and All the MB Wizards Cried..

[EZ_Kinlor]

Manaburn.

In addition to the problem described above, this ability was never intended to be a way for small bands of high level players to hold hostage the advancement of larger numbers of more appropriately leveled people. While this was not the universal case, it has unfortunately happened enough across most servers to where it became a large concern in recent months. The concept of someone looking to complete their epic quest via teamwork and overcoming the odds, only to have their attempts obstructed, in some cases, by small teams of players looking to profit financially from their power, quite frankly, is not a behavior that we wish the game to reinforce.

In the next patch, Wizards who have purchased Manaburn will find that their ability points have been refunded. Please make sure that you have fewer than 25 pooled Ability points.

At that point, they will be able to purchase a new Manaburn if they choose, which has most of the power of the old one. However, the new Manaburn leaves a temporary effect on its target when used that does not stack with other Manaburns. The delay that we will be tuning on the Test Server soon will allow a single target to be manaburned no more frequently than once every minute.

Hopefully, this will bring the ability back in line with the original intent -- A powerful ability that allows a Wizard to do massive short-term damage, but not a method for a group of wizards to destroy powerful creatures with zero risk.

[EZ_JuliettaMantoya]

This is not what kills manaburn. Its the mod rod nerf that makes Manaburn totally worthless.

Juli

[EZ_Samadhi BotS]

I find it hilarious that they said MULTIPLE times that "No, we like MB the way it is, except in PvP." So the LOGICAL assumption is to implement a change that in no way changes the PvP aspect of Manaburn, but completely changes all other aspects of it.

I'm not complaining, just pointing out a little hypocricy. I figured this would come after enough people complained, and I guess they reached the limit. Que sera sera.

[EZ_Jait]

I love these changes. Its almost like you can hear the sucking sound of VI peeps pulling their heads outta their arse.

As a former Magician I hated to see myself resigned to summoning mod rods again and again and again, for CRs for CH's for wizards who claimed

"Dood I cant outdmg j00!"

and felt their mana was more important than my own.

As a Warrior who watched monks HP creep past 5000 and with block easily out tank Warriors. Sure those Monks are rare and far between, but what happens in PoP when they arent?

As for Manaburn and the subject at hand something needed to be done, a single group of wizards can and did take down Dragon encounters which made no sense. I had hoped to see more of a change ala "Mass Distortion" where each following spell has 50% the effect of the first. But VI's change is surprisingly well done. It still allows Wizards to stagger Manaburns in top end encounters, and allows them to use in smaller encounters where 1-2 wizards show up.

Fantastic change.

[EZ_Tubben]

I like the Manaburn nerf most.

Its pathetic to see 12-14 Wizards killing Sontalak, a group of 6 wizards who kill all Kunark Dragon in the same moment they pop to make some money. 2 Groups of Wizards killing Zlandicar .. and so on, and so on.

I like the nerf, really. Not sure about the CH changes, and well. Monks will cry now.. But an monk should not be able to outdamage and warrior, AND tank better than a warrior.

[EZ_mikebridge]

well shucks, once monk's AC gets turned down, they aren't gonna be able to live to pull mobs to the raid anymore. how about them apples?

[EZ_laeriel Arcanium]

/agree samadhi,

The biggest change i see here is that instead of wanting mages at raids, most people wont care either way anymore, since if they want to shorten fights, this makes Dot classes and pet classes less desirable.

Welcome to PoP, lets nerf the last 2 expansions!!

[EZ_Nahsai]

So now with the rods being targetable, instead of nuking, mages will be targetting clerics and others the whole fight to give them rods on demand.

Ya, that's real smart.

Kudos to the monk nerf, looks like all the hate finally got a result. /rude

Enjoy ressing your raid pulling monks more.

[EZ_Krogoxx]

you can blame team mana burn pharming kunark dragongs for this

[EZ_DaginSK]

Cool.. SK pulling will become more prevalent. *grin*

Gravelord Edited by: DaginSK at: 10/8/02 10:30:03 pm

[EZ_Ddarr]

In the voive of Nelson from the Simpsons "Hah hah."

[EZ_Talamyen]

They said they were going to tune their mitigation not ac.

[DarthEnder]

So, does your guild ONLY take wizards, monks and rangers on raids?

I mean, by your explanation, wizards do the most damage, and rangers do the most non-magical damage, and monks do the most melee damage.

So when a mage or necromacer wants to come along does anyone in your guild ever say, 'No, you can't come cause your not the class that does the MOST damage'.

Yeah, people are gonna be indifferent to mages now. Just like people are indifferent to about 10 classes currently. Another mage is more damage being done. You know, instead of meaning more mana for the healers so the fight can go another 20 minutes. When it shouldn't take 20 minutes in the first place.

[EZ_Hester Fizzlecaster]

Being a wizard, I do agree with this nerf to MB. This ability is good for what? Kunark dragons, *some* long fights I guess if you wanna go that way too. But at best it is situational, and not anything game breaking at this current form of the game. Perhaps we are seeing a preview of what is to come about? Short, quick fights where a team of MB wizards would completely trivialize this form of the game.

I hope however that with the mod rod change they do retune encounters. If they leave 1 million HP mobs in the game it would be rather difficult to hold a fight for the amounts of time that we are currently fighting. However, assuming they do lower the HPs of mobs I hope that isn't all they do. They should add new mob abilities and well, basically retune the entire encounter.

[EZ_araxas xev]

I like the manaburn nerf personally, but I think they could've gone about it better.

1. Having an insta-kill on an xp type mob available on a long refresh isn't really overpowering and makes MB a tactical option to use. I *think* this is what they origininally envisioned the ability being used for.

2. MB isn't mana-efficient, on 250k+ hp mobs you're better off casting Sunstrikes or the rare Luclin nukes. It's just cool having a big assed nuke once during a fight like this and not overpowering.

If people agree #1 and #2 aren't problems, but that mana-burn teams trivializing all encounters with mobs that have less than 100k HP is why not just:

Nerf mana burn to not work (or only allow 1 wizard to use it) on mobs between 15k and 100k HP. I'm not a wizard, but I think Giant and Dragon banes are coded this way, they only work on giants and dragons with more than X total HP, so maybe it could be done.

As for the other changes:

CH cap: CH rotations may suck and be the primary balancing consideration for most encounters, but its less braindead than the alternative of having only smaller heals available and everyone spamming them.

monk defense nerf: I think their logic of monks not having as high of damage mitigation as plate tanks makes sense. Pretty indifferent to this.

mod II nerf: I understand their reasoning, but am very skeptical whether they can successfully re-tune every encounter that now relies on this. I don't know if they will break it by making these mobs too hard or too easy but somehow I feel confident they'll find a way to break these sorts of raids one way or the other.

[EZ_Feressa]

You know, when I first saw this post, I thought it was a joke.

Two weeks before PoP comes out, Verant is saying, 'Ok, let's change the way we've been doing things for the past year or more.' Wait, it is a joke.

The manaburn nerf is incidental, though I'm sure bards and warriors will be happy. The modrod nerf is far more serious - thanks for more downtime Verant. The monk nerf is just ludicrous.

Are we really expected to believe that Verant will have all the Luclin encounters retuned to compensate for these changes when they go live? Haha, I think not.

[EZ_Delheru]

You realize the nerf probably isn't there because of the 32k hp dragons right? Verant might be thinking of doing lower hp encounters in PoP... you know, back to the times of Trakanon etc? Obviously with current dps they have to have more than 32k hp, maybe 400k? Huge AE you just can't dodge efficiently and then slug it out.

Except manapools will grow with statcaps going up and new gear coming out and a guild like FoH can field 13 manaburners. Not that I think burning a boss mob for 250k of it's 400k in the first 10sec is trivializing or anything... I would personally like to see such "old school" style encounters so to benefit them, the modrod nerf had to be done.

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent, Rodcet Nife

[EZ_FelwarFR]

Well, if I had spent 12 AA points on mental clarity 3 I'd be pissed that those werent getting refunded along with the 5 points for manaburn. As it is though, I was only going for manaburn as a way to fight fire with fire when other manaburners show up to compete for a mob. This just frees up a lot of points to get things that will increase damage output overall, since you can almost always outdamage manaburn given 60 seconds or more.

Seriously, I think if verant also found a way to give back the points from MC3, a lot more people would be happy with the change.

[EZ_TotteSwede]

With the nerf to modrods a wizard would be pretty foolish NOT to get MC3 imho....
Sure, it wouldn´t be the first skill to get (as is the case for many new 60s today), but still.

-Fubbik-
Ass of Vaz

[EZ_EloahSalviusMA]

With the nerf of mod rods wizards should get MC3?

MC3 = 12 aa points
MC3 = 30 mana per minute

30 mana per minute is not even close to worth 12aa.

You could get SCM3 which will save you more mana than that on 1 cast.

You could get SCF which will output more mana per cast, possibly hitting for 2x the norm which is worth more than 30 mana.

If you have all that in arch and class then maybe go back to MC3.

[EZ_Anung Un Rama]

It's all about nerfing raids. VI doesn't give 2 craps about Team MB jerks farming Epic_Droppable_Item35

1) NPC's now cast uber spells.
2) PC's can now resist for crap. I got charmed today...twice...by a lvl 50 enc. I had 150+ MR, and the mob had not tashed me yet.
3) MB Nerf
4) CH Nerf
5) Monk AC/Def Nerf
6) Mod Rod Crizazy Ultra Nerfage.

Add em up. Think about it.

I feel real bad for folks in small guilds, or recent starting guilds. Our guild just started up, we have a nice amount of 60's etc...but...w/o the mod rod sea, and our MBers, we will have to wait to take out mobs like Sont again. Killing him fast is HUGE.

/rant off.

Vaslin: Signature about 4 times too big for the Safehouse.
Edit: Yeah, I need to remake it...old one was much smaller and a lot smoother =/
Edit2: What is the k limit here?
Tibis: 15k combined sig and personal pic file sizes.
Edit3: Thanks man, I will keep that in mind. This was my 1st or 2nd post here, but that's a good limit to have regardless... Edited by: Anung Un Rama at: 10/10/02 7:33:19 pm

[EZ_Shariin]

Quote: 2) PC's can now resist for crap. I got charmed today...twice...by a lvl 50 enc. I had 150+ MR, and the mob had not tashed me yet.Guess you'd never run into the Sirens in CS huh? Before the resist change, those green sirens could charm me at will - with 200 MR, no tash.
Shariin Shadowblade House of Kindred Assassin

[EZ_Anung Un Rama]

I sure did fight those.

Draught of Jiva owned em. With 2 stuns and jiva, they were cake. I did get charmed, usually they just walk off and I repull and kill, but I did get a few PC kills...LOL! (I can laugh cause I got em rezzes =P )