Defixio''s Inquisitor Revamp Feedback thread

defixio

When the deep came out i made a new deep elf inquisitor to re-learn inquisitor progression and experience those levels with limited access to spells to see how i like various skills/spells in the revamp.

I started making notes about what i think of things. I don't get a lot of playtime at the moment so i'm not very high level, but here we go.

Distress. feels terrible to chain cast for 10 levels because it's the only offensive measure we have. the magic resistance debuff on it is...not helpful because we basically do no magic damage at this point aside from censuring strike.
Censuring Strike - seems to do the job. generic button mash attack. being so low level i haven't noticed the spell cast speed thing (plus reflecting bash nips a lot of casting in the bud).
aura of resistance while technically helpful. doesn't accomplish much at low level. very very few caster mobs.
Reflecting bash - This time i focused on 1h/shield not 2h. it was arduous finding mobs that cast spells, but my class quest in deep elf zone required me to fight floating skulls that cast inq spells, so i got to flex this. i'm pretty happy with it. it's on my 'mash every half second' macro with censuring strike so it prevents a spell per cooldown cycle. paired later with silence i can keep them under control well.

I DO think it could be a little faster on the cooldown again. i realize it was already cool-down-decreased but unlike kick this thing requires a shield and literally only works on spells. it won't interupt any other kind of channeled action. overall i like it. decent damage for 'free', which is desperately needed at low level. i dislike that it shackles us to a shield but i can use a 2h when fighting non casters i suppose

Spell Ward. i did f ind a chance to play with it fighting oozes and skulls. its...decent. but it's duration is way too low. it should seriously last like a minute because spell damage is so spotty, it almost never expends the rune value before it fades. love that it's instant cast. I'd prefer ward of suspicion be instant cast too
arcane aegis (i've never seen a scenario where this would help, so i'm moving on)
arcane tyrant is glorious and wonderful. lots of utility in 1 cast. folk are pointing out the 1 mana regen on it is not working. bummer.
Interdiction - Feels smooth, causes agro so even if you or some one wakes the mob, still good agro off of it. i wish it cast a bit faster though. being a melee hybrid with a tight mana budget i would sugest that it's cooldown come come down to 1.5-2 seconds. and its cast time could go down to 0.5 seconds and it would be fine because MANA is the big limiter here. you'll never find a t anking inquisitor at full mana, stuff is too expensive to cast.
Silence - does the job. casts fast so it's our interupt now (at this level). melee hybrids should have a LOT of instant and fast cast powers because you are expected to do melee dps to maintain agro, provide dps and mana budget so tight.
Ward of Suspicion. - I really like it. it would REALLY be better if it was a half second cast or instant like spell ward, because you waste SO MUCH 'melee time' casting it over and over till it takes due to being punched in the balls while you try to cast it. again, we will run headlong into a mana crunch, so if it was even instant cast, it wouldn't get out of hand.
Pillage Mana - I love what it does on paper. in reality the caster mobs are so few and far between, i am concerned it doesn't perform like the olde inquisitive aura works. Honestly if it had some functionality like this, it would be fine and not OP due to the very long apropriate cooldown on it:

"Pillage the mind, and wrack the target with pain, Draining 20 mana and distributing 25% of the amount drained to each party member. if the target has no mana, deal 20 damage and distribute 25% of the amount drained in the form of mana to each party member
Additionally, when this spell successfully lands on the target, its mana cost is refunded."

so yea, make it work on non mana-having targets. we arn't literal enchanters, we can agonize some people and get some zest from the process. it won't overpower the class that is already toilet bowl level dps and the theoretical 'worse ' main group tank right now.

12 - dominate the mind - always a hoot. good for getting monster buffs or salvaging a double pull. its passably useful but would be better as some sort of 'fill up the mana bar' lay on hands style thing so that an inquisitor could emergency CC while low on mana.

I haven't personally leveled up to more abilities yet on this new guy. I'm sure my opinions will change when i do. Looking over the rest of the list and tinkering with it on my higher level inq. i think mostly its an issue with things casting too much mana, and the damage being pitiful on mana burn. I'll put some thoughts out below, and i will update above this as i play the new guy up and have new thinks.

Mana ward - teamwork power. ward your bro. duration is very low . instant cast is great
aura of rapdiity - excelent. haste when no other haste, some overhaste after.
choke - haven't gotten it since it was fixed (is it fixed?) i loved old choke, prolly excelent
mana burn - Aawful damage for atrocious mana cost. surely there's a number between 5 and 60 that would be okay. needs to scale on int. using it and cherry picking caster mobs to solo/groupdps better wasn't exactly crazy, this got nerfed way too hard for what it does. it's sad now.
agro per mana - some of our abilities cost a crazy amount of amana for the agro they generate. i wish the spell descriptions would say precisely how much agro the 'mez' or 'stun' or 'perge' or 'silence' status gives so we can judge what is good to cast. i am concerned that the best high level agro measures will be casting very low level spells because of the horrific mana costs.

I'll give more detailed, 'on level' feedback as i play my new guy and prolly into early access. right now inquisitor is fun to play, the CC in a group is great. you can do shenanigans that are rare for a tank (invis, mez, memory blur) but the dps is so atrocious. it's a sad time and unless the abilities do excelent agro independant of their damage, it will be mana-costly, and 'cast time' costly to keep agro in a well equipped group.

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Fafnyr

Can you explain why you really like Ward of Suspicion? It does next to nothing for next to no time and costs a lot of mana.

defixio

Fafnyr cus my guy was level 10 or so, and while soloing mobs i could sort of keep it up, and not loose a lot of life during any given fight. the slow + damage absorption + it kind of felt like the rune kept me from being interupted. not sure if that was just in my head. my mana regenerates easier than life.

I do not know that it will hold up for a higher level inquisitor. I do think it needs to cast way faster. half second or instant. and the slow portion should last longer, and the rune should scale off of one of our stats and likely be higher.

like many things in the inquisitor rework. i like the idea of it, the concept works, but the numbers are all janked out and counter productive.

Mesh

defixio

Distress. feels terrible to chain cast

This is a big problem. You're spamming Distress for threat yet spamming Distress also lowers your threat by stopping your melee. Very counterproductive.

Someone suggested in another thread to make Distress instant with a 1.5s cooldown. Same opportunity to use Distress but being instant would allow you to continue autoattacking between casts.

I think Ward of Suspicion needs a pretty significant rework in a number of ways.

Raybane

Mesh War of Suspicion works as a way to convert mana to health giving Inquisitor some self sustain. The main issue is that a ward is harder to use efficiently then a heal or lifetap as it's easy to waste mana.

Fidric

Raybane also it has generally poorer health to mana ratios to say just healing/lifesteal, with no stat or player level scaling on barrier value and the gaps in spell tiers are pretty awkwardly spread out and don't scale that well.

e.g. level 6 absorbs for 25 (20 mana), then no new scaling version until level 18's 60 absorb (50 mana)... next at 30 for 250 dmg etc

also the scaling slow is basically irrelevant due to awkwardness of it's application and duration mechanics. and hell mobs can just miss during it's short 15 sec duration too to not even pop it, or it goes to "wrong" target

like i want it to be cooler as standout tanking style.

easiest fix would be bonus barrier value scaling on INT or based on your total AC etc or just with player level within spell tier ranges e.g. L8 X to L15 Y values and both the hp shield and slow duration should be 30 seconds rather than 15 and ideally it slows any enemy that hits you on first hit while barrier is up for multiple smaller applications more akin to bard's pbaoe secondary slow

defixio

I'm an no-duration rune enjoyer. i always prefer runes that just...don't run out. cast ward of suspicion when you wake up in the morning, eat your cereal, go out t o fight. first mob breaks it. has a brief slow. it won't make it any more effective in a fight, but it will make the waste ratio go away.

I doubt i'll get that. I'd be happy with it lasting much much longer. lik 45 seconds.

defixio

Mesh i figure distress spamming is...less impactful with a slow 2 hander. heh i was using a fast weapon at the time come to think of it. but yea faster cast is needed for a lot of INQ stuff to not brutalize the melee damage/agro

Fafnyr

From a later game perspective:

Distress line is used to tag a pull (if you dont use silence) or as a set up for the purify on Purifying Blow. It falls off dramatically at higher level as having any impact on damage (too little damage to be seen as a DPS contributor) but it retains its pull/set up utility. Treat it more as a debuff set up and you can leave it on your bar. You can use higher level versions not the base depending on your mana regen set up in that group - has some agro, worth using.

Ward of Suspicion is just awful and gets worse the higher level you get. Way too costly with higher level versions compared to your mana pool so you downgrade it to low levels... but for what? an immaterial slow for no time at all? Mobs take minutes to kill. The spell is just awful. This is compensation for not having heals or lifetap of paladin or SK? Or the loss of weaponshield that we had in beta? Not even in the same universe.

Lastly Dominate the Mind isnt useful at L60. It caps at 52. So that rare use fun ability is no fun at all.

The other item that grinds my gears is the 5% spell damage reduction in our aura. Spells are cast less often and 5% is tiny. Compare that to 10% physical on a fighter - the most common damage type, hitting you all the time, and twice as good? Hardly an "anti magic tyrant". Just smashed by magic the same as everyone else.

Mesh

Fafnyr

Ward of Suspicion is just awful and gets worse the higher level you get.

I have never liked flat absorb abilities on tanks. They just get chewed through in seconds and then leave you with nothing.

Would prefer an ablative shield (absorbs a moderate amount of each hit over 30s, for example) or get rid of the absorb entirely and change change it to an avoidance buff that increases your block/parry/dodge %.

Something that provides consistent mitigation over its duration.

Fidric

Mesh yeah i love the mechanics from Dark Age of Camelot

e.g. Blade Turns that entirely block the next physical hit entirely, either for X number of hits or refreshing every Y seconds as a pulsing group song etc

and the ablative absorb effects which say absorb X% of incoming damage (e.g. 50%) until a specfic total absorb HP threshold is reached or not (e.g. 50% with 100 hp threshold would mean from 200 incoming damage across multiple hits, 100 blocked and 100 to player)

another interesting mechanic from something like say path of exile is the ability to stagger incoming damage over X seconds instead of getting it all at once etc e.g. X% of incoming damage for duration is converted into a damage over time and ticks Y seconds later

Raybane

Mesh I think a bigger issue is the difficulty to get the right amount of ward that it protects you enough, but also breaks before the duration ends. Using lower level versions also means that you accept the worse hp/mana ratio of those spells. I think the duration should get buffed up to at least 1 minute as it right now is much weaker then what Paladins or Shadowknights got to keep themself alive. Another alternative would be to cut the cost down to account for the high risk of wasting mana on it.

Proculus

With the charm nerf Dominate the Mind sucks, especially with the recast time on it.

defixio

I'd thought the inq charm wasn't nerfed in the same way as others, did i misread? i know it has a level cap, but does it have the dps tone down too?

flmike

Idk later but at lvl 5 it is very obvious that if you don't distress you do 0 damage and killing 1 askira takes 4 minutes. However if you spam distress it dies about the time you run out of mana, maybe 90 seconds.

NarcolepticLTD

defixio it lasts one minute, and has a 30 minute cooldown. Also can be resisted - and max level mob is 52. It's a neat gimmick but not something you're gonna be using often... which makes it awkward to use since it's not like you're weaving it in all the time.

Fafnyr

flmike

This is only true at low levels. At high levels, Distress line doesnt scale up. It does a tiny amount of relative damage to the mob, even though the mana cost scales up. It isnt a DPS tool later on. Not saying it doesnt add any damage, but that damage is not significant particularly for the cost.

Inq are the lowest damage tank and the worst at taking hits. Doesnt mean their kit isnt interesting but tanking is weak.

Mesh

I like Dominate the Mind as a fun ability that can be occasionally useful while leveling but it's definitely not a practical tank cooldown in comparison to stuff the other tanks get.

Look at the Fighters kit:

Defensive Stance: 10% Physical damage reduction +5 Defense.
Unnerving Shout: 5% Physical damage reduction AoE debuff.
Disarm: Reduces physical damage by 10% for 8s. 20s Cooldown.
Defense: Reduces incoming physical damage by 40% for 30s. 5m Cooldown.
Shield Block: Absorbs 70 (L12) - 350 (L52) damage. 20s Cooldown.
Second Wind: Free heal every 2s for 10s with a 30s cooldown. Scales with stamina. Heals like 100HP at level 20.

All while doing significantly higher DPS/TPS and not having to worry about mana at all.

Even considering that Inquisitor is an anti-magic specialist (whatever that means in a game where everyone just interrupts mob casts anyway), the disparity between Fighter and all of the Knights is pretty wild.

Fidric

i'm still of the opinion that the INQ's emergency 'oh crap' cooldown should be a zero to low cast mana power with generous valued group HP barrier or group HP barrier over time like effect (without or without ward's low use slow rider).

also give it some spike in magic resist or something if we want that theme and an initial group magic dispel effect

e.g.

group cast, applies X hp (e.g. x4 str of ward) barrier for group for Y seconds (60s). applies dispel on inital cast.

or apply X hp barrier every Y seconds for Z duration, the equilviant of your latest WARD every 6 seconds for ~24 seconds for x4 total applications per target). either applies dispel on initial cast or every 6s pulse for x4 dispels.

possibly throw on some self/group mana regen/restore too

~5-10-15m cooldown tops

Mesh

Fidric
I still like the idea of the Inquisitors gaining the mana cost of buffs they purge.

Simple and thematic sustain.