[Psionicist] Class/Ability Issues - for review week of 10/26

I will compile all issues in the top few posts, trying to keep it organized by major spell lines, utility types, and adventuring tiers.
Some things to consider:
- Class Intent (to keep the rest of our discussion in context)
- Defining roles: Crowd Control and Manipulation
- Seconday roles: Dps, Utility
- Playability
- Solo
- Group
- Raid
- Specific abilities - Buffs
- The Level 55 all-in-one buff prevents others without this ability from buffing groups where *anyone* currently has the all-in-one version up.
- The Level 55 all-in-one buff disappears on logout.
- Mindspies - All mindspies disappear on logout/crash (costs group/raid time to re-spy, decreases viability of class-defining abilities)
- Mindspy durations are too short for many dungeon crawls.
- Mindspy abilities do not stay on the hot-bar after logout.
- Mindspy refresh icons stop working if the ability wears off and is relearned. Must be re-dragged to the hotbar from the spellbook.
- Mindspies often have damage types that heal the mobs they came from. This is counter-intuitive.
SUGGEST: Make all mindspies non-typed damage.
SUGGEST: Flag mindspy abilities to always do positive damage to mob-types they come from.
SUGGEST: Rework mob absorb-types & mindspy damage-types to never coincide. - Mindspies are missing from many 51+ mobs.
SUGGEST: Create new mindspies for these mobs. (preferred)
SUGGEST: Apply old mindspies to these mobs. - Mindspy damage does not scale with level -- they are becoming underpowered.
SUGGEST: Scale mindspy damage with level.
SUGGEST: Remove the global cool-down on weakness minspies so they can be immediately followed with aggression. This could be a lvl 51+ passive ability requiring an essence of brilliance. (preferred)
SUGGEST: Create new mindspies lvl 51+ (Same mechanic, spell upgrade: ie Arcane Bolt II) - Mindspies are mismatched for several mob types. (can we get a list?) Weakness does not always match aggression. SUGGEST: Scrub mob types to ensure type match. - Mindspies fall off on crash and relog and the duration is far too short. SUGGEST: Increase the duration of mindspies. (preferred)
SUGGEST: Make mindspies persist like no-rent items for 30 minutes.
SUGGEST: Make mindspies persist through logout altogether. (preferred)
- Mindspies critical, but fail to open crit chains. SUGGEST: Open crit chains with mindspies.




- Charm/Crowd Control - Time Trick sometimes does not stick. The mob is hit by the invuln/regen component, but not the mez component. Mob continues to attack & do damage but cannot be hit. Usually requires a re-mez, syncronize, and 2nd re-mez to lock it down.
- Time Trick does not always last the full 60s (specifically in PotA)
- Mass Simulacrum is an unused spell. It is too difficult to control, and less useful now that Time Trick can mez two mobs.
SUGGEST: Remove this spell entirely, and provide other utility or damage increase to existing abilites. (preferred)
SUGGEST: Make it work like Time Trick, casting each simulacrum seperately
- Refresh time on Mass Amnesia is too long for many Crowd Control situations.
SUGGEST: Add a single-target mem-wipe component to Time Trick to be applied on debuff termination or syncronize. Time Trick would first have to land successfully. (preferred)
- Enthrall seems to break too easily post-50
- Primal Wrath is less useful when mobs frequently break charm early.

- Direct damage/damage over time/AEs - General dissatisfaction with the damage upgrades 51+.
- Dementia line is currently underpowered. 6 Max targets is too restrictive for AE situations, while the damage is too low for single-target. SUGGEST: Increase max targets.
SUGGEST: Increase damage/tick.
SUGGEST: Increase spell duration.
SUGGEST: Add utility/debuff component to the ability (small mit or dmg debuff to mob?)
- DoT damage is too low, recently reduced. SUGGEST: Increase dot damage slightly.
- Other Utility - AE curse cure (at work, I forget the name) is good; interest in AE disease or poison cure.
- Psionic Barrier, Diamond Skin refresh timer is used when immunity is up.
SUGGEST: Prevent use of ability on target with active immunity buff.
- Illusions are a large buff group with no real benefit.
SUGGEST: Add racial abilities to illusions, but include reasonable recast time on all illlusions (10-15 minutes?).
- Stances
-Thought Theif
No specific comments on this stance yet. Works as intended.
-Phrenic Rage - This stance currently does not stack with Sorcerer Chaotic Feedback ability.
SUGGEST: Make them stack.

-Transcendence Several issues with this stance.
- Currently feels underpowered/unballanced with the other 2 stances
SUGGEST: Fix the content that allowed the exploit. (preferred) SUGGEST: Find another way to increase defense in this stance.
- Stun/Fear/Mez immunity is not working on post-50 content (specific examples?)
- Pusling rune is seldom up when it needs to be - knocked off by AEs, etc.
- Old mitigation component used to increase survivability in Kotasoth/Nimaa type fights. Pulsing rune is not effective in this regard.

- Gear - Psi's can mindspy the sacrifical beast (awesome!) but cannot wear the earring from Senator Demetrius.
SUGGEST: Add Psionicists to classes that can use the fish earring. (preferred) -Pantheon
Limited to Psi-specific gear, such as 6-piece bonus & EPIC weapon.
- The 6-piece bonus is useless. Adding 3 minute duration to an ability that typically wears off long before the current cap is a waste.
SUGGEST: Make Enthrall have a 3 minute minimum duration, up to 10 minutes. SUGGEST: Allow to charm mobs currently flagged as un-charmable (ie: Pantheon, Virak, SoD baby dragons; NOT RAID MOBS)
SUGGEST: Add 1 to max Time Trick targets.
SUGGEST: Add chance (25-50%?) to proc 30% rune on cast.
SUGGEST: Increase effectiveness of Transcendence to 30% rune with no per-minute hit limit. (preferred)
- Other Issues/Bugs - Many Buffs drop on relog (see above)
- Psionic Barrier and Diamond skin often return "invalid target" when trying to cast on self. This can be worked around by refreshing target (with F1), but takes several refreshes. Often too late to be helpful.
We can add to this structure as people suggest other things to look at.

reserved

reserved

Golbat@Xeth wrote:

I'm not a psi.. but one of the best changes to the EQ1 enchanter mez at higher level was a "mem wipe". So when mez broke, the mob didn't rush the ench. Same with charm. That may help out with the trancendance nerf.

Graye wrote:

We have mem-wipe, although it's got a fairly long cool-down. I'll be compiling my list and contributing to this thread soon.

We have an AE curse cure every 34 seconds or so, would be nice to have the same deal with a poison / disease cure.

Mkultra@Sartok wrote:

I would actually disagree with this... Our curse-cure is raid-wide, one-shot, while other non-healer utility classes are group-wide, multi-shot. To give us one-click raid-wide disease or poison cure would make us too strong, imho.
Even healer classes don't have anything comparable.

Hypnus@Seradon wrote:

Yea - with haste spells, Mass-Amnesia is a 1:23 refresh. Does exactly what Graye is talking about.
A possible compromise might be a single-target mem-wipe on a different, shorter cool-down? (~10s?) Would allow us to do the CC juggling we seem to be designed for.

Demethir@Xeth wrote:

Or like an ability where you click it, it gives 10 second immunity to aggro (like a combat invis or something)... your charm pet releases while you have the 10 second buff up, it does a check and doesn't aggro the psi, instead just goes about its merry way.

I think demithir pretty much got the most annoying ones right off the bat. The "stun" and "mezz" immunity in our trans doesn't work on anything post 50 cept for old content hate it when im in a stance that gives me an immunity yet I get mezzed and stunned often in SoD BoD POTA. Buffs and mindspys dropping after relog hope this is just a bug and not intented although mindspys have always dropped after crash/relog. Primal wrath, Enthrall, and Dementia are all kinda useless spells post 50. Primal Wrath gives our charmed pets 45 sec of 25% damage boost well I don't know about anyone else but I have yet to find any mobs that stay charmed for 45 sec post 50. Which brings me to Enthrall our long lasting charm which should be used with Primal Wrath to give us extra dps have yet to find a mob post 50 this works on. Finally we come to the "nerfed" version of dementia its is now almost useless I never cast it unless I have absolutly nothing else to cast. The damage done by this dot was originally intended to hit all mobs within 10m now only hits 6 since its a low damage dot I rarely use it in single mob fights. So either up the damage make it useful in a single mob fight or make it so it hits all the mobs again was a stupid nerf to begin with esp since the devs felt it necassary to give sorcs and upgraded AOE spell which is at present more OP than dementia ever was atleast dementia used alot of mana. Once again I ask you to relook at transcendance this stance is now situational at best, I used to use it 40-50% of my in game time now maybe 5 or 10% this stance is useful but only in certain situations now which only makeup a small potion of a PSI's game time. Two of a PSI 3 stances not including "free mind" are only used a very small percentage of the time now not sure if this was intended but its is the result to the latest PSI nerf.

Blackcat@Xeth wrote:

I did a significant portion of my leveling by charming SoD trash mobs and using them as tanks. The lions are partiucularly well-suited for that purpose. Charm does break early sometimes, but it's not uncommon for it to last long enough for you to kill a mob. Even when it does break, while soloing, you can re-charm it (while kiting), sick it back on the mob you were attacking, let it hit a few times, then mass amnesia and your charmed mob will once again function as the tank. Primal Wraith I use often to help the pet gain/maintain aggro. So, guess I disagree with you on charming/primal wrath.
Enthrall always was a meh ability, mostly an oh %$!# there's an extra mob and I already used mez, and can't use normal charm on it...
Blackcat@Xeth wrote:

Agree. Transcendence, while not totally worthless as with the first fix, still needs more goodies to bring it up to parity with Phrenic Rage.
P.S. No idea why I can still post, but going to while I still can

Golbat@Xeth wrote:

My point being Primal Wrath was intended to be used with Enthrall the charm that was intented to gives us a pet for short periods of time. While suggestion does work its is only a 30 sec charm not intended to hold mobs for long periods of time as pets. Primal Wrath is a 45 sec buff and we only get to use 30 sec max don't you see whats wrong there. I know what your gonna say we just recharm by the time you recharm the buff is done. All in all its faster and safer just to kite the mobs around in SoD rather than charm and use mob to tank with suggestion which it shouldn't be.

Blackcat@Xeth wrote:

I might have ability names confused. Primal Wrath works fine imo with our long charm (which frequently lasts longer than 45 seconds). I wouldn't bother with it on the 30 second charm - I view it as an ability to be used with the long charm, only.
I guess I don't see the issue here, as I used it religiously in my SoD soloing with charmed mobs. Yeah, sometimes the mob charm breaks while PW is active, but thems the breaks. Otherwise, it was uber effective, especially when charming gataros or beetles which have horrible aggro generation as compared to the lions.
As to whether it's faster to kite rather than charm? I strongly strongly (did I mention, strongly?) disagree. Maybe it's a level thing, as I did much of the solo-fest in SoD at lvl 53/54, and had no problems keeping my charms. With a charmed pet, I'd say my target died a good 30% faster than simply kiting it around. Plus the added benefit of not having to run around in circles (risking drawing adds, depending on where you are).
/shrug.

Demethir@Xeth wrote:

Just to add where this comment comes from. It used to be charm a mob, you got it for 30 seconds regardless. At 30 seconds, it did a check with a chance of the mob breaking charm. At least, that's how I remember it working.
Not sure if it's intended, but it now works that the second you charm a mob, it can instantly do a check and can instantly break (after the warning). It's like, rather than the server counting 30 seconds from when you charmed the mob for the first check, the server has its own 30-second timer that runs all the time or something - meaning if you're unlucky to charm right before the server hits a 30-second check point, you have a chance of instantly losing charm.
No idea when the change occurred (or if, even). This is just what I've noticed.
As to charmability, as noted in my other posts above: no problem in SoD keeping charmed pets. Sometimes you'll go through a bad spell and have multiple break early. Other times you'll have it last upwards of 5 minutes. Seems fine to me.
PotA fairies in my experience are the biggest culprits for breaking early. Not at all uncommon to charm then and instantly get the message you're losing it. I've also charmed fairies and kept them for a full fight (on trash mob). Other than the instant break thing, I think fairies also are fine as far as charm is concerned.
Just my thoughts. Not trying to argue with Blackcat, I just can't not comment when my experience with charm is 180 degrees from what Blackcat posted.

Golbat@Xeth wrote:

Thanks, L. This is consistent with what I have seen.

Golbat@Xeth wrote:

I am certainly no expert on SoD I am not a big fan of the area therefore my experiences there maybe not the norm but as far as POTA , Salamander Caves, and Troll Coast our Enthrall doesn't work on almost everything even if suggestion does work and if it does happen to work it seems to me to be no better than suggestion almost always breaks within 30 sec just my opinion. As far as kiting goes I never kite just one mob at very least ill be killing 6 at once and in doing so I kill more per min than if I was trying to kill them one at a time using a mob to tank (this is prolly the reason for our difference in opinion just found it to be safer if all the mobs close are chasing me then I don't have to worry about adds). I did try charming and using the mobs to tank for me maybe one mob out of ten actually stayed charmed till the end of the fight. At that point I would have two mobs aggro on me and adds all around not that I couldn't handle it most times it was just much more difficult.

I'm liking the list so far and agree with a lot of it. I'd like to add that Mass Simulacrum is pretty much fail as currently implemented. I'd rather have had a new DoT or DD spell or a boost to Superior temp Fracture.... or anything else tbh. I know DPS is outside the scope of this review, so if we're forced to be stuck with mass sim, at least shorten the cast time and allow it to function like Time Trick where I can directly choose the 2 mobs to sim instead of having some random luck involved.
Time Trick has been behaving oddly, especially in pota, but also seen frequently on drakelings in the KDQ zones. A mezzed mob will begin moving and attacking, but still have the mezzed graphic and not take damage. Or, at other times, when you cast Time Trick, the mob gets the mez graphic effect on it but continues to attack (AE mobs, Scorchers I think, in Salamander caves are really bad about this). Time Tricked mobs in POTA frequently do not stay mezzed for 60s.
Like Demethir and Likin, I have not noticed any real issues with Enthrall breaking excessively early. Sometimes it breaks early, sometimes it seems to last forever. I have not tried charming the fairies much in pota. Never really had the need to. So I can't comment on charming them.
The mentioned Mindpsy and buff issues are the biggest annoyance to me about Psi. I sometimes seem to spend more time dragging mindspies to my hotbar than anything else.

Irtann wrote:

I tend to agree with this. I'd suggest replacing MS with something else, given the ability to charm multiple foes with TT now. MS is impossible to control. Invariably, if the tank has one mob and there's two other mobs, the mob the tank is on almost always is hit with MS (making it worthless as you can't just re-apply it).
The only time I think MS was useful - on the Theindal trial in PotA - is no longer needed (per se) because we can TT two mobs. The instances of having mobs immune to mez but susceptible to simulucrum are so rare as to not even be worth mentioning, and where they do exist normal simulucrum covers the task just fine.

Mindspy damage types need adjusting and or another work around needs implimented.
Presently: When you MS a mob you get a weakness and agression spell. They type of spell depends on mobs archtype. (e.g. creatures get trap/claw combo). First, in the spell descriptions the spell type should be included. Second, a mob should not be healed by MS from that mob. (e.g. Lix is healed by physical . . . trap is physical).
Possible work around: I base these work arounds on the theory that the MS combo's is supposed to be a self exploited weakness. What I mean is that the damage increase for using the combo is about what you get if you exploit another classes weaknesses. First, MS could be made spell type neutral so that it cannot heal any mob. Second, a component could be added to MS so that it could not heal the individual mob type you got MS from.
Of course, if the spell types were all adjusted so that this was not an issue then no work around would be needed.
BTW would it be possible to add MS combo's to new mobs post 50 w/ new spell types? (e.g. maybe the fairies could give different weakness / agression combo that used holy damage).
Input from the Dark Side!!!