Well, spent all day Nuking random mobs and cant get a nuke over 5.2k with out lvl 70 Ancient Glitterfrost.

to me this is just sad, as a raiding druid, there are times I need to do quick burst damage, and the Difficulty of getting our ancient spells ( Impossable if your not in a raiding guild ) only to have it do LESS damage then a common lvl 69 spell is just a slap in the face.

Good buy 8k plus crits.... feel bad I put so much time and effort into my DD AA's.


Roxxx

Use Solstice Strike for fast damage; it has been significantly upgraded and gives almost the same burst DPS as the ancient did before the patch. Plus, it's fire, which can be debuffed more easily.

Our nukes were upgraded across the board, just some in different ways than others. Fire nukes got an increase in damage, cold nukes got an increase in mana efficiency. Notice the recast times were changed from 2.75 to 2.25 as well...

We discussed this in the TDG channel, READ LUCY!!!

Cold nukes have had damage reduced along with recast and mana costs.

Fire Nukes have had damage INCREASED.

I don't like the changes either. First it seems odd that ancient will do less dps than the 69 nuke... yes it's more mana efficient but a) we already have dots for mana efficiency b) efficiency via a cold nuke is gimp since they resist much easier.

dps > efficency for druid nukes since dots will still beat out their efficiency and burst dps more than sustained dps seems more key to our role/balance. Also in it seems like dots are normally less aggro than chain nukes for raid targets so again they'd probably still be the preference there.

Normally in a grp after debuffing I'll only nuke once or twice (3 if you include tempest wind as a nuke), usually to pick up slack if dps is low or to push a mob into flee mode faster to save the need to heal more. The only time I chain nuke is when we just have bad luck with a clr mob so I really do not see much benefit to having a more mana efficient nuke.

The lower recast time is nice but that's something that was given to almost every nuke where it was possible I believe, so I wouldn't think "hey they reduced our recast time that's great!" when it was just by 0.5 seconds vs. 1.8 for necros, 4.8 for clerics, and 5.8 for enchanters. It's more of just putting us in line with all other nukes (ie: I think before we only had the slightly longer recast than mage nukes so they could technically stay ahead in that aspect and consider themselves better nukers. It wouldn't be particularly prudent to remove that limitation that was much harsher from other classes with out doing something about the tiny one on druid nukes)


What I would have been happy with is;
Ancient vs. fr, old dmg/mana new recast
glitter same as before with new recast
solstice same as before with new recast

-OR-

Ancient exact same as it was before with new recast
Glitter vs. fr with old dmg/mana new recast
Solstice vs. cr with old dmg/mana new recast

(essentialy switch the name and resist check on the 69 and 70 nuke)

That would leave mages still ahead in their 3 comparable spells regardless as long as the compared druid/mage are on the same lvl of progression and not nerf our dps and stagger our nukes out so they're more practical (particularly if ancient was fire based).


Or alternatively ...

Have solstice strike as it is now so it is equivalent to star strike
Change Glitterfrost to match the numbers on Blade strike (2029dmg 431mana)
Keep Ancient as a "seperate" spell line that's designed to be more efficient. at the cost of dps.

This would mean mages are only ahead in terms of nukes when they have their ancient but that is no different than how it is currently on live. We'd still take the burst dps nerf but aren't nerfed as much vs. fire resistant mobs.

Along the same lines you could make glitterfrost remain efficient and give ancient back it's old numbers or have them match the mages ancient numbers. Just so long as both cold nukes don't get changed to mana efficiency since it forces us into a different style we may not particularly like when going against fire resistant mobs.

To back up my statement that all our nukes were upgraded, I ran some numbers using my current AAs and focus effects. Your numbers will vary; my focus effects happen to favor fire nukes slightly, and to some extent lower level spells since I have mostly PoP/GoD focus effects.

I was surprised to find that the level 65 ancient cold nuke became my most mana efficient nuke (with Qvic gloves--but even without those, I'd get 9.36 DPM, well above any other nuke). What's more, my most mana efficient fire nuke became the level 60 ancient nuke, at 8.58 DPM.

Specialize: Evocation skill of 100 (assuming 5% fixed mana savings)
Blessing of Devotion buff

Relevant AAs:
Spell Casting Mastery 3 (assuming 10% fixed mana savings)
Quick Damage 3
Spell Casting Fury 3
Fury of Magic 3
Fury of Magic Mastery 3 (assuming 19% crit rate with this)

Focus effects: (assuming random effect between 1% and max for damage and mana preservation focuses)
Discordant Fire (+45% to fire nukes up to level 68, -10%/level above)
Vengeance of Ice (+40% to cold nukes up to level 67, -10%/level above)
Muram's Anger (+25% to magic nukes/dots up to level 70)
Conservation of Xegony (20% mana preservation up to level 67, -10%/level above)
Sylvan Anger (25% mana preservation on level 65 nukes except Winter's Frost)
Quickening of Druzzil (23% spell haste up to level 67, -5%/level above)

DPS = damage per second (if chain cast with 0% resist rate; includes recast time)
DPM = damage per mana
Bold numbers are ones I find interesting.

70/cold Ancient Glacier Frost
Old: 466.44 DPS, 7.67 DPM
New: 447.74 DPS, 8.69 DPM

70/cold Glitterfrost
Old: 431.99 DPS, 7.54 DPM
New: 414.85 DPS, 8.55 DPM

65/cold Ancient Chaos Frost
Old: 407.36 DPS, 7.7 DPM
New: 344.62 DPS, 9.69 DPM

69/fire Solstice Strike
Old: 416.9 DPS, 7.94 DPM
New: 516.42 DPS, 8.14 DPM

65/fire Sylvan Fire
Old: 383.54 DPS, 7.82 DPM
New: 430.21 DPS, 7.98 DPM

60/fire Ancient Starfire of Ro
Old: 300.31 DPS, 7.86 DPM
New: 329.81 DPS, 8.58 DPM

68/magic Desolate Summoned
Old: 399.26 DPS, 7.27 DPM
New: 475.28 DPS, 9.09 DPM

If we assume an old rain resist rate of 20%, a new rain resist rate of 0%, a single target hit by 3 waves, and no spells cast during the recast time:
66/cold Tempest Wind
Old: 239.34 DPS, 7.22 DPM
New: 299.2 DPS, 9.02 DPM

Mana Usage ratios are very important in say, anything with limiting factors which are other then your mana bar, the Trial of Efficiancy is one. Burst DPS may be good to kill a mob so you complete a wave in time, but proper use of mana is vital becuase your mana pool is already -3500 from the Trial AE and decreasing 20 a tick for the Trial Duration.


Personally, I favor Cold. I always have since Moonfire. I use Chaos Frost, and have Qvic Guants so a 1450 DD for 290 mana at 25 percent mana pres before SCM isn't bad and the mana usage would be even less if I did Secondary Forte for Evoc.
Since I have All Crit AA I've seen the nuke crit for upto nearly 4k with Discordant Ice Focusfor less then 300 mana, I really don't have a problem with it, I rather enjoy it.

In short, I see this as a positive change.

-Fenier

OK, as in tittle, one last thing....

I am also Pissed at the fact that I wasted my hard earned DKP for a Cold Focus item, just so to learn that I am suppose to be working on fire Nukes.

Going to have to replace Focus Item, grab another ( not easy in OOW and DoN since we havent seen any worth wild Mega dropping Items with Focus on them to begin with)


Bottom Line is that they should of looked into making our healing more mana effective and faster casting rather then our nukes.

So far what I have seen is lack or poor planning, and an half ass attempt to give us hope.

I worked my ass of to be the best at what I was and could be as a Druid, and in one single patch, I feel robbed.

Roxxx

Thought you were a melee druid Roxxxxxxxx ? :behindcom

I think it blows that our Ancient spells do less damage now. I would recommend changing it and making them Fire spells if they want to keep up with this theme.

I don't know because I haven't actually logged in yet since the patch, but I am not excited about it at all. This sounds to me like we got screwed :curse: from what I have read anyhow.
I hope I am wrong :bs:
I would prefer the extra damage to the mana savings but thats just me...Oh well I guess I will check it out when I get home from work

Guv

Twisting Tempest Wind and Ancient Glacier should still be MORE DPS than before, AND at a less mana cost. This seems win-win to me.

Then, on top of that, fire nukes got a rather significant DPS improvement AND are better mana ratio than before patch.

I do not see how this is in any way a nerf except for the time in which you have mezzed mobs on top of your main target and you have to use Ice spells. /shrug

As for making healing better, I do not think it is some sort of secret that this is just the beginning of the changes, this phase happens to be nukes.

I guess if all you really wanted out of your spell book was the ability to make a really cool sig with a boomin crit, this patch sucks. Of course, SS is only ~100 damage less than the previous top dog.

Cily

The twisting of Tempest Wind and Ancient is good dps now and the resists being gone are adding a lot of extra damage, however ...dont be THAT druid that casts a AE rain spell on mezzed mobs or your guild will love you for it :moon:

Where....in our top 10 list.....did we EVER ask being more mana efficient on our DD's.

Did any nuking classes get less damage for their Ancients? I only checked on Wizards, Mages, Necro's , and Clerics. All their Ancients got increases in damage that I can tell.

We didnt ask.

If you look, they revamped ALL classes direct damage spells, game wide. Chanters and Clerics get one form of DD. We get two, they made one better Burst DPS and one better substained DPS.

I don't see anything wrong with that.

-Fenier

http://www.win2k.webtron.net/tasslin/druidspells/

The changes in a chart.

I personally wish they would put Ancients back to original damage, and only adjust the mana, say on Chaos frost, 1860 but reduce the mana to 372.

They are ancients, and they are much much rarer than other runes, it sucks to see them become less than the best DD we have.

P.S.

I don't see any changes on Lucy history for Tempest Wind....

Well .... how's this. Of the classes that have two lines of DD's ...they changed the Ancients to do MORE damage. But ours does less.

Well .... how's this. Of the classes that have two lines of DD's ...they changed the Ancients to be MORE damage. But ours does less.

I'm saying change OUR Ancient line back....make it Fire if they want to keep with this theme, I don't care about that so much. And ya care to be more mana efficient, use the Glitterfrost, which is barely neglible difference from our Ancient line now as they stand.

You can't attribute a game mechanic change to a druid one and say we do more dmg now with rain and ancient. Twisting in a rain spell always would give an extra boost to dps. Seems like you guys are comparing Tempest + new acf vs. just old acf... that's not really fair.

Especially when you consider other classes did not have to pay for the boost they got from rains (even though they had more)

The best place for comparison in nukes will always be mages... they have the same to vs. element lines as us but vs. fire and magic instead of fire and cold, + a quick cast nuke, and bolt.

Previously

Ancient ACF = Ancient Nova Strike (fire)
Glitterfrost = Starstrike (fire)
Solstice Strike = Bladestrike (magic)

Now the numbers are

2042/405 --- 2377/525
1892/381 --- 2201/494
2201/494 --- 2029/431

recasts are all the same now where we used to have an extra 0.5sec added to ours, previously all had the same spell cast as their equivalent, solstice strike and bladestrike take 0.1sec less time to cast though (6.25).

Their quick nuke got an increase in dmg none in mana
Bolt got increase in dmg and mana cost

Our 3rd rank nuke got changed to match their 2nd ... our 1st now is only slightly better than their 3rd, and 2nd doesn't even compare hehe.


And it's not about crits to put in your sig, it's that it's a silly change and could have been handled much better than it has. DPS > efficiency for druids b/c we already have means of being efficient via dots or even just rains and dps is part of our balance among the priests (the theory that more dmg = shorter fights = less healing).

I think roxxx hit it on the head with the comment about efficency being needed in healing not nuking. The only time I go oom is when healing not when I'm dps.

Also if the spells dmg got nerfed b/c of the upcoming offensive stance then honestly they need to just drop the % on that instead of screwing with the actual spells that ppl who'll stay in normal stance will still have to be using. I think I crunched the numbers before and old acf @ 20% = new acf @ 25% but someone might want to double check that.

Are you suggesting that there will not be a class reinvisioning patch for healing?

And no, I was comparing old ancint + old rain to new ancient + new rain (with no 20% natural resist). The result is a DPS increase. More DPS, more efficiency. You want more DPS but same/less efficiency instead?

Comparing yourself to mages is probably not going to help by the way, since this is all about reinvisioning the classes, not about keeping them all the same as they were, relative to pre-patch. I am personally expecting mages (and wizards of course) to become superior DPS casters, and druids I am thinking will get a nice healing patch. But time can prove me wrong.

Cily

I don't like the changes either. First it seems odd that ancient will do less dps than the 69 nuke... yes it's more mana efficient but a) we already have dots for mana efficiency

Apples and pears. Sometimes you have to nuke and are forbidden to dot (bad example maybe -- but Emoush with the 3 gobos that need to be kept at around 10% ). Additionally, some don't like to dot (I have all crit AAs but no DoT AAs), because they often don't get to do damage for full duration, and put us at increased risk of obtaining aggro (aggro refresh every 6 seconds).

I been playing a druid for the life of EQ ... What has happened to the druid in that time? Major nerfs, minor nerfs, give our abilitys away to every other class and item they may use. Every time this "revising" the classes comes along we take 3 steps back to get one step forward. When we would get a positive aspect, the others classes in relation to us would get a bigger positive upgrade, thus we would still get a "relative" nerf. Personally I am way beyond hope on any true upgrade to the druid class in its own right, healing or otherwise.
Yes I am jaded, and I hope SOE proves me wrong, but, the majority of the past only speaks volumes to the future.