I'm asking for people with this AA line to explain or give examples how this is such a good AA to get. I'm not being facetious, I'm really really curious about this AA. I would absolutely love to have strong root spells.
When I look at choosing AAs, I look first for raid usefulness, then by group usefulness, then finally solo. I had a hard time imagining that this AA would bring anything really useful to a raid, even while clearing trash. Grouping is iffy. Solo, well personally this would be of little benefit. I don't ever xp solo in the game (nothing against those who do, it's just too slow and the built in downtime is atrocious for a product of entertainment.)

Rooted mobs basically mean aggro is guarenteed to the nearest PC, i.e. the tank. So DPS is no longer limited by aggro generation. Warriors aren't tied to RNG. This would be awesome for clearing to boss and general xp'ing.

The drawback I see though is our root, even with this AA, is overwritten by any other PoP root. Our roots are the longest in duration and tied for cheapest in mana, but tied with necros and other priests for longest cast time. We have arguably one of the strongest roots in the game. We have an AA that enhances it. Seems we could be known as the premier root parkers with all this. I don't see it working out like this though.

There's many a mob out there that is simply immune to run speed changes (kind of lame, given how many mobs seem to have this immunity). When it comes time to root things, I (and any other druid with this AA) more than likely will not be the only ones rooting. One small problem(?) is if you're root is knocked off by someone else's root you get the message it's worn off. So you go reroot. Player_01 sees his root wear off, reroots, etc. ad naseum. So given this, it seems that there would be few times to actually derive benefit from using this AA on raids.

So, we have the advantages of a rooted mob, but it is, to an extent, balanced out by having our root knocked off by some other well meaning caster.

To end this meandering bit of rambling, can someone show me the way to enlightenment and convince me this is really worth getting?

You need better communications with the others in the raid. Determine who is rooting, and why. Make sure the tanks know that you are rooting as well...some like it, some hate it.

When I duo with a wizard friend, all I get are jealous stares when my root lasts through us landing 8 or so nukes. It turns root and nuke, root and nuke, into root & nuke nuke nuke nuke nuke nuke...:)

It isn't a fantastic AA ability, and rather overpriced for what it offers. But in single groups, when you're with lots of nukers or hybrids will all those damage procs, root tends to be useless because it breaks so often. If this ability works as advertised, it will help make root more useful in a grouping situation.

I bought the ability after about 250 AA just because there were slim pickings by that point. I haven't formally tested it, but I have noticed many times where root would last through 4 or 5 nukes, which is unusual enough to make me notice. Then again, breaks on the first nuke are much more common.

I saw the test of the original Luclin ability on this board a long long time ago, but I have not seen an update since then. Therefore I have no data to offer you about how effective this skill is (if at all) at preventing root breaks.

First of all, viscid root is not strong root. In my experience it doesn't compare very well with the wizard version. The wizard strong root is superior to viscid root. Depending on the mob it's very iffy in how long it holds. I bought this AA when charming frogs in POS (pre-nerf) was the way to go. It was handy to root mobs with when I got low on mana and had to root rot to finish.

I rarely use this in raids simply because we normally have a great showing of wizards and they get the rooting of adds because of their strong root.

It is a nice AA to have when soloing or group exping but it's not a must have AA, especially for raiding.

My 2cp.

Originally posted by Matafleur Mistwalker
First of all, viscid root is not strong root. In my experience it doesn't compare very well with the wizard version.
Strong root is a lure-type root on a timer; viscid roots doesn't affect the resist rate, but helps prevent breaking on damage spells. They're two completely different things.

It's raid usefulness is limited. I bought it very early on (around AA 80) because I have always done a lot of CC for groups. the 5 points for Viscid Root is a very good spend. The 5 points for the pre-req are next to useless (and if not a prereq, would be useless). So, yeah, considering the AA is effectively 10 points, it is pricy.

Still, I rate it a very good spend for my type of play during grouping. Its also not bad for LDoN, if you employ either a slow and AE style, or if you are in a group where you are root parking for CC.

When doing normal adventures, I am generally raining for damage, and I acutlly mem my AE root to assist in the allowing of earlier rains/pillars by other group members. The AA I am sure is the reason those roots hold up.

On raids, I find I personally do very little of the root parking during the events that require it. When they do, I find people are never nuking and rarely meleeing the mobs I am supposed to be parking. Still it does come in handy even for raids from time to time. I am sure I have saved a chanter/shammy or cleric more than once by having rooted some adds.

The real deal with this AA is you sort of have to have faith that it was worthwhile taken from anecdotal evidence, as apart from duoing with a wizard and testing how many nukes you get on your roots and how many you get on his, you are never going to actually see your AA working. When you root something that is being off-tanked, however, and it dies before your root breaks, you'll know why.

Overall, as a Druid that does very little soloing (I am either raiding or in LDoN, or grouping prior to LDoN), I have always felt good about my purchase. There will always be the frustration of someone overwriting your root. You know your root is better, but in a group this is easily enough remedied by a hot key letting others know what you just rooted. On a raid, well, you can make a hotkey that will get lost in the spam, but I just accept it. That frustration considered, I still feel good about it and reccomend it to others. I'd probably put it as something you should get after SotW and RC, but before your melee AAs.

For what it is worth, on Lucy about 2 months ago, SoE experiemented on test with some stacking things that would have made Savage Root not overwritten by any other root. It would also have made our fast PoP root (you can see how often I use that - can't remember the name) up there, but still overwritten by some other PoP roots.

Not sure why they abandonned that, but it does mean it is on their radar and they might try something new along those lines again at some point. That is my hopefull thinking anyway.

Bumping a rather old thread for some advice:

Ok I have read through this thread and what I am still a bit confused about is the following:

"This ability improves all druid root spells making them less likely to break easiy"

Got that description off of Casters Realm. The one for Enchanced Root it says it is to reduce the chance of roots breaking on a DD spell.

My question is this: Is Viscid root meant to reduce chance on just DDs or is it also to reduce the the chance root breaks on ever tick check ? If thats the case then it can be quite useful for some events.

Nduma is a 2 box druid - primarily the AAs I have are focused towards making the char being able to help on raids. Druid is alteration specialized as I 2 box or play healer in groups often. All healing AAs maxed, got SOTW3, MGB SCRM maxed.

I was considering going MC2 atleast but recently ran into the mud ring event in Plane of Earth. The Filth Gorgers that autopull on the raid would need to be rooted/snared/kited and figured I can help in such events/tactics. I only want to go Viscid roots though to have parked mobs stay parked longer, if thats not going to help, then I think I'll go MC2 then max Nuke AAs.

I've had this AA for months, as far as I can tell it has no efffect on the duration of a root. The *only* thing it does is raise the chance of it not being broken when you (or someone else with Viscid) nukes the mob. And it's not a very big boost. Most times it *still* doesnt last past the 2nd nuke.

It's one of the most useless AAs we get.

Here is how it works :

When you cast a root on a mob, it's rooted. Viscid Root provides nothing at that point.

IF someone casts a Nuke on the rooted mob, THEN Viscid Roots may kick into gear. What it will do is the nuke will have less chance of breaking root.

So why is it near useless? Because there is rarely any situation where someone will nuke a rooted mob. Root = CC. If a mob needs to be CCed, then no one will want to mess with it anyways. Root = tool for root-rot method. Rot = DoT, and nukes are not used.

In a raid situation, trash mobs receive a gazillion nukes, making that AA worthless for clearing trash. For Boss mobs, it's an odd Boss that is not Root-immune, again making it useless.

In a group situation, you are better sticking with snare only. Rooting a mob stops it from running away at around 18%, causing the need for more heals on the tank. The mob will also be nuked a lot, and procced a lot, which makes the chance of breakage very high, despite having the AA. Or, root is for CC, in which case, mob wont get nuked...

Basically, it *may* be useful in duo situations depending on your choice of duo partner... It's also a fun thing to experiment with (hey! I soloed that mob by nuking 10 times in a row, root still on!!). But asides that, it ranks up there with +Int AAs.

Callahad

Thanks for the responses. My intention was to get this AA if it increased the chance that mobs CC parked longer i.e. not nuked.

Got MC1 last night already - think I'll do MC2 then work on Maxing Nukes abilities. Appreciate the input.

I bought this skill and even not expecting much I didn't get what I had hoped for. The situations just don't come up where I can put this to great use. I never solo, and a full group of 6 there is too much damage going on for this to have any real impact. And that's if you can find a rootable mob.
Trash clearing on raids - no use
Bosses - heh, what can you root
groups - if I devote myself to constantly rerooting it *might* pay off, but all I would do is root. It breaks too much with a full group going to take advantage of the aggro benefits.
solo - I can't speak on this part.

It doesn't help in basic CC. Root still breaks quickly in group situations and I can't say that it has helped any at raids. Even in PoTime, phase 5 clearing out the army, I used the AE root to try to help keep pulls clumped for AE spells. Root breaks or the mobs turn on the druids/clerics that are doing PBAE spells.

I would gladly trade in this ability for say equal AA in poison resist. Your milage may vary though.