Hi guys,

Just wanted some feedback on essential druid focus effects. My list includes the following:

Improved Healing
Extended Range
DD Increase MR, FR, CR
DoT Increase
ana Preservation


Anything I'm missing? A "would be nice to have but not essential" list would be great too...

Just trying to work out what my upgrade path should be.

Do many Druids think that buff extension is worth getting? I didn't see that on your list, and I don't have it. I would be interested in seeing what others think.

SPELL HASTE!!!

Detrimental spell haste is nice. Beneficial spell haste is CRITICAL.
UST have fast heals.... M U S T ! ! !

Nuff said

what sildan said and has been echoed in these forums. Kaidman mentioned at one point, that he didn't know what he was missing until he got his 30% spell haste from the Fennin Ro belt. He goes on to say that he wouldn't want to play without a form of beneficial spell haste! esp the 30%+


ESSENTIAL
mana pres - easy to get with ornate/elemental boots. and even easier now with DoN augs.

spell haste - easy to get the 15% spell haste. but harder into the upper-echelon IMHO. hard because, most of the common faster spell-hastes are primary slots! I like my 1.5 in primary so I'm still waiting for another spell haste to drop T_T

there are sooo many forms of spell haste, it will make you dizzy. general (all), beneficial (heals), detrimental(nukes), affliction (dots), enhancement (buffs)...


healer druids must have IMP HEALING focus. can have a dramatic effect on healing capacities!

nukers must have IMP DAMAGE focus.


i think the others are just really nice to have.

burning affliction - very nice to have now. dots cast much faster and easy to stack em. good for soloing and sometimes raids when a long boss fight takes place. our nukes take a long time to cast unless you spend the aa's or get a nice focus effect. so the faster cast times of dots can keep you free for when that heal is needed!


extended range - I lived without it for so long but I'll admit to its usefulness =)

check this link out for researching focus effects (http://home.comcast.net/%7Eaelfin/downloads/DruidFocusGearHE.html)!

I believe with Reptile Skin coming into play, buff extension is gonna be a biggy.

How often are you casting Magic Nukes? I wouldn't put damage bonus for Magic nukes high on my list of have to have focus effects.

Spell Haste
Fire/Cold DD focus
ana Pres
Ext. Range
Improved Healing

Those are the big ones I would consider the most useful.

How often are you casting Magic Nukes? I wouldn't put damage bonus for Magic nukes high on my list of have to have focus effects.

Spell Haste
Fire/Cold DD focus
ana Pres
Ext. Range
Improved Healing

Those are the big ones I would consider the most useful.


You want magic foci mostly for DoTs :p

If you thought like a Teia you'd see their importance in this order:

1) Beneficial spell haste
2) Improved healing
3) Beneficial mana preservation
4) Fire focus
5) Detrimental spell haste
6) Detrimental mana preservation
7) Ice Focus
8) Extended range beneficial
9) Extended range detrimental

If I actually had any extended range beneficial I'd probably get to see its value more often and rank it a lot higher - too bad only 1 very rare drop in the game (Earring of Dark Conflict) has the top of the line focus. I think my life would be a lot easier on OMM if I had it.

At the later stages the effects for mana are generally seperated into detri/Beni, but on the plus side Fire, Magic, Cold focus are lumped together and effect DoTs as well as DDs. I think I would rank mine very similar to Teia's, only she seems to have forgotten buff extension, Magic focus, and DoT extension. Mine would look like:


1) Beneficial spell haste
2) Improved healing
3) Fire focus
4) Beneficial mana preservation
5) Detrimental spell haste

These would be must haves. Would not upgrade a slot regardless of how good if I didn't have these.


6) Detrimental mana preservation
7) DoT extension
8) Magic Focus
9) Ice Focus
10) Buff Extension
11) Extended range beneficial
12) Extended range detrimental

These are all nice to have, but not really necessary at all. I don't have 6, 8, 11, or 12. I do have them banked, but I don't feel they are really important enough to wear. I was using Tribute range and I honestly really didn't notice enough of a difference to care.

Aegyen

I've been kind of on the fence saving for a couple specific items and I'm trying to round out my focus effects. I have a question about beneficial or any spell haste for that matter. Does it stack with the Cleric spell haste buff? And if it doesn't is the exta few percent really worth it? I have a spell haste aug that effects everything but obviously the general focus effects are a lower percent I think 15%.

And a side comment to whomever was asking about beneficial duration increasers I have found them HUGELY helpful. Consider them more like a mana preservation because you will be recasting buffs much less. Helps great at raids especially since I try to keep Reptile Skin on the tanks for big mobs, and in groups you can cast short term buffs less such as regen and damage shields. You'd be surprised how much mana it saves over time.

I've been kind of on the fence saving for a couple specific items and I'm trying to round out my focus effects. I have a question about beneficial or any spell haste for that matter. Does it stack with the Cleric spell haste buff? And if it doesn't is the exta few percent really worth it? I have a spell haste aug that effects everything but obviously the general focus effects are a lower percent I think 15%.

And a side comment to whomever was asking about beneficial duration increasers I have found them HUGELY helpful. Consider them more like a mana preservation because you will be recasting buffs much less. Helps great at raids especially since I try to keep Reptile Skin on the tanks for big mobs, and in groups you can cast short term buffs less such as regen and damage shields. You'd be surprised how much mana it saves over time.

Focus Spell Haste stacks with Cleric Spell Haste, upto a total of 50 percent hasted, iirc.

For me, this brings Sylvan Infusion down to 2.3 seconds (30 percent spell haste), and Anicent down to 2.4 seconds - both from 3.75 seconds.

As far as Buff Extension, with Reptile, and the AA to support it - this increases the buff length from 60 seconds to 90 seconds. For those that actually cast Nature's Recovary, it makes it over 4 minutes.

-Fenier

cast time for heals:
Focus/ SI Chloro Ancient
ax Level----------------------
0.3/70 | 2.63 2.63 2.63
0.3/67 | 2.63 2.68 2.79
0.3/65 | 2.63 2.79 2.91
0.25/70 | 2.81 2.81 2.81
0.25/67 | 2.81 2.86 2.95
0.2/70 | 3.00 3.00 3.00
0.2/65 | 3.00 3.11 3.19
realize it is not just heals. just about anything that isn't detrimental and takes longer than 3 secs to cast.

Spell Haste 2
Improved Damage 2
Burning Affliction 2
Extended Enhancement 2
Improved Healing 2
Affliction Efficentancy 2

Just my opinion, but we don't really need any magic foci. The only magic nukes we have are our air stun line and quad lightning line. Now, unless I am very mistaken, no magic foci will help with our lightning line since it is ae. Our air stun line is far from our best or most mana efficient nukes, they don't hit for much compared to cold/fire, without glamour of Tunare/malo/etc they are resisted a lot (in my experience), and stuns draw a lot of extra aggro we don't need when grouping. Don't forget that oh so fun recast delay on them either. I so wish we could chain stun at times.

The rest of the posts I really agree with. I have a Ward of the Skirmish. While only being 15% beneficial spell haste, I notice a huge difference when healing in tough spots. There has been many a time my heals wouldn't have gone off before Loading, Please Wait.... for someone. It can not be stressed enough how helpful beneficial spell haste is.

One other thing, make sure you read all about the effect you are dealing with. Some people I know miss the direct damage only part of some fire based foci, thinking it will help fire dots. Others don't notice the spell cap of which you generally lose 10% for each level over you go. I also remember being a young druid and thinking that spell cap was for my level, and once I was over the cap all my spells would be affected as such. On these effects the spell cap refers to the level of the spell you are casting, not the level of the caster. Another thing I have run into is people at first being suprised about none, or at least I believe none, of the beneficial spell foci affect complete heals.

I hope that helps, and that I am not just crazy on this stuff.

Magic damage focus helps with magic dots like Wasp Swarm and others.

Correct... it's sexy damage and provides for humongous sexy DoT crits for Wasp Swarm! /slobbers

A couple basic categories is how I think about them:

I.
Beneficial Haste
Beneficial Range
Beneficial Preservation
Beneficial Improvement
Benefical Enhancement

II.
Detrimental Haste
Detrimental Range
Detrimental Extension
Detrimental Preservation
Detrimental Improvement

Generally speaking, the heavy-raiding druid is usually most successful when concerned with category I first and category II second. The soloist is usually most successful with category II as their first choice. The well rounded druid has a mix of both categories; and preferably all of them.

Yeah, it's nice to WANT focuses but entirely different trying to actually GET them!