Our bread and butter spells are our Nukes and our heals.

At 65 our best nuke will still be Ancient Starfire (a level 60 spell) by a long shot. The total damage of a nuke doesn't really matter long term, its the efficiency of the spell that counts, the ratio between dmg and mana cost.

Scoriae level 54 688/250 :2.75
Wildfire level 59 1024/320 : 3.12
Moonfire level 60 1150/320 :3.59
Starfire level 60 1175/285 : 4.12
Summer's Flame level 64 1300/370 :3.51 (worse even then Moonfire)
Winter's Frost level 65 1395/380 : 3.67 (a 2 10th's of a percent better then moonfire)

scoriae -> wildfire is a .37 increase
wildfire -> moonfire is a .39 increase
moonfire -> Starfire is a .53 increase
Starfire -> Summer's Flame is a .61 decrease
Starfire -> Winters Frost is a .45 decrease

(the avg increase for scoriae, wildfire and starfire is about .43)

Summer's Flame should be about a .40 increase over Star, not a decrease.
SF should be about a 4.52 ratio.
Either make is 1300/287mana or 1672/370

Winter's Frost should be about .40 increase over Summers Flame.
WF would then be about 4.92 ratio
Again making the stats 1395/283 or 1870/380

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At 65 our fastest heal will still be chloroblast, our biggest heal will still be Tuna's Renewal.

Chloroblast level-55, heals-428 mana-175 in 3secs :2.44 mana/hp
Tunare's Renewal 58/2965/400/10secs :7.41 mana/hp
Natures Touch 60/978/400/5.5secs :2.45 mana/hp

Our only real heal in PoP is Natures Infusion. The crappy upgrade to regrowth isn't worth meming for the single version and will be rarely used in the group. Why bother spending 800mana for a 5hp per tick increase? Yaaa, 50hp per minute more. Rather use my BP and spend the 800 mana on heals or nukes.

Natures Infusion 64/1380/450/5sec's :3.06
HP's healed and mana costs are actually very nice. What makes this spell worthless is the casting time. If I need speed then CB is still better, 2 seconds is a long time when someone is getting beat on. If i'm looking for HP's healed overall or for efficiency, why bother using this, TR is much better.
NI needs about 1-1.5 secs knocked off its casting time. At 64 I'm going to be needing a serious upgrade to CB, not to NT which isn't even being used at 60, let alone at 64.

We STILL need a group heal.
Give us a 650hp heal in 5 seconds at 61 for 600 mana
At 64 or 65 give us a 1000+ heal in 5.5 for 900 or so

We also still need a single version of Blessing of the Nine at 64
A group version of SoE wouldn't overbalance us at all and is something we'd all be happy to see, make is 62 or 63. Think of it as a cheap way to buff-up our total spell count...
Clerics also need a group version of Symbol of Kazad, otherwise don't even bother giving us a new group skin at 65.

Make these changes and the druid class will have a small chance of being useful and happy.

The new nukes are even more useless because the current focus items wont work with level 61+ spells. If you already have a focus item with nice stats, why bother upgrading? Anyway, Summer's Flame should be placed somewhere between Moonfire and Ancient Starfire efficiency - around 4.06 efficiency by making it a 1300 nuke for 320 mana. If it isnt an efficiency upgrade over Moonfire, its pretty much useless - most druids you must realize will never get the ancient nuke so Summer's Flame can be the near-equivalent of a store bought upgrade - slightly more damage, slightly less efficiency than ancient. Winters Frost will probably be a boss only drop and should be a significant upgrade over moonfire and at least a little bit of an efficiency upgrade over the ancient nuke - 1395 damage for 330 mana would give 4.23 ratio. Yeah, nicer efficiency ratios would be even better, but I was trying to post what I think Verant might actually consider.

Quote by Tilien:
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scoriae -> wildfire is a .37 increase
wildfire -> moonfire is a .39 increase
moonfire -> Starfire is a .53 increase
Starfire -> Summer's Flame is a .61 decrease
Starfire -> Winters Frost is a .45 decrease
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Wildfire -> Summers Flame is a .39 increase.
Moonfire -> Winders Frost is a .08 increase.

Better then some, worse then some. No class has right now any DD upgrade in pop compared to their Ancient spells. So there is no reason to asume that Druids should be the only ones that get that. There are also some that get downgrades compared to non-anicent spells too. So whatever is wrong with the pop spells so isnt it problem with druid spells compared to others.

Over all so are the increases for damage ratios for pop low or not there at all. This is something that I personaly think is somewhat strange. But my guess is that the biggest improvements in pop will come from equipment (focus) and planar abbilities (even if I cant see any doing this so far). There may be some abbilities missing perhaps.

Even leaving out starfire and just using moonfire, as it stands, our current PoP nukes suck. Our 64 nuke is .08 worse then our 60 and our 65 is only .09 better.

We should still use starfire as a base comparison. In one year, their will be alot more people in VT, alot of people will have ancient spells eventually. A spell 5 levels higher and I bet about as hard to get as ancients are now should be better.

I wouldnt asume that the PoP spells will be harder to get then the ancient spells. It seems like Verant wants to make the ancient spells worth using, even after PoP is out.

Ancient Starfire of Ro 4.12 -> Winter's Frost 3.67 decrease of 0.45
Acient Destruction of Ice 4.8 -> Agnarr's Thunder 3.64 decrease of 1.16
Ancient Shock of Sun 4.04 -> Black Steel 3.64 decrease of 0.4
Ancient Chaotic Visions 3.8 -> Insanity 3.67 decrease of 0.13


There isnt any real diffrence between wiz/mag/enc/dru DD efficiency in PoP. This is somewhat strange, but if this is to be changed, then its deffinitly not only druids that should be changed.

In no way should Summer Flame be worse efficiency than moonfire - then its not even an upgrade (remember the beginning of luclin when Moonfire went live as a worse nuke than wildfire and it took 3-4 months for Verant to finally fix it??). Its not like this a huge nuke like the wizards 2700 pt DD spell, just a small upgrade damage wise. Summer's Flame should at most be 350 mana which would give it a 3.71 efficiency and a small upgrade to moonfire. Then the cold nuke should either be significantly more efficient or make it a huge mana inefficient nuke like wizards big PoP nuke, ie, 2000 nuke for say 600 mana (wizard version right now is 2700 for 800 mana).

Those group heals you suggest are way off ratio wise. I cant quote exact ratios but not even clerics get a better than 1:1 group heal ratio. Well i think their group hot is but not by much and hots are normally more efficient anyway.

There are going to be planes that are all Fire-based. There are going to be mobs that are elemental based it appears. Diversity in nuke resists is the upgrade not the amount. And I strongly suspect there will be mobs that are totally MR resistant, no suprise there.

With the heals look at Focus effects. Bigger heal versus smaller heal, Healing IV will have a larger effect. 5 seconds versus 3 seconds, the focus will make a bigger difference in cast time. The point of the 1380 heal isnt to heal one person, its time efficient for a good amount healed allowing you to heal 2 people, almost 3, in the same amount of time you can heal 1 with TR. Examine the best focus types with that spell then examine it versus Chloroblast.

Another aspect I think will be seen is quick, ferocious fights with downtime after. In this instance teamwork and doing things quickly will be trumping the slow, steady, plodding type of encounter so many of us have grown used to. Its totally speculation on my part but I think its what PoP will be geared towards for group and small raid encounters. Still probably be some HUGE raid encounters because lets face it the EQ team are slow learners when it comes to listening to the players. Ever larger encounters requiring ever larger amount of people is NOT what we want anymore. Who would love to go back to a 18 to 24 person maximum raid encounter where coordination and skill and reflexes counted more than the CH chain and how many Aexp skills you grinded?


Belkram Marrwolf

Diviersity in nukes? What are you talking about? I already have FR and CR based nuke's. Maybe if they gave us a nice 1200 MR based nuke or DR or PR... The new PoP spells are not better then what I already have.

Heal 2-3 people with our 1380 heal? How so? There is a 2.5 sec downtime on all spells cast before you can recast anything. So 5+2.5= 7.5 seconds before you can recast NI. CB is still going to be our only choice for fast "save the chanters butt" heals.

You can't count on focus items when you look at spells. There are times when you don't have access to moge summoned and knowing VI all our healing focus items will be on melee haste items.

Whine, whine, whine! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Keep in mind VI's vision for POP - it's more dmg over a shorter period of time. Look at the wizzie top end nuke, nice dmg but poor efficiency. The spells are measnt to dish out quick dmg and not drag a fight. Win or lose in min. So comparing efficency of spells is probably not the best way to approach POP.

As for Ancient spells, doubt that they'll be all that common or that you'll see hordes of people in VT. It takes a LOT of work to get keyed, a solid guild to down Emp and clear to boss mobs, who have a chance to drop.

In the weeks we've been clearing VT that they started to drop ancient spells we've gotten 2 Ancient Starfire and 3 Dmg Shield. It's one heck if a nice spell :) but I just don't see it ever being very common unless theres a radical revamp or POP mobs start dropping them, which I doubt

Wow Josius, what an incredibly insightful response, we need more posters here like you that add such wonderful posts to the board. If druids kept their mouths shut, Moonfire still wouldnt be dropping off the correct mobs and it still would be a 1100 pt nuke for 450 mana.

Anyway, comparing our nukes to the new big bang wizard nuke doesnt work. Our 2 new nukes arent that much higher damage than our old nukes so that huge nuke for poor efficiency doesnt apply here. This is especially true for Summers Flame which isnt even as efficient as Moonfire and only slightly higher damage than the current ancient nuke. If you really want to go for mana inefficient big nukes, our 65th nuke should be doing b/w 1800-2000 damage with a poor ratio, not just 1395.

unless focus 4s are easily available, anyone with focus 3 gets far and away better efficiency sticking with ancient starfire or moonfire.

Moge summoned babo ;)

.

The crappy upgrade to regrowth isn't worth meming for the single version and will be rarely used in the group. Why bother spending 800mana for a 5hp per tick increase? Yaaa, 50hp per minute more. Rather use my BP and spend the 800 mana on heals or nukes.

The regen upgrade is in line with our previous progression. The BP is not a druid ability, but rather a nice piece of equipment you have earned through hard work. You now have the choice of using no mana for 15pt/tick, or 800 mana for 20pt/tick. In my opinion that is a luxury.

I on the other hand don't have the bp, as I find all places where it drops incredibly boring. Thus i don't have the luxury of choice, and will be using a natural upgraded regen for 800 mana.

Linas

We seem to be comparing our future nukes to our Ancient one. Yet whenever i see our ratios compared to a wizzy or mage, we use Moonfire as a camparison because the Ancient is out of reach for 99% of druids. I think we need to be consistent is what we use as a basis for comparisons.

I agree our lvl 61+ cold based nukes should be better than Moonfire, and it looks like that is the case. Whether that is good enough for fighting PoP mobs remains to be seen.

Linas