To fellow Bureaucrats,
In the past couple of months I have seen and heard enough of what Funcom is planning that I have reconsidered the status of our class. I am no longer optimistic and agree with many here that serious changes need to be done. We need unity on this issue to present a united front to Funcom to get the changes we desperately need.
I have made some suggestions below that I hope you will comment on. Please note, I don't think we have much time to quibble and split-hairs over minor issues. Here is what I think we need:
New Profession Name
I think Bureaucrat simply causes too many problems and misunderstandings both in the player base and Funcom. Since mind-control is our base attribute (through charms and calms, fears, speeches, etc.) I suggest Funcom rename our profession to the Psionic.
Psionic describes our abilities almost perfectly. Our speeches become psionic auras, charms/fears/roots/calms/snares are all aspects of mind control, The name Psionic will allow better creativity in the future development of our profession.
Bureaucrat just isn't working.
Charm Changes
It boggles my mind that Funcom states that Charms should be our main source of damage yet still make more and more mobs immune to charm. I understand they don't like us to both remove a potential enemy and increase our power at the same time. But our charming ability is practically useless in many places already. Depending on the playfield, your power from charms can be worthless (nothing to charm, i.e Tarasque, IS, Foreman's, Arena), to extraordinary (Slayers, Followers of the One, etc.) There shouldn't be this huge variation and I think I have found a solution.
The droids that we create should be charmable by us!
Yes, we should be able to charm our own droids. Create droid, stable charm it, create again and unstable charm the second, and finally create a normal pet. Therefore, a Psionic will never be without his/her 3 pets. Obviously, mobs will make much much better charms but by giving us this ability, a Psionic will never be below a certain power threshold. Failing a charm will cause us to lose control of the droid and it will attack us like any other mob. When the charm expires, the droid will deactivate just like normal charmed mob pets.
Imagine setting up your implants now! (Charm vs. Bot argh! ) Go to the Arena finally with 3 pets. Funcom is not going to stop making many new mobs immune to charm period, so I think we need this ability in return.
Crowd Control
Funcom, we do not have the best fear, single root/snare or area root. We have the best area root and calms (not very useful in PvP in its current form) that is all.
Well, simply put to be masters of crowd control we should have the best of all of the above. That means new nanos to match or exceed the best of what Agents, Enforcers and Fixers have. Having a mediocre suite of all types does not equal masters of crowd control.
PvM
Funcom does not like having mobs mezzed anymore. They have put in some changes (immunity, mob decalming auras) or allowed some bugs to endure to reduce the power of calms. (FYI, when calmed pocket Lambs reaggro when Agent Lamb changes targets that is a BUG, not a feature!)
I think Funcom thinks these long duration calms are making it too easy. We do not like immune mobs. There should be a new line of immunity busting calms with short durations of <30s. Yep, we will be very busy but not useless anymore. Or simply give us new Fear nanos with no psychic check. IMHO Fear nanos can be better than Calms in many situations.
PvP
The deinit is a nice idea but it is not working well. Instead of having the deinit effect break on attack, make it run for 10s like the MP Mind Quake debuff. And this applies to pets/charms too.
Nuke Revisions
Our nuke nanos become blasts of psionic energy. One change to make is to add a bonus of 20% Psychology skill to the nuke Attack Rating. Our nanos are the weakest of the 3 nuking classes especially in PvP because we have no debuff or special stun ability, etc., are double skilled (PM/MC) and we have no way to self-buff it. Adding a 20% bonus from Psychology just like charm nanos do will let us land a few more nukes than before.
Also a new 75% NR def nuke needs to be added as an upgrade to Disciplinary Action.
Speeches/Auras
The psionic auras need MUCH MUCH more range period. While I can think of a whole bunch of great new ideas for auras I think the most important one is MORE MORE range. And kill the spam associated with the pulses.
Kel's is everything in Tower PvP now and it has a freaking 25m radius effect. Our motivational speeches should go to 40M radius!
Summary
Funcom needs to commit to these changes now, not later, not after this or that. Let's work together to get something back to Funcom, time is not on our side or theirs. If you like these ideas, change your sigs, get support from fellows, etc.