For the loonies on here that seem to think that everything SOE leaves on the carpet smells like roses, let me give you the run down of what the mystic got handed:
Ward line: halfed, but now counted post mitigation (nerfed on most classes as well), recast timers: single - same, group - same
DD lines: all similar lines conflict instead of running on separate timers (this was done to all casters for some reason)
Avatar lines (bear forms): no longer costs a concentration, but is now just a good str/minor hp buff. The 5% to 10% occuring scaled by level proc, gone.
Melee dps: much lower, not higher. SOE directly lied about this.
Eidolic Ward (emergency 0 power cost ward): still mistargets frequently, as it has since day one, it's icon has been changed to not differentiate it from the other lines, AND it is effected by the refresh timers from the rest of the ward lines. This renders it mostly useless.
Standard slow lines: still laughable
Direct heals: one line is almost doubled, but the refresh is longer than before, and is rumored to generate more hate. We can't test that part yet because on top of all that...
THEY BROKE THE CLASS!!!
Mystics are now the lamest tank ever. We were never designed to be tanks in the first place.
Here's two senarios that I have been part of:
Both cases: multiple mob, individual and heroic con encounters.
Non tank group: Scout sneaks up to mobs and attacks. All mobs in encounter come screaming to the mystic. Actions mystic has taken to generate hate: 0. Not a single cast.
Tank group: Tank goes up and aggros mobs with a taunt. Mobs aggro on tank properly. When the first mob dies, the remaining ones come screaming at the mystic. We tested this with no casts done by the mystic in the encounter at all, it happened every time.
One week after the big "revamp", still not fixed.
This has been reported all over the place, including SOEs site. It has happened to me enough that I have removed myself from groups because of it. Before one of you ****** "I have a 50 and it didn't hurt me" types chime in that the tank was goofing up, the tank sits right behind me, I checked.
Now let's talk about soloing, that seems to be adjusted properly. It's doable. An even con, single mob, individual, no arrow either way (convoluted con system anyone?), is truly an even fight, as it should have been from day one! Changing it after 10 months live, pure idiocy. They should have just scaled things properly in the expansions that followed.
What this crippling effect on the pre-40 players will cause will be similar to what PoP did to EQ. It will create a huge rift between the players that were at or near max level before it went into effect, and the players that were 10 or more levels below max when it went in. It will now take much longer for people to get to 50 than it did for the people who got there before the patch.
I could still gripe that the 3 mob individual encounter 5 levels lower is STILL more xp than that even con individual mob, but what's the point. That might be the only thing the people not level 50 when this hit have going for them at the moment. If you didn't know about this, check it out before they take that away too.
It's interesting that the people that played the game how SOE pretended that they wanted people to play it, by not grinding and leveling mostly via questing, are the ones that have been hit hardest.
Personally, with my main being a mystic, I'm not seeing an upside to this anywhere.
I had a monk on EQ when the nerf bat hit that class years ago, and this makes that look like minor reduction.
I suspect that the devs at SOE don't play their games. How this made it out of test, I have no clue.
We've seen SOE do this before, remember Star Wars Galaxies? Remember that "new" combat system? Remeber reports that 80% of the players quit? Remember SOE's arrogant reaction to the player base? You would think that SOE wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
Wouldn't you?
in any other industry they call this "bait and switch"