Class Update - Loremasters

[B749]

I read somewhere, that its somehow possible to put air lore on multiple people.
I dont know how, but that should be fixed, before flankheals for airloretarget come back.

Your information is outdated

It was indeed possible in the past, but was fixed with the release of U21 (though whoever put together the notes clearly knew very little about the class since Air-lore is mistakenly called 'Lore of Air'). (https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...-Release-Notes).

I like the suggestion ainor made, however as long as there are strong cross-trait possibilities, traits that aren't clearly worth picking up over cross-trait possibilities will be left out. If it is implemented, make the heal strong enough to turn it into a better option than cross-traits picking up extra blue goodies!

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

I saw Cordovan's post about aiming to release this week, which is slightly concerning the general impression across the class threads that things have improved, but aren't yet finished. I'm also curious how differently LMs will play after U22.2.

My questions are:

1) How much has changed from pre-U22.2?
2) Does the class do more dps?
3) Does the class feel ready for release?
4) If not, what changes do you think still need to be made?

[jomanjy]

beta 4:

THANK YOU FOR FINALLY FIXING ENFEEBLE TRAIT!

nerfing spiders toxin should be good enough for power issues for pvp.

i still would like to see some changes to yellowline to buff melee classes:

change warding knowledge from +10% incoming tactical damage/ +4% power cost to + 10% incoming tactical damage/ +10% melee damage.

change bog lurker root strike debuff skill from +5% incoming ranged crit chance to +5% incoming crit chance ( so it affect both melee and ranged).

add a similar ranged debuff (-25% ranged damage ) like fire/frost lore, maybe change frost lore to -35% damage and -25% ranged damage.

make Pleasant Breeze proc after using gust of wind, not crit. maybe make it 4 ranks trait ( +25%/50%/75%/100%) chance to proc Pleasant Breeze after using gust of wind.

[B749]

So hopped on the new build and did some Red LM parses.

Build: 53,407 crit rating, 209,048 tac mastery, 70,004 Finesse, 1x tac dps relic (91.2 version)

Parse results ranged between 20k and 25k, though I feel 30k might be possible with a better build (higher crit, capped mastery).

Parse breakdown here:



Embers seems a bit too far ahead of the other skills in terms of damage, but the overall damage output is too low still. Note that I put my raven on auto-cast with Benediction and popped Sticky Tar whenever off CD, which increases DPS from fire skills a fair bit. Should buff ST damage further, maybe look at reducing Power of Knowledge's cooldown and increasing its damage or adding an additional skill interact exclusive to red line that boosts ST dps significantly? I suggested something earlier in this thread about making Light of the Rising Dawn apply a debuff to the target that increases the damage it takes from another skill, could maybe do something like that.

Anyway, that was my parse feedback on LM for now! Rotation interesting and fun, however the actual number output is still low.

[Turin347]

Here one of my parses...




I'm displeased that almost 50% of the damage is still around BE-->SE, but from this parses I'm made aware of a thing...

My Devasting chance is 1,3%...looking at the chances of the singular skills, it seems that almost 80% of the effects is unable to have a Devasting hit (so 0%), not only for DoTs or related. I dont know if this is WAI, but this could explain much the dps gaps, even on top of the dmg increase...

Asking a Dev, is the Loremaster really intended to not make use of the Devasting Chance ? Or are just all my parses so much unfortunate that I cannot reach even 2% Devasting chance?

P.S. I know that DoTs cannot Devast, but I would like to see my numerical 9.8% Devasting Change being spread to other skills, just to be more than a text in a box



--Duf of Ark

[Vastin]

Fear not. While I think we're done with serious mechanical changes for now, I'm fairly certainly we'll manage at least one or more rounds of number massaging as/after these main changes go live - and I too agree that LM's still need a bit more overall 'oomph', during which I'll see about evening out their non-embers damage to be a more important component.

Those simple dps changes are usually pretty quick - it's getting the new rotation cadences to feel interesting that really takes much of the design time, so hopefully it shouldn't be too long a wait.

-Vastin

[B749]

Fear not. While I think we're done with serious mechanical changes for now, I'm fairly certainly we'll manage at least one or more rounds of number massaging as/after these main changes go live - and I too agree that LM's still need a bit more overall 'oomph', during which I'll see about evening out their non-embers damage to be a more important component.

Those simple dps changes are usually pretty quick - it's getting the new rotation cadences to feel interesting that really takes much of the design time, so hopefully it shouldn't be too long a wait.

-Vastin

Good to hear (though I'd much rather have the number massaging happen before live ).

Will the Minstrel see similar number work? Its dps dropped to what might be the lowest in the game (wasn't too great with double relic, now it's completely down the drain). I'd ask in the designated Minstrel thread but the silence from dev side in that thread is deafening. Seriously, we're talking sub 20k dps on a mastery capped 115 character with max ILI's and raid gear.

Keep up the good work!

[Herwegur]

from this parses I'm made aware of a thing...

My Devasting chance is 1,3%...looking at the chances of the singular skills, it seems that almost 80% of the effects is unable to have a Devasting hit (so 0%), not only for DoTs or related. I dont know if this is WAI, but this could explain much the dps gaps, even on top of the dmg increase...

Asking a Dev, is the Loremaster really intended to not make use of the Devasting Chance ? Or are just all my parses so much unfortunate that I cannot reach even 2% Devasting chance?

I've noticed the same thing on mine while using dps training dummies and looking at my combat log, strangely low devastate occurrences despite my devastate chance stat being in upper 9%.

(what plugin is that for showing parses in screenshot? Will post mine too if I get a chance)

[Picard2009]

It's not a big deal but

Lore-master
• Ring of Fire is now a targeted skill, and will only generate one ring of fire. Damage has been increased by ~25%. This should address lag associated with the skill.

I like making Olympic symbols with Ring of Fire.

[ColMcStacky]

So I did a few tests on the dummies in the Crafting Hall of the Eyes and Guard tavern. I have 53.7k (21.5%) Critical Rating, 163.8k (314.2%) Tactical Mastery, and 106.8k (21.4%) Finesse during these tests. For single-target, I'm averaging 17-20k dps. On the group of four dummies, I'm averaging 53-57k dps. Burning/Searing Embers are the highest damage dealing skills still. I don't think this is necessarily an issue, but it would be nice for the damage to be a bit more normalized with regards to other skills.

I have a few concerns with this build:

• Red:
  
  • Gust of Wind upgrades Burning Embers much better than it did before. Thank you for fixing this, Vastin! All in all, I like the synergy Gust of Wind has with its new mechanics over Wizard's Fire doing the same job. This also makes the trait Mighty Wind useful now since we don't have to go out of our way to take advantage of the effect it gives.
  • Ring of Fire is now a single-target skill? I know in the patch notes, it was said that only one ring should show now to help reduce lag, but I don't believe that it was implied for this skill to lose its AoE potential.
    
    • Also, the trait for Ring of Fire gives no benefit to the skill on tier 4 since the improved radius was removed. I would say remove the fourth tier, or maybe have it give damage increases per each rank, and put the debuff augmentation only on the last rank?
  • Wizard's Fire does too little damage to really incorporate into a rotation (unless you have the Abyss raid set to reset Lightning Storm). For now, it seems that Wizard's Fire and Gust of Wind have simply swapped what they do, with GoW now being the upgrade for Burning Embers while Wizard's Fire is fairly useless in a typical dps rotation. I have some suggestions to fix this:
    
    • Give Wizard's Fire its DoT component back. This would give LM dps a slight bump while giving the skill more of a reason to be used again. Maybe around the same magnitude as Burning Embers DoT? Maybe make it an opposite of the RK's Prelude of Hope, doing damage every second for a short duration (8s?) instead of healing? I'm just spitballing here.
    • Wizard's Fire can do bonus damage on flanks to allow some pet synergy. Maybe attach a more potent DoT component to flank consumes only (about the magnitude of Fierce Lightning DoT)?
  • I'm not sure if it is just me, but I would like to see Cracked Earch hitting harder, maybe on-par with Ring of Fire's initial damage? Since it has no DoT component, the initial hit needs a buff to make it more meaningful in a dps rotation.
  • I'd also like to see Staff-Strike changed where it scales with Tactical Damage Rating. Making it Light damage would be an easy fix.
    
    • I always felt like the trait Fend them Off fits better thematically with blue line, considering the survivability buff it gives, and that the cooldown is so long, the fire dps boost is kind of negligable. Maybe replace this trait with a boost to Staff-Strike critical chance/magnitude? It would have to be scaled to actually be worth traiting (greatly increased compared to what we have currently). I would love to see the LM being a hybrid melee/range class like we had before trait-trees. The changes to Staff-Sweep is a good step in this direction, but I would like to see it pushed a little bit further.
  
  
  
• Yellow:
  
  • Enfeeble seems to work now for the most part. I'll post a screenshot in a follow up post to keep from cluttering this too much. Sign of Power: Command works perfectly. Sign of Power: See All Ends Doesn't quite give double the crit rating debuff for the first 10s. Ancient Craft is about 10k less than double, giving -40k Armour Value for the first 10s and dropping to -25.4k afterwards. Ancient Craft, I think needs to be slightly nerfed honestly, depending on where physical dps classes land after the class balance passes are done with.
    
    • When Enfeeble is traited, Sign of Power: Command does not have the proper duration after the first 10s of the debuff. This is evident in my followup post with the pictures.
  • Power of Knowledge is interesting now; I like it. For the trait though, I think the damage should scale with a trait rather than just give a flat value. There are useless traits in this line (Level-Headed?), so I think replacing this with an increase to damage of Power of Knowledge would be nice (along with slightly more of a dps boost, up to 25%?), solidifying a place in a dps rotation for this skill.
  • Pleasant Breeze should proc from something other than a critical hit with Gust of Wind. I like suggestions I saw earlier making the proc scale with the trait from Gust of Wind (non-crit) at 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100% for tiers 1-5 of the trait while also increasing the heal magnitude per tier. Also, the trait still says it give a power increase per tier, not a heal increase.
  • Secondary Debuffs from Fire/Frost-Lore need to be looked at. Fire debuffs are fine. Frost needs the -736 Tactical Mastery debuff scaled/changed. Lightning probably needs Power cost changed (no use in PvE, and having this permanent now is probably too overpowered for PvMP). Maybe making something that reduces enemy avoidance to help out physical dps classes with partials?

[ColMcStacky]

So here is SoP:C, SoP:SAE, Ancient Craft with Enfeeble traited, and with the legacy for Sign of Power debuff magnitude at tier 69:


and here is the secondary debuffs on Fire/Frost-Lore:

[Wolf2x]

So I did a few tests on the dummies in the Crafting Hall of the Eyes and Guard tavern. I have 53.7k (21.5%) Critical Rating, 163.8k (314.2%) Tactical Mastery, and 106.8k (21.4%) Finesse during these tests. For single-target, I'm averaging 17-20k dps. On the group of four dummies, I'm averaging 53-57k dps. Burning/Searing Embers are the highest damage dealing skills still. I don't think this is necessarily an issue, but it would be nice for the damage to be a bit more normalized with regards to other skills.

I have a few concerns with this build:

• Red:
  
  • Gust of Wind upgrades Burning Embers much better than it did before. Thank you for fixing this, Vastin! All in all, I like the synergy Gust of Wind has with its new mechanics over Wizard's Fire doing the same job. This also makes the trait Mighty Wind useful now since we don't have to go out of our way to take advantage of the effect it gives.
  • Ring of Fire is now a single-target skill? I know in the patch notes, it was said that only one ring should show now to help reduce lag, but I don't believe that it was implied for this skill to lose its AoE potential.
    
    • Also, the trait for Ring of Fire gives no benefit to the skill on tier 4 since the improved radius was removed. I would say remove the fourth tier, or maybe have it give damage increases per each rank, and put the debuff augmentation only on the last rank?
  • Wizard's Fire does too little damage to really incorporate into a rotation (unless you have the Abyss raid set to reset Lightning Storm). For now, it seems that Wizard's Fire and Gust of Wind have simply swapped what they do, with GoW now being the upgrade for Burning Embers while Wizard's Fire is fairly useless in a typical dps rotation. I have some suggestions to fix this:
    
    • Give Wizard's Fire its DoT component back. This would give LM dps a slight bump while giving the skill more of a reason to be used again. Maybe around the same magnitude as Burning Embers DoT? Maybe make it an opposite of the RK's Prelude of Hope, doing damage every second for a short duration (8s?) instead of healing? I'm just spitballing here.
    • Wizard's Fire can do bonus damage on flanks to allow some pet synergy. Maybe attach a more potent DoT component to flank consumes only (about the magnitude of Fierce Lightning DoT)?
    • I'm not sure if it is just me, but I would like to see Cracked Earch hitting harder, maybe on-par with Ring of Fire's initial damage? Since it has no DoT component, the initial hit needs a buff to make it more meaningful in a dps rotation.
    • I'd also like to see Staff-Strike changed where it scales with Tactical Damage Rating. Making it Light damage would be an easy fix.
      
      • I always felt like the trait Fend them Off fits better thematically with blue line, considering the survivability buff it gives, and that the cooldown is so long, the fire dps boost is kind of negligable. Maybe replace this trait with a boost to Staff-Strike critical chance/magnitude? It would have to be scaled to actually be worth traiting (greatly increased compared to what we have currently). I would love to see the LM being a hybrid melee/range class like we had before trait-trees. The changes to Staff-Sweep is a good step in this direction, but I would like to see it pushed a little bit further.
  
  
• Yellow:
  
  • Enfeeble seems to work now for the most part. I'll post a screenshot in a follow up post to keep from cluttering this too much. Sign of Power: Command works perfectly. Sign of Power: See All Ends Doesn't quite give double the crit rating debuff for the first 10s. Ancient Craft is about 10k less than double, giving -40k Armour Value for the first 10s and dropping to -25.4k afterwards. Ancient Craft, I think needs to be slightly nerfed honestly, depending on where physical dps classes land after the class balance passes are done with.
  • Power of Knowledge is interesting now; I like it. For the trait though, I think the damage should scale with a trait rather than just give a flat value. There are useless traits in this line (Level-Headed?), so I think replacing this with an increase to damage of Power of Knowledge would be nice (along with slightly more of a dps boost, up to 25%?), solidifying a place in a dps rotation for this skill.
  • Pleasant Breeze should proc from something other than a critical hit with Gust of Wind. I like suggestions I saw earlier making the proc scale with the trait from Gust of Wind (non-crit) at 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100% for tiers 1-5 of the trait while also increasing the heal magnitude per tier. Also, the trait still says it give a power increase per tier, not a heal increase.
  • Secondary Debuffs from Fire/Frost-Lore need to be looked at. Fire debuffs are fine. Frost needs the -736 Tactical Mastery debuff scaled/changed. Lightning probably needs Power cost changed (no use in PvE, and having this permanent now is probably too overpowered for PvMP). Maybe making something that reduces enemy avoidance to help out physical dps classes with partials?

Check the Enfeeble trait again, it doesn't say the debuff is doubled in first 10 seconds of cast, not anymore. Just increased debuff in first 10 seconds

[BotLike]

Considering a trash uruk in Seregost t2 has over 90k armour along with basic mitigation , i believe ancient craft is on a good spot.
/VastinFan

Too bad single target LM DPS doesn't seem to get any more love this build.

ColMcStacky once again made some really good suggestions , i am really hoping to see his feedback apply on live in the near future.
Especially secondary lore buffs , it would be so good to see those become meaningful again , cause frankly most of them are not.
As for Wizard's Fire though , i wouldn't mind leaving it as is , even if it's only a 'pull' skill.

Thank you so much for your hard work , it's fair to say the classes Vastin worked on look much better than on live.
Wish i could say the same about warden/champ/minstrel too.

[CaerArianrhod]

Fear not. While I think we're done with serious mechanical changes for now, I'm fairly certainly we'll manage at least one or more rounds of number massaging as/after these main changes go live - and I too agree that LM's still need a bit more overall 'oomph', during which I'll see about evening out their non-embers damage to be a more important component.

Those simple dps changes are usually pretty quick - it's getting the new rotation cadences to feel interesting that really takes much of the design time, so hopefully it shouldn't be too long a wait.

-Vastin

AoE Damage:

Why did you nerfed the AoE damage?
In my test the AoE damage was nerfed round about 10-12K.
That was not necessary!

Ring of Fire:Now with that change spending point for rank 4 of the skill has no relevance at all! Remove rank 4 please or adjust it.






Single-Target Damage:

Power of Knowledge:
It is doing far less damage as tool-tipp says:




Single Target DPS is still a bit week. Ít should go up to 25K
For the tests I created a staff with single target damage legacies.

[Herwegur]

General impressions in this build:

Using Gust of Wind for searing embers spices up the rotation more than I expected it would, and somehow its clunkiness actually adds to the LM "flavor" in positive way, for an induction-based class. I went from having this skill off my toolbar on live, to becoming a fan of GoW in this beta - only now beginning to appreciate the subtle ingenuity behind this change. Now the trait Mighty Wind is actually worthwhile, and same goes for Pleasant Breeze in yellow now that it's a heal. Turning a once-useless skill into an integral part of rotation and it actually feels like it belongs - /swordsalute to Vastin, you really got the LM right with this one.

Power of Knowledge as a lightning-based channel is fun and livens up the rotation too. But could its cooldown be a bit less? Might help with single-target dps since it's been noted it could still use a boost.

Share the Power skill: now with a longer cooldown, the amount of power shared seems too low to pair with this cooldown. Please either increase the amount of power shared, or decrease the cooldown a bit.

While burning through some DPS dummies, noticed power management being a bit more of an issue than it used to be - a welcome change, if so. Not sure if intentional change, or if it's just my rotation coupled with -25% inductions in red. Anyway, good to experience power not being as limitless as it seemed over last few years. If this makes power potions relevant again, even better.

Now that upgrading Embers and flank-heals are two different skills, it helps a bit with variety too. Happy to have Wizard's Fire again for pulls, but it feels like it could be made more interesting by adding some additional component to it. I really like the idea several offered to utilize Wizard's Fire for boosting single-target damage:

adding an additional skill interact exclusive to red line that boosts ST dps significantly?

• Give Wizard's Fire its DoT component back. This would give LM dps a slight bump while giving the skill more of a reason to be used again. Maybe around the same magnitude as Burning Embers DoT?
• Wizard's Fire can do bonus damage on flanks to allow some pet synergy. Maybe attach a more potent DoT component to flank consumes only (about the magnitude of Fierce Lightning DoT)?

• Also, the following suggestions are quoted in complete agreement :
  
  

  • Red:
  • I'm not sure if it is just me, but I would like to see Cracked Earch hitting harder, maybe on-par with Ring of Fire's initial damage? Since it has no DoT component, the initial hit needs a buff to make it more meaningful in a dps rotation.
  • I'd also like to see Staff-Strike changed where it scales with Tactical Damage Rating. Making it Light damage would be an easy fix.
    
    • I always felt like the trait Fend them Off fits better thematically with blue line, considering the survivability buff it gives, and that the cooldown is so long, the fire dps boost is kind of negligable. Maybe replace this trait with a boost to Staff-Strike critical chance/magnitude? It would have to be scaled to actually be worth traiting (greatly increased compared to what we have currently). I would love to see the LM being a hybrid melee/range class like we had before trait-trees. The changes to Staff-Sweep is a good step in this direction, but I would like to see it pushed a little bit further.

[*]Yellow:

• Power of Knowledge is interesting now; I like it. For the trait though, I think the damage should scale with a trait rather than just give a flat value. There are useless traits in this line (Level-Headed?), so I think replacing this with an increase to damage of Power of Knowledge would be nice (along with slightly more of a dps boost, up to 25%?), solidifying a place in a dps rotation for this skill.
• Pleasant Breeze should proc from something other than a critical hit with Gust of Wind. I like suggestions I saw earlier making the proc scale with the trait from Gust of Wind (non-crit) at 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100% for tiers 1-5 of the trait while also increasing the heal magnitude per tier. Also, the trait still says it give a power increase per tier, not a heal increase.
• Secondary Debuffs from Fire/Frost-Lore need to be looked at. Fire debuffs are fine. Frost needs the -736 Tactical Mastery debuff scaled/changed. Lightning probably needs Power cost changed (no use in PvE, and having this permanent now is probably too overpowered for PvMP). Maybe making something that reduces enemy avoidance to help out physical dps classes with partials?

[/LIST]

^Especially everything said above concerning Staff Stike, making it Light-type damage so it would scale with tactical dmg and increasing its crit/magnitude. Or at least boosting its damage for now. It is melee, so there's that trade off. And it would give more relevance to another single-target skill that has been needing a boost for so long.

[Alcor]

General impressions in this build:

Using Gust of Wind for searing embers spices up the rotation more than I expected it would, and somehow its clunkiness actually adds to the LM "flavor" in positive way, for an induction-based class. I went from having this skill off my toolbar on live, to becoming a fan of GoW in this beta - only now beginning to appreciate the subtle ingenuity behind this change. Now the trait Mighty Wind is actually worthwhile, and same goes for Pleasant Breeze in yellow now that it's a heal. Turning a once-useless skill into an integral part of rotation and it actually feels like it belongs - /swordsalute to Vastin, you really got the LM right with this one.

Interesting. Is GoW now an AoE like was mentioned in a previous version? If so, did you find it resulted in undesirable pulls when using it to upgrade BE to SE on a single target when that target has friends nearby? If so, how are you avoiding those?

[Herwegur]

Interesting. Is GoW now an AoE like was mentioned in a previous version? If so, did you find it resulted in undesirable pulls when using it to upgrade BE to SE on a single target when that target has friends nearby? If so, how are you avoiding those?

Gust of Wind is now AoE, affecting 3 targets. Upgrading BE to SE in red line by using AoE skill is not new though, Wizard's Fire also affected 3 targets in red.
In this beta I only pounded on a training dummy. But undesirable pulls are easily avoided with stuns and cc, as always


Which reminds me. Ring of Fire has become single-target in this new build, is this intentional or a bug? As I only tested on 1 training dummy and Bullroarer's already closed, I couldn't ascertain whether it's become a single-target skill, or if the phrase "targeted skill" meant it affects anything inside ring radius with strict target count removed.

Several above me noted that changing Ring of Fire to single-target contradicts the tier 4 of Ring of Fire trait. Please reconsider this change, if intentional. It's a waste of its potential to be reduced to single-target, when its original ring design made it work so well for AoE, even by its round shape.

[Alcor]

Gust of Wind is now AoE, affecting 3 targets. Upgrading BE to SE in red line by using AoE skill is not new though, Wizard's Fire also affected 3 targets in red.
In this beta I only pounded on a training dummy. But undesirable pulls are easily avoided with stuns and cc, as always

Ah, that explains why nobody was "up in arms" about this. I play mostly blue (I have always found red boring, but that's just me). I will just need to adjust.

[Joedangod]

Several above me noted that changing Ring of Fire to single-target contradicts the tier 4 of Ring of Fire trait. Please reconsider this change, if intentional. It's a waste of its potential to be reduced to single-target, when its original ring design made it work so well for AoE, even by its round shape.

Humorously worth noting that nothing in LOTRO is technically round. Ring of fire, like every other skill/effect that produces a ring, is actually a square area. This is perhaps most obvious in BFE where the catapults make the glowy rings on the ground but sitting anywhere inside the square containing the ring will stun you.

[Seschat]

Ah, that explains why nobody was "up in arms" about this. I play mostly blue (I have always found red boring, but that's just me). I will just need to adjust.

I play in Blue as well, and am unlikely to notice: my default companion is the Saber-tooth cat, who is already AoEing everything in the vicinity.

[Alcor]

I play in Blue as well, and am unlikely to notice: my default companion is the Saber-tooth cat, who is already AoEing everything in the vicinity.

Choice of pet matters. I have been using the saber-tooth in Narchost (sp?) since most pulls are double pulls. I wonder if the innate threat of the bear will be enough.

In any case, it will be fun to figure out what works (for me) with this new LM.

[ColMcStacky]

Out of curiosity, for when they finally get around to blue changes, what does everyone want to see from it? I don't really play blue very often myself (and haven't since before trait-trees ruined it in my opinion), so I'm curious what the general impression of those who do play it is. Do you want it to have more dps, more survivability, group-utility, etc.? Do you think it's close to the mark currently, or that it needs a substantial rework? I'm wondering what everyone thinks since it would probably be a good idea to get the conversation on this started before the changes on this trait-line are underway.

For me, I would be interested in seeing blue become a sort of "jack of all trades" line where the pet(s) we are currently using helps boost certain aspects of the class/group. In my opinion, the dps should not be as good as red, but it should be more survivable. There should be more synergy with pets, maybe having a way to reduce pet skill cooldowns like how we can reduce cooldowns of Lightning Storm, Sticky Gourd, and Ents go to War in red line. I would love to really see this become a lot more pet-reliant, giving stronger fellowship buffs depending on the pet being used (maybe there will be room for a blue/yellow lm in raids situationally?) The way I'm thinking, a skilled blue LM when grouping, depending on how they hybridize, could help any role. Bear for offtank/group survivability, spirit for healing/heal-support, bird for tactical/range dps support, cats for melee support, or something along those lines. Also, I think there should be some sort of incentive to keep a pet in combat rather than switch it out every 10s like we currently do to maximize our group utility. Maybe its fellowship-wide buffs become stronger the longer it's active, the more damage it does, the more skills it uses, or something like that? I feel like the traitline isn't too far off the mark, but it does fall short often, and need to be reworked on some traits. I think currently blue-line is weak because most traits lean towards dps buffs without realizing that red-line will (and should) always overshadow blue dps. It's kind of the same situation Hunters have with their main line (red or blue, take your pick right now) compared to yellow. It needs a different purpose.

Some random changes/reworks I'd like to see:

• Pet updates/improvements:
  
  • Pet skills sometimes are unable to be used even after they are off cooldown. I am not sure what causes this (also true for Captain and Spider).
  • Pet clock faces on skills don't always accurately display the remaining cooldown of the skill (also true for Captain and Spider).
  • Pet autoattack/skill damage needs to seriously be looked at. For example, bleeds from the cats have not been updated since I can remember. They still do about 100 damage every 5s for 15s if memory serves. Every pet has issues like this with skills/procs (across every pet class).
  • Cooldowns on purely damaging skills from pets should be substantially reduced to allow pets to be more of an active resource for us. Certain effects such as crowd control, debuffs, etc. should not have large cooldown reductions.
  • Raven: scale damage from Distraction and buff from Evasion.
  • Bear: The Bear pet should get a threat multiplier attached to its damage the way tanks do. A 3x multiplier would probably be good enough to help it hold agro as an off-tank. Also, the Bear's taunt should also be made a threat copy (possibly for blue-line only). Currently on live, if you taunt with the bear off a tank, after the force-taunt expires, the enemy runs right back to the tank. This forces you to dismiss and re-summon the bear over and over if you want to keep something away. This would be a small quality-of-life fix for the LM.
  • Lynx/Sabre-tooth: Scale skill damage/bleeds. For the Saber-tooth, Frostbite needs a rework/replacement. No one uses Frost Damage anymore, so the skill is obsolete.
  • Bog-Lurker: Scale damage from skills, and maybe allow Bursting Root to guarantee a Fellowship Maneuver when used with Catmints (it would make it more interesting than simply giving bonus damage and an improved chance.)
  • Spirit pet: I would recommend allowing the Spirit pet to auto-heal similarly to how other pets can autoattack. Give it an AoE heal of 1-2k or so with a 15-20m range/radius to stick with the non-combat, heal-support style of the Spirit pet. Also, I would reduce the cooldown on Flashing Flank to 20s from 45s. The Spirit pet can't flank randomly, but forces flanks through that skill use. The cooldown is just too long, though, to really take advantage of it.
  • Eagle: Fan the Flames doesn't currently say how long it fears the target for, or what the break-condition for the effect is; these should be added to the description. Beak Rend should be reworked, in my opinion, to restore morale to the group, not just the Eagle. I would recommend renaming the skill Eagle's Nobility, and having it deal damage to enemies (currently 3-target AoE), and whatever damage is done will be healed to the fellowship every second for 5 seconds.
• Catmint: The skills says it increases damage of pets, but skill damage on every pet is unaffected by it. I didn't test autoattack damage.
• Go for the Throat: I feel like this should affect both the pet and the LM to give it better use, both for dps and healing.
• Prepare for War: the mastery buff currently provided is pretty useless. I would like to see this changed into something different entirely, maybe allow this to be what reduces cooldowns for pet skills? It could become something like every time Wizard's Fire consumes a flank when this is traited, pet cooldowns are decreased by 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 seconds (to also give Wizard's Fire some utility again).
• Inner Flame: This should be group-wide when using the Spirit pet.
• Don't You Touch Him! and After Battle Treat: These are examples of damage buffs that I mentioned above that should be reworked/changed to be more utility-based than simply dps-based.
• Prepared Materials and Synchronized Movement: These are fine where they are, but I think the magnitudes of each need to be swapped (Synchronized movement should be -15% to give pets a larger benefit).
• Don't Interrupt Me: should make pets immune to stun at max rank.
• Stamp Out the Fire (t1 sidebar): I don't necessarily think this one is bad, but from what I hear the bonus it provides is nearly nonexistent (I certainly haven't noticed the extra damge when I've tested it). I would suggest that this bonus should increase pet damage by at least 20-30%, and should be sure to work with the Burning Embers spread by the red trait Mighty Wind (since Saber-tooth does AoE damage, this AoE spread would presumably increase its dps against each target).
• Peerless Wisdom (t2 sidebar): I feel like this is kind of a throwaway just to fill a spot rather than something that actually fits with the purpose of the trait line. I would recommend making this buff permanent for every trait line since Wisdom is on a 5 minute cooldown. I don't think this would be too overpowered, but it would help us survive better since nowadays most damage is fast spike damage, compared to the slower damage taken in the earlier days of the game. To replace the bonus, I would recommend taking Fend Them Off from red-line as inspiration, and fitting it slightly more mechanically with blue-line:
  
  • Instead of the current Fend Them Off buff that proc's with Staff-Strike, I would recommend having this buff proc when your pet flanks with no internal cooldown. It should increase the Avoidance of your pet as well as your own, and increase pet damage (or heal magnitude from Spirit).
  • If this is done, then Fend Them Off needs to be replaced, preferably with my suggestion stated in a previous post here.
• Raven's Protection (t3 sidebar): while helpful at lower levels, is fairly useless at level cap. In instances, people go in with maxed mits so as to not rely on it. I would recommend either making this percentage based, or changing it entirely to align with the purpose of the raven (tactical dps buff). I also think this sidebar trait should do something special for every pet instead of just the raven. Maybe rename to Companion's Protection or Companion's Aid or something like that. Two options that I see are either mimic the buffs that Feral gives to the LM for the entire group, or do something unique for each pet so that they don't make the Feral trait obsolete, and so they are more useful to classes other than the LM:
  
  • Raven: Tactical damage buff (additive percentage)
  • Bear: Physical Mitigation buff or Incoming Damage reduction, and/or max morale increase (additive percentage)
  • Lynx: Attack/Induction Duration buff (won't help Beornings though since every skill they have is Fast)
  • Sabre-tooth: Physical damage buff (additive percentage)
  • Bog-Lurker: Critical Chance buff (additive percentage)
  • Spirit: Incoming Healing buff (additive percentage)
  • Eagle: Fire damage buff (additive percentage)
• Critical Coordination (t4 sidebar): I think it would be interesting to give Air-Lore or a similar, new skill to blue-line (described below in final bullet-point). This new skill will take advantage of Critical Coordination to make Melee, Ranged, or Tactical skills (damage and/or heals) force-crit instead of only applying to the LM, depending on which pet is being used.
  
  • The Spirit pet can't attack currently, so would not be able to get this buff if it is left as it is on live. I would recommend, in the interest of not making Spirit pet heals too overpowered, reducing the Critical Magnitude of the Spirit pet. If the critical heals are even the same strength as non-crit heals, and just count as a crit to proc this trait, that would be fine in my opinion.
• Fellowship Friend (t5 sidebar): I think this should be adapted to increase the tier/magnitude of the fellowship buff from Raven's Protection. It can work on pet critical hits as it does now*, or apply different tiers of the buff on a timer, or by the number of skills the pet has used since summoned**.
  
  • *The spirit pet can't attack currently, so would not be able to get this buff if it is left as it is on live. See above under Fellowship Friend.
  • **Different pets have different cooldowns on skills, so the magnitude buff of each tier, and possibly the number of possible tiers, would have to be balanced differently for each pet if this is the route taken.
• Noble Savage and Tutelage of the Brown Wizard (t6 and t7 sidebar): I'm not sure if this suggestion is too overpowered or not, so feedback on this would definitely be welcome. I'd suggest removing the bonus damage from Noble Savage, and combining these into the t6 sidebar trait. The t7 trait should be replaced with the ability to summon two pets at once. This would allow the LM to apply two of the seven possible fellowship buffs, and roughly double flank procs and pet damage. They would probably need separate pet bars for both the individual skills, and to give the LM the option to use them against different targets and position them differently. They need to be able to act independently because without this separation, I think it would be a bit too clunky.
  
  • Because of this trait, pet damage would have to be looked at, which is why I would suggest removing flat damage buffs for pets from blue-line traits, to help narrow some variance that would appear between having fully buffed and unbuffed pets. Ultimately, I don't think this line is should necessarily be a dps line, but a rounded utility line. Because of this, I would say the damage with two damage-buffing pets and an LM focusing on dps skills should still only be about 70-80% of red-line damage simply because of the sheer amount of survivability and group utility the buffs in this line would provide.
• Adding a new skill to mark an ally in your group could help with more potent buffing, and if the suggestions above are too overpowered, they can only apply to the target of this skill (and the second pet can only be there for skill use/dps, providing no buffing to the group). I would recommend having its effect change depending on which pet(s) is/are in use. Maybe for this purpose, have a primary and secondary pet (if the suggestion above to allow two happens), where the primary pet is the one used to interact with this skill (and to apply Critical Coordination), and the secondary one is there for group buffs/damage. The primary pet's "group" buffs (described above under Raven's Protection) only apply to the target of this new skill, while the secondary pet's buffs affect the entire group. There should not be a way to swap the primary/secondary pets' purposes with one another without dismissing and re-summoning both. Maybe have the skill name change similarly to how the Captain skill Blade/Shield/Song-Brother's name changes. This can be called <pet>'s Protection, depending on which pet is applying it.

This suggestion is a pretty substantial rework for blue-line, making it more in line with what I would like to see from it. I know there are people who enjoy the current blue-line though. I'd really appreciate feedback from them on what they think about this, and would like to see or not see. Overall, I just want the line to have some sort of color or flavor that is missing from the class, being the only real pet-class in the game. As it stands currently on live, it is fine for solo play, but has no purpose whatsoever in groups. My suggestions were to try to make it viable for both of these situations while at the same time trying to get the most synergy out of the pet interactions.

Another option they can follow is to make blue a less buff-heavy line, and simply make it a single-target dps line whereas red is AoE, and scale the damage to match, but I honestly don't think that would be as interesting. Sorry for the wall of text, haha.

[Herwegur]

Out of curiosity, for when they finally get around to blue changes, what does everyone want to see from it?

If only one thing changes in blue line. Can we PLEASE have the skill "Sic 'Em" re-named to something more lore-appropriate, or at least something that isn't a jargon. It sounds like something a Bree urchin would yell at beggars' alley and doesn't fit the LM aesthetic, especially for being a trait line capstone.
It's been cringe-inducing ever since Helms Deep beta, but it stuck despite requests and suggestions to change its name to - anything but that.


But to get technical:

I hope changes in Blue line will go hand in hand with some more changes in Yellow. Whereas Yellow is for debuffing and CC , I'd love to see Blue brought closer to how it used to be originally: for general utility and fellowship buffs.

Still miss these Blue line features from before HD, would be great to have them incorporated back into Blue as spec bonuses or traits:

- Knowledge of Cures becoming AoE removal
- Flank heals also affecting Air-Lore target
- Air-Lore having increased damage mitigation % (can be a scaling trait, or blue spec exclusive for capping at 100%)
- Inner Flame becoming AoE heal
- Reduced cooldown/induction on Light of Hope and scaling % increase to its healing (like the old SoA-era "Healer" trait)

And: Blue line passive pet bonuses affecting fellowship and not just the LM.


These would be at the top of my list. To sum up in one word: Utility. Not a fan of Blue line after HD, as it has become too... self-centered? Focusing on self and pet survival, and losing utility and support value for fellowships. I strongly agree that Blue line needs more pet buffs/tweaks. But Blue spec has become too much about pocket zoo and lost its original appeal as utility/buff line that can benefit fellowship members who don't fly/glow/run on all fours.

If Yellow line is being established as the main support line, then the above-suggested utility features for AoE heals/disease removes/Air-Lore can be carried into Yellow instead of Blue. Just don't want to see those features lost forever.


(Caveat: I know some like the current Blue line for exact reasons why I don't. The above suggestions to expand its utility by no means implies lessening its pet features. Just asking for more utility/buffs that can benefit others in a group and not just self-cast.)

[Herwegur]

Separate post to support these ideas:

[LIST][*]Pet updates/improvements:

• Raven: scale damage from Distraction and buff from Evasion.
• Bear: The Bear pet should get a threat multiplier attached to its damage the way tanks do. A 3x multiplier would probably be good enough to help it hold agro as an off-tank. Also, the Bear's taunt should also be made a threat copy (possibly for blue-line only). Currently on live, if you taunt with the bear off a tank, after the force-taunt expires, the enemy runs right back to the tank. This forces you to dismiss and re-summon the bear over and over if you want to keep something away. This would be a small quality-of-life fix for the LM.
• Lynx/Sabre-tooth: Scale skill damage/bleeds. For the Saber-tooth, Frostbite needs a rework/replacement. No one uses Frost Damage anymore, so the skill is obsolete.
• Bog-Lurker: Scale damage from skills, and maybe allow Bursting Root to guarantee a Fellowship Maneuver when used with Catmints (it would make it more interesting than simply giving bonus damage and an improved chance.)
• Spirit pet: I would recommend allowing the Spirit pet to auto-heal similarly to how other pets can autoattack. Give it an AoE heal of 1-2k or so with a 15-20m range/radius to stick with the non-combat, heal-support style of the Spirit pet. Also, I would reduce the cooldown on Flashing Flank to 20s from 45s. The Spirit pet can't flank randomly, but forces flanks through that skill use. The cooldown is just too long, though, to really take advantage of it.
• Eagle: Fan the Flames doesn't currently say how long it fears the target for, or what the break-condition for the effect is; these should be added to the description. Beak Rend should be reworked, in my opinion, to restore morale to the group, not just the Eagle. I would recommend renaming the skill Eagle's Nobility, and having it deal damage to enemies (currently 3-target AoE), and whatever damage is done will be healed to the fellowship every second for 5 seconds.

Especially for Spirit pet auto-heals, and for Eagle group-morale restore.


Since pets are guaranteed to be revaluated, if I may add one small LM quality-of-life request. Any chance to have an alternative pet tome for a smaller-size Bog Lurker? (Can re-use same skin as miniature cosmetic Bog Lurker from autumn festival, with slight modification). Reason for asking is its original size sometimes creates visibility issues in particularly dense fights, in the same way as the bigger Bear pets do. The popular way to avoid Bear-related visibility issues is to use bear cub appearance for raids etc, but a Bog Lurker is taller than player-toons and yet has no smaller alternative. Minor thing, but if this can be passed to the art personnel for consideration, it would open up the battlefield vision even more.

[Arathrinn]

With most of the work regarding the red line being done, I'd like to express my thoughts on the blue line. (Yellow line will follow in the future) (Apologies for poor formatting :/)


The Keeper of Animals trait line currently heavily focusses on dealing damage by buffing the summoned pet and adding interactions with the Loremaster. As others have mentioned, I feel there is a lot of room to look at other aspects beside dealing straight up damage. I will go over the entire trait line and elaborate on what could need changing. All of the following text is just my opinion on how pets and blue line could be improved in a meaningful way. Any feedback is welcome to start a discussion and provide ideas for Vastin in the future.

Some design philosophies to keep in mind

• Each pet should fill a unique role
• Each pet should unlock new abilities/passives when traiting blue to further define their role
• Pets and the Loremaster should provide more group related utility when traiting blue
• Provide meaningful skills to pets that require thought rather than automation setting or spamming

Trait analyzation


-Sign of the Wild: Protection In memory of the pre-HD skill, I wouldn't touch this unless it reduced the % morale gain by a small amount. Morale of pets is quite ridiculous at the level cap. (60%ish with the legacy) But this is also influenced by the increased levels of the pets and the stat calculation rework since Mordor, so this will need looking at.

-Sign of the Wild: Rage In a similar position as Sign of the Wild: Protection, I think it would be best to keep it as it is.

-Go for the Throat A simple buff to % crit chance, but only for the pet. Perhaps add the bonus to the Loremaster as well, but move it up in the trait tree so other trait setups cannot take advantage of it as easily.

-Lesser Giant Eagle Since the thought here is to make the Eagle blue line specific, it would be better to add this to the passive trait bonus instead.

-Inner Flame Even though the channel duration has been reduced recently, this skill is mediocre. Combined with the Abyss raid armour set bonus however, the bonus to fire damage can be utilised for the full extent without being vulnerable for the 5.5s channel. The heal effect is not scaled properly yet either, considering the morale of the pet is just drastically higher. The risk of standing still for this long should have a higher heal reward to compensate.

-Prepare for War The tactical mastery rating it currently gives is neglible. It was not adressed for the previous rounds on Bullroarer even though it was stated in the patch notes. As someone else said previously, it would probably be better to replace this trait with something else entirely. Maybe this should be a new skill, that can only be used when out of combat. It could give the current summoned pet and the Loremaster a boost in Finesse, and a reduced version of the buff to nearby fellowship members?

-Prepared Materials A nice amount of induction reduction, but would be appreciated if it also applied to your pet. Then it would be a better version of Synchronized movement however, but I will adress that in a bit.

-Hearty Diet Remove the flat morale gain for the Loremaster and make the 5% apply to both pet and Loremaster. Pretty standard but I like it.

-Don't you Touch him The flavour of the trait is great, but could need some adjusting. Replacing it by: Whenever your pet is hit by an attack, gain a -1% attack duration buff that stacks X times. (X=whatever is balanced)

-Catmint A great skill, iconic for blue line. However, the bonusses it provides are not as balanced for all pets. On one hand, you get a permanent -20% fire mitigation debuff from the Raven, and on the other hand you boost the damage of an Eagle's Beak Rend by 200 damage. This will need adressing. A quality of life improvement: Extend the buff duration from 12 to 15 seconds.

-Loyalty I guess this is fine as it is, not sure about this one.

-After Battle Treat Needs reworking. In its current state it's of no use at all. Rename it to 'Battle Treat' and make it revolve around flanking. Maybe: Your flank interacting skills reward its bonus to the pet. (Assuming the heal/power restore are scaled to relevant amounts. At max rank, increase the flanked buff duration from 7s to 10s?

-Don't Interrupt Me A decent trait, but it could offer more utility. Thematically it would make sense to add an interaction with Sign of Power: Righteousness. Honestly, the duration of this skill is too short compared to its cooldown. At max rank, this could increase the duration by 10s so there is more wiggle room. Also let it apply to the currently summoned pet by default even when you target someone else? Then move it down slightly in the trait tree so you could get this when traiting yellow, but only barely. (Assuming the trait set bonus of Abyss armour gets changed)

-Synchronized Movement Maybe give this a movement related ability, like giving the entire fellowship a burst of +15% movement speed whenever your pet has flanked an enemy?

-Sic'Em I like the thought of this, but it's very clunky. The Command Pet skill to make them target a mob combined with the huge skill animation delay AND the fact that most pets are melee and will need to move to a target after using it make it so that you can only get about half of the duration in practice. I'd suggest that: 1. Duration gets increased to 30 seconds. 2. They would automatically attack a target that has a burning embers dot. In case of multiple mobs, they go to the one with the most dots. If you want them to switch targets, all pets should listen to the default Attack skill on a pet bar. 3.

-Feral Some nice bonusses, however I believe it's best to move this to the last passive trait tree bonus. I love the thought of having 2 pets up at the same time, and what better place than the keystone trait in blue line? This might get tricky for the UI and could be confusing for the player at first, but it could be worth looking into.


~~~~~


Now to some drastic reworking to pets in their own right (bear with me, pun intended)

Raven

Passive:
1. Keen Eye: Will automatically interrupt an induction (Internal cooldown of X seconds)

Blue line only (The new Feral bonus?)
2. Flock of Birds: Reduces finesse of nearby enemies

Active:
Distraction: Toggle skill, +20% attack duration and +10% miss chance
Impeding movement: Toggle skill, -25% movement speed
Eye Gauge: Attack that silences the target for 5s

Bear

Passive:
1. Sturdy Hide: Grants armour to entire fellowship

Blue line only (The new Feral bonus?)
2. Imposing presence: Reduces damage taken by fellowship by 5%

Active

Roaring Challenge: Forced taunt for 10s, gets additional threat for 15s.
Bear Hug: Stuns target for 5s
Slashing Maul: AoE attack (5 targets) and causes a strong bleed

Lynx

Passive:
1.Stealth: Automatically goes into stealth out of combat

Blue line only (The new Feral bonus?)
2. Hunt in Packs: Gains +10% damage per nearby fellowship member and provides +5% outgoing damage for the fellowship

Active

Surprise Attack: Stealth attack, always crits
Feral Strike: Single target attack with a damaging bleed
Slashing Claws: If used after Surprise Attack, stun the target for 2s and causes +5% incoming damage. If used after Feral Strike, cause another bleed that caps at 5 stacks.


Sabre Tooth

Passive:
1. Prey in Sight: Gains +10% damage per enemy nearby, capping at 5 stacks

Blue line only (The new Feral bonus?)
2. Icy Cold : Auto attacks deal AoE frost damage.

Active

Frostbite: AoE attack (5 targets) that applies a -10% fire mitigation debuff if Icy Cold is present
Fury of Winter: Strong AoE attack (5 targets) that causes a strong bleed
Throat Slash: Strong frontal attack that silences for 5s


Bog Lurker

Passive:
1. Enrage: Gains a stacking +2% damage per auto attack, capping at 10 stacks.

Blue line only (The new Feral bonus?)
2. Protective: Gives -15% incoming ranged damage to all fellowship members

Active
Angry Bees: DoT attack
Bursting Roots: AoE attack (5 targets) that roots a target afflicted by Angry Bees for 10s and slows the others
Stir the Bees: Damaging single target attack that gives a +10% incoming crit chance if Angry Bees is present


Limrafn

Passive:
1. No intervention Cannot attack. Gives +5% incoming healing to the fellowship

Blue line only (The new Feral bonus?)
2. Nature's Light Power cost of skills of fellowship members is reduced by 20% (Assuming power cost will be relevant after class changes)

Active:
Burst of Light: Shields the entire fellowship for 5% of max health
Nature's Inspiration: Gives all fellowship members immunity to slows and roots for 5s
Nature's Gift: Heals 10% of max health to nearby allies


Eagle

Passive:
1. Nobility: Fellowship members gain additional power and morale regeneration both in and out of combat

Blue line only (The new Feral bonus?)
2. Keen Sight: Fellowship members gain 5m extra range on their skills

Active:
Sacrifice: Whenever a fellowship member dies, sacrifice the Eagle to revive him/her. (Internal cooldown needed to prevent Do Not Fall usage like RK's, Eagle cannot be resummoned during combat like other pets?)
Fan the Flames: Fire attack that provides finesse to nearby fellowship members if Burning/Searing Embers is present
Beak Rend: Strong attack that deals bonus damage if Burning/Searing Embers is present