Admittedly I don't main a LM (its probably my 3rd or 4th role), so take my input with a grain of salt.

Before I start though, I want to highlight what I think is probably the LMs primary issue: its corruption removal. LM has objectively the worse corruption removal across all classes. Its a single target, 30s cooldown corruption removal. This makes it difficult in not only group play, but solo play, especially with how frequently reflection corruptions are showing up these days. The skill should either have its cooldown drastically reduced, or become an AoE skill.

I'd also like to make a general suggestion for corruptions, not necessarily related only to LMs: Please try for more variation in corruption skills. A lot of skills generically "remove 1 tier of up to 3 corruptions", but no skills remove multiple tiers of the same corruption (the closest we have is the Champion removal). This type of mechanic is one we're starting to see more often in content, so it would make sense to have at least some skills designed for this type of scenario.

Quote Originally Posted by OnnMacMahal View Post
Pets (more than just the Keeper of Animals trait line)
Do you engage with the ‘pet rotation’? If yes, how do you feel about it? Do you like that it adds activity or raises the skill ceiling, or do you find it overwhelming or even tedious?

Do you find yourself using different pets in different circumstances? Do you feel like your pets actively contribute to your gameplay and your Lore-master fantasy? Do you have opportunities to use the pets you like, stylistically? Or do mostly find yourself locked into a few types, either statically or in a constant ‘pet rotation’ (ie: Catmint raven, boglurker, bear).

Some of you may have guessed at this, but we’re eyeing some changes to pets similar to the changes made to captain pets in U35. Primarily, that would mean a pet summoning cooldown, which would limit your ability to use any given pet skill repeatedly (ie: bypassing the pet skill cooldowns by dismissing and resummoning the pet itself). Like captain heralds, this would still allow you to immediately resummon a pet that you have had out for a while (long enough for its cooldown time to fully elapse) but it would prevent you from using pet skills more than twice in a row without waiting for either the individual skill’s cooldown or the pet summoning cooldown.
Yes, I engage with the pet rotation. I do believe it adds activity and raises the skill ceiling. However, it is also incredibly tedious. Your rotation is basically catmint raven -> bear -> bog -> bear -> bog -> catmint raven (at least mine is). The only changes you ever make is to remove the raven and/or bog lurker, and in both cases its mainly because of having a hunter (sometimes for LM, but this is a very minor consideration). Spirit might pop in on occasion depending on the difficulty of the fight.

Apart from the above situational adjustment, I don't find myself using any other pets. Sabertooth, eagle, and lynx are all pretty much useless. Sabertooth damage isn't high enough and its frost debuff isn't relevant enough to bother with. The eagle rez is awkward, unreliable, and situational. The lynx has nothing to contribute.

My suggestions would be:
  • Give each pet at least one generic support function, especially the seldom used pets. Maybe instead of the frost debuff, give the sabertooth a skill that increases party tactical damage for a bit. Doesn't have to be major, 2% maybe. Or one of the pets could give the party reduced damage for a time. This would hopefully support expanding the pet rotation and more variation depending on content and group composition.
  • Standardize the debuff durations. Just to make it simpler to track all the various effects.


Quote Originally Posted by OnnMacMahal View Post
DPS
A DPS-oriented Lore-master has some interesting skills and mechanics, but your overall repertoire of damaging skills can sometimes feel quite thin. Are there things you like about the current damage potential at your disposal? What frustrates you when trying to prioritize DPS? Reliance on induction skills? A dependency on tar + catmint raven to maintain high output? Waiting for cooldowns when Burning Embers is already tiered up and Lighting Strike/Storm are on cooldown? What do you like about your core damage rotation? What do you wish you did better?
DPS LM seem to generally be in a good place in terms of skill damage. However, as hinted at, the skill cooldowns don't synergize very well. I often find myself in situations where I either have to wait for Burning Embers to go off cooldown, or spam Wizard's Fire, because all my other DPS skills are on cooldown. I also feel like the design of LM's DPS is at odds with other components of its class. As a light armour class with access to several CC skills, it makes it awkward trying to use DPS skills given that most of them are AoE and will break its attempts to CC. Granted this is more of a solo'ing issue. Plus with the bear being a single-target tank pet, this discourages pulling groups of enemies, which kind of defeats the purpose of DPS skills being AoE. Also, staff skills in general are pretty awkward. Its pretty counter-intuitive for a light armoured "magic" class to be encouraged to be in melee range for a handful of skills.

My suggestions would be:
  • Reduce Burning Embers cooldown to 1.5s, make another single-target skill with a relatively short cooldown (3s-5s), or both
  • Reduce the cooldown of Ents go to War (maybe somewhere between 1.5-2m?) and Lightning Storm (1m)
  • Reduce likelihood of DoTs prematurely breaking CC.


Quote Originally Posted by OnnMacMahal View Post
The Ancient Master – Support-first Lore-master
The Ancient Master line is often the de-facto primary trait setup for Lore-masters, but that doesn’t mean it is above reproach. While LMs are primarily sought after in raid groups, instances, and PvP for their support capacity, that doesn’t mean the ‘support-first’ LM has no room for improvement. For those of you who live and breathe yellow-LM, what do you like about the class and the role? What do you wish were different? Are you frustrated by the fact that your long-mez is also your interrupt skill? Does Water-lore-stacking provide you with something to steadily cycle into your skills, or does it feel like too much necessary upkeep? Do you feel like you contribute meaningfully to the group in moments where there are few/no adds to CC or manage? Do you just wish you had a Wizards Lightning skill to reapply your preferred 'Out in the Cold' or 'Playng with Fire' debuffs?
Unlike the previous feedback, I'll itemize mine for this one:
  • "Out in the Cold" and "Playing with Fire" are not particularly well designed. If you want to maintain any of the debuffs, you need to actively avoid using skills that will change it. As this isn't feasible, this makes both traits more of an afterthought in active play.
  • "Blinding Flash" being our interrupt skill is really annoying, but what I think is more annoying, is that the mez affect is applied only when the animation is over. And its not a particularly fast animation.
  • Water lore I think is fine as is.
  • Yellow LM has a lot of skills. Could probably do with consolidating some of them.
  • Herb-lore has no business being a 2m cooldown skill, as root is just a worse mez. Storm-lore is probably a worse offender, being a 3-5s stun on a 2m cooldown.
  • The debuffs provided by "Out in the Cold" need an overhaul. The tactical debuff does not scale well, as at level 140, it only reduces tact mastery by around 1.4k. Power cost is a pretty useless debuff in PvE, as enemies generally never consume enough power to even reduce their bar by a percent.


My suggestions would be:
  • Either scrap "Out in the Cold" and "Playing with Fire", or change it to where the debuffs aren't removed when it switches between the three elements. If keeping it, change the tact debuff and power cost debuffs from "Out in the Cold"
  • Have the mez affect for "Blinding Flash" apply when the animation starts, rather than when it ends. Separate the interrupt component from the skill.
  • Consolidate some of the "Sign of Power" skills. Vigilence doesn't have a lot of use to justify it being its own skill, and Power/"See All Ends" might as well be one skill. If you scrap "Out in the Cold" and "Playing with Fire", maybe consider consolidating Fire and Frost lores.
  • Reduce herb-lore cooldown (maybe between 45s-1m) and Storm-lore to 1m