Charges as we have them right now are mostly fine in groups with a normal buffer: most people don't charge anything, many people charge one thing, few people charge 2 things. Usually spec af is charged and in case of caster acuity or in case of some str based melees spec dex. Also fine: the buff potions
However, in small groups or when running solo it feels as if it is required to charge as much as possible, that means spec af, and either of spec str or spec dex at a minimum followed by the other of the two asap as well as keeping up all the other things like damage shield and damage add. This either forces people to wait for 2 charge times or make them start a run with a disadvantage compared to someone who charges. In any case, due to the existence of charges solo people are / feel forced to charge as much as possible driving the cost for each run a lot higher than what would be reasonable (the upper bound for being reasonable would be only a rather small net loss with gold from rvr alone).
My opinion, that's shared with some staff members, is that it would be nice to somehow get to a point where the charge timer is not used for long duration buffs but for something that's used in combat, examples just to get the point across: magic + melee ablative, 30s secondary melee / magic resist or even a hot. Those new charge things could even be on another, separate timer so that heal / mana charges would still be usable. The advantage of such a situation would be that the items providing charges are still very desirable while there is no feeling of being forced to wait until one is fully charged up or that one wasted 50g on a run just to get zerged 10 seconds later as charges are only used on demand in a fight.
An alternative to the above would be the removal of buff charges entirely.
However, even if people agree that either of the above would be a desirable situation there would be a couple changes required to not really change the group play:
1) Lifting of the 20 buff limit
2) Increasing the available conc
3) Giving bards and healer spec af
Then there would still be the problem of what to do with the charge items people already have / their feather investments. Buff charge items are a huge part of why people raid / what people buy, it would hence be required to make those items have / do something that still makes them desirable / that there is an appropriate alternative for the same amount of feathers (in which case either a feather refund would be needed or a trade in for whatever the alternative is).
The reason nothing has happened is that we are unsure what to do with the existing items.
A potentially slightly weird solution would be the removal of mastery of arcane (reintroduced OF ra due to lack of buff bonus) and introduction of reverse buff bonus that would affect all buffs casted on you, including the buff potion, instead of the normal buff bonus that works on outgoing buffs. This could be introduced as additional "gems" that can be added onto existing armor / accessories and would be available for feathers as well as tradeable for the existing charge items.
This would change the buff potion values to about 86 for stats where base and spec is available compared to the 101 currently available via potion base and charge spec.
Since we cannot really find a consensus internally, we'd like to have some more community input on the matter.
A couple things to keep in mind:
This is not about buff potions, those are considered fine
Increasing the charge duration would not help as it would even exacerbate the problem as now everyone would be expected to literally charge everything
Reducing the charge cost would only help the cost factor and also slightly exacerbate the problem as again, now everyone would charge more
Making charges free and only allowing a single charge would devalue the charge items as now everyone only needs a single one
This is not about alternative charge buffs but the mechanic / goal itself.
However, in small groups or when running solo it feels as if it is required to charge as much as possible, that means spec af, and either of spec str or spec dex at a minimum followed by the other of the two asap as well as keeping up all the other things like damage shield and damage add. This either forces people to wait for 2 charge times or make them start a run with a disadvantage compared to someone who charges. In any case, due to the existence of charges solo people are / feel forced to charge as much as possible driving the cost for each run a lot higher than what would be reasonable (the upper bound for being reasonable would be only a rather small net loss with gold from rvr alone).
My opinion, that's shared with some staff members, is that it would be nice to somehow get to a point where the charge timer is not used for long duration buffs but for something that's used in combat, examples just to get the point across: magic + melee ablative, 30s secondary melee / magic resist or even a hot. Those new charge things could even be on another, separate timer so that heal / mana charges would still be usable. The advantage of such a situation would be that the items providing charges are still very desirable while there is no feeling of being forced to wait until one is fully charged up or that one wasted 50g on a run just to get zerged 10 seconds later as charges are only used on demand in a fight.
An alternative to the above would be the removal of buff charges entirely.
However, even if people agree that either of the above would be a desirable situation there would be a couple changes required to not really change the group play:
1) Lifting of the 20 buff limit
2) Increasing the available conc
3) Giving bards and healer spec af
Then there would still be the problem of what to do with the charge items people already have / their feather investments. Buff charge items are a huge part of why people raid / what people buy, it would hence be required to make those items have / do something that still makes them desirable / that there is an appropriate alternative for the same amount of feathers (in which case either a feather refund would be needed or a trade in for whatever the alternative is).
The reason nothing has happened is that we are unsure what to do with the existing items.
A potentially slightly weird solution would be the removal of mastery of arcane (reintroduced OF ra due to lack of buff bonus) and introduction of reverse buff bonus that would affect all buffs casted on you, including the buff potion, instead of the normal buff bonus that works on outgoing buffs. This could be introduced as additional "gems" that can be added onto existing armor / accessories and would be available for feathers as well as tradeable for the existing charge items.
This would change the buff potion values to about 86 for stats where base and spec is available compared to the 101 currently available via potion base and charge spec.
Since we cannot really find a consensus internally, we'd like to have some more community input on the matter.
A couple things to keep in mind:
This is not about buff potions, those are considered fine
Increasing the charge duration would not help as it would even exacerbate the problem as now everyone would be expected to literally charge everything
Reducing the charge cost would only help the cost factor and also slightly exacerbate the problem as again, now everyone would charge more
Making charges free and only allowing a single charge would devalue the charge items as now everyone only needs a single one
This is not about alternative charge buffs but the mechanic / goal itself.