Thursday, March 18, 2010

1.3.5 Class Changes

Along with city changes, Mythic is also planning to introduce some class changes in 1.3.5.  They are taking an incremental approach, so the changes are not sweeping.  Rune Priests and Zealot's will see some positive changes while the Bright Wizard and Sorcerer will have some abilities toned down.  In this article, I'll go over the latter.

Sorcerer

Word of Pain.  This ability is getting its base damage reduced by nearly 50%.  I am generally a roll with the punches kind of player and you won't hear me calling for nerfs or whining all that much.  WoP is the exception, so I am glad to see this change.

It is an instant cast, fire and forget willpower debuff which can do over 3k worth of burst damage. Sure it can be cleansed, if you have a healer paying attention and if you get lucky and it is the one chosen to be removed.  The damage was just too high.  It should still be useful even with the damage decrease, as it is an instant cast.

Bright Wizard

Boiling Blood.  This was an ability players often complained about due to the high damage and that it allowed a BW to debuff it's own damage type (Something which a Sorc cannot do).  In 1.3.5 it will be mirrored to the Sorc's Word of Pain. 

Slow Boil. This ability will now drain action points (not steal) and it's damage is being reduced by more than 50%.

Of course the discussion thread has been met with the usual forum antics.  Changing a few abilities at a time should prevent accidental over nerfing which is common in the MMO world.

A number of players don't think they went far enough.  The balanced skills are all single target, while AoE abilities are often cited as overpowered.  Personally, I would have like to see their pbaoe put on a 1 sec cooldown or have had their damage reduced.  A reduction to their Combustion/Dark Magic mechanic is also something I'd like to see someday.  This is a nice start though.