While many of the recent discussions of druid improvments involve healing, the druid is not necessarily centered around healing (yes, I know that there are those who play Healing Druids, but is a personal choice, and not one built into the class design).

Another important aspect of being a druid has been inflicting damage: DDs, AoEs, PBAEs, and DoTs. I don't really see any major holes with our area-effect spells, based on what we've been able to do historically. With the new Ancient spell tweak for our fire based DD, and with expected fixes to Moonfire for our cold based DD, I think our DD line has received all the attention it's going to get right now.

That leaves DoTs. There is a fairly big hole in our DoT line at the upper end. We've gotten insect-based DoTs every ten levels, with two fire-based DoTs tossed in, but they stopped at 53. That leaves room for a nice DoT at 59 or 60. For the sake of argument, I'll use 60, since both necros and shaman get big DoTs at 60. And since our insect line is resisted less than our fire lines, let's go for the former.

Let's call our imaginary level 60 DoT "Winged Fury" for now, for ease of reference. First, we'll see where it fits into our current DoT line. Second, we'll compare it to what the necros and shaman (the two main DoT classes that we closely follow) have, to make sure we don't step on any toes.

Step One: DoT Analysis

Stinging Swarm: 117 pts, 65 mana, 1.80 dam/mana
Creeping Crud: 210 pts, 100 mana, 2.10 dam/mana
Immolate: 240 pts, 120 mana, 2.00 dam/mana
Drones of Doom: 340 pts, 141 mana, 2.41 dam/mana
Drifting Death: 650, 200 mana, 3.25 dam/mana
Breath of Ro: 920, 250 mana, 3.68 dam/mana
Winged Death: 1287, 350 mana, 3.68 dam/mana

Duration is 10 ticks for the first and last spells, 11 ticks for the others, of course. Also note that I am using the LISTED damage numbers for the DoTs to make comparisons easier. I do not include any server-side increase (which would apply across the board anyway).

As you can see, there is a steady increase in mana cost and damage/mana ratio, and thus an increase in damage. Also, as noted, the duration is fairly constant. So, let's assume that there is a 450 mana cost, and increase in the damage/mana ratio to 4.4. We then get:


Winged Fury: 1980, 450 mana, 4.4 dam/mana
(duration 10 ticks)


Not bad, but how does it fit within the limits established by the necro and shaman DoTs? Answer: very well.

Necro DoTs:
Lvl 56-Cessation of Cor: 1000, 250 mana, 4.0 dam/mana (10 ticks)
Lvl 58-Pyrocuror: 1998, 400 mana, 4.995 dam/mana (18 ticks)
Lvl 60-Funeral Pyre: 2160, 450 mana, 4.8 dam/mana (10 ticks)

Shaman DoTs:
Lvl 56-Bane of Nife: 1648, 425 mana, 3.88 dam/mana (7 ticks)
Lvl 59-Pox of Bert: 2090, 430 mana, 4.86 dam/mana (20 ticks)
Lvl 60-Scourge of Nife: 1955, 425 mana, 4.6 dam/mana (7 ticks)


As you can see, Winged Fury does its job of keeping druids in third place on the DoT ladder. The closest analogue is Funeral Pyre, which costs the same mana and has the same duration, but does 180 more points of damage (and thus has a much higher damage/mana rate). The level 58 necro DoT beats Winged Fury as well in total damage and efficiency.

The level 59 shaman DoT does more damage for less mana (and has a high efficiency). While the level 60 shaman DoT does a little less total damage, it does that damage in 70% of the time, so the damage per tick is quite a bit higher. Shaman also have a mana savings.

So, overall, Winged Fury would not challenge either of the top two shaman or necro DoTs.

There is, in fact, some room for Winged Fury to do more damage and have a slightly better efficiency (say, 4.5 or so), without infringing on shaman or necros. However, that would push the damage over the 2000 mark. My gut feeling is that there might be some psychological resistance to a druid DoT doing more than 2000 listed damage.

Besides, 1980 was a good year...:)

the lv60 druid DoT looks like this:













:( nada

Winged Fury looks great! Nice analysis too. Here's another idea:

Gale of Karana: 1650, 375 mana, -30 CR, -60 ATK, 11 tick duration

Gale is a cold-based counterpart and upgrade to Breath of Ro. It brings a 4.4 damage/mana ratio without the big damage of Winged Fury, but also provides a few nice debuffs. The cold-resist debuff would help land spells like Blizzard and Frost. It would be a high-maintenance ATK debuff, hopefully stackable with FoR and RSD.

I'd be happy with either of these DoTs.

-Quelm

I like the name "Creeping Death" myself. ;)



Creeping Death

Slaves
Hebrews born to serve, to the pharaoh
Heed
To his every word, live in fear
Faith
Of the unknown one, the deliverer
Wait
Something must be done, four hundred years


So let it be written
So let it be done
I'm sent here by the chosen one
So let it be written
So let it be done
To kill the first born pharaoh son
I'm creeping death


Now
Let my people go, land of goshen
Go
I will be with thee, bush of fire
Blood
Running red and strong, down the nile
Plague
Darkness three days long, hail to fire


So let it be written
So let it be done
I'm sent here by the chosen one
So let it be written
So let it be done
To kill the first born pharaoh son
I'm creeping death


Die by my hand
I creep across the land
Killing first born man
Die by my hand
I creep across the land
Killing first born man


I
Rule the midnight air the destroyer
Born
I shall soon be there, deadly mass
I
Creep the steps and flood final darkness
Blood
Lambs blood painted door, I shall pass


So let it be written
So let it be done
I'm sent here by the chosen one
So let it be written
So let it be done
To kill the first born pharaoh son
I'm CREEPING DEATH!

I hope you don't mind if I repost from my reply to the "specific spell improvements" thread...

DoT:

Current in game DoTs:

Necromancer L56 - Cessation of Cor:
1000 damage over 10 ticks for 250 mana -- debuffs 21 AC and 50 str
100 damage per tick
4 damage per mana
From personal experience: Necromancers rarely if ever use this DoT, I just include it as the analogy to Breath of Ro for it's debuff component

Necromancer L60 - Funeral Pyre of Kelador:
2160 damage over 9 ticks for 450 mana
240 damage per tick
4.8 damage per mana

Shaman L56 - Bane of Nife:
1648 damage over 7 ticks for 425 mana (including initial DD)
236 damage per tick
3.9 damage per mana

Shaman L59 - Pox of Bertoxxulous:
2088 damage over 18 ticks for 430 mana
116 damage per tick
4.9 damage per mana

Druid L52 - Breath of Ro
920 damage over 10 ticks for 250 mana -- debuffs 21 AC and 31 FR
92 damage per tick
3.7 damage per mana
From personal experience: extremely high fizzle rate, high resist rate

Druid L53 - Wings of Death
1287 damage over 9 ticks for 350 mana
143 damage per tick
3.7 damage per mana
From personal experience: very low fizzle and resist rates

We can see that druid dots just kinda... stopped at L53.

My suggestions for druid upgrades:

Druid L59 - Breath of Ro Upgrade:
2100 damage over 30 ticks for 525 mana -- debuffs 30 AC and 40 FR
30 damage per tick
4 damage per mana

Analagous to Pox of Bertox in it's long duration, and Cessation of Cor in it's debuffing. It trades off the massive damage of Pox for the debuffing aspect, and retains the mana/damage ratio of CoC/BoR. Hopefully it wouldn't fizzle as much as BoR ;) It's extremely slow action would make it useless in group situations, and only marginally useful in soloing, so it'd be mostly a raid spell... negligible damage, but it would be useful to use as a small AC debuff because of it's long duration... I could slap it on and then concentrate on healing my group.

Druid L60 - Wings of Death Upgrade:
1785 damage over 9 ticks for 425 mana
198 damage per tick
4.2 damage per mana

There should be an upgrade for WoD, since we got it at L53 and the total damage is so small compared to nec/shm dots.
This would be the predictable upgrade... but honestly wouldn't matter to me much. Wings of Death is actually still useful, whereas Breath of Ro is not, so I would much rather prefer a Breath of Ro upgrade.

In the absense of stackability for multiple druids casting the same spell (you may be able to find my Fury of the Swarm idea which is an attempt to address this if you go back through some of the older threads on the board), that looks quite good. However, why not formulate one for level 58 or 59, then let it grow a bit as the druid levels up to 60? Being level 60 isn't essential for being in the high end raiding game, except to the extent that our spell line up makes it so. So why dig a deeper hole for people who are 59 and four yellow bubbles?

I also have a small quibble with this:

Another important aspect of being a druid has been inflicting damage: DDs, AoEs, PBAEs, and DoTs. I don't really see any major holes with our area-effect spells, based on what we've been able to do historically. With the new Ancient spell tweak for our fire based DD, and with expected fixes to Moonfire for our cold based DD, I think our DD line has received all the attention it's going to get right now.

While what you say is true of our DD's and targetted AoE's, I don't think it's true of our PBAoE's. There our last spell is Upheaval at level 51. Upheaval is very slow, especially with respect to its 24 second recovery time, and also inefficient. I would like to see druids have something meaningful to contribute to an AoE group. That's not going to be a useful stun. If it can't be a heal, then why not an improved PBAoE? The ideal case, in my mind, would be that we could bring flexibility to such a group. We would get an upgraded PBAoE that was still inferior to a 60 wizard's, and a group heal that was clearly inferior to the cleric's version, but we would have the opportunity to choose which was most appropriate at the moment to add survivability to the group.

- Chronomis

lol Tudamorf's mug. I am not ready for a biblical mmorpg.

Level 60 Dot... mob A is enveloped in winged fury, mob A is 300% faster. I can see that :(

lvl 59 Fire dot around 1500hp with no ac/fr or atk reductions to make it a simple, stackable dot combinable with ro's fiery sundering.

Xaviel, your Wings of Death and my Winged Fury are variations on the same theme. I do think you are aiming a bit too low with the damage/mana ratio (4.2 vs. my 4.4), and we don't have any dots with 9 tick durations, so go with 10 or 11. Interesting that we both derive the same damage/tick (198)...:)

I did consider doing an upgrade for the Immo/BoR line, but I decided not to for the following reasons:

1. The swarm line has a super-low resistance rate. That's a big advantage for a high mana cost spell. As Tudamorf says (his post is in the Archive under the DoT thread), this potentially makes the druid the king of DoTs.

2. The swarm line is simpler to consider and put into effect. It does damage, that's it. You don't have to consider the effects of various debuffs (all of which will increase the resistance rate as well). It is also easier to make a case for higher damage with swarm because we don't have any debuffs.

3. We do have a swarm line history to build upon. In contrast, we really don't have a BoR line. Thus, the case for an advancement in the swarm line is easier to make. It is a natural spell that follows several previous spells.

4. We just got a combination damage and debuff spell, RFD. I consider it a bit of a push to ask for another debuff spell this soon, even with DoT damage.

Please correct me if I'm wrong...but there are 3 fire dots. Flame Lick, Immolate, and Breath of Ro.

On the contrary, the spells in our Swarm line have alternated between 9 and 10 ticks. Winged Death, the current top Swarm, is 9 ticks. None are 11 ticks.

1. This is precisely why I am more interested in an upgrade to the Flame Lick line. Our DoT should NOT be king. The low resistability makes Wings of Death somewhat viable in it's current form, whereas Breath of Ro is a waste of mana unless you have an excess of healers (hah) and an extreme need to debuff AC. A very large dot (near 2k) which is as unresistable as our Swarms would be, I think, a bit unfair to shm/nec. Hence my slightly reduced numbers versus yours.

2. Granted.

3. Again, this is exactly why I would prefer the Flame Lick line upgrade. If our spell lines were all just fleshed out fully, I think a lot of druids would be happier without new types of spells. Right now, while we are supposed to be versatile, we are just limited to a couple of spell lines which are close to being developed -- Wings of Death, NT/CB, Wildfire (in conjunction with Sundering).

For instance, consider the following spell lines that we have 1 or 2 spells in and that's it:

Beguile Plants -- a steady progression of this, perhaps quested like the original spell is, would make us be able to have fun with various fungi in Luclin zones. Servant of Nature (Dire Charm) should also work against plants.

Careless Lightning -- Ever since they reduced the mr on many mobs and instead made them immune to slow, clerics and enchanters can nuke better on many mobs than us due to our lack of an indoor magic nuke.

Fury of Air -- the one and only stun we get. Upgrades to this would be most excellent, for stun value and for indoor magic nuke value.

Fire DoT line -- should continue as shown in my first post.

Glamour of Tunare -- would be nice to get one that it to Glamour that Tashanian is to Tashani.

Share Wolf Form -- a form of this that adds atk, similar to Form of the Great Wolf, or even one that adds mana like Form of the Howler.

Wake of Karana -- one that stops snow.

Summon Drink and Food -- Abundant Drink and Food

Spirit of Cheetah -- something that parallels max bard speed with the best drum, for 30 seconds, or something

Sunbeam -- a single target version, and indoor version, whatever

Upheaval -- definately some upgrade here, that clerics do not receive, but still inferior to mage PB AEs

etc. etc. etc.

So many spell lines that were just thrown in and never received any upgrades, and so we outgrow their usefulness quickly and bury them in the back of our books.



4. Disjunction sucks. The increased resistance check makes it useless unless you cast sundering first. If you are going to cast sundering first anyway, you might as well just save mana and cast fixation after, instead of Disjunction. Unless, of course, you mean to stack Fixate and DJ, which I highly doubt is intended.

Correct, Kweil, but they are not truly of the same line -- they all stack with each other. When I'm REALLY bored I stack them all as debuffs ;)

On the contrary, the spells in our Swarm line have alternated between 9 and 10 ticks. Winged Death, the current top Swarm, is 9 ticks. None are 11 ticks.

Sorry, Xaviel, you're wrong. Go and actually test the spells instead of relying on the listings at various sites, which also are wrong.

Or you can rely on the fact that I actually have tested each of our DoTs, and have confirmed that the durations are 10 and 11 ticks of damage. See the Spells: DoT thread in the Archives for those testing results.

BTW, I do know the source of the listing problem. They presumed that our DoTs work like the DoTs of other classes, where there is an initial application of damage followed by damage per tick over time. So when you see a listed duration for Winged Death of 9 ticks, what they really mean is 10 applications of damage: the initial plus 9 subsequent ticks.

Our DoTs don't work that way...there is no initial damage. Instead, the first application of damage occurs at the end of the first tick. And subsequent damage is applied at the end of each tick. The last bit of damage for Winged Death occurs at the end of the 10th tick. The last bit of damaged for Drones of Doom, in contrast, occurs at the end of the 11th tick.

Believe me, I have sat and watched each bit of damage each tick for each DoT take effect (testing on myself). I know for a fact that the duration is 10 or 11 ticks, not 9.

I also know that the listed damage is wrong. But that's another story....

Well enough, then. I admit I didn't go and test the DoTs on myself, I copied that data from the spell listing on Castersrealm. If our dots wait to apply damage at the end of a tick, you are correct.

I still hold to the rest of my post, though... I think the upgrade to BoR with a standard resist and fizzle rate would serve us better than an upgrade to Wings... both would be logical and ideal, of course.

Scirocco says: Winged Fury: 1980, 450 mana, 4.4 dam/mana
(duration 10 ticks)
So, overall, Winged Fury would not challenge either of the top two shaman or necro DoTs.

You're conveniently dancing around the resist rate factor, which you know skews those numbers. Normal DoTs are usually resisted at least 10-15% of the time against average resist targets, meaning their efficiency will be significantly less than what is listed, whereas swarms are resisted no more than about 5% against any NPC, even ones with very high resists.

Necros and shamans do have a low-resist "comeback" for the low 50s -- splurt and the shaman epic effect -- but if you give druids a low-resist level 60 DoT, necros and shamans will be left wanting, like children who were passed over for the lollipop.

Furthermore, as High Priest of PvV you should be painfully aware that any such discussion will focus everyone's attention to the ultra-low resist property of the swarm line, a fact which is relatively unknown to other classes. This may engender envy in some members of those classes, who will scream for a nerf to the already supremely overpowered Everquest class (druids). You know what will likely happen next -- an across the board nerf to everyone, as Verant suddenly realizes that DoTs aren't "working as intended". <img src=http://www.geocities.com/lag999/biggrin.txt>

i'm going to touch on not just dots here, but this has bothered me for a while...
something commonly overlooked is our lack of damage spell upgrades. we have received.... NONE since kunark (except moonfire and i will refuse to acknowledge its existence until it becomes a viable spell that is at LEAST better than our lvl 49 cold nuke). enchanters, clerics, shaman, necros, wizards, magis, you name it, have received upgrades dots or dds or in some cases both.

DDs: we need to make an argument to remove the outdoor only restriction from BoK. ideally they would get rid of all non-movement outdoor-only restrictions on spells, since the game has grown since release to the point that the high majority of high level hunting is now indoors. druids are really the only class crippled by stepping foot into a dungeon. BoK is important as it is our only higher level decent damage magic check nuke. against mobs that are only magic susceptible, we cant nuke at all. i would also advocate removing the stun portion of the spell as that increases the resists, and would be an easy price to pay to make this spell indoor usable.


**important thing to note here**
as for dots, i would really prefer a swarm line BUT.... and i havent see anyone mention this yet.... we have to look at stackability. if its swarm line, that means we are stuck with it and boro, yes? uncomfortable idea in my eyes. i would rather have an upgrade to boro, with or without the fire debuff since im not sure what would be best, and use that and wd as our top dots. plus as the flame line, which is evocation, it would give a slight edge to our evoc brethren over the nothing bonus that 99% of us get from the winged line. and it makes little sense to me to replace the higher level higher damage spell with an upgrade when we could instead get rid of that bitch of a spell BoR.

as for dot level and damage, i think i would rather see it at 58 or 59... mainly because they've started doing some really nasty things with our lvl 60 spells, and i'd rather see this spell come in and be achievable by the majority of druids than see it stuffed onto a remote lvl 70 mob somewhere in the depths of luclin as "loot" where only 5% of us will ever see it. the damage should at least be somewhere in the 1700-2000 ballpark to make it much of an improvement over either the lvl 52 or 54 dots.

Bah, the last thing I need is a DoT that eats 450 mana. Give me one that mana taps intead.

Lotharun

I'd much rather see an upgrade to the breath of ro line than winged death. Since then you could stack the upgrade + WD.

You're conveniently dancing around the resist rate factor, which you know skews those numbers. Normal DoTs are usually resisted at least 10-15% of the time against average resist targets, meaning their efficiency will be significantly less than what is listed, whereas swarms are resisted no more than about 5% against any NPC, even ones with very high resists.

I'm not sure that I buy into the notion that the swarm series really has a super low resist. True, I rarely see it resisted. But I also have to observe that it's not flagged in SPDAT as having a low resist. Personally, I think that spells with multiple resistable effects do have increased opportunities for resists. Regardless of whether they do or not, though, let's assume that they do and compare like to like here...

All shaman DoT spells have multiple effects. Further, I'm thinking that they're probably also "all or nothing" spells, at least to the extent that if the initial damage component is completely resisted the rest of the spell fails as well. I don't think we can fairly compare resists on Shaman and druid spells.

The same applies to a lot of necro spells. The disease and poison spells seem to be little different from shaman spells, and the darkness series includes a snare component. The two spell lines that appear to come close to druid DoT's would be the Leach series and the Heat Blood series. My experience with my necro is quite limited (level 13), but I seem to recall these spells being among my favorites because they had lower resists!

So, Tudamorf, I guess I would have to say that I don't buy the notion that resist factor is a problem. Low resists for druid swarm dots are normal across all levels, but I think it's simply the mechanics of how the spell works. I would expect an upgrade to also be low resist, while still preserving about the same damage proportion relative to other classes that was seen at lower levels. I hardly think that keeping a spell line proportional across levels is unreasonable. And let's face it... An upgraded swarm dot isn't much of a lollipop when it comes to druids in the high end game. Looks to me like a reason for one druid to be at the raid, since DoT's don't stack.

- Chronomis

I aggree with you scirocco, a 2k dot would help druids a bunch... on soloing. it would also be "nice" for it to stack with our other dots. that may be asking too much. the one minute duration follow past swarm line dot and it should be part of that spell.

Yeah, ignite blood, splurt, vex (and their lines of spells), are resisted about as often as WD (virtually never).

They're favorites to be used in pvp (as your mr stat doesn't help in resisting), their only downsides are that they are so easily removed (pumice, dispel), which make them useless against an experienced player..

Personally I think a dot upgrade is a good idea, stackability will of course be an issue, as you'll be putting either WD, or BoR to the back of our spell books.

Now verant have implimented a new line of spells with curses, I think it would be good for druids and shamans (possibly necros too), to get a curse line of dots....

Nature's Curse etc...

Actually, it would be a big help on big raids as well. As long as the mob is not magic resistant, or has been suitably debuffed.

Big fights would last long enough for 2 or 3 WFs, at least, to be cast and take effect. Because the damage is over time, we avoid the jump in aggro that a DD doing that damage would cause. It also would be useful in short XP groups, where the fights last often longer than a minute. It wouldn't be useful for fights that last less than a minute, like full XP groups killing weaker blues or the multiple-group raids where the lead-in mobs are overpowered quickly, but then, no DoT would be.

please please please redo the suggested dots as the fire line.

we have two top line dots now, wd and bor. why oh why would you replace the higher damage higher level one and keep the lower level lower damage one? that would be just silly. look at it as a function of damage over time. replacing bor instead of wd, our damage would be 387 damage higher per minute. that adds up over time to be a great deal.

i know one of the worries would be the resist rate. whether SOME want to admit it or not, there is a higher resist rate for combo spells, seen both in our own experiences and acknowledged by verant. fine, then advocate it as a damage only spell with no debuff components. you can even say you removed the debuffs to act as a "penalty" for it being such high damage. verant loves penalties, i bet they'd be more likely to go for it then =P

we've also all acknowledged that there is a serious problem with bor regarding its fizzle rate. whether they get around to fixing it or not, if verant even acknowledges the problem, replacing it with another fire line dot would help.

i'm alteration spec, another dot of whichever line will be the same mana-wise to me as long as they are the same efficiency. however i also realize half of us are evoc spec, so they would get a big bonus from any new dot being from the fire line. it also makes more sense to use the line that will give 50% of us a mana savings, rather than use the line that will give less about 0.01% of us mana savings.

then there is also the "we are druids" argument. we are suppose to be masters of the natural forces, ie fire and cold. thats why our main nukes are always fire/cold, why we can debuff fire and cold but not the other three, etc. it makes more sense to me for us to get a fire dot than a magic based dot.

or.... i would propose a cold dot... but then we'd need a cold debuffer to use with it =P however this is a novel idea and may get more notice from the powers that be.

I don't really see what this spell would accomplish. If you are talking about a spell that does not stack with WD, you are increasing druid DPS by approximately 11 on raids against low resist targets. Perhaps I am speaking for myself, but upgrading my DPS from 30ish to 40ish on raids is not a high priority for me - particularly since it only applies to ONE druid per raid.

Soloing, this spell would be essentially useless, except in the "kill this mob ASAP" quest mode. Most folks will agree that speading mana-free DoTs over additional targets would be more effective than killing a single target quicker for xp-gathering.

In a normal xp group, mobs aren't going to last long enough to spend 450 mana on them. Druid rolls in a normal xp group were nicely explained by Lotus - PULL, DRUIDS! Keep the melees hitting stuff and you've done a great job!

I suppose I can see that this spell would be useful duoing with a melee, where you get the time to med. But that makes it another limited use level 60 spell. I have enough of those.

I think the druids role in raids and groups would be expanded just as much by removing the snare effect from WoN. If I really was asking for a level 60 spell, it would be a cold-based copy of RSD.

Alright, since there's no real consensus, I'll take a DoT upgrade back off the table as part of a "simple" changes proposal.

So it looks like the 10% healing penalty, broken fizzle rates, and WoN fix are it as far as the simple changes go. I'm assuming that Moonfire is already being looked at (per our inside source).

I think wee should have a root dot. An automatic Dot that takes effect during the duration of a root, but breaks after root breaks. But the root should be an upgrade to our 56 root line so it should be pretty strong. If theres a Dot with a snare effect, there should be a DoT with a root effect, especially since we're root/doting anyways, right?

Dont scrap the dot upgrade idea altogether. it looks like the majority of us want an upgrade, and we are long overdue for one. we just need to discuss what kind and what its effect will be on our other spells before we start throwing out ideas for names and damage.

the first major question to answer is:

swarm line or fire line upgrade?

lets hear pros and cons of each

Chronomnis says: I'm not sure that I buy into the notion that the swarm series really has a super low resist. True, I rarely see it resisted. But I also have to observe that it's not flagged in SPDAT as having a low resist.

You don't see many things "flagged in SPDAT" for two reasons. First, you're not looking at "SPDAT", you're looking at a program, written by a third party, which reads the file and attempts to interpret it. There are aspects of that file that the program cannot interpret because the programmer did not design it.

Second, there are many server-side changes to spells which are not reflected in this file and never will be. Special resist values are one of these changes. If you want to try an experiment, take any highly magic resistant (but not totally immune) NPC, and try casting the swarm line on the NPC a number of times. Your resist rate will still be around 5%, even when all other magic spells will be resisted over 90% of the time. Or, try casting it on a player -- it will never be resisted. Most DoTs do NOT behave this way -- they behave like the flame lick line.

I would expect an upgrade to also be low resist, while still preserving about the same damage proportion relative to other classes that was seen at lower levels. I hardly think that keeping a spell line proportional across levels is unreasonable.

The problem is, due to the resist differences, you would be giving druids a large damage advantage over all other classes. Druids would once again be the DoT masters (like they were at level 50 way back when), and that may not sit will with some other players.

Why level 60 for the new dot?

A new fire dot at level 57-58.
A new magic dot at level 58-59.

Don't make all of ours spells level 60. Or us will earing: looking for a druid, but only for a level 60 one.

Spay a few the level of the spells. Or we will get something like the pre-nerf manastone situation (raidleader: only casters with a manastone are comming to the raid; the rest go camping the manastone).

Eridalafar

As I see it...

The major benefit of an upgrade to the fire line versus the swarm line would be to give us two viable dots (the upgrade, and Wings of Death). If it had a long duration and an AC debuff, it could give us some utility on the long Luclin uberAC bosses.

The benefit of an upgrade to the swarm line versus the fire line is that it'd be easier to do for VI, since swarm only has a single effect to balance. Our swarm line has been the only well developed DoT til now, and it's simple and logical to implement another one after L53.

Again... we deserve both, in truth, but if we had to choose one, I'd choose an upgrade to BoR for reasons stated above. I think we should include both in the proposal, along with the reasons for one to be implemented, the other to be implemented, and both to be implemented.

Why level 60 for the new dot?
A new fire dot at level 57-58.
A new magic dot at level 58-59.


Gut feel. That's too much. We're getting Moonfire looked at (I assume), an enhance Wildfire, an enhanced group thorns, and possibly a self only PoG. Along with a dire charm for plants. (I'm interpreting a lot based on recent posts here.)

We'd also be proposing removal of the 10% healing penalty, fizzle fixes on 5 or 6 spells, and a fix for Wrath of Nature. Asking for two DoT enhancements on top of that is a bit much.

As for why not 58 or 59...it would reduce the total damage of the spell. Our DoTs don't increase in damage per level. They do the same damage as the day we get them, regardless of level. Thus, if we're going to go for a DoT upgrade, we ought to go for the largest one we can get. At 58 or 59, a reasonable damage total would be a couple hundred points below the 1980 I proposed, and quite frankly, it isn't worth the trouble (for Verant or us) to put in a new druid DoT with mid-range damage.

I really don't think a DoT upgrade would be useful in a grouping situation. Maybe for raids, but definately not for grouping. I do use Winged Death in a raid situation (it will last for at least 1 and maybe 2 durations on HoT mobs), but I find it to be useless in grouping. A bigger DoT would be just more of the same.

If we need anything, we need spells or changes that make us more attractive to groups. A cold line like RFS would be good, as would removing the healing penalty.

Agreed, a DoT upgrade wouldn't be of much use for a full XP group, but it would for soloing or for raiding. So? Druids are pretty well set for single group XPing right now, all the way up through level 60. Short group, full group, we do fairly well.

A DoT upgrade would be a substantial increase in our ability to add damage on a high-end raid, however.

this whole issue came about because of our raid role. our single group action is pretty fine as it is, but our raid usage needs a bit of bumping. if it happens to help us solo... well, so be it =P

scirocco, please address the issue of the current state of lvl 60 spells while we are discussing the level any upgrade dot should be. ie, the "spells as loot" issue we are currently seeing with some of our lvl 60 spells. you know, the spells that 99.9% of us dont have yet =P

tudamorf:
take any highly magic resistant (but not totally immune) NPC, and try casting the swarm line on the NPC a number of times. Your resist rate will still be around 5%, even when all other magic spells will be resisted over 90% of the time.

i'm sorry, i will need to see empirical data on that before i can believe you. "do you have any actual evidence that this is true? Or are you also just propagating rumors?"

bahahhahahaha i crack me up =P

"take any highly magic resistant (but not totally immune) NPC, and try casting the swarm line on the NPC a number of times. Your resist rate will still be around 5%, even when all other magic spells will be resisted over 90% of the time."

I'd just like to point out that any "highly magic immune" mob will be really hard to snare, really hard to root, and very mad at you for casting swarm dots over and over. Just be careful when testing...

Take any burly bar patron, and try punching him in the groin repeatedly. You will succeed in angering him with your groin-punches, whereas punches to the chest or shoulders will result in minimal damage.

-Quelm

I'd agree with the 5% resist rate on the swarm line. On raids, I spend my mana probably 10% on buffing (Girdle of Karana, Regrowth, Circles) and 90% on healing (almost all Chloroblast). I almost think that we could use another heal like Chloroblast but for more HP and mana for the same or similar casting time. Or, make Nature's Recovery much more useful by making it heal the same amount in 5-6 ticks instead of what it is now (I don't think it looks very useful as is, but then again, I cannot scribe it).

Swarm is resisted far less.

But so is Heat Blood, and any single damage over time dot.

While I don't have "hard" evidence. I will give you some "soft" evidence.

While in a group in umbral plains, where the mobs have 10k to 20k hps. I have watched a mob proove unslowable (resist 5+ times 60 enchanter) and unsnarable (resist 5+ time snare)
yet the same mob I'll land every WD and Drones of doom (Rowyl bracers). EVERY. I'm almost shocked when resisted.

While having some guild fun in Arena. The same enchanter was owning people. The SK & I promptly replied she was doing so only cause we weren't dotting. Call it hubris, but she replied go for it.. i'll take th 96 Rez. Needless to say here 200 resist didn't do any good as suddenly the SK landed a Heat Blood (i believe) dot, and I landed WD and Drones.
When all 3 landed right in a row, she became a firm believer in resists.

Ultimatley, I think earlier posters nailed it. The reason WD line, and the Necro Heat Line are resisted is cause thier pure dots. No other effect to check resists against.

Still an upgraded Dot would be nice. but not as essential as some other fixes.

Ok...This is a great discussion. One thing that I notice on the druid board I don't notice on other boards discussing this type of thing is that actually are concerned how other classes feel about any upgrades we get.

I really want a Cold Based DoT. Level 59ish. Similiar to what was posted above.

Another idea for a "DoT" is

Curse of Nature
Mana 200. Duration 10ticks
Drain 35 mana per tick and transfers it to the caster.
Total mana drain 350

I'm sure the mana dot would never fly...although I can hope. RP could be something along the lines that this curse interferes with and intercepts the natural attunement of the phsyical manifestation(body) to the spiritual manifestation(soul).

Racmoor

As another variation, it might be interesting if the swarm line followed the AD&D model, and had a chance to interrupt the caster's targeting every time damage is applied. A swarm of insects would have a tendency to do that.

Kalinn says: i'm sorry, i will need to see empirical data on that before i can believe you.

I didn't ask you to believe me. I asked you to try it. I'm glad you managed to amuse yourself, because the real point obviously flew over your head. <img src=http://www.geocities.com/lag999/rolleyes.txt>

Would be nice to see Druid A's Winged Death stack with Druid B's Winged Death.

Loth