Murdred
I am new to this site. Have read it for a while but never joined or made an account. /Mind Hello!I have leveled up my Psi to 50 and got my character geared up pretty good so I can reflect now on the character and more specifically on the class. I played a cleric for 7 years in eq but did also play a friends chanter and even sometimes 2 boxed them. Can't say I was an expert at chanting but I understood the game and belonged to a raiding guild most of my carreer. That being said I do not pretend to be a mind class expert but I have some thoughts.
The psionicist is a very unique class as far as I am concerned and there was a great deal of thought put into the class as a whole but there are many shortcomings to the class in the Telon enviroment. Expecting to be a caster who would be less a damage dealer and more involved in control, the class or maybe the game inwhich we play has disappointed me to some extent. With the extent that lulls and mezzes/sleeps/roots have been distributed amoung virtually every class I sometimes feel quite snubbed by the devs. Yet, I still enjoy playing my Psi and no matter how mad I get about certain things (can we say completely borked charm anyone?) after I run through all the classes I am going to make and give up on the Psi, I realise I still love the class.
Here is my main concern and I think it is a valid one. I played eq2 for a while and remember that every chanter I knew was entirely dismayed at the chanter role in that game. This game has been under the control of SOE from the git go and that really worries me. I was hoping that the "vision" of the Psi would eventually evolve into the premier CC class that I feel it rightfully should be and I held out hope that down the road we as a class wouldn't have to deal with being just a subpar sorcerer in zones like Rhaz where mez and charm do not work. If such places need to indeed exist then the Psi needs a secondary role to play other than a 2/3's wizard. Yes we have the great buffs but that isn't what I want my job to be and to be honest when all you can do is nuke, it is not so attractive to me. If I wanted to be a sorceror, I would have made one.
Now before any of you decide to comment about the diversity of the class, I will concede that we have other minor roles such as counterspelling but even with +counterspelling jewelery your opportunities and even more so your successful couterspell, diminishes greatly as you fight higher level content. I would compare it to a sorcerer being resisted 9 out of 10 casts of cv. We also have the ability to feed energy and under the right circumstance it might be awesome but as yet I haven't seen it be the reason a group I was in won the day, and realistically the amount of energy we are able to feed is a slap in the face. To be honest, I rarely use it because even the sorcerers in my group rarely go oom (lets not even talk about druids here. I believe their class is the most borked in the game).
So to the gyst of this rambling. I am worried, very worried about this class in the hands of SOE. The hope that in time we would become what I expect of the class has now become fear that our roles will diminish even further. That we will become nothing more than a weak sorceror who buffs. I think we all need to be very aware of any changes they make to the game that hurt us or changes to the class that take even more of our uniqueness away from us. I plan to play this character for many years to come and I don't want the man to give me reason not to. With all the bugs and screw ups, I still see this as the best game going for quite some time. I know SOE will fix alot of the problems very quickly because they know they need to.
I see we do not have a class lead on this site and would hope that we all play watchdog over the next couple months. We need to make sure that the vision for our class moves in a direction that keeps the Psi enjoyable to play.
Thanks for reading.
Sumatra
Do you /mind?
Murdred, I think that Sigil execs wants to get away from specialized classes and situations where there are a few classes that are must-haves in groups, and other classes that aren't. So even though Psionicists have more CC than any other class we aren't the Chanters of EQ, or the Coercers of EQ2. Many of the VG classes have CC abilities. Likewise I think they wanted all of the healers to fill the healer role. The problem is that many people are looking for a way to differentiate there character from the others. DDO on the other hand went the opposite direction. DDO has it's own problems but one thing they did was give you the ability to take several different paths with each class. I don't really see that with VG. My point here is that I think you're asking for them to go in a direction that many (most?) of us Psis would like for them to go in but they have no intention of doing that. The devs early on said they didn't want any class to be a CC powerhouses. In my eyes they've succeeded.
The funny thing is that it seems that when you get in a group, people expect us to be CC powerhouses and get irritated when we don't fulfill that expectation.
Murdred
I completely understand what they were trying to do and if they could do it fine, but they haven't. The Psi is considerably underpowered when it comes to dps if you compare us to our cousin the Sorcerer. That's fine if there is something else we can do and as far as I can tell that is some sort of CC. Maybe not the champion CC that the enchanter enjoyed in EQ but we need to still be the best at it or we have traded off a useless skill for our dps. It has to be a tradeoff. If they want us to share CC abilities with so many other classes, then we need the dps. Either or.I look at Rhaz and it being really only one of a couple places worth doing anything in post 50, it is extremely disappointing to see us have no other role in that entire zone other than half a sorcerer. This is what I am afraid of. If they take that from us, what are we left with. I can in no way pound out the dps of my counterpart and yet every other skill I have has been made unusable.
You can't say to me that I am half or even 2/3rds the power of the Sorcerer because I have.......(this). Well what is the (this) that I get? Please explain to me what I traded off my dps for. Please don't tell me its my buffs, that will completely piss me off. I did not make a Psi to be a buff bot. Don't tell me its counterspelling because the use of it, or even the need of it is minimal at best. What did I trade 1/3rd to 1/2 of my dps for?
The problem is they wanted to break the holy trinity, tank, healer, cc. But EQ2 should demonstrate quite adequately that if you try this you will only create a different trinity, as in tank/healer/healer. What is the point? All you did was artificially create even a greater need for healers. Did you help all the other classes to be needed? No! A defiant NO! If they could pull it off then great, more power to them, but as yet they have not. If you want to do anything difficult in this game all you need to do is replace the cc with more healing. What did that accomplish exactly? Now all you do is make it so you are required to have 2 healers instead of 1. It is still a trinity. Now you have 3 spots left to fill in a group, the same 3 spots you had with the eq trinity. Usually dps. Ok, if you are putting together a group and you don't need CC because the game is being moved in that direction, do you really choose a Psi over a sorc? Or even a psi over the second or even third sorc? No, because they out dps us by a long shot. So, the only reason to grab the Psi is for his buffs. Now I am a buff bot!
See the problem here?
Sumatra
Do I see the problem? Hell yes. That's why I'm stepping back from the game (for now). Perhaps I gave the wrong impression: I'm sick of it. I don't pay $25/mo. for frustration. I don't agree with why they did it or the end result. But its a free country and the can leave it screwed up if they want. ...and I can spend my money else where. For the moment I'm leaving my account active but my guild plays many other games so I'm not sure how long I'll do that.Murdred
I think if everyone that plays the class can get together with someone who represents us with the devs we can make the class something worth playing without entirely changing their "vision" What we cannot do is sit back and allow that "vision" to slant even further away from the need of specific CC and not give this class something in return. Everytime they mess with the need for CC or give CC to more classes, it takes more and more of our USEFULNESS away. If they really want to do that then get rid of the class entirely instead of allowing a bunch of their customer base to become angry and give up on the game.If we can't get them to see us as a premier CC class and make CC something needed (other than just adding it to other classes) then we need to make sure there is something for us in that "vision". In EQ2 CC was a joke, you just had 10 mobs beat on your tank and you brought lots of healing. You just took what was a strategic look at a genre and made it brute force healing. There is very little strategy to such a concept. Its why I left EQ2 in the first place because it was a tank/healer game only. Every other class was just fill. It didnt matter what other classes you brought to the table, if you didnt have enough healing you were doomed. Instead of giving the players some way to compensate for mass healing such as CC.
There are 3 ways you can deal with multiple mobs. You can control their damage, you can overpower every character and just destroy them quickly or you just power heal and take the damage. I really think the first is the better alternative since it requires much more strategy. Games where a tank can wade into 4 or 5 mobs is silly and simplistic. I hope this game doesn't move even further towards that. The way Rhaz is set up scares me alot. You just heal and tank and the rest of the people in the group are simply trying to kill each mob as quickly as you can. That is simple button mashing, something I also thought was not in their "VISION" Sit back and just cast or use your most powerful dmg skill or spell over and over until all the mobs are dead. Sounds exciting to me......
Axamander
Sorry but another thread that details how you are disappointed that psi doesnt equal eqchanter really does nothing to help. If that is what you want and are going to quit if you dont get it then you might as well cancel right now because it isnt going to suddenly change.We arent going to see a decrease in base mana regen that makes acumen the new kei. We are not going to see a recastable long duration aoe mezz. We are not going to see us being able to time trick multiple targets. WE are not going to get a dire charm. These elements that post-velious made enchanters the most powerful and indispensible class in eq are nto going to happen.
Waht i would really like to see is enthrall and lull to be fixed as these are our two primary issues at this point and see how it plays.
We still have very good damage mitigation, can CC a minimum of three mobs easily 4 when charm is fixed and 5 if we have room to work with. My brother, sister and i can handle content with ease that full groups consistently wipe on. I just see a lot of our benefits to be intangible via mitigation and overall dps that people from EQ fail to see becuase they are unable to lock down that bad pull of ten within moments and reduce the mobs damage output to nothing.
Obviously there are issues that need to be addressed and some of them are severe. our ability to solo is hampered dramatically with enthrall being borked and apathy being borked limits our CC effectiveness but we are still a viable and wanted class in this game.
Tashim
A unique ability that psi have, is the ability to lower other people's agro pre-emptively. Yes, I am talking about Mind Wipe. Its half as effective as a blood mage's Numb, or a Sorcerer's Forget, but it applies to our defensive target, not self.While Defensive Fighters, like warriors, get abilities like Withdraw, that will rescue someone who gains agro, us PSI can prevent agro from leaving the tank in the first place.
In Rahz, for example, where CC is non-existant, I find that I still bring quite alot to a group. In my typical group, when hunting in Rahz, we have one healer, and one tank. We still end up fighting 2-3 at a time, just out of necessity. While my healer is keeping our tank up, I keep our healer's agro down, especially at the beginning of a fight, when its easy to over-agro. Even healer classes that get agro reduction, still need to take time to do so... time that is often needed for healing. With my help at the initial onset of the fight, I give enough time to keep agro where it belongs, and after a few casts of that, then I can contribute dps. While admittedly less than a sorcerer, my being there lets the group operate much more effectively.
PSI do not run out of energy. Sorcerers can, and do. While most fights aren't going to last long enough to drain a sorcerer, and a good sorcerer has a great deal of energy to burn before being empty... once empty, they are useless for a time. Melee classes have to be concerned with energy/endurance, but even when out, they still have auto-attack. With Thought Thief, psi regenerate energy faster than anyone else in combat. Our DPS isn't the "best", but it is very consistent and reliable.
Add to that, energy regen, energy sharing (small, but helpful), along with the ability to combat ressurect a healer using a rez-shard (every 30 mins, anyway)... we are rather useful in a group. From my experience, psi are preferred to any other caster, even in rahz. While I felt rather useless at first, and it did irritate me to have no CC, when I put my mind to it, I found that I could make quite a difference.
Murdred
Its funny, I have grouped many many times in Rhaz and have yet to need the use of our de-agro. Maybe I group with better tanks? In Rhaz I am purely dps. That's it. You can fool yourself and cast your de-agro and make yourself feel useful but you don't need to if your tank is paying attention and knows what he or she is doing. You dps at 1/3 the sorcerer and that is all you really are doing. So the reason you are wanted in groups my friend, is simply your buffs. I don't know about you but I am not really happy about being the VG buff bot.The game was designed around 4 archetypes. Each class in the respective archtype should never be half as strong in their primary role as the other 3 classes. Would a tank be happy if they took twice as much dmg as the other 3 classes in the defensive fighter archetype? There is only one exception in the arcane and defensive caster archetypes and that is the druid who shares some defensive caster abilities and the BM who shares much of the offensive caster abilities. That leaves 3 arcane casters who should be able to fill their primary role of dps. The sorc, nec and Psi. Why are you willing to accept being able to do that primary job at half the efficiency of any of the other 2 classes?
If CC is not going to be our job, since it is widely distributed to many classes, then our dps should be much closer to that of the sorcerer. In no way should it be 1/2. That doesn't hold true to the entire archetype design that the whole game has been based on. Are we an arcane caster or not?
Darkmane
With all this talk of psi = 1/2 sorc, I wonder what the evidence is? I have heard psion's say they don't match sorc, but this 50% weaker allegation is new.