I'm a bit on the fence with this news.

On the plus side, Havok is getting some love. I originaly wanted to play a Havok Magus at launch, so maybe I'll find my way back there. I can understand the idea's of reducing the AoE range on stuff like Pandamonium, but I don't quite understand the wording behind CQ being "broken" while PBAoEing.

Your definetly throwing us a bone with a TA equivelent, something that I'm sure I'll probably use to test it out for once, but don't think was neccessarily needed. Proof is in the pudding now though that you were at least listening intently to the discussion at hand.

However, it does feel like your gutting Changing specc to some degree. By lowering +intel's effectiveness to lower damaging spells...well, I don't want to jump into any conclusions, but I could see a largish dmg reduction in my specific CQ build.

We'll see come patch day. Probably in the end, I'll agree that you have the class's best interest at heart, and will most likely enjoy it. 

1. If you are going to REDUCE any damage done by the Magus you are nuts. You are nerfing the dps that has the lowest single target damage AND the lowest aoe dmg (per tick). The aoe changes in general are good, but then you need to adjust all Magus abilities back up. If you reduce my dot that is hitting for 200 a tick by 25% and the BW dot that is hitting me for 1000 a tick... their is something still horribly wrong. FIX OUR DPS!

2. Great political move giving us the "Throwing Arm" tactic. However, you fail to mention that while you may be giving it to us, you are also NERFING the ability so we will have no reason to equip it. My aoe does less dmg, the tactic has less range... time to find a new game.

Lower my damage by more than 1, 2% after stats/resists and my magus will not make it to 40.  Unless you're making havoc seriously good.  AoE dots is what i came to do, they are not broken or overpowered, if you touch them i dont care what else you do for the class i will not be happy.

And that includes turning the demo m4 into a wyrm you can ride around that shoots flaming babies, one shotting everything on the screen.  Dont touch my god damn dots.

Wow, i see that Adam found the Magus boards again after several months.  Try bookmarking the forum this time.

Most of my concerns have already been voiced by other posters.  Primarily, that we don't do any damage as it is, and don't offer any utility unless we spec to rift.  If you want us to go single target Havoc spec well....then why aren't we making a sorc or SH?  Basically, this class is still not defined and does not have enough utility to balance the crappy damage we do.

My other concern is that I have not heard whether this is going to affect MDPS or not.  Not sure how many people here have been run over by a choppa/slayer train but it's not fun.  I don't think 1.2.1 melee ae was affected like caster dps, and so I wonder whether this is going to be an issue for them now.  If it's not, it's just going to exacerbate the situation with more people playing melee dps for the aes and nobody able to stop them. If you thought you were squishy before, imagine less damage, more melee, less heals....eep.

Im not concerned. Im livid.

Magus is a class that has always been considered 'meh' in single target  and AoE ability. Look at our skills. 2 of 3 lines are AoE and the top power in the other (firestorm) is AoE. Again I have been caught in the net designed to catch slayer/choppa and sorc/bw, I guess people are used to dolphins in the tuna nets....

To even keep up with other classes in dungeons I have to run close quaters ALL THE TIME. If it didnt exist or existed in a useless capacity I'd say I would be passed on for groups as mobs just dont die fast enough compared to if you have a Sorc/WE in the group (heck a dps tank could probably take my spot as it stands).

Not to mention sitting through 3 sec spells is BORING and some players (me) just hate that playstyle. Don't force me into havoc, some people wouldnt enjoy playing it even if you buffed it 100%.

Oh and regarding throwing arm... Search the forum. I have been an advocate of nerfing it hard since the beginning. AoE at max range is a horrible thing, dont increase the amount of it.

Magus will see a number of AoE adjustments including, but not limited to, the following:

• Many AoE abilities have had their radius reduce to offset the 10ft bonus distance introduced in 1.2.1 that is not shown the tooltip. Players will see smaller tooltip values for AoE radius but the final value will be the same as the range in pre 1.2.1 spells. What? so let me get this straight, you cant make the spell the right size so your going to change the tool tip and we will just assume that we get 10 more feet then it reads? why not just remove the "Bonus" feet? I mean i don't care as you say it will be the same but it seems lazy. Maybe i just don't understand.
  

• Bonus damage from Intelligence will now have a much greater effect on abilities with high base damage, but a reduced effect on abilities with low base damage. All my spells have a low base dam? What are you talking about? I swear your trolling this post.
  

• A number of AoE abilities have been reduced in effectiveness through reductions in damage, or increase in AP cost/cooldown. Really, Adam are you saying that the Magus needs to be nerfed? Were we too effective? I think im going to need to see some sort of data on this. I dont feel that we were effective at all. What about the Magus warrants any decrease in power at all? We aren't the reason AOE is so messed up. BW Chopers enj and sorc are. Why do we get all their nerfs? Dont like the rift crews? Nerf rift then. I want to hear a DEV tell me why we are a part of this adjustment.
  

• The Close Quarters Tactic will be reviewed to ensure that its bonus does not brokenly increase the effectiveness of PBAoE and AoE abilities for ranged careers. Why wouldn't it? Again if you have issues with BW then Fix BW. Stop lumping us into their issues. Magus havent been whiping entire WB with our broken and OP spells. You do know we are a different class right? We arnt BW.

Adam, please make yourself a lvl40 Magus and play it for an hour at a keep siege or in a Scenario. 

Whats the deal with horrifying visions being thrown in with aoe? Is that just a mistype?

Whatever, we'll see how much these stat changes are or if its just another change that pretty much keeps us where we were.

I'm still waiting on bug and mechanic fixes.

"The following area-of-effect abilities have had their radii reduced: Agonizing Torrent, Breath of Change, Chaotic Rift, Coruscating Energy, Daemonic Infestation, Daemonic Lash, Daemonic Scream, Demonic Resistance, Dissolving Mist, Fiery Winds, Flames of Change, Glean Magic, Horrifying Visions, Infernal Blast, Instability, Pandemonium, Rolling Winds, Seed of Chaos, Surge of Insanity, Tzeentch's Firestorm, Tzeentch's Grasp, Warped Claw, Warping Energy"

Care to explain this? Breath of Change and Warped claw?  I found this under magus changes yet cannot seem to find these spells anywhere for magus. 

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Gabriel wrote:
They are pet spells, because you know our pets needed a good nerf.

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Gabriel wrote:
They are pet spells, because you know our pets needed a good nerf.

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For what pet? Neither of these spells exist. The pets abilities are Flames of Change, Flame of Tzeentch, Daemonic Fire, Daemonic Consumption, Coruscating Energy and Warping energy.

Guys-

My understanding is that MOST of these reduced AE abilities are an across the board reduction in the way AE is calculated. 1.2.1 added 10 feet radius to area of effect abilities. Now that is being fixed. AE for the most part should be the same as what you experienced pre-1.2.1.

Frankly I think this is much more likely to have a greater impact on point blank abiliites. 

let's test it out.

This is why adam nerfed us all, here are his words of reassurance to the Bright Wizards

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AdamG wrote:

One thing I'm going to point out (since these threads can get out of hand) is that the primary hit you will see is to AoE damage, Its just somthing that has to happen. However everyone in the entire game is going to feel that sting.

 

-Adam

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Gabriel wrote:
Warped claw is the fireworm attack

Message Edited by Gabriel on 05-14-2009 09:04 PM

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Ahhh thank you

we still have a melee auto-attack though!

considering i was hit a little over an hour ago by an engy auto attack for 500 dmg, it seems to be something of an important issue.

aswell, as of 1.2.1 my daemonic infest has ceased to work entirely!

it used to work as a 2-second KD, but was changed to a 3 second, wherein it became unusable.

it is severly handicapping my defensive and frontline strategies in forts, keeps and orvr in general, please fix it. please?

I can totally see Magus being the Best AoEer in the game post patch. When focus is shifted away from Direct Damage AoEs (casted and melee) and Group Direct Heal abilities, Magus and Engineer are only to gain.

It all depends on what they do with the abilities and contribution from Stats. (Also note any "reduced contribution from stat" notes are meaningless to us, since we can't judge it against live values, as stat contribution as a whole is being changed)

 Just think of the possibilities! Reduced AoE healing and focus on Direct Heals and Single Hots will keep those suicidal Choppas/Slayers in place. Reduction of /faceroll-lol-Lotsachoppin' effectiveness will further reduce AOE damage since many will respec.

Being abile to get in range, live and do your thing? Keeping single-target healer ability to keep that one tank/MDPs spam-healed limited by applying pressure on multiple targets without watching your efforts washed away by AOE heal spam?

Hell yeah! 

EDIT: Blessed, are ye, Adam? Beat me to it. What the man said - global change, but overall classes like you, Magi, Zealots, RPs, Marauders and others are only to gain.

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AdamG wrote:

Folks,

 

Everyone is getting hit by AoE changes, and I do mean everyone. Magus are no exception, however just like many other careers your going to see some rather significant changes to other abilities (direct) as well. I realize its hard to wait for the patch notes and the PTS phase where we introduce these changes however the Magus is coming out net positive on the other end.

 

You are going to have a number of spells that hit significantly harder then they did previously, and AoE DoTs while reduced in general do not get hit as hard as AoE DDs since their damage is spread out over such a long period of time.

 

-Adam

 

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Thanks for the update at least and I'm looking forward to checking things out.  Did you mean net positive after respecing to the newly updated Havoc line or net positive in the hopefully still viable  Changing line?  

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Shadester wrote:
This is outrageous, magus has two survivability buffs, high dps range magic attacks that no one has resists to, the two highest base dmg abilities in the game(bolt/indigo), 7 different aoe/pbaoe spells, a pet that can stun for 5 sec, and you want to BUFF them.  Give magus a TA tactic, and they are going to burn everything before the fight even starts. They already have the most healer pressure out of any rdps except a CC bw taking advantage of the GCD glitch.  Looking forward to 1 shotting people with my bolt of change and channeling indigo from over 150ft if this goes live.

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That's sarcasm right?  

Anyway, I'm actually EXCITED by the changes.  Here's why:

INT buff/nerf to High/Low base damage spells.  Here's the reality, Pandamonium will get a buff, IFoC will get buffed, Glean Magic will get MINOR nerf (guessing from 70s to 50s unresisted), Firestorm = Buff, Dissolving Mist = Buff, Seed of Chaos = MINOR nerf (probably).  We will be seeing an overall DPS increase here from our standard/staple abilities.  Big buffs to high damage, and medium nerf to mid damage with nerf to low damage (which is just utility anyhow, ala GM).  This is a good thing.

TA = GOOD for us because we'll be able to hit guys from the walls of a keep now.  Or the Oil.  Or people not currently slashing us with big sharp stabbie things.  Even if it is nerfed from what Enj's have had it since launch, ANY range buff will be GODLY to our effectiveness. 

AoE Nerf....  Don't care.  Seriously, don't care.  AoE NEEDS a nerf, and we'll get some of it.  That's fine.  Again, don't care, it's warrented for across the board change.  Granted, our AoE's are the worst in the game (argueably), but I'll bet our overall % lost will be WAY minor compared to BW's and Sorcs.

Havok Buff = THANK GOD!  This will be a double buff (most likely) to things like MBF, BT, SVF, Withering Soul, and FRF (which needs it to be used more than it is).  

(Oh, and I wonder if the Pet abilities listed under Havok get changed up to, that'd be SWELL).

Adjustments to Enj abilities to "bring in line with mirror".  HELL YEAH.  I bet that's stuff like KB distance and the like.  CC abilities in other words.  Heck, even if it's just % changes to our base damage to match that'll be a Godsend.  Enj's can hit for double/triple what we can, if this does what I think it will do, we'll darned near match them for utility or damage overall.  Yes, please.

Close Quarters....  Meh.  I'm pretty sure that this is a good/bad thing.  It's more part of the whole AoE nerfing thing most likely.  I.E. Dissolving Mist or Pandamonium getting buffed, so let's not have that affected by CQ.  I'm dissapointed, but can live with it.

Guys, this REALLY IS the patch we've been waiting for.  I have a VERY good feeling about this one and will be waiting with bated breath to get on the Test Server and try these changes out.   I was talking about not renewing (seriously talking about it) for weeks now, just letting my game card expire and being done, but now I'm ready to give it another go.

Really, think about the overall effectiveness we'll have if things work out right.  Ignore the nerfs to AoE and whatnot, and pay attention to the fact that EVERYONE is getting them (including Group Heals).  Look at all the patch notes and think about how much we gain compared, not how much you think we're losing.

I'm happy, sorry, but this is GREAT news!

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AdamG wrote:

Folks,

 

Everyone is getting hit by AoE changes, and I do mean everyone. Magus are no exception, however just like many other careers your going to see some rather significant changes to other abilities (direct) as well. I realize its hard to wait for the patch notes and the PTS phase where we introduce these changes however the Magus is coming out net positive on the other end.

 

You are going to have a number of spells that hit significantly harder then they did previously, and AoE DoTs while reduced in general do not get hit as hard as AoE DDs since their damage is spread out over such a long period of time.

 

-Adam

 

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My point exactly, thanks Adam!