A Short Poll Regarding Mystic's Future


#1

Hey y’all.
Lately I was thinking about Mystic again and the weird triple identity of tiered orbs - stasising enemies while also cursing them but also buffing yourself…
At the same time, I also reminisced about the few days that we got a taste of the IC/OoC Mystic changes.
So out of curiosity, I decided to make a poll to see what direction the General Playerbase™ would want to see Mystic go.

Not a forum poll cause then I’d have two seperate polls, since I’m %-posting this to reddit.


#2

I almost want to see stasis entirely removed


#3

While the UT orbs are pretty unique, the tiered orbs should have longer stasis times and more debuffs as the tiers get higher.


#4

I kinda enjoy the triple identity of the Orbs. It makes the whole ability concept funky yet entertaining. Hopefully, DECA fixes the Stasis issue that everyone hates.


#5

The one thing that I want to have is a way to cancel stasis, reducing the cooldown to just 1 second at your command.


#6

I want to see stasis as a combination of stun and paralyze. Making the opponent invulnerable is just stupid 90% of the time. there are of course people who troll with it but also if you misspace your orb u’ll have to wait an eternity to play the game again just for misspacing your curse. It punishes the mystic for misspacing their ability which is not seen in any other ability in the game. I would remove the invulnerability on enemies who’ve been stasised and make it like the one that effects players with maybe lowered duration to balance. either that or significantly lower the stasis radius so landing just the curse is much easier as opposed to a difference of 1 or 2 tiles. basically I just want mystic to be less annoying when utilized by trolls and more lenient on people who actually want to play the class.


#7

I’ve mentioned this before and I’ll say it again

Petrify. Just replace Stasis with Petrify. Maybe you’d have to tweak the damage values a bit but honestly it would be sooooo good if all Stasis was replaced with it.

To balance the above, and also to make it less annoying for the non-Mystic players, all Stasis/Petrify could be set to a flat 3/4 seconds, like Stun on shields. This would make balancing the higher tiered Orbs a bit harder, I suppose, but it’s a sacrifice I would be very willing to make.

Another possibility? Make it an ‘on hold’ and ‘on release’ ability (obviously not the buggy Ninja one, I assume Unity will have a way better coded version of it), maybe Stasis until the spacebar is released, or make curse and stasis set so that one triggers when the spacebar is pressed and another triggers when it is released. This would make it much easier to control.

Honestly, I’m also somewhat okay with just removing Stasis on tiered orbs, although I’d prefer just using Petrify instead. A lot of the time it’s either annoying or useless.


#8

People like to hate on mystic but played correctly its a very potent and useful class. I don’t really believe tiered orbs even need a change, but the main issue with mystic is that a mystic who wants to slow down everyone else’s progress can easily do so at the press of a space bar.

It’s hard to even say what you could do to remedy that since if you allow things to be damaged while stasised (like with petrify) then you just paralyse and stun anything on your cursor which is incredibly broken.

I like the magic woods orb being able to curse on your cursor while reducing the risk of stasising when you don’t want to, but its low curse time makes it pretty bad even still, I’d like to see similar ideas to that where the curse and stasis don’t happen on the same point.

Other orbs which remove stasis completely like the Aether orb are also quite useful at times, being able to paralyse anything on your screen instantly if you’re good at catching things with it. I think using a similar concept an orb which places something like a sentry which shoots linear chains of lightning which could apply a debuff like daze would be cool.
(the same shot type as a scepter but without the auto-targetting chain effect, instead I think it should just shoot like a 5 range chain in one, linear direction)

To sum my thoughts up anyways, mystic is the easiest class to ruin things with but it is far from the worst class, it has many useful tools which people make use of in all sorts of dungeons and alot of its effects are either unique to it or it is the best source of that debuff (looking at you huntress)


#9

The problem is really the availability and applicability of those tools. Sure, it has all these useful features, but as it stands, cursing can be hard to do without also stasising, especially on a laggy computer, and stasis doesn’t serve as much purpose when you’re already maxed in, say, godlands content. You could be ripping through a crowd of demons instead of waiting for them to stop looking grey. It has a few cool uses, but at times it can feel like the tiered orbs try to be too much in one ability, y’know?


#10

I personally love mystic the way it is-- the triple identity gives the orb depth and allows the player to do quite a lot with only a tiered ability. I understand that others don’t like stasis due to it being hard to use, and how easy it is to troll with. For point one I would just say “git gud” (it doesn’t take too much practice to figure out how to use curser and/or stasis while shooting enemies, imo), but point two is certainly a fair one. I think that a stasis rework like what @Orsome suggested might work, with obvious invulnerabilities for bosses and certain other enemies.

I find the triple identity to be what makes mystic unique, and I’m worried that eliminating one or two aspects of it would make it too similar to existing classes. I find mystic to be fun thanks to it’s inherent depth, and personally don’t want to see that changed.


#11

To add to that idea, what if Stasis was like Petrify in that enemies less damage, but they take ONLY 10% damage and remove status immunities of enemies? Debuff Immunity Cancellation would be: (Stasis_Duration +1~3 seconds), after which the enemy will be immune to being Stasised for some time.

That way, Stasising an enemy lets you inflict status effects on enemies you otherwise couldn’t debuff for a limited amount of time, the trade-off being, you’re only able to do 10% damage for a while. Maybe like 3~4 seconds.

So a T1 Orb could be 3-sec Stasis with 4-sec Debuff-Immunity cancelling and T6 Orb could be 4-sec stasis with 7-sec Debuff-Immunity-Cancelling.

Though, with that, choosing who gets to be immune to stasis needs to be changed entirely. The void entity being Stasised and Paralyzed for 3 seconds? It might be interesting. Anyway, that’s enough of that crazy idea!


#12

That sounds wacky and tbf I wouldn’t mind at least witnessing some implementation of it :laughing: I don’t think it would be too well balanced in the exact way you suggested it but status immunity cancellation sounds pretty cool.


#13

the “problem” with both this idea and the current effect is that there exist situations where it’s strictly detrimental to use the ability. using the ability in those situations can only slow down the group. in a non-mmo game that isn’t a bad thing since it means the ability has some more thought required than just “point at bad guy and spacebar”, but in this case it means that having any braindead troll can bring the pace of the game to a screeching halt and there’s nothing you can do about it. this is why people hate the mystic so much, and why “fixing” it can be such a lopsided conversation. if you remove that possible backfire then the class suddenly loses a lot of identity and becomes just another boring mind-numbing class, but if you don’t remove that possible backfire then people are still going to get mad and argue for additional changes.

so while that idea might be appealing to some, it still doesn’t actually fix anything because you still run into the issue of forcibly slowing down the entire group with a single spacebar action. if no one needs that status, then you cancel out 90% of the group’s damage for nothing. anyone who liked stasis will be mad they lost the old effect, and anyone who hated the mystic to begin with won’t be satisfied with the change.


#14

It’s not very satisfying where we are right now with Mystic and stasis. As the game has gone on, almost every change has marginalised the usefulness of stasis more and more. It does still have niche uses but the game doesn’t have the overall tactical need for it because DPS is the sole best tactic in almost every fight nowadays. The purpose of crowd-control just doesn’t exist like it used to (wands now pierce, pets allow ignoring of minions, tanking, and steamrolling, and maxed characters are the norm). I mean, sure, get a group of no-pet-experience players together and stasis really does re-emerge as useful, but for the majority of times, it’s more of a pain.

I think I like the sound of changing it to a Petrify, allowing players to continue damaging when it’s inflicted, possibly at a reduced rate. Because it’s that aspect of stasis (the unwanted delaying of the fight) that players find so irritating. To riff on @Platformz’s idea, possibly the higher the tier, the higher the %DMG the enemies take, because the varying duration is not a great thing either (unless there is a visual indicating it’s about to expire), whereas if everyone around knows that Stasis/Petrify guarantees you X seconds before it wears off, you can work with that knowledge.

Yes, I think I would handle things by changing Stasis to Petrify, give it a long cooldown (think like QoT/daze) and remove Curse completely from tiered Orbs, moving Curse onto the tiered ability of a new class such as a Witch.

Interesting idea except would be way too trolly-potential (eg. one tomb boss dies leaving bag in the middle, stasis the other bosses seemingly to allow players to go in and loot, then HA! unstasised). This could only be a workable option if a visual cue is implemented telling players that the effect is about to expire.


#15

Regarding the concern that a point and click petrify with no damage scaling would be too powerful for how easy it is, just rework the orb so it’s not a point and click. Maybe make the orb shoot out a slow-moving bubble the mystic can detonate manually when an enemy gets near it. UTs could have a faster travel time or solely deal damage. There’s a lot more flexibility and allowable strength to an ability when it’s not just point and click.


#16

Orbs as of right now are fine, it is their triple identity that makes Mystic my favorite class
The raw power of stasis, even if not realized at first, is insane.

Mystics are mostly intended to be a support class, with the longer range of the curse allowing a skilled mystic to stasis enemies that may present a problem while cursing the enemy you want to focus on, the mystic’s triple identity allows it to effectively control a group of players by allowing it to block off certain enemies, make other enemies more desirable to attack, and increase the Mystic’s own dps. The dungeon where Mystics shine the most is of course Tomb of the Ancients, even in a chaotic, insanely messy tomb, the presence of a single mystic who knows what they are doing can almost make it feel clean.

IMO Orb, as it is, is among the most broken abilities if used properly (albeit Helm, Seal, and Tome are just way broken)

Turning it to petrify would effectively destroy it’s shepherding mob-control purpose because the stasised enemies would now be damageable and thus more desirable to attack


#17

I would argue that trickster suffers from this as well, to a lesser extent. I’m surprised that decoys are incredibly mana efficient (T6 Prism can perma-decoy with a Max Rare Mheal pet) and can basically act as a ranged stun with just a slight amount of effort, yet aren’t really recognized for that capability. I think it’s partly because there exists a much more direct alternative (Knight) and due to melees happily benefiting from the mindless crowd DPS meta, there are no shortages of knights.

I bring up trickster because trickster operates in a similar manner to mystic- a class with an extremely high skill ceiling, with a strategic crowd control ability that may sometimes harm the group. Mystic just happens to be the more “annoying” of the two, because if a trickster decoys O2’s shotgun towards the group, some poor melee dies and the group moves on. If everyone suddenly can’t hit that chest in the Mountain Temple, people go ballistic.

I don’t agree that changing mystic’s core identity (or trickster’s) is really going to do anything majorly beneficial for the game. Their lack of viability (again, I’m solely speaking for trickster decoys and not “trix can lh rush”) stems down to a much greater systematic issue with RotMG. I would rather see DECA try to tackle the systematic issues of RotMG, rather than push the game further into the mindless mess that it currently exists as.

There are changes I would like to see Mystic have, but they are changes that improve Mystic’s QoL rather than the drastic identity changes that this thread seems to be so focused on. So I’ll just leave that there, and say that I don’t agree with any of the Mystic changes proposed in this thread.


#18

(I was considering making my own thread on this, but given that this seems to more or less be a general mystic change thread, I figured I’d put this here.)

I was inspired to think more about mystic after watching Sebchoof’s recent endgame class ranking video, where I think he described mystic’s strengths pretty well; as he explains, it has insane dps and battle control capabilities as well as speedy if you have either conflict or soul of the bearer. This means that it can excel in solo and large group situations, if played right.

If played right; mystic brings something to the table for players that few other classes can: the need to truly master the class for it to be good. Yes, more skill with knight will allow the player to stun some stuff they previously couldn’t go deep on, but mystic takes that to a whole new level. To use even just a tiered orb to the fullest, a mystic player has to keep track of curse, berserk and stasis, requiring quick reflexes and a high skill level to bring the class to its fullest. Factor in other orbs (say, the honey orb), and now a mystic has to keep track of slow and stasis, then switch back to the tiered orb to curse, berserk and stasis again to take full advantage of the hindered enemy. This combination of abilities and factors to keep track of makes mystic a class with massive potential, which can only be realized with skill that seems to be largely unnecessary in many other parts of the game.

It is true that having a good pet is often necessary in conjunction with skill to make full use of the mystic (allowing permanent curse, berserk or speedy), but after thinking about it for a while, I have come to the conclusion that that is not necessarily a bad thing. With the sheer amount of pet food DECA gives out every month, a maxed legendary pet is something which only requires time and patience for dedicated players to obtain, and as my last paragraph described, mystic isn’t for noobs anyways. And that’s okay, because classes like wizard and necromancer exist. Endgame players do still need content geared towards them, and what better way to do that than to give them a class which requires a huge amount of skill to use effectively?

To be perfectly honest (if you somehow didn’t catch onto this yet), I am pretty happy with where mystic is right now. The only real problem in my opinion is the issue of stasis trolling, or good-faith misuse by players new to the class. In thinking of possible solutions to this, I recalled discussions from a couple years ago about how overpowered knight’s stun was; ideas were put forth on ways to directly nerf it, through either shorter stun durations, shield cooldown times, or temporary stun immunity for stunned enemies, all geared towards removing permastun as a capability. Now, knight is a powerful midgame character, but starts to fall off towards endgame as more and more enemies (bosses in particular) are stun-immune, either permanently or in certain phases. The solution was through changes to the enemies, not changes to the class. Perhaps the same thing could be done with stasis? Give stasis immunity to a few more bosses (wlab boss, for instance), a few more key minions as seen fit, and mystic will become less of a hindrance to the group as a whole. Mystic will suffer a little in the process, but will continue to be a very powerful class in capable hands.

I think that such a change is all that is needed to reduce trolling. Will trolling still exist? Certainly, but to a much lesser extent. I am not in favor of changes which seek to make mystic easier to use or which limit the orb’s ability by reducing the number of effects it has, because that serves only to make the class another point-and-shoot like so many other classes. Mystic is a truly amazing class with a very high skill ceiling, and, in my opinion, ought to keep that designation.


#19

Despite these insights, I still find that a poor choice for class design.
It’s certainly good that Mystic is not as simple and flat as Wizard, but the fact alone that Mystic can actively impede other players’ progress makes this fall apart for me.
I don’t subscribe to the point of view of making a class that, while excellent at endgame, is almost entirely inferior or downright infuriating to play as under normal circumstances in standard dungeons.

Which is also why I agree with IC/OoC’s removal of the tiered orbs’ berserk and buffing Mystic’s base stats. It removes frustration, while making Mystic stronger when already in a group that applies those buffs or if her ability isn’t available to her.
Sure, it lowers her potential solo DPS due to the consequent reliance on the Soul of the Bearer for self-Berserk, but that’s something I’m fine with considering that that Orb’s purpose was already self-Berserk.

Maybe you’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t change Mystic, but instead change the environment in which she can operate. But even then, I don’t think there’s going to come an end-all be-all solution to the controversy of her entire existence.
Likely not helped now that someone on the Deca design team ““jokes”” about removing Mystic almost anytime the chance arises.


#20

Actually, I could argue that making some bosses or key minions immune to stasis could actually be a blessing in disguise for two reasons. First, you could Curse without fear of stasising, and second… Honey Orb, my favorite orb would become even more useful!