Kervik pillaging stone?

[tazman]

Strange logic.

And that is exactly my reaction to your posts.

To reiterate there are some simple solutions to eliminate an annoyance, not change the dynamics/difficulty of the game.

I wonder if Kervik pre-stacks when he is progressing? ;)

[masakari81]

I'm going to agree with anuhart here.
Mages have a good deal going.... if anything PS should get a nerf rather than a boost. We're complaining that a benefit we derive with a 0 pt investment isn't good enough.

[Calmethar]

The point isn't if it's going to be nerfed or not though. The point is if it's going to be changed in any way, as it's wasting a lot of time all in all for the entire raid. It all adds up. And in it's current state you're more or less forced to use it if you want to meet the DPS requirements.

It doesn't matter if it's 0 points, and it doesn't matter if you can just cast the 5xPS when the fight starts. As is there's not a choice if your raid is behind on the DPS front. So rather have it changed to something less time consuming for the raid.

And there's no nerfs anyway. There's only more balance. In the long run they'll always balance things out as they want them, be it DPS or anything else, so there's only ever nerfs or boosts for short periods of time until things get tuned to their intended state.

[DegnaRed]

Then why are you trying to get PS changed instead of petitioning to remove the mage class's supposed reliance upon it? Surely getting PS nerfed and every soul buffed very very slightly to compensate, would be a better solution than further pigeon-holing people into "0 Archon or you're not competitive as DPS".

I like this better than anything else I've seen in this thread. Put the entirety of the self-buff portion of Pillaging Stone within Strength of Stone or higher in the tree. Lump the Searing Vitality buff into it too, and remove Searing Vitality entirely. Then buff the damage souls enough to compensate. One less dot to manage, especially at 8s, would be fine by me.

[masakari81]

As mentioned, just get the PS buff to drop off on exiting the duel.... solves all irritation for everyone.

[Atavus]

I guess some people are not bothered with PS, which is fine; it is only a minor thing anyway.
Some others are scared that Trion may end up nerfing it, which is understandable.

But that does not mean there is no room for improvement, and players have the right to suggest such improvements.

I mean look what they did to some of the Cleric buffs: they made them passive.
Rebuffing after death was annoying as a cleric, but this change did not alter anything about their class or their skill level.
It merely removed some minor annoyance or inconvenience so they would spend less time rebuffing. It's just better quality of life as a cleric.

Is it so unreasonable to ask for something similar for mages?

[Lalothen]

If you are right then why shouldn't Kervik bring SV more in line with PS? Obviously a 0 point dmg spell shouldn't have such a large impact on our class.

After all it is an instant cast spell, adds a great increase to our hp and is a core component of our DPS, all for 0 points.

If I take your argument to it's logical conclusion then by your own definition it is over powered for 0 points.

It depends how much you value endurance in terms of "a dead mage does no DPS/healing". Frankly, given that more often than not the most damaging abilities in an encounter are either soaked up by the tank or are avoidable, then on average you're going to value endurance much lower, because that extra few hundred hp is going to mean very little in terms of encounter success, where as the extra int/wis is a DPS and/or healing boost, therefore offering a direct contribution.

The fact is that on paper the additional endurance from SV offers an indirect boost to success potential by increasing the mage's health pool, but in practice its application will typically have much less of an impact.

Then again, if endurance is perceived to be valued highly - and given that other callings don't get such 0pt freebies from tertiary souls - then that's a case for the devs to potentially nerf SV, is it not?

[Lalothen]

Edit window............

I mean look what they did to some of the Cleric buffs: they made them passive.
Rebuffing after death was annoying as a cleric, but this change did not alter anything about their class or their skill level.
It merely removed some minor annoyance or inconvenience so they would spend less time rebuffing. It's just better quality of life as a cleric.

The Cleric buffs that have been turned into passives are integral to the relevant specs. PS on the other hand is free stat boost that's in no way integral to a mage spec, unless you are strongly of the opinion that the self-stat boost is important enough to make or break an encounter for an entire 20-man raid, of which mages are unlikely to make up more than 25-30% tops.

You can't discuss "quality of life" without also including the other factors relevant to the issue. Mages get a nice 0pt stat boost that comes with a simple drawback: X seconds required to stack it up to optimum, and one cast every 5min to keep it at optimum. That, to me, is a good balance of "quality of life" for a zero investment boost.

[Primalthirst]

Mages get a nice 0pt stat boost that comes with a simple drawback: X seconds required to stack it up to optimum, and one cast every 5min to keep it at optimum. That, to me, is a good balance of "quality of life" for a zero investment boost.

You're confusing good value with quality of life.
40sp and 40crit for 0pts is wonderful value. But it isn't convenient or enjoyable, I don't know anyone who likes dueling pre-pull or alternatively increasing their ramp-up time in a class that already has the least burst on the pull.

[Sariina]

You're confusing good value with quality of life.
40sp and 40crit for 0pts is wonderful value. But it isn't convenient or enjoyable, I don't know anyone who likes dueling pre-pull or alternatively increasing their ramp-up time in a class that already has the least burst on the pull.

That's the point, it's a free 40sp for 1 cast every 5 minutes. Stop whining about it. Also, devs? Stop duels in instances please, they are really annoying.

[Lalothen]

You're confusing good value with quality of life.

When it comes to quality of life, good value is as important as convenience.

[bctrainers]

Just have it add a low-damage dot that ticks for 5 seconds and stacks the buff. Would have to lower the damage of PS a tad, but it would provide a much less cumbersome way of stacking.

While I do not play a mage, I would like for this to be the case. Making PS work in a way like Searing Vitality would be rather nifty and would kill off the "wait-time" between pulls.

[Sariina]

While I do not play a mage, I would like for this to be the case. Making PS work in a way like Searing Vitality would be rather nifty and would kill off the "wait-time" between pulls.

So would stopping duels in instances and return pillaging stone to being used properly instead of being a gimmicky extra 40sp always.

[Undrsiege]

I don't know why everyone is getting so worked up over a suggested quality of life improvement.

No-one wants the advantage we get from 0pt Archon to be nerfed.
What is being suggested is how Pillaging Stone could be changed to make it easier to maintain and to eliminate the need to duel pre-pull to build stacks.

Some of the suggestions thus far are decent and it'd be good to see a few more.

Yes it would be nice buff in pvp to be able to hit 1 button and shield 5 buffs....

[Calmethar]

Yes it would be nice buff in pvp to be able to hit 1 button and shield 5 buffs....

You can just hit the dummy before a WF anyway.