Greetings, the NDA is lifted and here is a good deal of information about the expansion for you to enjoy!

First Things First! - Getting there!

The main access point is the Mines in Steamfont Mountins. This will allow you to access either Dragonscale Hills or Loping Plains. Druids will gain porting power to the Loping Plains, and thus closer to Bloodmoon Keep, while Wizards gain access to Dragonscale Hills, and thus Crystallos.

The Portal spells contain a Ring, Circle and Zephyr to the Loping Plains and can be obtained from Leneanon Cloudsong at the Dring Ring in Loping Plains loc:2556, 1459. They each cost 53 plat (at time of writing) with 358 CHA. The spells are level 75.

So, now I am in SoF - where do I go?

SoF is broken down into tiers, with 2 locked zones.

The tuning Point for Tier 1 is Level 75 and is about the difficulty of Atiiki in The Buried Sea. The areas which fall into Tier 1 are:

* Dragonscale Hills and its instances
* Loping Plains

Now, if your a hard core grouper, or sporting Anguish+ armor, you can likely move directly into Tier 2, which is a step up. This tier is designed for level 80 players wearing full Praetorian Gear, or have a nearly full outfit from the Tier 1 Areas. Zones for here include:

* The Mechamatic Guardian
* Bloodmoon Keep
* Hills of Shade and the Crypt of Shade
* Fortress Mechanotus
* Gryospires Beta and Zeka

Brief explanation of where these are:

The Mechamatic Guardian is the huge robot that roams Dragonscale Hills.
Bloodmoon Keep is the large Wereorc fortress in Loping Plains
Hill of Shade (and thus Crypt of Shade) are off Loping Plains
Fortress Mechanotus is off Dragonscale Hills (go go Catapult)
The Gryospires are off Fortress Mechanotus.

Tier 3, likewise - goes even further and is tuned for Level 80 Players wearing mostly Tier 2 armor (about TSS raid level). Tier 3 zones are:

* The Steam Factory
* S.H.I.P. Workshop
* Meldrath's Majestic Mansion

The Mansion is the first locked zone in the expansion.

I want to take a second to point out the gear requirements and aa requirements are pretty real. Zones can have as low as 12 minute respawn times in some areas and several mobs have neat tricks they like to use when fighting.

Tier 4 is Crystallos - which is also locked by a groupable access quest.

A note on Crystallos, it's tuned for level 80 players decked out in Tier 3 Armor and are sporting closer to the 1k AA mark. The access quest is fairly long, but was tuned by several group configurations, and ideally the issues seen with the Solteris Arc won't play out here a second time.

Items:

I'm not going to give you a stat by stat listing of the items - what fun would that be? Instead we're going to cover some basic things.

First, Tier 2 Focii effects have gone up from the normal 30% we're used to seeing on groupable armor, to 35% This continues to increase to the 45% focii you see on Tier 4 groupable armor. Raid armor can go to 70% focus.

Secondly, the armor design is set to be consistent as you level and upgrade slots. This means that it follows the Katta focus layout for the most part.

Gloves - Cold Focus
Arms - Fire Focus
Helm - Magic Focus
Legs - Detri Haste
Boots - Beni Haste
Chest - Likely heal focus - unsure.

New Mod 2's. There have been several new mod 2s added. Items are not typically lacking in Mod 2s. These include, but are not limited to - +Healing, +Spell Damage, and so forth.

Tier 4 Armor has 5 Armor sets. Water, Earth, Fire, Air and Prismatic. The focii are the same on all sets. The other stats and mod 2s alter depending on which item you select.

Now I am sure the question is - where do I get this armor. Answer is, I don't know. So go out and search and report back!

Note: Our Epic effect will degrade at 5% per level, like all other Focii effects. This increases the lifespan of the Click by a few years, but the item will eventually be obsoleted by newer items. As the epic is going on over 3 years old, they are OK with phasing them out.

Spells:

This is a listing of the Spells we get. There are 5 Spell Vendors in SoF. Not all these spells will be on those vendors. About 25% of the spells from every class are obtained via Quests, Faction based merchants and so forth. Spells not on vendor will be denoted with a *.

Spells - 76

Name: Ellymil Cogswin
Zone: Dragonscale Hills
Location: 900, -535
Spells: Level 76

Charm - Beast's Bewitching - 2293p
Short DS - Fernspike*
Harmony - Nature's Calm - 2622p
Stun - Tempest of the Stormborn - 2157p
Rain - Torrential Hail - 2584p
Immolation DoT - Torrid Sunray - 2434p

Spells - 77

Name: Kedem Teague
Zone: Loping Plains
Location: -2320 , -520 , 30 (SE of Bloodmoon Keep zl)
Spells: All lvl 77 spell/tomes

Cold Damage Debuff - Chillvapor Breath - 2434p
Skin buff - Ironwood Skin - 2376p
3.75 Heal - Puravida - 2147p
New Spell - Reaping Inferno - 2551p
New Spell - Sharp Eyes - 2348p
Single Target DS - Viridifloral Bulwark - 2443p

Spells - 78

Name: Inizen Nogglezop
Zone: Fortress Mechanotus
Location: 890, -1455 , 404

Corruption Resist Buff - Forbear Corruption - 1973p
Swarm DoT - Horde of Fireants - 2575p
Fire Increase/Plant Bodytype - Skin to Mulch - 2600p
Dawnstrike upgrade - Solarsliver*
New Spell - Survival of the Fittest*
Coat Buff - Viridithorn Coat - 2409p
Cold/Fire Nuke - Winter's Blaze*

Spells - 79

Name: Naene Ebonlocke
Zone: Hills of Shade
Location: -63, 1477, 0

Group Corruption Cure - Chant of the Darkvine - 2341p
Fire Nuke - Equinox Brand - 2369p
Cold ATK Debuff - Gelid Frost - 2279p
Defensive Heal proc - Scales of the Reptile*
Curse DoT - Sunsear - 2514p
PBAOE - Tectonic Upheaval - 1986p

Spells - 80

Name: Seyan Ebonlocke
Zone: Hills of Shade
Location: 978.72, n577.80

1.75 Heal - Adrendline Swell - 2654p
Group Skin - Blessing of the Ironwood - 1993p
Group Heal - CrescentBloom - 2470p
Ice Nuke - Hoar Crystals - 2559p
Group DS - Legacy of Viridithorns - 2648p
Mask - Mask of the Shadowcat - 2307p
High Powered DoT - Nature's Burning Wrath*
DA on Death - Preincarnation*

Mana regen issues addressed:

ask of the Shadowcat was created as if we had gotten a TSS upgrade. The new mana regen values for Shadowcat are 8, 10 and 11. This results in a minimum increase of 3 mana regen over Mask of the Wild. Ironwood Skin's mana regen was increased by 1 per rank over Direwild. This results in 11,12,13 for mana regen values based on rank.

Net result was a minimum of 4 mana regen base, with 7 for rank 2 spells which should be available to most people. Raiders will see a 9 MR increase with Rank 3.

Debuff Issues addressed:

There was an issue confirmed by the Dev team where our debuffs would basically provide no benifit to group content with a raid geared tank. We knew this already, but confirmation is nice. Raids, where not typically an issue since they are tuned differently then random zone trash.

In SoF they took steps to restore the value of AC, and by extension, our attack debuff line, so we should no longer see that issue on group content, regardless of if the tank raids or is casual. In addition, the changes they made allow our debuffs to have the possibility of being more effective then we've been able to parse in the past.

We inquired about combined debuffs, but they want more time to evaluate that request.

New Spell Information:

Survival of the Fittest:

This spell is a new spell given to Druids at level 78. Shaman get an equivalent spell called Ancestral Intervention both spells function in the same manner, and I am going to try to cover everything here.

Design concept:

During beta it became apparent that the gap between Clerics and the other two priests in terms of Emergency heals was to large. These spells are an attempt to lower the gap by giving us a multiple person (group) healing tool for use in situations similar to that a Cleric may click their Epic Shield or use Divine Arb in. Because of this, certain limitations were implemented to the spell to prevent it from replacing our normal group heal lines.

How it works:

The spell is a group emergency tool. I don't use the word heal, because the spell has no base heal value (don't panic, I will explain). How the spell works is there a preset heal value for different health levels (determined by rank), the spell heals you for the correct value as determined by the health triggers.
Simply - the spell heals those hurt more - for more. This makes the spell stronger in certain cases then Divine Arb due to the fact it restores lost hitpoints, rather then simply shifting them around between the group members.

Now, how the health triggers work:

The spell will not heal anyone over 65% health - this is by design and to prevent the tool from developing uses other then the intended one.

So, using rank 1 values:

Between 55 and 65% = 1285
Between 45 and 55% = 2570
Between 35 and 45% = 3854
Between 25 and 35% = 5139
Below 25% = 6424

Each of these can be modified by Focii and AA per cast.

Now, as may be expected this is cause for concern about healing aggro. I had a developer check with server side scripting and the spell does not increase aggro upon application.

Rank 1 Values:

Cast time: 1 Second
Recast time: 3 Minutes
Range: 200
Mana Cost: 1225 (Focusable by SCM, Mana Pres, etc)
Healing amount: see above.


AA improvements:

The second cause for concern amongst raiders would likely be the cast time and recast time. Both of these issues can be addressed if a player chooses via the AA system.

Nodyin created an AA line for both Druid and Shaman similar to that of Unfailing Divinity for Divine Intervention. The AA line (Fortified Survival) increases the power of this one spell (all ranks) and has 3 ranks of 3 AA each.

Rank 1 Drops the Cast time to .9 seconds and 2.5 minutes recast
Rank 2 Drops the Cast time to .7 seconds and 2.0 minutes recast
Rank 3 Drops the Cast time to .5 seconds and 1.5 minutes for recast timer.

Reaping Inferno:

This spell may only be cast on mobs <20% health. If it kills the mob it grants a Buff to the caster which increases critical chance and damage for the duration. This killshot proc will only fire on mobs which grant exp.

See Invis (2):

Sharp Eyes will allow you to see an upgraded form of invis NPCs will be using. Normal See Invis and Mask line spells will be unable to detect these mobs.

Preincarnation:

This spell has a second chance to fire Touch of the Divine if it fails the first check. The second attempt has a 10% success fire rate.

Scales of the Reptile:

Now counts the number of procs, instead of the number of swings.

The reason for the change is as follows:

The spells were actually always meant to work that way, but due to a bug in the code, they didn’t. So, we had to approximate the number of procs before it wore off based on proc rate and number of swings. It’s unfortunately not very accurate and has caused some serious balance problems. The fix to actually count down on procs allows the spells to be much more balanced since we can tune them around X number of actual procs instead of an approximation.

This change is retroactive: The level 68 DoD spell Skin of the Reptile now functions under the same system. Both Skin and Scales have a max proc counter of 12. This gives Skin a max heal value of 7,200 and Scales a max heal value of 8,784.

Since I am sure you are curious - the Paladin versions of these spells now also have a 30 second recast.

Lunarlight: I've sent e-mails to Prathun, Rashere and Nodyin on the topic and I have yet to get any reply. As for the upgrade Crescentbloom, I've spoken with Rashere and if the spell is found lacking, there are strong chances it will be upgraded. Now, for this to happen I need more then just - this spell sucks. I need very specfic examples of content (as in where you were and what you were fighting) to pass to the dev team to support our claims.

FYI Note - Clockworks are considered Constructs, and thus can be hit with Annihilate the Unnatural.

AAs:

List of all non-expendable Druid purchasable AA:

General:

Mystical Attuning:
Rank 1 - Level 75, 5 AA
Rank 2 - Level 80, 5 AA

Hasten Origin: 3 AA / Rank
Rank 1 - Level 68
Rank 2 - Level 69
Rank 3 - Level 70

General Sturdiness: All Ranks 6 AA, Each Rank gives 100 HP
Rank 1 - Level 76
Rank 2 - Level 77
Rank 3 - Level 78
Rank 4 - Level 79
Rank 5 - Level 80

Foraging - Level 51, 3 AA - Gives foraging (50) to those who do not have foraging. Increasing the Forage cap by 50 for those that do.

Delay Death, 5 AA / rank, increases how far you can go below zero
by 50 hp / rank

Rank 1: Level 76
Rank 2: Level 77
Rank 3: Level 78
Rank 4: Level 79
Rank 5: Level 80

Battle Ready - Level 56, 5 AA

Quick Draw - Level 56, 5 AA

Energetic Attunement - 5 AA / Rank
Rank 1: Level 76
Rank 2: Level 77
Rank 3: Level 78
Rank 4: Level 79
Rank 5: Level 80

Combat Agility / Combat Stability

Rank 1 - Level 76, 6 AA
Rank 2 - Level 77, 7 AA
Rank 3 - Level 78, 8 AA
Rank 4 - Level 79, 9 AA
Rank 5 - Level 80, 10 AA

Archtype:

Shield Block: 1% increase per rank
Rank 1 - Level 76, 7 AA
Rank 2 - Level 78, 9 AA
Rank 3 - Level 80, 12 AA

Spell Casting Subtlety
Rank 1 - Level 76, 7 AA
Rank 2 - Level 78, 9 AA
Rank 3 - Level 80, 12 AA

Hastened Silent Casting
Rank 1 - Level 74, 6 AA - Requires Silent casting at rank 3
Rank 2 - Level 76, 6 AA
Rank 3 - Level 78, 6 AA

Gift of Exquisite Radiant Mana - 9 AA, requires Gift of Radiant Mana, Level 76

Healing Gift: Each Rank increases chance to critical heal by 2%

Rank 1 - Level 76, 7 AA
Rank 2 - Level 78, 9 AA
Rank 3 - Level 80, 12 AA

Mnemonic Retention, Level 75, 6 AA

Mastery of the Past
Rank 1 - Level 76, 8 AA - Spells 70 and Lower
Rank 2 - Level 77, 8 AA - Spells 73 and lower
Rank 3 - Level 78, 8 AA - Spells 75 and lower

Mental Clairty
Rank 1 - Level 76, 5 AA
Rank 2 - Level 77, 5 AA
Rank 3 - Level 78, 5 AA
Rank 4 - Level 79, 5 AA
Rank 5 - Level 80, 5 AA

Expansive Mind:

Rank 1 - Level 76, 7 AA
Rank 2 - Level 77, 8 AA
Rank 3 - Level 78, 9 AA
Rank 4 - Level 79, 10 AA
Rank 5 - Level 80, 12 AA

Abundant Healing:
Rank 1 - Level 76, 7 AA
Rank 2 - Level 77, 8 AA
Rank 3 - Level 78, 9 AA
Rank 4 - Level 79, 10 AA
Rank 5 - Level 89, 12 AA

Fury of Magic:

Rank 1 - Level 76, 7 AA
Rank 2 - Level 78, 9 AA
Rank 3 - Level 89, 12 AA

Destructive Fury
Rank 1 - Level 76, 7 AA
Rank 2 - Level 78, 9 AA
Rank 3 - Level 80, 12 AA

Class:

243 AA total

Viscid Roots - 7 AA - Level 76, 5% increase

Storm Strike: 200 Range DD, .5 Cast, 30 Second Recast, MR Check. Can Critical and be focused by Destructive Fury. All Ranks are set to level 76. Damage varies by mob health percentage. Mobs over 75 % will also take an additional amount of damage listed in the brackets, as a second attack. Cost is 7 / 7 / 7.

Rank 1: 850 DD (700)
Rank 2: 950 DD (750)
Rank 3: 1050 DD (800)

Spirit of the White Wolf 2 - 12 AA, Level 80
Rank 2 increases mana savings to 18%, and returns 50 mana / tick for the duration.

Protection of the Direwood - 12 AA, Level 80
1 Second Cast time, 15 minute Reuse - casts an upgraded version of Direwood Guard.

Quickened Call of the Wild - 3 Ranks, 2 AA / Rank reduces the cast time by 15%, 30% and 50%, All Ranks - level 72

Hasted Call of the Wild - 4 Ranks 2 AA / Rank - each rank shaves off 2 minutes from the recycle timer. - Rank 1 - level 73, rank 2, Level 74, Rank 3 - Level 75, Rank 4 - Level 76

Spirit of the Wood
Rank 1 - Level 77 - 8 AA 545 / Tick, 95 DS, +88 AC
Rank 2 - Level 78 - 9 AA 590 / Tick, 100 DS, +94 AC
Rank 3 - Level 79 - 10 AA 635 / Tick, 105 DS, +100 AC

Entrap 2 - 10 AA, Rank 2, Level 79
Rank 2 is a 65% snare with a MR check of -20

Nature's Guardian - 3 Ranks 7 / 9 / 12
Rank 1 - Level 76 Max Hit is: 620
Rank 2 - Level 78 Max Hit is: 675
Rank 3 - Level 80 Max Hit is: 720

Destructive Cascade - 3 Ranks, 6 AA / rank All Ranks level 78
DoT version of Destructive Fury, increases damage on critical DoT ticks.

Convergence of Spirits:

Rank 1 - Level 76 - 7 AA Increase HP when cast by 3334, Increase
Hitpoints v2 by 1800 per tick, Damage Shield for 95 points of damage, Increase AC by 94

Rank 2 - Level 78 - 9 AA Increase HP when cast by 3670, Increase
Hitpoints v2 by 2100 per tick, Damage Shield for 100 points of damage, Increase AC by 106

Rank 3 - Level 80 - 12 AA Increase HP when cast by 3980, Increase Hitpoints v2 by 2400 per tick, Damage Shield for 105 points of damage, Increase AC by 118

Blood Tithe
Rank 1 - Level 76 - 7 AA
Rank 2 - Level 78 - 7 AA
Rank 3 - Level 80 - 7 AA

Hastened Exodus 2 aa / Rank. Lowers the recast by 10% per rank.
Rank 1 - Level 70
Rank 2 - Level 71
Rank 3 - Level 72

Nature's Boon - At Rank 3, Heals 140 Hitpoints / tick
Rank 1 - Level 76 - 7 AA
Rank 2 - Level 78 - 9 AA
Rank 3 - Level 80 - 12 AA

Fortified Survival - 3 AA / Rank
Rank 1 - Level 78 .9 Cast, 2.5 recast
Rank 2 - Level 78 .7 Cast, 2.0 recast
Rank 3 - Level 78 .5 cast, 1.5 recast

Notes:

Post Launch Nodyin has asked me to remind him to look at having Secondary Recall and Call of the Wild to no Fail, and upping the range on Wrath of the Wild by 50.

Skillcap adjustments:

Dodge: The skillcap for Dodge was changed, when the forumla was reworked for Heroic items, all classes gain about a 1% increase to when Dodge will fire - the same goes for Parry, Block, and Riposte. The new Dodge skillcap for druids is 330

Evoke, Conjur, Alter, Divine, and Abjur each where increased to 330.

The skill Meditate was increased drastically.

Our Mitigation AC returns where adjusted. Druids, Rangers and Silk classes recieved a higher then normal cap increase.

Likewise, the Over the cap return value was adjusted - Cleric, Bard, Ranger, Rogue, Shaman, Beastlord, Berserker, Druid, Casters - More than the standard increase.

Alt Activate Numbers:

Ancestral Aid 447
Ancestral Guard 528
Arcane Whisper 636
Arcomancy 3734
Armor of the Inquisitor 701
Army of the Dead 792
Auspice of the Hunter 462
Battle Leap 611
Beguiler's Banishment 3550
Beguiler's Directed Banishment 3551
Bladed Song 669
Blast of Anger 3646
Blessing of Resurrection 3800
Blinding Fury 610
Blood Pact 387
Boastful Bellow 199
Cacophony 553
Call Hither 3841
Call of Xuzl 208
Cannibalization 47
Cascading Rage 499
Celestial Hammer 391
Celestial Regeneration 38
Chattering Bones 3822
Color Shock 412
Companion of Necessity 3516
Companion's Blessing 3705
Companion's Relocation 3816
Convergence of Spirits 519
Crippling Strike 468
Cryomancy 640
Dance of Blades 359
Dead Mesmerization 69
Death Peace 428
Dirge of the Sleepwalker 3701
Dirty Fighting 671
Divine Avatar 254
Divine Retribution 392
Doppelganger 261
Druzzil's Mystical Familiar 305
E'ci's Icy Familiar 304
Enchant Dwerium 3206
Enchant Palladium Trio 3203
Enchant Palladium 3208
Entrap 219
Envenomed Blades 3515
Eye Gouge 470
Feral Swipe 247
Fierce Eye 3506
Fire Core 621
Focused Paragon of Spirit 3817
Force of Disruption 3826
Fortify Companion 3707
Frenzied Burnout 60
Funeral Dirge 777
Furious Leap 3899
Gift of Resurrection 3711
Greater Mass Enchant Palladium 3205
Guardian of the Forest 184
Gut Punch 3732
Hand of Piety 180
Harvest of Druzzil 172
Hobble of Spirits 126
Hold the Line 734
Host of the Elements 207
Ice Core 623
Improved Familiar 52
Mana Draw 616
Mark of the Mage Hunter 606
Mass Enchant Dwerium 3207
Mass Enchant Palladium 3204
Mind Crash 451
Mind Over Matter 413
Nature's Boon 257
Nature's Boon 257
Nature's Guardian 520
Nightmare Stasis 748
Outrider's Accuracy 3804
Pact of the Wolf 707
Pact of the Wurine 3709
Paragon of Spirit 128
Perfect Invisibility 3812
Press the Attack 467
Prolonged Destruction 452
Protection of Direwood 3714
Protection of the Spirit Wolf 778
Pyromancy 514
Quick Time 3702
Rabid Bear 50
Reckless Abandon 3710
Replenish Companion 418
Roar of Thunder 362
Rogue's Fury 3514
Ro's Flaming Familiar 303
Savage Spirit 465
Selo's Sonata 3704
Servant of Ro 174
Shield of Notes 361
Silent Presence 3730
Song of Stone 544
Spirit Call 177
Spirit Call 177
Spirit of the White Wolf 705
Spirit of the Wood 185
Stone Core 624
Storm Strike 3728
Stunning Kick 469
Swarm of Decay 320
Taste of Blood 666
Tumble 673
Turgur's Swarm 3729
Turn Undead 558
Uncanny Resilience 609
Union of Spirits 662
Vapor Core 622
Veil of Invisibility 3717
Veil of Mindshadow 791
Virulent Paralysis 171
Volatile Mana Blaze 625
Ward of Purity 506

Wow, this is the first time in a long time, I've seen many druid issues addressed. SotF - I look forward to using. As well as the nuke aa! :D

At the very least, this expansion will be fun for my druid. :D

-Nae

P.S. Three cheers to Fenier for pushing some of the druid issues through, it's the most action we've ever seen by a druid CC - Very good communication and even better results.

P.S. Three cheers to Fenier for pushing some of the druid issues through, it's the most action we've ever seen by a druid CC - Very good communication and even better results.

First CC post I've seen, and lots of information for any class. Well done Fenier.

I'm not going to give you a stat by stat listing of the items - what fun would that be?

How cute of you. I'll tell you "what fun that would be." It would address the single largest concern most of the playerbase has about this expansion - the fact that groupable armor achievable from some point in this expansion is going to be superior to the best TSS raid armor, when a majority of the raiding guilds on each server are still doing DP or DK content, or just now breaking into TSS.

So since you won't be specific, could you at least tell us at which content level the 500 hp/mana groupable armors with 45% healing and damage foci are going to be obtained. I had been led to believe from developer chats that there were only 3 levels of group armor, with the third being the 500/500 stuff. In your writeup you referr to this armor as "Tier 4 groupable armor." Does this mean that there are 4 and not 3 levels of armor, or merely that the third level of quested armor is going to come from Crystallos. Or is it that the tier 3 armors have the 500/500 hp and mana but lack the foci and mods you mention?

Great post and great job....I take back what I said about cookie cutter and I actually am looking forward to the grp "tool" to help heal folks and some of the aa's especially the snare aa.

just noticed motp raised I might just use lunarlight now :)

Fen you rock !

So since you won't be specific, could you at least tell us at which content level the 500 hp/mana groupable armors with 45% healing and damage foci are going to be obtained. I had been led to believe from developer chats that there were only 3 levels of group armor, with the third being the 500/500 stuff. In your writeup you referr to this armor as "Tier 4 groupable armor." Does this mean that there are 4 and not 3 levels of armor, or merely that the third level of quested armor is going to come from Crystallos. Or is it that the tier 3 armors have the 500/500 hp and mana but lack the foci and mods you mention?

Tier 1 isn't an armor set.
Tier 2 likely comes from Quests in Tier 2 Areas (see top of post)
Tier 3 Armor likely comes from zones which fall into Tier 3.
Tier 4 Armor almost assuredly has to do with Crystallos.

I am perfectly aware it obsoletes older content. That isn't something directly under my control. Crystallos however was designed for people in Tier 3 Armor (about TSS raid level), so there needs to be a path for people to reach that armor level during the year long cycle.

-Fenier

A couple of reaction:

1) Nice new AAs. The cost escalation is severe, however.
2) Some interesting ideas on the healing front. DPS appears to be at a standstill.
3) Once the kinks are worked out of the expansion - we have quite a bit of work to do. One good place to start is with the ludicrous xeroxes of the minor damage boost spells we have. The only thing sillier than a 5% cold damage boost with degradation is replacing it with another (3 tier!) spell 5 levels higher.
4) They've just obsoleted all raids prior to TSS, and possibly Solteris. Hope they know what they're doing.

Nice post, covers almost everything, however...

New port spells?
Storm Strike values per rank?

Please and thanks!

Nice post, covers almost everything, however...

New port spells?

The Portal spells contain a Ring, Circle and Zephyr to the Loping Plains and can be obtained from Leneanon Cloudsong at the Dring Ring in Loping Plains loc:2556, 1459. They each cost 53 plat (at time of writing) with 358 CHA. The spells are level 75.

Storm Strike values per rank?

Please and thanks!

Storm Strike: 200 Range DD, .5 Cast, 30 Second Recast, MR Check. Can Critical and be focused by Destructive Fury. All Ranks are set to level 76. Damage varies by mob health percentage. Mobs over 75 % will also take an additional amount of damage listed in the brackets, as a second attack.

Rank 1: 850 DD (700)
Rank 2: 950 DD (750)
Rank 3: 1050 DD (800)

I got the damage values, I was questioning how many aa's per rank, ie, 3/6/9, 7/7/7.

Thanks for the quick reply though!

I got the damage values, I was questioning how many aa's per rank, ie, 3/6/9, 7/7/7.

Thanks for the quick reply though!

y mistake. 7/7/7

Do you get new buff slots for levelling as you did with TSS?

Mnemonic Retention, Level 75, 6 AA


So does this mean we now get 10 spell slots???

yup, it does.

So does this mean we now get 10 spell slots???

I'm cleaning my pants as we speak. :buttrock:

If the content matches what is listed here, EQ will have me hooked for another year. That white wolf upgrade is unbelievable - very happy about that one.

Do you get new buff slots for levelling as you did with TSS?

I never tested that, there are however 2 new buff slots available via AA.

A couple of reaction:

1) Nice new AAs. The cost escalation is severe, however.
2) Some interesting ideas on the healing front. DPS appears to be at a standstill.

in my opinion dps of a druid was never really the issue, and this new aa fenier was talking about :


Storm Strike: 200 Range DD, .5 Cast, 30 Second Recast, MR Check. Can Critical and be focused by Destructive Fury. All Ranks are set to level 76. Damage varies by mob health percentage. Mobs over 75 % will also take an additional amount of damage listed in the brackets, as a second attack.

Rank 1: 850 DD (700)
Rank 2: 950 DD (750)
Rank 3: 1050 DD (800)


seems to be a step in the right direction of better dps. the main concern as i see it was the constant annoying spell swapping that was going on by almost everyone, and i am very happy this is adressed by a low resist Entrap upgrade (maybe i can finally get rid of mire thorns?) and the extra spell gem! constant spell swapping was always my main gripe from the beginning, i feel druids and shammies get hit on this much harder than any other class, and im happy to see that we seem to have a life of reduced spell swapping ahead of us yay!:dance:

No added buff slots for simply gaining levels (and not sure if I remember TSS doing that either).

As for the 10th gem slot, it is nice but, also it doesn't do us much good.

This expansion introduced at least 3 new situational spells for druids - the Emergency Heal (SotF), Solarsilver and Reaping Inferno. On the plus side though since snare and Direwood got turned into AA - if you used those 2 spells, you will open up some spell gems.

Then you read what Fenier has to say about attack.

I know most druids that I play along side usually just use IB or Vines in groups for attack debuffs, HoR, Hoar's Frost and Fixation of Ro aren't usually used. Mobs die to fast and they are wasteful to be used. However, supposedly in SoF they will become meaningful. Assuming that they are once again becoming useful - then most druids will have to load up HoR and Hoar's Frost in groups.

A lot of us other druids in beta pushed for a long time for druid's to get a combined debuff of some sort via AA or spells. In the end though we didn't get it and right now the lip service is it will be considered after launch. My personal experience from seeing how Lunarlight was said it will be looked at after launch and still after a 3 month beta not being looked at doesn't leave much hope there.

Still going back to our spell line up.

Reptile got severely nerfed purely to stop it from being "exploited" in old content. The shaman equilavent lasts longer, has a shorter recast, slows, has no proc limiter and costs half the mana - yet ours was too exploitable.

Solarsilver - in my experience, I could use other spells in beta to far greater efficiency than using Solarsilver. It is great if you want that for show crit once in a while but, other than that serves no purpose. What is more it is extremely long casting - 7.0 seconds. Even longer than our big fire DD.

Reaping Inferno - limitation is mob must be below 20% to use it. Then if you beat out a melee to get the kill shot, you stand a mediocre chance to proc a buff that lasts only 24 seconds. That means you have to have a mob in camp, fully debuffed and you have no other job in the group other than to nuke - the mob has to also have agro locked - then you can cast your 6 to 7 second direct damage nukes to get the benefit of the proc. Again, for a druid that has only 10 gem slots, I was not able to work this spell into my line up in some basic groups where I was playing main healer or back up healer.

From SoF - my spell line up is as follows

Gem 01 - I can load one nuke - what will it be ? Winter's Blaze or Equinox Burn.
Gem 02 - Reptile Skin - this may go away now with the nerf and be replaced with Fernspike
Gem 03 - Moonshadow (more effecient than Lunarlight still with old focii - and new heal doesn't heal enough so you have to waste mana topping people off) and Survival of the Fittest isn't a group heal - its is an emergency heal.
Gem 04 - Gelid Frost (New Hoar's Frost)
Gem 05 - Hand of Ro
Gem 06 - Direwood Guard till I can spend AA to replace spell version (more important AA though IMO before that happens)
Gem 07 - Fast Direct Heal - I used Ancient Choloroborn but, once I get Master of the Past done - may switch to pure life. The new heal without the higher end focii is wasteful.
Gem 08 - Fixation of Ro or Dispell
Gem 09 - Adrenaline Swell (Super fast heal of 1.8 seconds) - again long recast - can't mem/unmem it at will to use.
Gem 10 - New Survival of the Fittest (It is always mem'd because of the long recast - when you mem the spell it isn't available right away) - it goes in this spell gem slot for all my saved spell slots so if I change slots, I dont' get screwed by unmemming it by mistake.


Spells that I haven't been able to load if I use that line up

Torrential Rain
Chill Vapor Breath (new Icefall Breath)
Skin to Mulch (New skin to vines)
Solarsilver
Reaping Inferno
Winter's Blaze or Equinox Brand (depending which one I didn't load in Gem 01)
Hoard of Fireants (magic dot)
Nature's Blazing Wrath (my GoRM spell)
Gelid Frost (cold DD)

So what are the options here.
1) Take out a couple debuffs ?
2) Take out Adrenaline Surge - so your fastest single heal is lost ?
3) AA like mad, so I can free up direwood guard spell gem

The 10th gem is nice but, unfortunately the devs just didn't hear us regarding how they continue to make too many situational type spells for druids that we just dont have enough spell gems to make them work.

For instance - we've been told that Nature's Blazing Wrath is our GoRM spell - that means to have it in the line up that means we need another spell that is our DPS spell till we get a GoRM to fire.

SotF - it is emergency heal so we have to load up Moonshadow etc to be able to heal the group at once.

Adrenaline Swell - it is inefficient fast heal to be used in emergencies - so have to load up a direct heal that is a bit slower but, more effecient.

I'll just leave with the following:

Players were told to use the spells within the content that it was intended. A lot of druids did exactly that but, in the end our tuning was done sans that information. It was done using some spreadsheet. A number of them should be thanked for whatever we did get and putting up with what I would deem as the most frustrating beta I've been a part of.

Our spells are terrible IMO, some of the ideas are nice but, in practice they didn't work at all.

I bought expansion for both my accounts so I am not one of those that is saying screw SOE but, also the picture isn't very good for druids, from my experience.

On the AA side: I'll cite one of my biggest pet peeves - the Call of the Wild AA line to reduce reuse and cast time.

Clerics got a super fast 96% AA rez, 3 second cast base with 12 second reuse. Druids on the other have to pay with AA to reduce our non-exp giving rez to a 3 second cast time and also pay additional AA to reduce the reuse to 6 minutes (this may have changed in the last month)

A druid in a group that wipes and is the only rezzers still has to wait eons to rez the whole group back in, completely unbalanced IMO even though Nodyin doesn't agree.

Also since day 1 of beta Nodyin said he'd look SoTW looked at so that we don't have to not use it where DS would cause bad things. But, in the end nothing happened with it. So we are still stuck with it not being usable in select content unlike other group HoT AA.

Reptile got severely nerfed purely to stop it from being "exploited" in old content. The shaman equilavent lasts longer, has a shorter recast, slows, has no proc limiter and costs half the mana - yet ours was too exploitable.

I was just told (like 5 seconds ago) that there is a chance they are going to review the defensive proc buffs for balancing reasons once SoF is launched and stable on the servers.

Reaping Inferno - limitation is mob must be below 20% to use it. Then if you beat out a melee to get the kill shot, you stand a mediocre chance to proc a buff that lasts only 24 seconds. That means you have to have a mob in camp, fully debuffed and you have no other job in the group other than to nuke - the mob has to also have agro locked - then you can cast your 6 to 7 second direct damage nukes to get the benefit of the proc. Again, for a druid that has only 10 gem slots, I was not able to work this spell into my line up in some basic groups where I was playing main healer or back up healer.

I talked to Prathun about this yesterday. He is considering upping the minimum health level to something higher then 20%, but he didn't quote me a new value.

As for the 10th gem slot, it is nice but, also it doesn't do us much good.

This expansion introduced at least 3 new situational spells for druids - the Emergency Heal (SotF), Solarsilver and Reaping Inferno. On the plus side though since snare and Direwood got turned into AA - if you used those 2 spells, you will open up some spell gems.


at the risk of being quoted a thousand times and flamed..i think every single spell in the game is situational.

Do you solo? then all those heals arent really needed.

Group? if you have a role as a healer then by locking in so many dps spells you run the risk of being in the middle of a cast when somone drew agro and badly needs a heal. and if you are mostly a dps position in the grp, again all those heals shouldnt be needed.

ost groups have a main healer and a back-up healer, and if you are one or the other then you are better off letting the rest of the grp act as dps and dont lock yourself into a casting mode. what good is a 1.8 second heal if u gotta duck to cancle casting a spell and wait for a 2 second gem refresh? after all...mobs usually die pretty fast in a full group so, with 10 spell gems and new aa's we should be able to pick a theme as for our spells: "im dps so ill go dps and maybe have a fast heal in mem in case its needed and maybe purelife for the cooldown on the fastheal", or "im main or back-up healer so i better keep myself free to heal if im needed"

thats not to say just sit in a grp as a backup healer and do nothing : mem 2 or 3 of the gems and various debuff or damages and use them sparingly

Added a list of all the new alt activate numbers to the original post.

These are the Druid ones:

Convergence of Spirits 519
Entrap 219
Nature's Boon 257
Nature's Guardian 520
Protection of Direwood 3714
Spirit of the White Wolf 705
Spirit of the Wood 185
Storm Strike 3728

Thanks for the prompt writeup Fenier, it's appreciated.

I have to say overall I'm pretty happy since there's quite a few things I'm looking forwards to getting: AA nuke, AA guard, AA lure snare (assuming duration is the same)...

New heal spell looks like a "must have" on raids. Going to be fun scaring the rest of the group by healing them at the last minute ;). On the other hand 10th spell slot is now gone already. I'd still like to see serious debuff consolidation so I can load more dps spells.

I can't see myself ever loading Reaping Inferno, just too much hard work to bother with to get any benefit out of it.

I'm glad to see Call of the Wild recast reduced (down to what? 2 mins?) but unless it's essentially instant recast it's still too long. Exactly what benefit do the devs think there is behind a group sitting around and doing nothing waiting for the druids rezz timer to repop?? Call of the Wild cast timer reduction is a big /yawn for me and will be among the last AA I'll get (if ever), or is SoF raid content designed to be battlerezz-fests?

Not that I really care but what was the point of raising the forage cap by 50 for us?

New Spell - Reaping Inferno
Yes! Another highly situational spell that most likely won't grace a gemslot except on ultra rare occassions. I ceased to function in any sort of primary DPS role long, long ago, and have zero use for a spell such as this that requires proper alignment of planets in order to receive any substantial benefit as I chain nuke for a minute while ignoring everything else around me. Enough already with the gimmick spells, just shave the cast time on my primary nukes and up their damage.

New Spell - Sharp Eyes
A new permanent buff. Good thing the PC buff slot count was increased. I assume there's a reason why new mobs were given a new invis ability that is immediately negated by use of the new see-invis spell that eats up a new buff slot. I have no clue what that reason may be.

Dawnstrike upgrade - Solarsliver
See comments regarding Reaping Inferno.

New Spell - Survival of the Fittest
Immediately and permanently eats the 10th spell gem. I can appreciate the concept of this Oh5hit! spell, although if I had a properly functional group heal to utilize I probably wouldnt have any use for an emergency group band-aid spell in the first place.

Group Heal - CrescentBloom
Fully expecting this to be just as lame as prior spells in the line (seeing as previous group heals have met with such high community acclaim). However, is this instance, according to Rashere, "if the spell is found lacking, there are strong chances it will be upgraded." Right. Let the wagering commence.

Defensive Heal proc - Scales of the Reptile
This change is retroactive. Since the previous spell has been broken since inception, both old and new spells are now officially "fixed" to the point of being nearly useless.
<o></o>
We inquired about combined debuffs, but they want more time to evaluate that request.
Development has been "evaluating" this request for what? Seven years now since we last had a disjunction debuff? Pull this other leg and it plays Jingle Bells.
<o></o>
Foraging AA
And this does what for me, exactly? I havent failed to forage something on every attempt since Kunark expansion, and the existing double-forage AA also fails absolutely zero percent of the time. Raising my forage cap provides me with what benefit?

Nature's Boon AA
<o>Second only to the Bind Wounds as the single most useless AA line. Glad to see this one got upgraded. /boggle

</o> The skill Meditate was increased drastically
Again, this benfits me in what way? If they are doing away with OOC Regen then certainly sign me up for an increased meditate skillcap.





I am not all all excited about the new spells and AA's in this expansion, particularly when considering it will be a year before new stuff appears again.

great work thanks Fenier!

Thanks again Fenier, knowing what is coming at us is nice.

I am very disappointed with the spells. Not going to comment about them more until I have used them.

I can't see the mana regen gain in the mask or skin line as any sort of improvement at all. It just keeps us at the same spot we are at now with the rise in mana costs the new spells will have.

For AAs... they look interesting, I am excited about those. I was expecting the costs to go up so not really disppointed or anything there. I really like storm strike, looking forward to getting that asap. Besides that I didn't really see any new ones, just upgrades. Am I missing some?

This expansion, with its group gear, obviates most of the raiding guilds. On my server there are 3 guilds who have pushed the limits pre expansion. Why should I continue to raid with my top 10, but not top 3, raiding guild when we are a bunch of expansions behind and this group gear is better than I can get raiding?

Destroy the raiding guilds and you destroy the game IMO.

Cladari

New Spell - Sharp Eyes
A new permanent buff. Good thing the PC buff slot count was increased. I assume there's a reason why new mobs were given a new invis ability that is immediately negated by use of the new see-invis spell that eats up a new buff slot. I have no clue what that reason may be.

The reason is (imho) that pretty much everyone in the game now has at least one piece of equipment that sees invisible. Hell I think i have at lease 3 items that i wear all the time that have see invis as part of their worn focus. So to offset this mudification they have introduced invis2.0, and we start the cycle again!

For AAs... they look interesting, I am excited about those. I was expecting the costs to go up so not really disppointed or anything there. I really like storm strike, looking forward to getting that asap. Besides that I didn't really see any new ones, just upgrades. Am I missing some?

AA Direwood Guard also.

Thanks Fenier for a very nice writeup! I'm looking forward to SoF very much.

<o></o>
We inquired about combined debuffs, but they want more time to evaluate that request.
Development has been "evaluating" this request for what? Seven years now since we last had a disjunction debuff? Pull this other leg and it plays Jingle Bells.

Basically, in PoP someone screwed up and drastically increased our ability to lower attack more then intended. That's why there have only been small upgrades to one line, and likely why there hasn't been a Sunder line upgrade.

Additionally, our ability to lower attack is pretty powerful, but it's not balanced against anything. IE - We don't heal for less because of it.

Thanks Fenier. Very nice post.

People seem to be completely missing the point of the forage AA - they're making it a universal, as opposed to druid/ranger. skill. Our payoff is presumably a better chance of foraging something good (higher forage skill gives you a better chance of a rare forage). On the whole the AAs will significantly impact my game. CoTW now has real battle rez utility in raids and will be far more useful in groups. Upgraded snare, AA rune, AA nuke, and the usual improved percentage this and that.

I do think that we should push for an additional spell bar, but that is a revolutionary rathe than evolutionary change. Closer to the present we need to push hard on spell tuning.

1. The Reptile changes drastically weaken the spell, which needs to be rebalanced on cost, recast, and procs.

2. Given the spell gem limitations we really should have the basic fire nuke have the dawnstrike proc added without increasing cost and cast time.

3. The group heal is unacceptable - again, if they want to make it feeble it should be cheaper and have a faster recast. And they should do the same for pallies. They have a serious healing balance problem, and this is an obvious candidate for a fix. I'll take 80% of a cleric's group heal, thank you much.

4. They gave us upgraded spell lines that didn't need to be upgraded. Drop the level cap from skin to vines, icefall breath, etc. If you upgrade these, do so by increasing the damage bonuses (and don't have the silly I/II/III mechanic - a single questable one will do.)

5. Degrading our epic is a big deal. We have the right to expect that there will be a replacement - and, no, an endgame raid weapon is not a replacement for the epic.

6. Continue to push for debuff consolidation - it would do a world of good for permitting us to use all of these new spells.

Reaping Inferno has been modified.

It will now work on mobs 35% or lower, as opposed to the previous 20%.

As an aside, I was pretty against this spell in Beta, but thinking upon it further I have a few tests I want to run on it before I write it off completly.

Thanks for all the info to date. This is going to sound like an odd question, but where is Heroic Wisdom? Seems like it is not featured as one of the core items in the patch -- just Heroic Intelligence. Also if that is an oversight, does it have the same basic attributes?

Disregard previous post -- just saw Rashere's response to your question on the live forums. We dont have to suddenly get tons of INT gear and Wisdom is indeed a heroic attribute.

Reaping Inferno even at 35% is still bad with all the other spells we have at our disposal.

I play a monk as well, we get an AA called killing spree, it's not bad, fires often enough if I get the kill shot but, nice thing is it replenishes some endurance as well. But, it also lasts 5 ticks not 4 like ours.

I can only speak from my personal gaming experience but, in a group, I usually am primary healer or back up healer. If I am back up healer then my first job is to get on debuffs and then lay on a dot (if I can afford the spell gem), throw on a rain, then nuke while rain refreshes. For a 24 second buff to be useful, I would have to start nuking the next mob soon as it proc's.

The primary reason to use this spell is not it's DPS capability, our other spells are better but, to use it so we can get the proc. To get the proc though you have to be sitting there over your spell gem, timing it, waiting till you think now, I'll nuke and the mob will die. For me when testing it in game, it felt very forced, very unnatural.

What is worse, IMO when you have a melee in your group like a monk or ranger etc that also have ability to get procs from their killshot (if you are into the whole min/max thing versus trying to beat them to the killshot so you can get a crit out), then they'll get more benefit out of it.

On the whole ability to lower attack as being powerful - that is yet to be seen. I am very skeptical to believe that it will have the impact that was quoted on the beta boards. One number I saw listed was 100 attack would reduce damage by up to 30%. With us being able to debuff attack by 300 and other classes being able to reduce it even further say what to 50% (I am sure crazy math lady can figure it out), do you think that a mob DPS can be cut that much ?

I really don't believe it yet. I don't have parses but, last couple weeks of beta I played with my druid/monk in Dragonscale hills, laying on all debuffs on the mob with monk tanking, you'd think that I'd notice a 30-40% decrease in damage but, wasn't my experience.

Am hoping to see what the rest of the druids that play in groups have to say. Remember the attack changes will be for mobs in SoF.

Most other wizard direct damage spells have had their cast times nearly halved and had this time applied to the reuse delay, allowing the use of 2-3 direct damage spells in the time that would previously be required to cast one.


Wow, we got a new fight on our hands!! I gotta say, this doesn't make me happy; Nuke cast times are ridiculous for druids and mages too, not just wizzies. Where's our due?

I am not sure that setup would work for us simply because we do more then nuke.

Still, I mentioned cast times to Prathun, butI know he was working on the Wizard changes several months prior to Beta even started.

and we got "loot all" finally!

If there is a new BiC type aug too, then this expansion would have to wreck my car for me to disown it.

Definitely one of the more exciting releases in a long time.

Just getting to read the info now, a lot to take in though. But thanks for the info so far.

One simple question however...

How many AA's have shipped with SoF?

I'm hearing figures of over 900.

Hell, some long playing druids of many a year have yet to reach that in total.

900~ or so is about right, all added up.

Thank you for the wealth of info provided.

Hooray for the new spell gem, though 12 or so would be more appropriate for putting these "situational" spells to any use.

y healing setup, up until the expansion tonight:

1) Adrenaline Surge
2) Pure Life
3) Lunarlight
4) Skin of the Reptile
5) Fernspur
6) Hand of Ro
7) Equinox Burn (for GoRM...less aggro than NBW)
8) Savage Roots (never leave home without it)
9) Serpent Vines (emergency snare for when AA ensnare fails)

Solo setup:

1) Pure Life (self heal for when root is mysteriously resisted 6x in a row)
2) Hand of Ro (fire debuff)
3) Blistering Sunray (debuff and long dot)
4) Swarm of Fireants (long dot)
5) Nature's Blazing Wrath (for GoRM)
6) Sunscorch (short dot)
7) Equinox Burn (primary DPS)
8) Savage Roots
9) Serpent Vines

I am not sure that setup would work for us simply because we do more then nuke.

Still, I mentioned cast times to Prathun, butI know he was working on the Wizard changes several months prior to Beta even started.

But in the same vein, wizzies do more than cast ONE nuke. The balancing factor to justify lowering the cast time is a longer recast, but ask any top parsing wizzie just how often they chain cast just one nuke anyhow.

Anyone that's listened to a thing I've said knows that, for the most part, I'm an optimist and I enjoy my class very much. I'm fine with druid balance in the grand scheme of character balancing. Druids have it pretty damn good. On these boards, we complain about the efficiency of one spell over another because it is 1% less efficient than the last or stacking issues or combination debuffs (of course there are also the extremists who can't understand why SOE doesn't allow us to rez and heal entire raids with the click of a button, kill every mob in the zone with another and change our class name to GOD). I just don't have much pity for the druid. There are classes who complain on their that they've been completely forgotten for years.

Before I read the patch message I didn't care all that much because there was a class with bigger cast time issues. This is no longer the case.

I would gladly take a burst damage hit to reduce casting times.

onths ago Prathun mentioned that current cast times for nukes were ridiculously long for today's game. He was right. I don't understand how fixing one class and in one fell swoop of a two sentence patch note convert them from what has always been since day one the longest nuke caster class to the shortest is the solution to this issue.

I don't think it's -the- solution, I think it's part of it.

Lets assume Wizards are the baseline for Burst Damage (because I think they are)

It makes sense to re-establish the base line, then move from there.

I am not sure that is what they are doing, but I am willing to wait a month or two and see what happens.

News on Second Life upgrade, my original guess based on spell data was incorrect.

Prathun writes:
When you die, gives your group members a chance to resurrect upon death.
I've updated the description to reflect this additional functionality.

I don't think it's -the- solution, I think it's part of it.

Lets assume Wizards are the baseline for Burst Damage (because I think they are)

It makes sense to re-establish the base line, then move from there.

I am not sure that is what they are doing, but I am willing to wait a month or two and see what happens.

As am I, if this is the case. You gotta admit this change is a pretty big a-bomb to drop in a 2 line patch note when it's just left at that.

You know as well as anyone how these test projects (assuming this is one) can get started and end up in the "well-enough" pile in lieu of other projects.

but I am willing to wait a month or two and see what happens.

didn't we try that approach with lunar light? (and damn near everything else?)

We also didn't have an active CC to keep pushing for us. The entire Lunarlight thing still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. At least this time around we have someone who will keep pushing for answers and action. We may not like a lot of the answers we get back from Devs, but at least now we're actually getting answers.

News on Second Life upgrade, my original guess based on spell data was incorrect.

Prathun writes:
When you die, gives your group members a chance to resurrect upon death.
I've updated the description to reflect this additional functionality.


Now that sounds interesting. Though by his wording I am not sure exactly what he means it actually does. It could be taken a few different ways.

As am I, if this is the case. You gotta admit this change is a pretty big a-bomb to drop in a 2 line patch note when it's just left at that.

You know as well as anyone how these test projects (assuming this is one) can get started and end up in the "well-enough" pile in lieu of other projects.

Yes, I do, but in this case He's been working on it since he nerfed Instants months ago, and told wizards then what he had planned.

Greetings Druids of the world~

First of all, Fenier, your AA list is the best (in terms of information) I've seen yet. Your effect descriptions are great, costs and requirements are all there, it's awsome. Kudos to you here ;)

That said, I'm trying to get a list together of all AAs added with the expansion (at Secrets of Faydwer AAs (http://eq.knowledgepit.org/wiki/Secrets_of_Faydwer_AAs); your list can be found at #Druid (http://eq.knowledgepit.org/wiki/Secrets_of_Faydwer_AAs#Druid)), and if anybody could clarify anything on there that's in bold italics, or at least post it here so I can clarify it myself, that would be awsome.

Thanks for your time ;)

They cut all spell costs by a good amount.

Survival of the Fittest is no longer a vendor spell.

ive never had a problem with the damage capacity or cast time on spells of wizards. complaining that wizards have better nukes and faster cast times on nukes is like complaining that clerics have better heals and faster cast time on heals.

What can wizards do? i never really played a wizard but i looked on alla and wizard spells 60-75 are primarily nothing but nukes and ports.

ive always been in favor of game balance as long as it makes sense..and a class that doesent get a darn thing exept nukes and ports deserves faster cast times than other classes that have other benifits they do not.

why is the druid community in an up-roar about somthing as balanced as faster nuke timers on a nuke only class? if we lost all our heal spells and all our snare/root spells wouldn't we demand better nukes and start complaining " why are our nukes just as slow as theirs when they have other benifits?"

The wizard is not the most broken class is the game even with the reduced cast times. its the necromancer. lets compare the 2 :

Wizard can nuke

wizard can port

wizard cannot heal

Wizards cannot snare

wizard cannot xp rez

wizard cannot mez

wizard cannot slow

wizard has no dps-oriented pet as far as i know anyway

a wizard can draw agro fast with repeated nukes and can die fast.

Now the Necro :

necro's dps is easily a match for a wizards or at least a solid second place

Necro's cannot port

necro's can heal when they solo with lifetap

Necro's can snare

Necro's can xp rez with a 93% rez

Necro's can mez living mobs and undead mobs

Necro's can slow undead mobs

Necro's have the 3rd best pet in game in my opinion, 1st is mage 2nd is bst lord

Necro's have sick fast DoT cast times and crit abilities, they toss all their dots and then FD and then they cannot draw agro at all or die or even get hit.

what really /boggles me is everyone seems perfectly fine with the abilities given to a necromancer then one single nerf of a wizzy and the complaints start rolling in

If i was gonna complain about a class and demand that it be nerfed or at least ask that the rest of us be brought in balance with, it would definately be the Necromancer.

I think the problem is not that Wizards got their cast times reduced but that it was done in isolation. We've been saying our cast times are too long to perform our dual duties of healing and DPS properly for some time - we even said shorter cast times with a longer re cast would be benificial to the way druids work - and this is what wizzies got

I do not think anyone was calling for a nerf to wizards. I believe the comments, and I know my comments, were to the affect that we should be brought up in line with where we are supposed to be compared to other direct damage casting classes.

I think I heard something about being able to see other people's dots??? If this is true, the truth will soon be out about necros and their dps capabilities.

The truth? heh

Necros own DPS. That's not a secret :)

I know that. You know that. The necros know that. Those who follow dps closely know that. However, this means that dot damage will be parseable by someone other than the caster and DPS classes can find out exactly where the necros fit in with the dps on any particular fight.

I had to change my settings so I wasn't seeing my wizard friends dots.....grrr

I think I heard something about being able to see other people's dots??? If this is true, the truth will soon be out about necros and their dps capabilities.

Yeah I saw that and was very pleased. It makes it possible to nearly parse everyone correctly in a raid, which pleases me to no end.

Still MIA for parses: Certain pet class procs and damage shield contributions going to the class that casted the spell. Probably others I can't think of but adding dots is a big step in the right direction to attaining accurate parses for a raid.

The truth? heh

Necros own DPS. That's not a secret :)

Very true! Necros' efficiency makes for great sustained DPS.

Here's what I've found in my experience (limited to my own guild):

- Wizzie = king of burst DPS - they can maintain over 2.5k DPS for the entire duration of their mana pool

- Melee DPS including rogues, monks, bers and rangers = Close 2nd - while burning discs they can maintain over 2.2k DPS but start dropping off over time to around 1k to 1.5k once the discs are burnt (depending on class)

- Necros = best average DPS for medium length fights maintaining up to 2.2k DPS for the duration of their mana pool, which typically lasts twice as long as a wizzie's

ages and Beastlords = Hard to say, I can't really comment because it's only been recently that more sophisticated parsers have come out to combine them with their pet DPS and I haven't really paid much attention in the last couple of months (haven't had much time to play). What I DO know is that a mage can out-dps my best efforts if they're trying and BL total DPS is a lot better than most people give them credit for.

- Us = I've had parses as high as 1.2k without vet AAs. There's no feasable way I could burn a mana pool half as fast as a wizard, but long duration fights that allow us to burn an entire pool will put us in the top 10-15% of the raid.

Enchanters = HAHAHAHAHAHA, thanks for the recursion sucker. Best use of YOUR mana!

Again, let me just disclaim that this is my guild that I'm using as a reference. We're about 20th serverwide (as of our Mayong's Mistresses win) and haven't yet beaten Aprossis. Your mileage may vary.

Excellent write up Fenier!! Thank you so much, and thank you for being truly interested and excited about these issues. With your dedication, poise, and ability to remain calm, a lot of Druid issues were addressed and we all should appreciate that!!

Great work!

Anyone found Survival of the Fittest yet?

It's shown up on Lucy, but I haven't seen drop information for it yet.

Destructive Cascade - 3 Ranks, 6 AA / rank All Ranks level 78
DoT version of Destructive Fury, increases damage on critical DoT ticks.

Am I misunderstanding this description to mean this isn't available until level 78? I dinged 76 last night and bought the first rank of this AA.

Am I misunderstanding this description to mean this isn't available until level 78? I dinged 76 last night and bought the first rank of this AA.

Here is a question: didn't previous versions impact both DoT and DD crit damage range? e.g. didn't they really just take one AA line and make it 2, or is this a new capability?

Here is a question: didn't previous versions impact both DoT and DD crit damage range? e.g. didn't they really just take one AA line and make it 2, or is this a new capability?

I think you are referring to focus effects that effect "fire" based damage spells to include fire nukes as well as fire dots. (or magic...)

The crit nuke aa's at first were just double damage (+ focus increase).

Then they gave Destructive Fury that gave increased damage on a critical nuke as well as increased chance to crit. This was split into the 2 separate functions. Now we have a separate line for more crit nukes from bigger crit nukes.

This aa will make it so when your dots crit, they do more than just double (+focus increase) damage.

News on Second Life upgrade, my original guess based on spell data was incorrect.

Prathun writes:
When you die, gives your group members a chance to resurrect upon death.
I've updated the description to reflect this additional functionality.



I still haven't discerned exactly what this spell is intended to do. The above description from Prathun reads: this spell procs a DI recourse on other group members after I'm dead.

Clarification, please.

No one has found it - seems the second DI trigger makes the entire group DA for 15 ticks if the primary one fails.

Name: Inizen Nogglezop
Zone: Fortress Mechanotus
Location: 890, -1455 , 404

Corruption Resist Buff - Forbear Corruption - 1973p
Swarm DoT - Horde of Fireants - 2575p
Fire Increase/Plant Bodytype - Skin to Mulch - 2600p
Dawnstrike upgrade - Solarsliver*
New Spell - Survival of the Fittest - 4846p
Coat Buff - Viridithorn Coat - 2409p
Cold/Fire Nuke - Winter's Blaze*

So we have 3 spells at 78 that we have to quest etc for ? since SotF is now not on vender

No one has found it - seems the second DI trigger makes the entire group DA for 15 ticks if the primary one fails.


Ressurect upon death sounds more like Divine Intervention to me, by means of a recourse given to the group, thereby providing them some chance to survive while huddled around my still steaming corpse.

However, If it does indeed prove to be a DA/DB effect (invulnerable) then this spell should prove to be very entertaining chaos. I die, and everyone else goes invulnerable, resulting in other healers that can't heal, a mezzer that can't mez, a wizard that can't evac, etc :)

Sounds like my way of taking everyone else down with me!

Fun stuff!

Name: Inizen Nogglezop
Zone: Fortress Mechanotus
Location: 890, -1455 , 404

Corruption Resist Buff - Forbear Corruption - 1973p
Swarm DoT - Horde of Fireants - 2575p
Fire Increase/Plant Bodytype - Skin to Mulch - 2600p
Dawnstrike upgrade - Solarsliver*
New Spell - Survival of the Fittest - 4846p
Coat Buff - Viridithorn Coat - 2409p
Cold/Fire Nuke - Winter's Blaze*

So we have 3 spells at 78 that we have to quest etc for ? since SotF is now not on vender

Solarsliver isn't quested. Unfortanately I'm no help because I don't remember what zone it dropped in, but I got it late last night as a drop during a group.

Solarsliver dropped in Hills of Shade (Blackwater resident) as reported in Druid server chat.

So the new see invis spell is slow loading, short duration, and outdoor only, resulting in the following scenario:

We're in a mission in Bloodmoon Keep, and 3 SoS assassins pop on our puller and just about own him before he can FD. Ah ha! thinks Lego. I have a super new spell for just such an occasion! So I load it up. And we wait...and wait...and wait some more. Finally it loads. And won't cast, cause BK is indoors. Once everyone stops laughing, I convince the monk to step out into Loping Plains for a quick cast. We zone back in and it's gone before he goes down the first hallway.

I'm all for situational spells, but that's ridiculous. You either need to burn a spell slot for it, or hold up the group for a few minutes while it loads. Then you need to be outside, and be able to rush right over to where you *think* the SoS mobs are. On the up side, I think once you've got them targetted you can see the targetting ring moving about once the vision fades.

I find Reaping Inferno to be quite useful strictly for the cast time. A good bit of the time, by the time I get done debuffing, I don't have time to cast Equinox before the mob is dead. But the nice fast cast on Reaping Inferno lets me toss a quick nuke in at the end.

Survival of the Fittest rk 2 is buyable from the Loping plains vendor when good enough faction is reached with the Fangbreakers ( killing wereorcs, worgs, etc). I havent seen the rk 1 drop, but it has been reported on this website to drop in another zone. Faction of kindly or greater to open up the spell to viewing/buying ( might be less than kindly-- thats where I was factionwise when found it.

gilli