with more damage, boiling skin would need to be good enough to be worth the bother of buffing a player mid combat as well.
Add to this, even if the damage was reasonable (like 5 million per hit), most raiders still wouldn't like it because they wouldn't be attributed the damage on the parse.
Ideas to fix: Heavily increase damage. With mob hp where they are, 4 20k hits that cannot crit is laughable. Add 2 zeros onto the end of this damage. As well, let the summoned orb be droppable. Letting a tank click the orb for themselves would make this interesting (assuming the damage was more than they can bash for).
Grant ring of perfected levitation:
This doesn't even cast perfected levitation.... though even if it did it would still be worthless. As a level 121 spell, this ranks as one of the worst spells in everquest.
Dismantle the unnatural:
The damage is abysmal. Its a very hard to use spell - 95% of mobs cannot be affected by it. Thus it should the biggest nuke in the game to make up for it. The rare chance to use it should excite us.
ideas to fix: the base damage needs to be significantly better than our best general purpose nuke. Like 2-3x better than Of Many, so its fun to use in the rare situations when it can be used.
Promised Reconstitution:
If you need to heal your pet, waiting 18 seconds for something to happen isn't useful.
Rain spells - magic and fire:
They are just bad. Due to the crit cap on rains, they simply cannot compete with our single target spells. Easy targets for pruning
Unused fire nukes:
Gonna lump these together. They simply don't make the cut, significantly less damage but still cause a global cooldown to use. Thus not worth it. This includes:
bolt of molten dacite, cremating sands, and ruination of sand. I guess bolt is useful in the orb (which should be EVERY level up), but the sand spells were worthless even back in the 60s
ideas of fix: new nukes that compete with our rotation, making us reconsider what to use. Or give us AA's to cast them so we avoid a gcd and weaving becomes more interesting
reciprical companion:
this spell is strictly a dps penalty to cast. Pet procs are known to be bad
idea to fix: anything that isn't a pet proc. Turn trolls orange, make druids useful, summon cookies, anything but pet procs
summon voidfrost paradox:
while lvl 119, this will probably be added in the next level up. However this nuke is not focusable and so is just bad. Plus has a tiny amount of charges to boot - 3.
idea to fix: every level up give us a 10 charge fire orb with the new bolt spell
memorial steel malosinera:
We can cast malo as an almost instant AA with no gcd. A 3 second casting time for a terrible nuke to cast malo is not worth the spell slot. easy to prune
Metal/magic spells:
Shock of memorial steel, beam of kukris, and voidstone bolt - If a mage is forced to use these spells because of fire immune mobs, these are all just bad. They don't
work well together in a rotation (shock and bolt), and it always feels bad to use them, they are so much weaker than our fire spells.
Ideas to fix: while steel spells doing less damage than fire makes sense, make them less bad?
summon valorous servant and valorous minion:
I forget these lines exist they are so bad. Both of these spells suffering from the same issues. They are single charge items that summon a pet that does soo little damage its not worth the bother. Even though you can summon them once while out of combat (and eschew spell gem issues), they do so little damage its not worth the bother. To be worthwhile, they both need to do significantly more damage, and have more charges.
Ideas to fix: 10 charges, and WAY more damage. Even with 10 charges, their damage is a rounding error on parses and not worth the time currently
Igneous veil:
A short term buff that just isn't worth the bother. It has stacking issues for SKs (dunno about warriors) and cannot be used on pets due to proccing issues. Lastly
the small amount of damage (which cannot be focused) makes this not worth the bother to maintain. Short duration buffs should be good enough to be worth the bother of managing.
Ideas to fix: increase duration, increase damage.
aegis of valorforged:
While this reduces the damage of 9 hits by 75k, it has a base casting time of 6 seconds, which makes it totally impractical in combat.
The best use of this (And the similar auspice of usira) is emergency shielding to catch up on pet healing. However a 6 second casting time makes this as useful as summoned bandages.
Ideas to fix: reduce casting time to 1 second or prune as a duplicate
Boiling Skin (and the summoned orb):
4 hit damage shields have no place in the game. They fill the same niche as a nuke, so in order for us to cast this, it would need to do MORE damage than the worst nuke in our rotation, which happens to be the spear. However ALL nukes are focused, critable, lucky crits, have adps, and have can lead to many sympathetic procs. Even with more damage, boiling skin would need to be good enough to be worth the bother of buffing a player mid combat as well.
Add to this, even if the damage was reasonable (like 5 million per hit), most raiders still wouldn't like it because they wouldn't be attributed the damage on the parse.
Ideas to fix: Heavily increase damage. With mob hp where they are, 4 20k hits that cannot crit is laughable. Add 2 zeros onto the end of this damage. As well, let the summoned orb be droppable. Letting a tank click the orb for themselves would make this interesting (assuming the damage was more than they can bash for).
Grant ring of perfected levitation:
This doesn't even cast perfected levitation.... though even if it did it would still be worthless. As a level 121 spell, this ranks as one of the worst spells in everquest.
Dismantle the unnatural:
The damage is abysmal. Its a very hard to use spell - 95% of mobs cannot be affected by it. Thus it should the biggest nuke in the game to make up for it. The rare chance to use it should excite us.
ideas to fix: the base damage needs to be significantly better than our best general purpose nuke. Like 2-3x better than Of Many, so its fun to use in the rare situations when it can be used.
Promised Reconstitution:
If you need to heal your pet, waiting 18 seconds for something to happen isn't useful.
Rain spells - magic and fire:
They are just bad. Due to the crit cap on rains, they simply cannot compete with our single target spells. Easy targets for pruning
Unused fire nukes:
Gonna lump these together. They simply don't make the cut, significantly less damage but still cause a global cooldown to use. Thus not worth it. This includes:
bolt of molten dacite, cremating sands, and ruination of sand. I guess bolt is useful in the orb (which should be EVERY level up), but the sand spells were worthless even back in the 60s
ideas of fix: new nukes that compete with our rotation, making us reconsider what to use. Or give us AA's to cast them so we avoid a gcd and weaving becomes more interesting
reciprical companion:
this spell is strictly a dps penalty to cast. Pet procs are known to be bad
idea to fix: anything that isn't a pet proc. Turn trolls orange, make druids useful, summon cookies, anything but pet procs
summon voidfrost paradox:
while lvl 119, this will probably be added in the next level up. However this nuke is not focusable and so is just bad. Plus has a tiny amount of charges to boot - 3.
idea to fix: every level up give us a 10 charge fire orb with the new bolt spell
memorial steel malosinera:
We can cast malo as an almost instant AA with no gcd. A 3 second casting time for a terrible nuke to cast malo is not worth the spell slot. easy to prune
Metal/magic spells:
Shock of memorial steel, beam of kukris, and voidstone bolt - If a mage is forced to use these spells because of fire immune mobs, these are all just bad. They don't
work well together in a rotation (shock and bolt), and it always feels bad to use them, they are so much weaker than our fire spells.
Ideas to fix: while steel spells doing less damage than fire makes sense, make them less bad?
