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.
A Short Poll Regarding Mystic's Future
Nameness
#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
stellalumi
#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.
JimdaFish
#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.
Seelpit
#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.
Malacuto
#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!
Malacuto
#21
I definitely would prefer this, removing the Berserk but leave it on the ST and increase max DEX would be a good compromise given that Mystic is a team-oriented class anyway. Juggling between orbs would be easier as well as you wouldn’t need to count in your head all the time.
I hope Soul of the Bearer remains tradeable though, because I never ever got a Conflict…
Nameness
#22
Honestly, I feel like everything that would never need to be stasised should just be stasis immune, so most bosses (not tomb bosses, that’s where stasis shines brightest), key minions, FREAKING CHESTS (WHY THE CRAP CAN THEY BE STASISED IN THE FIRST PLACE), and the like, then Mystic trolling capabilities would become almost nothing.
Platformz
#24
I’ve experienced what a great mystic can do for a team. They can save lives when someone drags and can easily funnel the group DPS towards certain enemies. (godsend in dirty shatters and dirty tombs)
Kirikomori
#25
Its a good thing Mystic kind of sucks because if there were mystics everywhere stasis trolling would be intolerable.
Malacuto
#26
I’m fairly sure that was a reference to the last Q & A on Discord:
Question
If you had to choose between deleting mystic and keeping honey scepter in the game which would you pick?
Answer
Tough question, but the Honey Scepter is too blessed to ever remove from the game. It’s the only item with the power to destroy evil, after all!
Pabloes
#27
I know it has been said multiple times now, but first things first: the huge amount of buffs and debuffs makes the mystic an extremely fun and versatile class choice. its one of few classes that stay interesting with high level (mheal) pets with the abilities to perma de-/buff or spam stasis for rushing.
The problems:
Stasis/Curse differentiation is somewhat hard to understand and learn. new players are extremely discouraged by negatie reactions of fellow players.
The disruption of gameplay is a huge annoyance unintended or not.
Selfbuff redundant in groups.
My cup of tea:
Self buff and debuff is fine and a nice challenge for endgame to see how many effects u can stack.
To make the class more apealling for new players it could be considered nerfing the stasis range so its by far simpler to just curse if intended. it would also reduce the amount of trolling by reducing the number of enemies in stasis (to a small extend). this would increase the difficulty of mystic rushes in endgame dungeons but would not render them impossible.
Most importantly however:
Stasis as a status effect needs to be overhauled as in A LOT of enemies need to get immunity. this aspect has been far too long overlooked which let to horrible trolling opportunities with some of the more annoying ones fixed but a lot them still out there. this problem can not be solved by changing the focus of the tiered orbs alone as this can easily be reproduced by consumables (gravel) which even turned scapegoating the mystic into a form of trolling of itself.
Malacuto
#29
You could also keep the T0 - T2 orb as they are and apply those mechanics to the higher-tiered orbs, considering the low tier orbs are used for rushing.
Pabloes
#30
Changing high tier orbs doesnt really affect new players since theyre less likely to get high tier equipment
Malacuto
#32
How so? The Banishment Orb sells for like 1 DEF max on Realmeye. Is is not uncommon to find it at 1 SPD / DEX. I doubt your new player can’t get a single potion to buy one, especially by the time they unlock Mystic.