This is actually a point Kaimon brought up, but I feel is is important enough to bring to Dev attention, copy of this post is available on the Sony Vet's forum since it addresses multiple classes.

In PoP the Druid Class got Spirit of the Wood, an instant cast group heal which costs 4 / 3 /2 or 9 AA to max out. For the cost of 9 AA we get the ability to heal the group 250 Hitpoints / tick.

In Omens of War, the Druid class got Spirit of the Grove, an upgrade to the Spirit of the Wood AA, which costs 5 / 5/ 5. This means for maxing Spirit of the Grove, the Total Cost in AA is not 15, due to the pre-req of Spirit of the Wood, but 24 AA. This verison heals 333 / tick.

By Comparison, the Shaman class recieved Ancestral Aid in Omens of War for 5 / 5/ 5 or 15 Total. This AA was not equal to Spirit of the Wood as would be expected, but was equal to Spirit of the Grove. This also heals 333 / tick.

Differance in AA Points Spent: 9 more on the Druid side.

In Darkhollow, Druids got Convergance of Spirits, an AA which was linked to Spirit of the Grove/Wood, and costs 3 / 6 / 9 to max out. Cost to max CoS was thus 18 total, but total cost to max CoS was 42 AA (From Spirit of the Grove Pre-req, which required Spirit of the Wood).

In TSS, this was futher compounded.

Druids recieved Gathering of Spirits, pre-reqs of Spirit of the Wood 3, Spirit of the Grove 3, Convergance of Spirits 3, with a per level cost of 6 / 6/ 6 or 18 AA, but the Total Cost is actually 60 AA.

Shaman recieved Union of Spirits, which has a similar effect to Convergance / Gathering, but instead only requires the AA of Ancestral Aid be maxed. So Cost for Union of Spirits is 15 AA, total cost of 30 AA.

Differance in AA spent: Druids Spend 30 more AA for the exact same skill, which the druid class actually got prior to the Shaman class.

Shaman also got Ancestral Favor, an upgrade to Ancestral Aid, for 5 / 5 /5 or 15 Total, or 30 total Cost.

Druids got Spirit of the Anicent Grove for 5 / 5 / 5 or 15 Total cost of 39 AA.

Thus, to be equal A Druid must spent a total of 30 More AA then an equivlant level Shaman when the Shaman is actually purchasing varients of the Druid Skill Set.

This is both illogical and unfair. Either the Druid AA costs need to be halved to max them the same total cost as what a Shaman would spend for the nearly exact same ability, or the Druid set needs to heal more then the Shaman set per AA skill rank.


-Fenier

They're different AAs and they do different things. If the devs spent all their time drawing direct correlations between every class AA to every other class AA we'd never see new expansions.

Actually No, they heal the same exact amounts.

The secondary effects differ, but last I checked, there was no encounter in the game where you couldn't cast the Shaman verison due to the chance something would either A: Die and Spawn an add, or B: Start summoning and kill people.

The point is we're currently paying 40% more in AA cost for the same amount of healing on a skill we got several years ahead of the Shaman class.

Actually, we get a damage shield. They Don't.

Afaik Union and Ancestral Favor are also on separate timers.

Actually, we get a damage shield. They Don't.


Unfortunatley that makes our AA heals even more situational than they allready are. The DS part of the spell makes it absolutley useless on several high end encounters which means we are "penalised" even more if you directly compare to the shammies line of AA's.

The only thing this line is used for now on our raids is the single version on the MT or maybe the RT depending on who has enough free slots at the time :-)

I agree 100% with Fenier.

Kenny

Actually No, they heal the same exact amounts.

That's not what I said, I said they're different AAs.

Actually, we get a damage shield. They Don't.

AAid/UoS (among other things) grats a STR cap increase. STR cap increase = more atk = higher melee dps (esp if they're discing.) The ds on SotG/CoS is only of benefit if you cast it on someone taking hits, while the STR cap increase adds dps on anyone/thing meleeing.

Point being: you could argue this back and forth all day, but in the end the abilities basically balance out.

not having a buff slot is no longer a problem since it goes to short buff box now.....thank you Sony ....getting damn pally to click off his overbuffs was annoying.....did get him to click of GRM for Barkspur last night on Arena charm mission.

back on topic ....thank you Fenier for bringing that up and posting it...I real all of it and you have made a valid argument.

e being a new lvl 70 druid and wanting to get useful aa's I have to put these off a little due to cost/benefit and agree that if they were on seperate timers I would get them ASAP.

They're different AAs and they do different things. If the devs spent all their time drawing direct correlations between every class AA to every other class AA we'd never see new expansions.

But, the designers already do spend time looking at correllations between every class at all areas of the game and how they relate to one another and that includes AAs, abilities etc and still they put out expansions. They don't design any class in a vacuum.

The SoTW line's primary function is a heal over time and then has an added component to make it more druid like, same with Ancestral Aid - primary function is a heal over time with a component that makes it more shmana like. However, with SoTW you have to think like others have mentioned if you can use it while with Ancestral Aid line you don't

So I definitely agree with you Fenier - it doesn't seem logical or fair. Probably doesn't make a big difference to people that grind out 100s of AA but, definitely makes a difference to me. Thanks for pointing this out Fenier.

Hopefully one of the designers will see the obvious logic you've pointed out. Certainly hope they don't screw up shaman and instead either make our line more powerful or reduce the AA cost.

My post's sole function wasn't to state whether or not our AA was more useful than a Shamans (and I sure do know the limitations of SoTG...thanks for explaining them, though). It was just to show that our AA's and a Shaman's aa are not the same.

And I'm agreeing with Tenielle.

So what if they are not exactly the same? They are similiar enough that they should have a similar AA cost.

Offcourse the AA disparity doens't mean anything to someone that has 1400 AA, they wouldn't benefit in anyway from the druid version AA cost being reworked.

Can find 100s of posts on this board and every other class board that compare spells/AA/discs/abilities from one class to another even though they aren't identical because they all coexist and the need for some sort of fair balance between similar abilities.

There have been enough discussions comparing the healing power of druid heals versus shaman versus clerics. They aren't the same spells but, yet they get compared in terms of balance because they coexist.

Adrenaline Surge got compared to Desperate Renewal and tuned accordingly in beta. Taken in the literally, 2 different spells but, looked at in context of the game, they serve a similar function.

Same as the Ancestral Aid line and the SotG line - no one has said they are the same AA but, they serve the same primary purpose yet it costs more.

There was a real clamor around SoTW being a 22 min recast when the cleric the cleric AA got at a 15 min timer. Two different AA but, having the same primary function - wonder how many druids at the time lobbying that they are technically they are two different AA so it shouldn't be looked at getting SoTW down to 15 min and instead should focus on other things - probably wasn't any.

The AA difference on SotG/CoS lines and the linking of the two abilities (and them being separate for Shaman) would be a good question of the week on the EQ forums. In this case we are asking to be treated the same as another healing class and not asking for another class to get nerfed. Why should druids pay more for less ability?

Offcourse the AA disparity doens't mean anything to someone that has 1400 AA, they wouldn't benefit in anyway from the druid version AA cost being reworked.

--

Of course it does :P I have almost 1500 and could certainly put another 30-40 to use right away, we did just get a new expansion ;)

The fact that they are "different aa" makes no sense at all. They are in every material way the same (ie healing - we're priests, right?), with some "fluff" differences (which on balance favor the shaman, as pointed out above).

Except that shamans get two different timers, and pay a whole pile less AA for the function.

There is ABSOLUTELY no way to justify these differences.

I think the only issue I have w/ this is that the shaman version of the two aa's are on separate timers, while ours are still on the same timers. That'd be awesome if we could get them on separate timers.

From 9/9/2005

http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=druidbalance&message.id=7149