I'm just beginning to bring my druid to raids on my second box... (believe it or not, she's usually the only druid there) and despite looking at the spell info on Lucy, I'm still a little bewildered when it comes to Hand of Ro, Ro's Illumination and Immoliation of Ro. Immoliation seems to be a DoT <em><strong>and</strong></em> a debuff... but can anyone illuminate me as to the best uses for each of them in a raid and an XP group setting?

If you do not have 3 druids to split the aggro from all 3 spells, only cast one or 2 tops. Even then, I would wait 10 sec or so before stacking them. In those cases, I choose Hand of Ro and Ro's Illumination, then stick to spot healing for a bit. The reason being that those 2 spells last longer than Immolation, which means you won't have to keep recasting for even more aggro.

However, if you have 3+ druids, split the casting of each spell and things should be just fine. Have each druid cast as soon as the tank has aggro. Don't forget to throw in Eci too ;)

We have usually 2-3 sometimes 4 druids on a raid. There is one who considers it her job to debuff, and I am happy with that. I prefer to heal and nuke when heals are well-covered already. On important and slightly longer bosses, we will split debuffing duties, and generally I will cast efb while she does the ro's. It can make a difference, you will just have to experiment til you get the right feel for it.

I have used ro's (hand and illumination) on krigers in BoT ad find that they make a difference in the damage output of the mob. Its good for exp groups that are trodding the edge of being able to reliably kill these without worry because of levels/gear/aa. Now, I do it less often. It makes less difference and I don't use up my "aggro quotient" casting non-damaging/healing spells.

1) Hand of Ro - the most effective debuff in the line with the longest duration.
2) Ro's Illumination - second most effective debuff in the line with the second longest duration.
3) Immolation of Ro - 140hp/tick dot with a debuff component. (big aggro)

In a raid situation, I only go for 1 and 2, maybe only 1.

Iegil

Actually, Illumination (10 minutes) lasts longer than Hand (3.3 minutes)... but I would agree with hand being the most effective.

We typically have one druid casting hand, one casting illumination, and one casting e'ci on raids.

i put hand of ro on just about any raid mob that is going to live more then 30 seconds... it's fast cast, almost always lands, and helps alot with FR, and some of the ac and atk. If hand of ro is on, fire nuke land alot more.

on the big mobs, you can do illumination also, more ac and atk debuffed... but not that useful on trash.

if you want to dot also can throw immolation in there... but be careful, all 3 if alot of agro... especially if you keep immolation up over a few minutes. and it's harder to drop off agro with a dot ticking away

DS

those are not xp group spells unless you solo or something, since they draw a lot of agro and you cant nuke/dot nearly as much as you can without casting them and not getting agro.

Cast those on big raid mobs only and I'd advise only 1 at a time or you running a serious risk drawing agro.

I find them useful in exp groups a lot with the exception of illumination, which I have never cast in an experience situation except for BoT. Hand is not so much aggro that you can't also nuke and DoT if you are careful. efb is almost essential in certain places, or resists are going to be too high (but I really dislike that silly spell, it resists far too often and draws aggro - I often just use swarming death instead of cold nukes if the mobs are somewhat resistive just to avoid casting efb).

xp group use depends on group makeup, target, and foci.

wizards: often like hand of ro. keep the wizzies happy, they be angry enough already!

pre-summers anger focus: only used hand in an xp group containing wizzies stuck on fire damage.

post summers anger focus: i pull with hand of ro.

xp group named mobs: for mini's and tower names in bot, groupable names in poe, 1-group vindi raids, etc... where the mob in question will be around more than 1 minute, i try to land both hand of ro and ro's illumination, to help out as much as possible with the ac/atk disparities between the mobs and pc melee.

alyn cross
forces unknown

Any warrior will tell you that druid debuffs are key to winning PoP fights in exp or raid settings.

On exp groups or raid yard trash, I'll stick to just Hand for debuffs. The -100ATK will drop PoP mob dps significantly.

On named/boss mobs, I'll use Hand + Illumination. Mobs that can one round 10khp tanks in defensive become much more managable.

Hand of Ro

2: Decrease Fire Resist by 72
3: Decrease AC by 15
4: Decrease ATK by 100


Ro's illumination

1: Decrease AC by 15
5: Decrease ATK by 80


Immolation of Ro

2: Decrease Hitpoints by 140 per tick
3: Decrease Fire Resist by 35
10: Decrease AC by 27


Eci's Frosty Breath


1: Decrease AC by 24
5: Decrease Cold Resist by 55




That's the raw data. Typically, hand and ro's are very useful, eci is nice on FR mobs but a pain to land, and I don't bother with the DoT, it's too much aggro for not much.

I wouldn't ever use Immolation of Ro (or any other of the fire DoT line) on a raid-level mob. There is just way too much aggro. I don't even use them in groups because I'll end up tanking whether I'm sitting or not.

Illumination is nice on things like Seru that are going to last a long time and need lots of caster DPS. I wouldn't bother with it in exp groups though.

The only time I've ever used Hand of Ro while getting exp was to DD kite stuff in HoH after I got my ornate gloves ... and that was only as an experiment. Now that I have a Ceramic Gavel of Justice, root/dot is much more efficient and faster. Most times, things just die way too fast and you could either choose to debuff once and nuke once or nuke twice. It's the first choice for raid mobs though.

I use a 62 druid to two-box with my 56 Pally. I love Hand of Ro and Ro's Illumination for this purpose. The dps reduction on PoN mobs seems very significant when I land these two spells.

I just wanted to chime in on agro. With the pally, I pull with Flame of Light (small DD) spell) and then stun on inc and then typically chain stun 3 or 4 times. While I cast these initial stuns I ensnare, hand of ro, illumination, epic dot or ensnare, winged death, Immolation of Ro. As long as I stun a couple of times, the druid never draws agro.

My rule of thumb:
1 stun = 1 snare = 1 debuff

This is based on the time that I spent duoing giants in storm with a cleric, where the cleric would use low level stuns (or at one time, high level stuns) to make sure she had aggro. That way on charm breaks the giant would attack her instead of me. I didn't test the debuffs extensively, but I'm convinced stuns and snares at least generate similar amounts of aggro, regardless of which stuns and snares are used.

1 snare = 1 flame lick = ~500 melee damage?

This is from the time spent aggro kiting in plane of disease. It didn't seem to matter whether I used ensnare or flame lick, it always took roughly the same number of casts to keep aggro for the entire fight. The 500 was based on an estimation of the mob's total hp; I don't remember exactly how I arrived at that number. :P

I'm sure it's not that simple. Resisted spells may not generate the same amount of aggro, different mobs have different rules as far as aggro generation, but it seems to work most of the time.

I haven't tested the aggro from immolation of ro ever since it got me summoned and killed against seru. It seems to add a significant amount of aggro every tick, seeing as I got summoned on a tick rather than upon a spell landing.