Ok, now I've had a chance to actually play in a couple of groups, I feel like I should add my experiences- 25-26 Inq, VoZ orcs and TE sweatshop.
The first thing that stands out is that getting resisted now feels really bad. Our MR debuff is no-longer irresistible (which, I get the reasoning, now that it's pulling double duty), which mostly makes it feel like a mana sink in any circumstances that I had previously used it. The fact that it now does nominal damage (and therefore breaks mez) also feels like a nerf.
I also had the mana issues that others have talked about, and I also think it needs tuning. I know mana is meant to be a fundamental limitation for the class, but if there isn't a mode where we can sustainably fight even cons without tank med breaks, it's going to be very hard to get groups. That said, the resists contributed so much to mana issues that it's hard for me to say for sure how much of a problem overall mana sustainability is vs. how much of the problem is just flushing mana down the drain for nothing.
The mana drain situation also feels bad. Pillage is no-where near enough to functionally drain caster mobs near our level, so the cooldown means mana-draining requires having mana burn also on the bar and taking up 2 slots to make mana drain at all meaningful (since mobs don't manage their mana at all, they cast until they run out, and TTK means they don't run out if anyone is interrupting at all). And of course a resist is a massive mana sink and you don't get a second shot before it dies, so it feels all the worse. On the flip side, the mana steal component of Pillage feels amazing. I ran with an enchanter and an elementalist using water pet (don't judge him, the other DPS were all wizards) at various points, and the fact that my mana contributions to the group fully stacked felt both mechanically good, and thematically right.
Threat on Mez feels good- it definitely made things smoother, as did the reduced cast time. I didn't find the reduced duration to be as bad as others did, but I'm fairly low level, so TTK probably makes a large difference there. Would love to see a small threat bump attached to the stun as well, if I understand fighter's distracting taunt and the plans for paladin correctly?
Reflecting bash is thematically great, but mechanically feels like a nerf. The damage looks nice, but at the end of the day, damage isn't my job, and having an interrupt not be reliably available due to cross cooldowns isn't on brand for Inq. Not having an interrupt at all without a shield so I had to rely on the party for interrupts during a CR felt awful. I'd rather have kick back if I have to choose, but it would be a cool ability if they just put it on shared CD with kick (and left us kick for CRs).
I gave the ward a shot, but it never once felt like anything but a waste of mana. Any time things actually got dicey, the numbers were too small and cooldown too long to make an impact, so it's a terrible 'oh shit' button. And the mana efficiency is way too bad to make it worth using regularly. I can't honestly see ever putting it on my bar.
Didn't test out dominate. Bar real estate is too precious given the CD and unreliability. If I had more space, mem blur for a mez-blur combo feels more likely to turn a bad situation than dominate, but that's nothing to do with the changes.
Psychic choke was fully broken both sessions, did not use.
