Dark Age Of Camelot: Runemaster TL report 1.66

Taken from VN Boards

Overview

Runemasters, while one of the most viable of the cloth casters, find that we're eliminated, or simply made useless at the onset of RvR battles, making RvR a chore for a great many of us. Also, with the introduction of Trials of Atlantis, we are seeing more and more encounters where casters themselves are completely inneffective due to the target being 100% immune to magical attacks. These main factors lead to dissatisfaction with the class.

General Concerns

Spell Resists (reduction in damage)- Even with the fairly recent changes to how resists are calculated, casters are still finding >50% resists are still too common.

Spell Resists ('missed' spells)- The resist rates were adjusted for high end encounters, yet casters are still seeing entire pages of resists in order to find only one or two 'hits' that total even less damage than they would do with their staff. Runemasters find this unacceptable. They rolled a damage caster, not a cloth wearing Friar with no defense and extremely low weaponskill.

Magic Immunities- There is an imbalance of encounters that directly negate casters (targets are immune to magical attacks) to encounters that negate melee. This is a major source of frustration and often anger with the new expansion.

Power Consumption - The <50% power penalty (and we have proven that there is a penalty to cloth casters only) is a severe penalty as not everyone has access to the high level (and high cost) power regen Realm Abilities preventing them from being effective for long periods of time. Melee fighters do not suffer from this same penalty as mages since Endurance regens at an incredible rate. This puts us behind the curve in both PvE and RvR.

Combination Spells and DoTs vs. Targets - Extensive testing completed by the Cabalist and Bonedancer Team Leads proved conclusively that they have a higher chance of being outright resisted by a target, and that the effect scales horribly when facing higher level targets. This fact severely hampers casters that rely upon those spells (like Suppression Runemasters) in both RvR and PvE. Combination spells (DD/Snare, DD/Debuff and Lifetap) already have lower delve values to them, lowering their chance to hit is not needed.

Specline Issues

Runecarving
- Bolts - With the recent changes to bolts, bolt casters have seen an increase of performance with them (they hit more often). The 20 second recast timer, however, is prohibitive, especially when it is your primary damage spell (2/3 of the damage spells in Runecarving have a recast timer associated with them).

- GTAE - There is still concern as to why only Wild Power increases GTAE Damage, to date it still remains unaffected by Relics, Acuity bonuses, or Mastery of Magery.

- Resist Debuffs - The reduction of duration for the Cold Based Resist Debuff has nearly decimated this spell, and it's usefullness in /assist debuffing. Cold damage is arguably to most commonly used in Midgard (primary ranged damage for all but two specs of casters), thus has a very high impact on Midgard.

- Runecarving Baseline DD - This is the lowest Dps Baseline Damage spell in the game, Runecarvers feel like they are being pigeonholed into the DarkCarving specs just so they can compete with their enemy casters.

Suppression
- Root blocks Snare - Suppression Spec Runemasters live and die by their DD/Snare. Currently, we are unable to slow a target that has been rooted, seeing as our damage spell both has a lower delve value and higher power cost this can be hazardous in PvE and is ruinous in RvR. Basically, this means that a Suppression Spec Runemaster is actually being penalized for using our only form of CC.

- Confusion - This spell has virtually no use in RvR, and even the PvE aspects of this spell are being reduced (this has actually gotten worse in several zones in Atlantis.

Darkness
- Raven's Bolt/Legion - With the resist bin changes, the effectiveness to the debuff aspect of these spells were reduced by 50%. Combined with the additional penalty to-hit with combination spells, this is not a spell worth throwing, as the targets you need it for the most (higher level ones) you will most likely never land it.

New Issues

The 'solo' trials in Atlantis are extremely difficult for Runemasters, for example, Krojer's Challenge has opponents that are immune to Root and Snare, meaning the caster cannot keep the target at range. Casters are notorious for not being able to melee their opponents effectively.

Other Issues

AE DD Spell graphics.
Spell Resist graphics associated with the "already has that effect" messages.
Diminishing radius on AoE DD
Quickness as a rising stat.
Cast penalty with Quickcast
Quickcasting instant spells (including RAs)
"Your crystal shield fades" message with PBT
Killing the dead.

Item Problems

+Acuity Cap items in ToA are not working properly.
+AF Cap items in ToA harmful to Bolters.