AP Regen Issues

[Peter]

Another druid -> archmage transfer here, although i switched to resto around Mag. RIP WoW hybrid class idea.

Well, I have done the math on the Archmage class in its current incarnation now (took two days, so sue me ), enough to form a preliminary but likely accurate in essence analysis of high level play, so it is unlikely I'll keep playing it much for now due to it being, essentially and scaling in importance with level, no matter how you spec it, a class that functions best as a green-bar watcher/debuffer that (outside soloing) only uses destruction spells when there is nobody in range needing a healing spell.

The entire "do BOTH a) and b) and you'll be better off, the trick is to balance them" that is advertised as the strong part does not work in practice due to AP starvation. You are better off doing a). In other words, the higher level I it to, the greater the impetus and the desire of others for using an Archmage as the standard "healer standing in the back doing little other than healing" will be - and it will be damn good at it, but it is exactly the sort of healer that early design interviews and videos claimed wouldn't be found in WAR, and which I dislike playing immensely. The class requires a fundamental overhaul to its mechanics (and quite a number of spells) if it is ever to be useful and desirable as the hybrid healer/nuker (as contrasted to the hybrid healer/melee for the WP) that it was stated to be. Most likely Mythic will change the class description instead.

Funnily enough, it probably does work to some degree for Shaman since their version of Drain Magic (which ought to have been an awesome rather than meh! ability if one went by the TT game) gives the player AP when used, but then, there are significant indications that the Archmage has had extremely little developer attention for quite some time (as an example, it uses the Shaman Gork/Mork graphics as high magic indicators on spell icons )

[Torgal]

Well, I have done the math on the Archmage class in its current incarnation now (took two days, so sue me Cheesy)

I think we may well get on rather well!

(as an example, it uses the Shaman Gork/Mork graphics as high magic indicators on spell icons )

Oh I hadn't noticed, that's quite poor form.

[peo]

I suspect AP starvation might become less of a deal with a IB that has the 11point brotherhood tactic "Told Ya So!" which gives 25AP every time the IB critically hits a opponent to all groupmembers. (at most every 3 sec but considering a 1.5sec cooldown and a crit rate of lets say 25% I would assume you get it perhaps every 4-5 sec)

[Jarkko]

I suspect AP starvation might become less of a deal with a IB that has the 11point brotherhood tactic "Told Ya So!" which gives 25AP every time the IB critically hits a opponent to all groupmembers. (at most every 3 sec but considering a 1.5sec cooldown and a crit rate of lets say 25% I would assume you get it perhaps every 4-5 sec)

In beta it did proc of DoTs too (DoTs and HoTs can crit in WAR), which meant it was up practically every 3 seconds. Archmages really can start to live up the dual-nature 24/7 even when soloing at rank 29, when [spell]589[/spell] becomes available   Also, remember that you can change tactics on the run, as long as you have them slotted in the quick-slot bars.

[Peter]

In beta it did proc of DoTs too (DoTs and HoTs can crit in WAR), which meant it was up practically every 3 seconds. Archmages really can start to live up the dual-nature 24/7 even when soloing at rank 29, when [spell]589[/spell] becomes available   Also, remember that you can change tactics on the run, as long as you have them slotted in the quick-slot bars.

It procs on the direct heals, which makes it hard to imagine being a good soloing ability even if you also use Master of Discipline.

Additionally, it returns 40 mana over 3 seconds and not 160 as the tooltip says (and googling on beta notes, it looks like one of the last beta patches had the comment that the AP regen of Restorative Burst has been reduced, it is probably not a bug but working as intended).

Unless I've misunderstood the comments on the forums, it does not stack.

I find it hard to believe that it beats inserting any damage increasing talent for soloing purposes.

Damn good for a healbotting build, though.

[Warcold]

dont know if i understand everything you guys are saying, cause I'm sort of an MMO noob and dont quite get all the terms used, but right now I am speccing my AM for damage. If it doesnt work out I will retrain the whole lot.
the AM has quite some nice DoT spells that it can fling out while moving and one thing i use a lot is 'Drain magic', which is also instant cast. This way I can do quite some ranged damage in a very short time, before moving to healing again.

EDIT: but of course this has nothing to do with AP regen 

[Peter]

I will cover AP regeneration in a future thread should I ever get bored enough to do the math and do a write up.

[Gunnarr]

I've only toyed around briefly with AM (but I'll be toying around more with a gobbo shaman soon!)

One thing I noticed by going on spell descriptions from wardb etc, is that the non-boosted numbers from AM/shamans are about as high as the full-healer numbers from RPriests/Zealots.
It looks to me like the only counterbalancing factor is a wider amount of (group-)buffs for the RP/ZL. As I see it, you're pretty much free to do as you please, but if you do need to "switch" regularly, you'll rake in extra bonuses. I think the mechanic is pretty nifty actually, since it doesn't limit you in any way - you're still an ace healer even if you only healbot, and you still churn out respectable damage for a healing class.

That being said, I can understand your disappointment with it basically being a pure healer class.
On the other hand, as a "healer" player, I was annoyed by the mechanic of the warrior-priest quite early on, since that made me feel like I sometimes simply didn't have the tools to function as a "main healer", meaning you just ran out of healing "juice" when you had to heal full-time (think on a tank tanking a hero-boss.) That situation left me for the wonderful choice to either try and beat on the boss a bit and lose the tank half the time to spike damage, or heal fulltime and lose the tank a few minutes down the road, when you had run out of righteous fury.

About AP regen: so far the knack seems to be finding time to take a break in spellcasting. Once you stop casting, your AP bar fills itself up at a ridiculous rate.

[Jarkko]

Somewhat off-topic, but as Righteous Fury was brought up here...   For a WP AP-generation outside PvP is seldomly an issue (in PvP without a AP-battery in the group it can become a problem), but RF provides another problem. The RF problems in PvP are different from PvE, here I'll try to focus on the my percieved issues in PvE.

Notice that the healing spells, as seen in Wardb, are for rank 40 untalented. With my talents in Path of Salvation I already heal about the same as rank 40 non-talented.

Having main-healed in sewers and PQ's quite a few times now with my WP, the issue with WP is that things start to get to hell when a squishy starts to take spike-damage. Practically all PvE encounters with champions/heroes I have been in WAR see quite a lot of collateral damage, as there is AoE damage, and sometimes the mob dashes out for a seemingly random player. For this, [spell]8247[/spell] is great, it keeps everybody up through AoE damage and occasional "dash" damage (while most of the healing is wasted, it is still quite efficient, as for 60 RF I keep the tank and myself up, while also making the rest of the group recieve healing constantly). I have two direct heals to use on the tank ([spell]8244[/spell] is really only useful when trying to tank myself, as it costs a crap-load of Righteous Fury, and it seems to build up aggro like nothing else in my arsenal). In multimob situations [spell]8250[/spell] is good, and thus my rotation is Touch of the Divine followed by Smite (that I believe is the perfect rotation, as ToD has a 2s cooler, so an excellent slot to cast Smite )

When there are less than four mobs the RF goes down all the time unless I use some other damaging ability in the rotation, and in hero fights I usually run a ToD-RF builder-ToD-RF builder-RF builder rotation. Even with this rotation AP generation is not usually an issue, and I keep AP generating potions in my bags for these long fights; if I see I risk running low AP (say my AP is at ~120 when the hero still have 3/4 health left), it is better to drink the potion *early* so I possibly can drink another near the end if needed.

Things start to go wrong when I see somebody take spike damage too fast. The tank is easy to keep up through spike damage, a quick [spell]8238[/spell] usually is enough, and I still can keep enough RF for ToD's. However, if a squishy too starts to take spike damage, then my healing is screwed unless it is the very end of the battle, because RF will run dry fast (I can't use a RF builder in the rotationto be able to cast the single target heals in required amounts). So either I decide to let the squishy die (to be more correct, I sit here and hesitate what to do and the squishy dies while I try to decide) or I risk losing the tank a bit later (because I am RF dry then). [spell]8237[/spell] really isn't a tool in PvE, because for some reason it generates "sporadic" hate like nothing (the mobs hit me practically instantly after I have tried to use it, and then they happily go whack the tank again doing a neener-neener to me).