Improved Bane-Flare?

[Brinuw]

So Ive spent a lot of time thinking over the Lore-Master class, and in co-ordinance with a lot of runs across all sorts mechanics and mob types (reviewing combact analysis to see what skills I use the least) and hypothesizing potential skill improvements.

&From what I've determined, Bane Flare is borderline useless currently. The only instance I used the skill was a few times in OD and even then if I hadn't used the skill the raid group wouldn't have had any problem (used it more for nostalgia that actual functionality)&
&
Currently, Bane Flare is a small explosion that mezes only the Dead for 15s. I propose to change the animation to add a a visual light ball to be created as a result of the explosion. This light would last for 2minutes (much like a cappy banner) hovering higher in the air so that people don't complain about visuals (#1 complaint about the eagle).&

Debuff: effects only &ancient evil, unseen, the dead, nameless
+10% inductions
-15%run speed
-20%incoming healing
&Duration: as long as the enemy stands in the affective area

Buff: effects all fellow/raid members standing within 10m
+1 hope (something a lot of people have asked for)
+1% tactical mitigation (a light against the shadow)
Duration 2mins

CC: 15s daze for the dead (no change) the legacy can still be used for the amount of dazing targets.&

Now for the visuals, since we have a flare heaved into the air, the flare would emit a subtle but noticeable lighting effect that brightens the area that is within 10m of the flare. I'm not saying make Moira look like the sun is within the halls, but just a touch of light (a little less than the light that surrounds the player in super dark areas).&

Now because Bane Flare is on a minute cool down, and the Flare lasts 2 minutes; have the skill work like Captain banners, over writing the oldest when the skill is reused.&

[Marphlets]

So Ive spent a lot of time thinking over the Lore-Master class, and in co-ordinance with a lot of runs across all sorts mechanics and mob types (reviewing combact analysis to see what skills I use the least) and hypothesizing potential skill improvements.

&From what I've determined, Bane Flare is borderline useless currently. The only instance I used the skill was a few times in OD and even then if I hadn't used the skill the raid group wouldn't have had any problem (used it more for nostalgia that actual functionality)&
&
Currently, Bane Flare is a small explosion that mezes only the Dead for 15s. I propose to change the animation to add a a visual light ball to be created as a result of the explosion. This light would last for 2minutes (much like a cappy banner) hovering higher in the air so that people don't complain about visuals (#1 complaint about the eagle).&

Debuff: effects only &ancient evil, unseen, the dead, nameless
+10% inductions
-15%run speed
-20%incoming healing
&Duration: as long as the enemy stands in the affective area

Buff: effects all fellow/raid members standing within 10m
+1 hope (something a lot of people have asked for)
+1% tactical mitigation (a light against the shadow)
Duration 2mins

CC: 15s daze for the dead (no change) the legacy can still be used for the amount of dazing targets.&

Now for the visuals, since we have a flare heaved into the air, the flare would emit a subtle but noticeable lighting effect that brightens the area that is within 10m of the flare. I'm not saying make Moira look like the sun is within the halls, but just a touch of light (a little less than the light that surrounds the player in super dark areas).&

Now because Bane Flare is on a minute cool down, and the Flare lasts 2 minutes; have the skill work like Captain banners, over writing the oldest when the skill is reused.&

Not that I would mind added benefits to the skill, but I have found Bane Flare useful on many occasions. I used frequently in the barrow downs when I was but a wee LM. I used it every time I did a GB run with my kin (in the appropriate places with no kin fellow complaints). I used it in the dead lands in Angmar on duo and trio quest runs. I used it in the Bonevales to stun mobs while I farmed scholar nodes, then run.

Not sure about adding a sustained light to the visuals. LMs already cause group lag every time they throw down a fire puddle. Maybe the same ole fuzzy light halo around the head of each mob affected. I like the buffs you suggest adding. Not so much the Debuffs. If we're going to add something lets make it a inc. damage bonus to the dead that stacks with SOP:C.

(Edit: Just realized I confused SOP:C with the burg skill Reveal Weakness. So a +8% inc damage debuff would be a nice add to BF. And stacked with SOP:C it would have the -20% attack duration you suggested.)

[silverblade5445]

So Ive spent a lot of time thinking over the Lore-Master class, and in co-ordinance with a lot of runs across all sorts mechanics and mob types (reviewing combact analysis to see what skills I use the least) and hypothesizing potential skill improvements.

&From what I've determined, Bane Flare is borderline useless currently. The only instance I used the skill was a few times in OD and even then if I hadn't used the skill the raid group wouldn't have had any problem (used it more for nostalgia that actual functionality)&
&
Currently, Bane Flare is a small explosion that mezes only the Dead for 15s. I propose to change the animation to add a a visual light ball to be created as a result of the explosion. This light would last for 2minutes (much like a cappy banner) hovering higher in the air so that people don't complain about visuals (#1 complaint about the eagle).&

Debuff: effects only &ancient evil, unseen, the dead, nameless
+10% inductions
-15%run speed
-20%incoming healing
&Duration: as long as the enemy stands in the affective area

Buff: effects all fellow/raid members standing within 10m
+1 hope (something a lot of people have asked for)
+1% tactical mitigation (a light against the shadow)
Duration 2mins

CC: 15s daze for the dead (no change) the legacy can still be used for the amount of dazing targets.&

Now for the visuals, since we have a flare heaved into the air, the flare would emit a subtle but noticeable lighting effect that brightens the area that is within 10m of the flare. I'm not saying make Moira look like the sun is within the halls, but just a touch of light (a little less than the light that surrounds the player in super dark areas).&

Now because Bane Flare is on a minute cool down, and the Flare lasts 2 minutes; have the skill work like Captain banners, over writing the oldest when the skill is reused.&

Definitely /signed

But instead of the debuffs, I'd rather go for more powerful buffs.....we have plenty debuffs at the moment....and more.....for example, the ones you mentioned above can quite easily be achieved using Frost Lore and Sticky Tar......and we dont need -incoming healing anyways because that would be a purely PvMP useful thing since most PvE mobs dont have incoming healing anyways......and since PvMP has no unseen/dead type of classes, it wouldnt be any use there either.....so it would again become a unused skill because other skills can do its job much better.....

So instead of that, if I may, I'd suggest a small change to your idea..... Instead of the hovering ball of light, which as the previous poster said, would cause lag.....make the animation like raising the staff for a moment which shines like the hope token and then all allies get the "glow" animation that we get during those Inspiration buff instances.....the buffs could last anything between 30-45 seconds....and the skill would be on a 3-5 minute cooldown......

The buffs would be something like -

+1 hope
+10 percent tactical mitigation
+10 percent outgoing damage (physical & tactical)

And a 8 second -stun- (not mez) on 5 targets of the Unseen/Dead type.....stun because if we're giving the skill a buff with mitigations and outgoing damage, hardly makes sense to inhibit the effectiveness of those skills by having to think about breaking mezzes.....

Just suggesting this because we have quite many debuffs skills but almost no buff skills....the only buff as such that we have is probably Continuous Air Lore.....and its not that great.....

[Mithithil]

Nice idea and I commend it.

As an alternative, instead of the glow on the caster's staff. maybe a subtle glow around the weapons of the group. Might be hard to do if its AoE rather than FS though, so maybe too hard. Certainly a change in the area lighting effect would seem most appropriate, but as a bane to the forces of darkness, rather than a buff for the goodies.

Best of all would be to make the unaffected area darker for the duration, that could look superb.

[Louvre]

Not that I don't like ideas , but imo just change the skill so it's able to daze anything like BF .

Would love to see how would people change Continual Air-lore .

[Marphlets]

Not that I don't like ideas , but imo just change the skill so it's able to daze anything like BF .

Would love to see how would people change Continual Air-lore .

Having two Blinding Flashes seems. . .redundant. I'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to varying skills, so ....Go ahead slap another list of added procs to a current skill! I like the idea of making Bane Flare more complicated No really.

How to change Continual Air-lore?? Get rid of it. It's benefit is minimal and we could use some extra space on our board.

[GingerAj]

They should buff Continual Air-Lore and add a Power restoration for it, it would be more viable for alot of fellowship members then as you wouldn't just cast it on the tank and forget about it.

[silverblade5445]

They should buff Continual Air-Lore and add a Power restoration for it, it would be more viable for alot of fellowship members then as you wouldn't just cast it on the tank and forget about it.

Well I had proposed this earlier as well.....make Continuous Air-lore similar to the Captain's brother skills.....

Winds of Wrath - would boost the air-lore target's damage output by a significant amount and give a 5 second crit buff to guarantee crits when Wizard's fire is used on a flank....

Winds of Restoration - would boost the target's ICPR and OCPR by a significant amount and give a power return when WF is used on a flank....

Winds of Healing - would boost the target's ICMR and OCMR by a significant amount and give a heal when WF is used on a flank....

Along with those, all of the above would give a standard 10 percent chance to reflect some damage onto the attacker.....

And then improved flanking trait can be modified to allow the LM to share the passive buffs of the Air-lore with the Air-lore's target.....

[Tromador]

Well I had proposed this earlier as well.....make Continuous Air-lore similar to the Captain's brother skills.....

Why? If you want to do captain stuff, play a captain.

I remember how much the LM community bitched when hunters got a raft of CC skills, I've been levelling a hunter just recently and am astonished at how easy it is to deal with groups of enemies by using CC as delaying tactics so I can burn them down (with the huge hunter DPS) one at a time. Yet, I remember a time when it was Loremasters (and to a lesser extent burglars) that did all the CC.

Increasing homogeneity of classes is a bad thing, we shouldn't get lots of buffs, it's not our thing, that's the captain's job or the minstrel's job. Our thing is debuffs.

I completely agree that bane flare needs work. In days gone by, BF wouldn't work on the undead so bane flare was created to give us something to use on undead. These days, it's kind of redundant. I wouldn't be surprised to see it removed completely at some point, hopefully replaced with something more appropriate - but please let's stick to skills in line with the roles Loremasters already have, rather than start bleeding over into what other classes are good at.

[silverblade5445]

Why? If you want to do captain stuff, play a captain.

I remember how much the LM community bitched when hunters got a raft of CC skills, I've been levelling a hunter just recently and am astonished at how easy it is to deal with groups of enemies by using CC as delaying tactics so I can burn them down (with the huge hunter DPS) one at a time. Yet, I remember a time when it was Loremasters (and to a lesser extent burglars) that did all the CC.

Increasing homogeneity of classes is a bad thing, we shouldn't get lots of buffs, it's not our thing, that's the captain's job or the minstrel's job. Our thing is debuffs.

I agree with your point and I for one wouldnt want the kind of homogeneity....but....

Our Continuous Air Lore in its current state IS a weak and much useless version of shield brother.....it has a heal we can give, a damage reduction, etc.....so it is already in the same area of concept....so buffing it up would only make it just what the captain's brother skills are anyways.....so either we not talk about buffing it, lest it become homogenous in regard to class roles or we change its concept entirely....which I doubt the devs would take the effort to do (although I hope they do )

Not to mention, while one might argue homogeneity, there is already a need for it in the current state of things.....and the game sort of promotes it.....the classic example can be Draigoch needing a burglar.....without a reliable FM starter, that raid is almost impossible.....now the solution would be to either give other classes ability to reliably kick off FMs, which in the above context would result in a sort of homogeneity, or remove that sort of absolute need in a raid.....

And despite all the complaining about hunters being given the cc-abilities they have, we're still the masters of it.....for hunters its more of a secondary role which they can fulfill if there is no LM available.....never have I seen a hunter being chosen for cc if an LM is available.....same goes for this concept......buffing is not our field.....but we ARE a support class....might as well have a buff or two ready on hand....not as powerful to overshadow the main class that holds that role, but available at a pinch....like if we get the new skill to start FMs, doesnt mean LMs will replace burgs.....only that no raid will be held up at "11/12 draig....need burg"

[Tromador]

A burglar is a useful addition in just about any raid and realistically in a 12-man group, there's space to fit burglars in. Obviously what you describe is a terrible shortage of burgs for PUG raids, which is a shame - the burglar is another support class, which makes it less popular than some of the other classes I guess.

If you want to expand upon Air Lore, that's fine, but let's not have it do what captains do. Right now it negates some damage and reflects some damage (not much, admittedly) and only on common damage.

Instead of providing a direct buff to the tank, there is room to work in our area. For a start an improved version might work versus other forms of damage, such as shadow. Then perhaps hitting a tank blessed with "new improved uber air lore" might debuff a mob with a particular vulnerability, perhaps a lowered resistance to fire or light damage. Hit the tank and be slowed, or rooted. These are all viable examples of ways to improve the skill, without getting into the realms of buffs and maintain class distinction.

I really don't think we should worry about filling in for other class roles in the raid environment. In fact, I think that's counter productive and has a danger, if taken too far, to make classes redundant and/or unwanted in a raid group. Keeping elements in raids that need particular skills isn't such a bad thing and gives a bit of love to the players of those classes, who like to be remembered in large group instance design.

Rather, the problem still exists in 3-man content, where the formula of tank, heal, dps exists. There isn't really space for a support class in the small group and the Loremaster still needs a bit of work to fit cleanly into either (and especially) the healing role and somewhat in the DPS role (AoE Spike damage good, continuous single target DPS not so much).

[JDCass]

Just... no.

[Louvre]

If you want to expand upon Air Lore, that's fine, but let's not have it do what captains do. Right now it negates some damage and reflects some damage (not much, admittedly) and only on common damage.

Instead of providing a direct buff to the tank, there is room to work in our area. For a start an improved version might work versus other forms of damage, such as shadow. Then perhaps hitting a tank blessed with "new improved uber air lore" might debuff a mob with a particular vulnerability, perhaps a lowered resistance to fire or light damage. Hit the tank and be slowed, or rooted. These are all viable examples of ways to improve the skill, without getting into the realms of buffs and maintain class distinction.

I really don't think we should worry about filling in for other class roles in the raid environment. In fact, I think that's counter productive and has a danger, if taken too far, to make classes redundant and/or unwanted in a raid group. Keeping elements in raids that need particular skills isn't such a bad thing and gives a bit of love to the players of those classes, who like to be remembered in large group instance design.

Rather, the problem still exists in 3-man content, where the formula of tank, heal, dps exists. There isn't really space for a support class in the small group and the Loremaster still needs a bit of work to fit cleanly into either (and especially) the healing role and somewhat in the DPS role (AoE Spike damage good, continuous single target DPS not so much).

1.- Continual Air-lore works on any damage .

2.- Our area can be anything that can be considered support . We are not a debuff-only class .

3.- Take away Fire-lore , Air-lore & Frost-lore and there is nothing special about us in a raid . There is no reason to worry about getting in to another class role , because most classes already do that in their own way anyway .

4.- With the current content design ( boring dps races ) , a lore-master can be unnecesary . At some point , my kin used to run BG & OD HMs with no LM at all , and germans already do some ToO challenges with no LM .

5.- It is exactly in 3 mans where we can see our class problems clearly . Our burst damage means nothing after the first 3-5 mins of the battle , we are no reliable healers , and CC and hard debuffing are not necessary .

[Tromador]

1.- Continual Air-lore works on any damage .

I stand corrected. The disadvantage of posting from work is not having my lm to refer to, so I need to check things like wiki for exact specifications and it's often out of date. I'm getting old and my memory is a bit dim at times

2.- Our area can be anything that can be considered support . We are not a debuff-only class .

That's fine, but why duplicate other classes' skills. We already have an almost exact copy of revealing mark on our spirit pets, it's just silly. Give us our own stuff.

3.- Take away Fire-lore , Air-lore & Frost-lore and there is nothing special about us in a raid . There is no reason to worry about getting in to another class role , because most classes already do that in their own way anyway.

4.- With the current content design ( boring dps races ) , a lore-master can be unnecesary . At some point , my kin used to run BG & OD HMs with no LM at all , and germans already do some ToO challenges with no LM.

I don't disagree. As a primary CC class we've been being effectively punished in raids for a long time, endless things that are immune to CC, or gain buffs where CC is used (DN trolls) or have limits on CC usage (adaptation). If the raid can heal/dps well enough, then debuffs become equally irrelevant, but surely the same could be said of buffs.

If the kinships you describe are eschewing the use of the Loremaster, then I don't see how it will help giving them skills which are similar to other classes. If we got a "telling mark" to go with our "revealing mark" and some "brother" skills, all of which not quite as good as a captain's then the raid will still rather take a captain.

5.- It is exactly in 3 mans where we can see our class problems clearly . Our burst damage means nothing after the first 3-5 mins of the battle , we are no reliable healers , and CC and hard debuffing are not necessary .

In that we are in complete agreement.

[Mystion_EU]

Well in all fairness Telling mark is more like a debuff than a buff.
Also, we have our own equivalent: SAE with the draigoch set.

However, I agree baneflare needs some improvement. I'dd rather see a debuff to enemies than a buff to FS/Raid but either will do, I moved this skill to the far end of my quickslots, I haven't used it since SG!

[TFP]

...In days gone by, BF wouldn't work on the undead..

i've never quite worked out when this changed & why?

was the restriction got rid of because it wiped out [for LMs at least] the usefulness of GB as a first learning point for grouping?

[Tromador]

i've never quite worked out when this changed & why?

was the restriction got rid of because it wiped out [for LMs at least] the usefulness of GB as a first learning point for grouping?

The change was made quite recently, in fact. When RoI was released, in Update 4. At the same time, similar restrictions were removed from the burglar riddle skill.

I'm not honestly sure of the reasoning, presumably it had much to do with avoiding the particular need for one CC class or the other when grouping.

[Mithithil]

The change was made quite recently, in fact. When RoI was released, in Update 4. At the same time, similar restrictions were removed from the burglar riddle skill.

I'm not honestly sure of the reasoning, presumably it had much to do with avoiding the particular need for one CC class or the other when grouping.

<cynic mode>
it cam in so that it was easier to write content, a dps race encounter is easier and when you don't need 2 cc classes to cover the bases...
<\cynic mode>

[jeanperson]

Not that I don't like ideas , but imo just change the skill so it's able to daze anything like BF .

Would love to see how would people change Continual Air-lore .

Agree, burg can riddle any creature type even raven, boar, etc!!

Why should a Bane Flare which is the same thing as a blinding flash but thrown in the air to affect all nearby creatures.

[jeanperson]

Having two Blinding Flashes seems. . .redundant. I'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to varying skills, so ....Go ahead slap another list of added procs to a current skill! I like the idea of making Bane Flare more complicated No really.

Bane Flare is an small melee AoE daze for 15 seconds, with 60 seconds CD.
Blinding Flash is a range single target for 30 seconds daze, with 15 seconds CD.

They are quite different...

Mind also that Sticky Gourd, and Burning Ember are also almost the same thing.

All those skill are (al)chemical skills that relly on pyrotechnic knowledge, they will surely seam redundant somehow.

[jeanperson]

Well I had proposed this earlier as well.....make Continuous Air-lore similar to the Captain's brother skills.....

Winds of Wrath - would boost the air-lore target's damage output by a significant amount and give a 5 second crit buff to guarantee crits when Wizard's fire is used on a flank....

Winds of Restoration - would boost the target's ICPR and OCPR by a significant amount and give a power return when WF is used on a flank....

Winds of Healing - would boost the target's ICMR and OCMR by a significant amount and give a heal when WF is used on a flank....

Along with those, all of the above would give a standard 10 percent chance to reflect some damage onto the attacker.....

And then improved flanking trait can be modified to allow the LM to share the passive buffs of the Air-lore with the Air-lore's target.....

PLZ NO! stop blending every classes into each others!

the flank SoB Healing synergy with Air-lore is already non sense. the idea is good but I would rather prefere to see that synergy with SoP: righteousness rather then Air-lore.

Explain me, how a Lore of Air that prevent some hit to a target to make that your Sign of Battle: wizard's fire damaging a target flanked by your pet should give soem morale to that target that you prevented to be hit with your knowledge of the Air?

To make it with SoP: righteousness would first allow LM to heal more ppl but would force him to refresh the SoB and would give some work instead of having a CAL target getting healed whenever you hit SoB along with the OD set aoe flank healing!!

[jeanperson]

Why? If you want to do captain stuff, play a captain.

I remember how much the LM community bitched when hunters got a raft of CC skills, I've been levelling a hunter just recently and am astonished at how easy it is to deal with groups of enemies by using CC as delaying tactics so I can burn them down (with the huge hunter DPS) one at a time. Yet, I remember a time when it was Loremasters (and to a lesser extent burglars) that did all the CC.

Increasing homogeneity of classes is a bad thing, we shouldn't get lots of buffs, it's not our thing, that's the captain's job or the minstrel's job. Our thing is debuffs.

I completely agree that bane flare needs work. In days gone by, BF wouldn't work on the undead so bane flare was created to give us something to use on undead. These days, it's kind of redundant. I wouldn't be surprised to see it removed completely at some point, hopefully replaced with something more appropriate - but please let's stick to skills in line with the roles Loremasters already have, rather than start bleeding over into what other classes are good at.

./bump

[jeanperson]

I agree with your point and I for one wouldnt want the kind of homogeneity....but....

Our Continuous Air Lore in its current state IS a weak and much useless version of shield brother.....it has a heal we can give, a damage reduction, etc.....so it is already in the same area of concept....so buffing it up would only make it just what the captain's brother skills are anyways.....so either we not talk about buffing it, lest it become homogenous in regard to class roles or we change its concept entirely....which I doubt the devs would take the effort to do (although I hope they do )

Not to mention, while one might argue homogeneity, there is already a need for it in the current state of things.....and the game sort of promotes it.....the classic example can be Draigoch needing a burglar.....without a reliable FM starter, that raid is almost impossible.....now the solution would be to either give other classes ability to reliably kick off FMs, which in the above context would result in a sort of homogeneity, or remove that sort of absolute need in a raid.....

And despite all the complaining about hunters being given the cc-abilities they have, we're still the masters of it.....for hunters its more of a secondary role which they can fulfill if there is no LM available.....never have I seen a hunter being chosen for cc if an LM is available.....same goes for this concept......buffing is not our field.....but we ARE a support class....might as well have a buff or two ready on hand....not as powerful to overshadow the main class that holds that role, but available at a pinch....like if we get the new skill to start FMs, doesnt mean LMs will replace burgs.....only that no raid will be held up at "11/12 draig....need burg"

If Draig was not bugged on pet then LM migth go with bog-lurker in place of Burg but no... turbine after almost a year are still not able to fix it once and for all.