This post will cover alot of things about Skin to Vines, likely more then any given person actually wants to know.

Concept:

In TSS Code gave the developers the ability to change bodytypes on the fly. Seeing this as an interesting new ability, Prathun creates the spells Feralize and Skin to Vines. These spells would let players change the bodytype of the creatue they are fighting for a limited time.

The spells proved not attractive enough to earn space on a spell bar and a few of the powers from this forum suggested modifications. These changes where then applied to both Skin to Vines and Feralize. When NDA was lifted Skin to Vines was reported as increasing Slashing and Fire Damage. The slashing mod was removed because apparently it conflicted with the spell focus. The shaman verison went the reverse way keeping the increase in melee damage, but not spell. This was not reported till after Lucy updated with the new spell information, which is why there was / sometimes still is confusion on the matter.

Also worth noting, there will never spell similar spells which change mobs into Summoned or Undead.

Goals:

Both of the bodytype spells were designed to debuff the mob and increase the special abilities of other classes. In our perticular case, this goes to Necromancer and Shadow Knights. The spell feralize increases the spell options available to Rangers and Druids and Necromancers.

Personally speaking until Code fixes the recast being able to land, these goals are not being met. In either way, these are specialized spells and are not going anywhere. They are directly designed to not be always useful as Prathun wanted a situational spell or two for all casting classes.

Casting:

Skin to Vines is unresistable. It currently lacks a cast message. If you can cast the spell and it finishes casting, the mob's been effected by Skin to Vines.

You will ocassionally get a Target does not meet requirements. This means the target can not be hit with Skin to Vines. Since the January 19th 2007 patch, the list of mobs which this message has drastically dropped to basically Summoned, Plant and Undead mobs only.

Lucy Fields:

Skin to Vines exists in Rank 1 and 2. The first rank increases Fire Damage by 3%, and the second rank 5%.

Slot 1 is the fire focusing percentage. This is the same slot as the Epic Clicks, however since the Epic Clicks have a higher percentage increase, they will also be applied before normal Skin to Vines increasing. Because of the nature of percentage increases, Rank I will return an average 1.5% increase on fire spells, and Rank II will return an average of 2.5.

Slot 2 causes damage on spells *over* level 75 to degrade at 10% per level. This means You take off .5% for every spell over level 75 when comparing to the Rank II verison.

Slot 3 Means only Direct Damage spells benifit from the Fire Focusing

Slot 4 Means the spell must hurt the mob

Slot 5 limits the attacks to being Fire Based

Slot 6 Means Weapons procs are not focused

Slot 7 is the Unknown Field #367, which in this case is the server field which causes a change in mob body type.

Known Issues:

The primary issue with the spell to make it work properly (which is differant then how people want it to work) is that it can not be reapplied when it wears off. Prathun has been informed and replied that Code is now aware of the issue, but no ETA is forthcoming.

Personally speaking, the spell is limited in groups. I consider it a more raid level debuff due to it's long duration. A mob has to be exceptionally resistant to certain spells in order for you to want to make it a plant for the extra DPS. Any burn fight, it's simply not worth it. "Boss" fights like 68.5 etc it may indeed have limited use.

On a raid level, provided you could recast it, I think it meets it's goals well enough to be considered on a spell lineup since normally you'll have several druids on high end raids. There is no reason not to use it.

Thanks Fen, great info as usual!

Both of the bodytype spells were designed to debuff the mob and increase the special abilities of other classes. In our perticular case, this goes to Necromancer and Shadow Knights.

Ummm.... does it effect DoTs only? If not I would think mages, wizards, and druids would benefit just as much as necros and certainly more than SKs.

No, it they have spells which only effect Plants. The Focus (if you read Lucy Fields) requires all effects to be instant IE - Nukes.

I'm not expert and I don't mean to argue but that just doesn't add up. The consensus is that Skin to Vines potentially adds a bonus for ALL fire nukes.

Because it does..

Which is what I wrote /boggle

Because it does..

Which is what I wrote /boggle

And yet you say it's beneficial to SKs and Necros (and by extension, not to wizards, mages, and druids.) /boggle

This thread makes my head hurt.

Skin to vines does TWO things.

1) Changes the target to a plant - This aspect of the spell is what Fen is talking about when he says it benefits SKs and Necros as they get spells which target plants only.

2) Increases fire damage - This part obviously helps any class that can hit the mob with fire.

And yet you say it's beneficial to SKs and Necros (and by extension, not to wizards, mages, and druids.) /boggle

Am I really not being that clear?

Lets try this again.

The spell increases damage verus fire nukes - this means it helps Rangers, Mages, Wizards and Druids increase Damage.

The Spell Changes Bodytype to Plant. This means the creature is also weak to spells which work on Plants, namely Shadow Knights and Necromancers.

There is really no othe way to say that, and that is exactly what I posted in my orginal thread.

-Fenier

Don't worry Fen. Most of us understood what you were saying. The rest need new glasses.

I understood it both ways. I like the short version though. :wiggle:

But the rest was good for general background info so it is useful.

/em polishes the new glasses.

Ah, I see. Sorry for being obtuse. ;)

Slot 3 Means only Direct Damage spells benifit from the Fire Focusing

For reference "Limit: Effect(Hitpoints allowed)" just means the spell has to effect hit points, generally this means nukes, heals or dots as long as none of the other limits force an exclusion.

ie: Limit: Effect(Hitpoints allowed) + Limit: Spell Type(Detrimental only) excludes Heals since they're beneficial
Limit: Effect(Hitpoints allowed) + Limit: Min Duration(30.00 sec) excludes nukes (or heals) since their effects are instant (<-- refers to the actual dmg/heal -- cast time is not considered).
Limit: Effect(Hitpoints allowed) + Limit: Instant spells excludes excludes dots since they have a duration.

In this case, since there is no "Limit: Instant spells" tag it actually does effect dots. Just tested it to confirm... completely naked minus epic and time orb (ran out of bag room =p) suncorch went from 509 or 1018 ea. tick to 514, 519, 524, 1028, 1038, or 1048 with skin to vines rk 1 on (so 3 diff values, 1 for ea. percent and their corresponding crits)

This thread makes my head hurt.


Ditto!


Skin to vines does TWO things.

1) Changes the target to a plant - This aspect of the spell is what Fen is talking about when he says it benefits SKs and Necros as they get spells which target plants only.


Assuming the Sk or Necro wants to load their only slightly more efficient plant only damage spells instead of a damage spell that will work against anything.

There are many druids who don't even understand their own class, let alone trying to get other classes to figure out it out. When I hear a druid say they almost never use their dps spells or if I ask them to fire debuff a named and they say, "ok, I'll use 'Sun's Corona' then," I almost cry.

The druid class is one of the most sophisticated classes. This spell just makes it worse.


2) Increases fire damage - This part obviously helps any class that can hit the mob with fire.

This is the only worthwhile part of this spell, but it's missing a fire resist debuff.

Hand of Ro remains my most used and most favorite debuff. Too bad it's like a thousand years old. An upgrade to Hand of Ro that also had a % damage increaser in it would have been far more useful, imo.