From patch notes:

- The Decrepit Skin, Ward of Tunare, and Skin of the Reptile lines are now limited by the number of heals / runes bestowed to the buffed player instead of number of hits scored against the buffed player. The number of "procs" should be relatively the same, but no longer random. These spells will scale down in effectiveness against lower level NPCs.

The Reptile changes...

I covered this a bit on my NDA post, but will repeat it here.

Defensive proc buffs, which allow you to avoid or heal damage have been altered.

I am using Reptile as my example.

Reptile could proc on any of 120 swings. This limit was created to provide the right number of procs verus one single target. The issue however, was the more things swinging at you, the more procs you got - which drastically increased the healing power of the spell, to the point you in some situations became nearly unkillable.

This, was not intended.

These changes did not go out with TSS, but it would appear they finally got the code working.

Reptile (both versions) now have the same limits.

12 Proc counter: Reptile can proc 12 times, then fades.
Downward scaling: Reptile will proc less often, if you are tanking lower content.

I will say, this was primarily a Knight issue, who abused the swing counter to solo raid level mobs, but we get nerfed by extension since our spell functions the same way.

Also, I checked with Prathun. People should not notice a decrease in proc rate when tanking Even or higher con mobs.

-Fenier

Because mobs that are hitting for 2k a pop, a 600 hp heal is going to help cover that.

The point where Reptile was useful was when it worked like a HoT to help recover hp, not necessarily all or more healing than the damage, but at least make a noticable amount of healing compared to the damage.

A cleric can go solo Avatar of War with certain spells up. Necros were soloing one of the Zek brothers in Drunder a while ago. So many people can solo Trak. As player power increases and new expansion and spells come out, a lot of them thoroughly trivialize old content.

I find the reasoning for the change disturbing when they launching a new expansion that will trivialize a lot old content. Is that an exploit ? The spells, as they were, were not being used to exploit current content. The change is one of those that Prathun suddenly decides, yeah it's a "bug" so I am going to fix it. If this really was a case of spells trivializing old content, they'd never launch a new expansion.

It wasn't Prathun's decision.

Matters not who's decision it was, it was a stupid one.

Reptile has a large number of problems -- I just consider it a dead line.

Some personal experience with Reptile.

Prior to nerf:

Druid + Bard-tank farming tradeskill drops in Cazic Thule and the Steppes. These mobs are just under green moving to light blue.

In the Steppes the bard can tank 2-4 gnolls at the same time keeping aggro (assisted by Reptile) and keeping healed with reptile and the odd direct heal. The druid could rain on the gnolls and cast Fernspur on the bard to add dps.

In CT the bard would pull the temple in 3 waves of 10+ mobs. Reptile would heal the bard (but need to be recast), add to the bards aggro, and allow the druid to PBAE.

Post nerf:

Reptile does nothing so...

I bring along a cleric to HoT the bard (1 - 2 HoTs is all that is needed for a pull in either spot, just like 2 Reptiles used to work). The druid has to wait longer to add dps as reptile is not adding aggro.

Conclusion:

In my experience, Reptile was a balanced functional HoT for druids. Now it does nothing at all in many situations. So druids must max Spell Casting Subtlety and have their healing capabilities reduced.

Spell Efficiency:
(Rank1, no AAs/manapres/spec taken into account)

3.53HPM Adrenaline Swell
3.34 - 4.26HPM Puravida
5.83HPM New Reptile

So, on paper, these numbers probably look pretty good to the developers still.

Can somebody put down the manapres effect from specialization, AA Heal boost, and crit %ages down here, so I can put more accurate figures down? Does Reptile crit (guessing not for warriors, at least)?

I don't forsee SoE replacing the spell for us at all, or discontinuing it...but, we might be able to make a convincing enough case for it to be boosted back closer to where it was. It'll probably take a several week parse from somebody using it to get an average number of hitpoints healed per proc as well (the major bane of the spell).

The power of this spell was previously limited by its durration and therefore a limit of a 1 minute durration was necessary/appropriate. Now that it is limited to a set number of procs, I would love to see an increase in its durratoin to perhaps 5 minutes.

Reptile, and I assume the upgrade to it, when it came to criting was dependent on the person the buff was cast on. If that person had Healing Gift aa, then the Reptile proc could crit.

This is how the downward scaling is coded:

Base PPM rate - 10

Scaling uses Base Proc Rate on anything coning even or higher then the player.

If a mob cons less then even, it scales downward at 5% of 10 per level difference to the point where it yields no procs.

So a mob 1 level below you is 9.5 procs, and so forth.

as a FYI.

-Fenier

The power of this spell was previously limited by its durration and therefore a limit of a 1 minute durration was necessary/appropriate. Now that it is limited to a set number of procs, I would love to see an increase in its durratoin to perhaps 5 minutes.

It's still going to be based on the number of procs. Increasing the duration doesn't do anything unless your not getting the required number of procs in.

-Fenier

In CT the bard would pull the temple in 3 waves of 10+ mobs. Reptile would heal the bard (but need to be recast), add to the bards aggro, and allow the druid to PBAE.

This is the exact situation they wanted to avoid. The sheer number of swings means the bard is basically unkillable for the duration of the buff.

This is why it counts procs now.

-Fenier

He is unkillable until te 120 swings is up. If you have multiple mobs on a person, there are times when the 120 swings is up before the 30 second refresh on the spell. That was the balancing act I thought. Unless your saying that the mobs are all dead before 120 swings??

Not all spells had the 30 second recast.

Ours did, and still does, though.

But you missed the fundamental statement in there.

Pre-nerf:
2 casts of Reptile EXACTLY EQUALLED 2 casts heavily extened max AA boosted cleric HoT

Post-nerf:
1 cast of Reptile = a junk buff

Except in practice due to scaling it only worked that way due to the number of mobs.

DPS can increase to the point it will exceed even the highest HoT tick. The question there is how many mobs, and how hard do they hit. In CT mobs have a low max hit anyway, and the Bard likely avoids most of the hits to begin with. Hots are a set, and predictable rate of healing.

With Reptile, the healing continues to increase to the point that the spell basically makes the person immune to damage, regardless of how many mobs are swinging. If the horde of mobs can't kill you from the time the buff fades, to the time it can be recast - You don't die because there is nearly no way for mob DPS to exceed the instant healing triggered by the huge rate of swings.

That's how paladins used zone trash to solo raid named, which largely, imo - lead to these changes.

The change basically makes Defensive procs a predictable rate of healing, with a max heal value - to prevent people healing 10s of thousands of damage for 750 Mana.

-Fenier

So far this is completely ridiculus to me. It is still a little too early too tell, but I think unless it is absolutely needed to keep a tank alive this spell is dead. I fight with a bard as a tank all the time, about 3-5 nights a week. These past 2 nights reptile skin wears off him *so fast* and it can not keep aggro. I keep ending up being the tank, which isn't good. This is in places like Direwind and the new expansion. Aggro was my second biggest use of the spell, and I used it often. It's recast time was it's huge limitation. If they had just added that refresh to knight's I am sure they wouldn't see them abusing like they were. With a bunch of mobs hitting in order to make you invincible it wears off in seconds. If they changed it to be balanced they sure as hell screwed up. I would settle for a max amount of procs of 20 if we really need this limitation. This spell needs to be fixed.

The scaling should at least begin at the bottom of the dark blue range, rather than at even /con.

Few of us suggested starting at 5 levels below even, but we didn't get a reply to that just yet.

-Fenier

reptile is just a waste of mana now, i'd probably only use it if gom fires

This spell is ruined now, I cant see ever using it again. Maybe if they tripled the amount healed per proc it might be worth a slot under the new proc system.

hulkling have done some parse analysis on the soe paladin forum

and some proposal too ( which i dont even agree)

anyway , for the moment sotr is not worth the spell gem ... . 80% of the mob i fight are on the db/lb rank.

more and more disappointed.

Given it's new restrictions it needs to cost less / heal more / have re cast reduced / be completely re thought (delete as applicable)

checking lucy before showed me that skin proc have a recast of 2.25 sec ?

would this mean that it can't proc more than once in a 2.25 sec on the target ?

if so : for the 30 sec recast time , the maximum number of proc ( 30/2.25) is around 13 proc

which give 7800 max heal for 750 mana ?

or was i misunderstanding something on the mechanic ?

( for reference raw healing power of the 39 ch cleric is at 7500 heal for 400 mana ....)

The spell has been completely been imbalanced.

Reptile = druid tool to provide a HoT like effect such that druids can do other things like debuff, heal, nuke etc.

Knight versions of the spells similarly nerfed = tools for survivability while tanking, self only.

Shaman version - similar to druid's in concept, a defensive proc with chance to slow and heal while they do other things but with none of the drawbacks of the druid version.

I loathe to say it because it sounds like I am asking for a nerf to shaman (which I am not) but, Lingering Sloth cost 500 mana when it came out - today Lassitude and Languor across all 3 ranks cost 500 mana.

With Scales of the Reptile Rk 3 we pay almost 3 times the mana of Languor Rank 3, how is that balanced ?

The shaman version is fine but, ours needs to be balanced to match or come closer to it.

1) One it needs to stack with Paladins
2) It's mana cost needs to be reduced
3) It needs to crit on warriors some how.
4) It needs a secondary ability to debuff the mob attack
5) It needs to last 4:30 second
6) It's recast needs to be changed to 2 seconds.
7) Get rid of the artificial limit on the spell procs. Let the heal scale based on the mob that swung at you. If it is trivial mob, heal for 0, if it is somewhat easy, heal a bit more, if it is a hard mob, then heal for normal.

Lassitude is different in that it's a fixed rate of healing due to it being a HoT. It doesn't scale like Reptile.

I am not sure about the mana cost.

-Fenier

On EQLive I brought up the Warrior AA, Ingenuity. It allows Warriors to crit their procs (off weapons) and whatever else is covered under this AA. I suggested that Ingenuity be extended to defensive procs. There wasn't much said at all, except another Druid said that they had been saying for a while that it should proc on Warriors too.

I really don't see myself using Reptile much, if at all. 12 procs for all the mana it takes to cast? I don't think so. If it healed more, had a faster refresh... maybe. This "fix" to Reptile is really disappointing. I'm just glad we have other ways of HoT'ing-- even if they both have a 15min recast.

I disagree that it is different, Lassitude is no different that Reptile, go play a tank in a group and have the shaman buff you with it. A shaman with extended buff AA means minimum duration 6:45. Chain pull in an xp group. You'll probably find that about 50% of the duration of the health proc is on you. That is approximately 33 ticks.

33 x 575 (Rk1 languor) = 18975 healed for 500 mana and as the ranks go up, so does the chance to proc the HoT.

I don't think anyone has disagreed with the idea that when it is used to pull 20-30 trivial mobs, yeah okay that really wasn't intended for the spell but, for content that it is intended for - you never see the scaling issue that brought about the nerf.

In the end, what is more important, that the spell is relevant to the content that it was designed for or the fact that it further trivializes years old content that is already been trivialized through 100s of spells/AA and increases in levels ?

As far as not knowing the mana cost ? Not sure what you mean but, the mana cost is available on Kumbaja or Lucy.

checking lucy before showed me that skin proc have a recast of 2.25 sec ?

would this mean that it can't proc more than once in a 2.25 sec on the target ?

if so : for the 30 sec recast time , the maximum number of proc ( 30/2.25) is around 13 proc

which give 7800 max heal for 750 mana ?

or was i misunderstanding something on the mechanic ?

( for reference raw healing power of the 39 ch cleric is at 7500 heal for 400 mana ....)

Cast time has nothing to do with procs and the like. Recast only is meaningful if the spell is being cast like a normal spell. Before the changes, Reptile was nine procs per minute per mod, and assuming you aren't fighting mobs where the proc starts scaling down, it still is that.

Taken from EQ live off the Paladin section - this is the proposed work around on the scaling, since it was being talked about here:

+3: 10ppm
+2: 10ppm
+1: 10ppm
Even: 10ppm
-1: 9.5ppm
-2: 9ppm
-3: 8.5ppm
-4: 8ppm
-5: 7.5ppm
-6: 7ppm
-7: 6.5ppm
-8: 6ppm
-9: 5.5ppm
-10: 5ppm
-11: 4.5ppm
-12: 4ppm
-13: 3.5ppm
-14: 3ppm
-15: 2.5ppm
-16: 2ppm
-17: 1.5ppm
-18: 1ppm
-19: 0.5ppm
-20: 0ppm
The quote is how WoT/SoT currently works (SK DS and Druid Reptyle as well). Here are the proposed changes from Brael (SK CC):mob level in relation to play / Proc per minute
+3: 10ppm
+2: 10ppm
+1: 10ppm
Even: 10ppm
-1: 10ppm
-2: 10ppm
-3: 10ppm
-4: 10ppm
-5: 10ppm
-6: 9ppm
-7: 8ppm
-8: 7ppm
-9: 6ppm
-10: 5ppm
-11: 4ppm
-12: 3ppm
-13: 2ppm
-14: 1ppm
-15: 0ppm
-16: 0ppm
-17: 0ppm
-18: 0ppm
-19: 0ppm
-20: 0ppm
The 10 PPM would stay in tact for all dark blue mobs and above, but as a comprimise the PPM would scale a bit sharply starting with light blue mobs, and would bottom out at the very lowest end of the light blue spectrum ..... and then not proc at all on green mobs. "-10: 5ppm" is the mid point from current to proposed.

Blue con (groups and solo) and the high end of light blue con (solo) are my biggest concerns, and I think this proposal would work well for us, as well as giving the Devs the piece of mind that we won't be swarm tanking lowbie mobs (as effective as we used to).
What do you all think?

I am still amazed that the exact same mobs I could solo at 75 (on my Paladin) are now tons more difficult (2 levels higher), because of the less effectiveness of the spell(s).

I disagree that it is different, Lassitude is no different that Reptile, go play a tank in a group and have the shaman buff you with it.

I play with 3 shamans all the time, they all keep this on the tank like I (used to) keep reptile on him. Difference between Lasstitude and Reptile - Reptile has 1 job, heal procs, Las has 2, HoT proc and slows. For the mana cost and duration alone Lasstitude is much better than Reptile.

I think the basic point is its not really a very good spell. Rather than keep tacking on more restrictions on its use they should start again and come up with something different and useful.

One of the most annoying things I find about druids spells is the amount of restrictions we have added to their use. i.e. outdoor only...above 80% health... below 25% health...12 hits only...by the light of the silvery moon*

Maybe I'm wrong but I can think of any other class that gets these restrictions added so often.

*this ones not real 8/

by the light of the silvery moon*

this ones not real 8/

sure ??

hint: check you low levlel light spell :):biggrin:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?GAMEID=9&LOADFEATURE=1580&SETVIEW=features&bhcp=1
MMORPG_Taera: Rasker :asks: Can you explain the reasoning behind the change to Skin of the Reptile, Decrepit Skin, and Ward of Tunare? Especially while a similar spell line for Clerics was left as is
EQ_Prathun: Before I took over as the spells designer, it was pointed out that there was a problem with the scaling of those defensive proc spells. Against swarms of low level NPCs, the ability fired reliably, quickly, and with very little danger to the player.
EQ_Prathun: That explains the reason for having the proc rate scale down against lower level NPCs.
EQ_Prathun: The proc rate was also very random on the spell, firing as much as 50% more or 33% less, depending on how lucky you were.
EQ_Prathun: These are basically heal over time (or rune over time spells). That's a bit too much randomness, which is why we wanted a precise proc rate that we can control.
EQ_Prathun: These spells also use the buffed player's foci and AAs to determine heal amount, which meant that some players benefitted from the Ward of Tunare more than others.
EQ_Prathun: Which explains the change to the spells ability to be focused.
EQ_Prathun: I'm going to look over those spells again soon and make sure they're worth using for the mana cost, but don't expect any removal of the limitations.

adding insult to injury.....

(*&^ Reptile, delete it from EQ and let's get something else-- better and not so "exploitable" :bs: or whatever...
Maybe a real HoT. We've already got it as an AA, just take off the AC, DS and 15min recast.

When I read the dev chat, I had at least the hope that maybe he'll consider making it useful.

However, seeing that right now there are those on these boards that consider Lassitude/Languor to be different from Reptile/SoT/Decrept Skin - not much chance that there will be any kind of push to balance Reptile so it is more in line with the shaman defensive spell which heals and slows.

Seeing that even the designer says that this is supposed to be like an HoT, the shaman version proc's an actual HoT when it heals, how is it much different ?

We need this to last longer, proc a debuff and have more proc's so we aren't spending 1200 mana for a HoT like effect and not have stacking issues with the paladin version.

Testing this spell tonight for only a little while - the 10 procs on even and above is inaccurate to put it nicely.

Con - Procs - Duration of Mob
Red ------ 2 ----- 40 sec
Yellow -- 2 ----- 35 sec
Yellow -- 2 ----- 30 sec
Red ------ 4 ----- 40 sec
Red ------ 2 ----- 44 sec
Yellow -- 3 ----- 32 sec
Red ------ 4 ----- 66 sec

At which point I got frustrated with it and stopped recording. The spell not only was nerfed but then they launched it broken~

It almost looks like the proc rate modifier of 400 might be being ignored...

mmm. Yea that may be it.

I'll see if I can find someone to pester about it.

Maybe a real HoT.

How dare you suggest we obtain an ability that is historically shaman!

Spoke with Breal, the SK CC and he wrote this:

http://www.evilgamer.net/forums/showpost.php?p=64599&postcount=161

Well, I was going to be done with this thread since it's a waste of time because it's nothing more than a bitchfest (btw, that DS change would also remove stacking with our disc, vie, and cleric aura) where people want the old DS back at any cost regardless of how dumb it is. Fortunately though, Druids are actually being useful and parsing the new proc rates (man I remember when SK's used to do things like that before immeaditly complaining... the class doesn't even deserve a bug fix) and are finding that it's looking like the proc rate modifier is getting ignored, which wouldn't be that hard to believe. Anyone have some DS parses besides me? I haven't been keeping it up religiously since I prefer using the TSS BP clicks whenever possible while exp'ing honestly (atleast on pulls of 3 or less)... curious if it looks like the same thing for us. Need either mob level or con and the proc rate from it, preferably against single mobs as it's much easier to see that in logs unless they're all different names.


So I am making the same request, I need more parses on even+ con mobs which show the low proc rate.

-Fenier

I'll keep parsing it, even tho I am driving Fenier insane over it. I am sure he won't want to hear the words reptile or tunare for a long time after this is fixed.

;)

I'll keep parsing it, even tho I am driving Fenier insane over it

I'll be perfectly honest.

It's not the parsing driving me insane.

It's people who see the changes, refuse to even -cast- the spell and rant about it on forums.

So yes, you hate the nerf, you want it reversed, you think the proc limit should be raised, you think the mana cost should be lowered. Fantasic. None of that helps me with Prathun, which is what I have been saying for 4 days now. Because no matter what we want, He's the Dev his his No overrides 100 of our yes's.

Naeyene on the other hand, has tried to see what the difference is and she seems to have IDd an issue where the proc modifer isn't functioning on even or higher con mobs. Now I am not sure this is the case, but this is solid information which I can use to fix that particular issue with the spell, which may change some of the former opinions.

I've brought up a few issues with Hills of Shade NPCs to Prathun, and the -very- first thing he said to me was "Really? Let me go over there and check it out." He will know if your making stuff up, and as you can see from the Dev chat information above, he is NOT removing the limits from the Spells. I think the odds of him adding an atk debuff or making the heal a HoT are slim to non-existent until the spell gets upgraded again in 2008 because he wants the Spell to work as it is designed now - NOT to redesign the spell.

So while what people -think- of the spell is important, it is not helpful at this point to making the spell as it is now working unless it falls into line with what Prathun has already said - IE, it -has- to scale and it -is- keeping the limits.

Right now it seems it's -not- keeping the limits, and that warrants addressing if I can get more parse data like Naeyene's. However in the past 5 days there's been a 'whole' lot of complaining and next to no fact.

-Fenier

so

prath and the gang :

triple nerfed a spell who in standart use worked rather fine

invested time and coding ressource to put the so called nerf in place

and borked the whole thing ?

Naeyene on the other hand, has tried to see what the difference is and she seems to have IDd an issue where the proc modifer isn't functioning on even or higher con mobs.
It doesn't work on any con properly.

Heh, except the grey ones which it doesn't proc on... :)

Brael ran a long parse for me on the SK copy of the spell and wound up at 8.72 PPM on a slowed mob for 30 minutes.

This isn't that far off.

I need Reptile parses now however.

According to Brael - it being slowed makes a huge difference in how it procs, while I would expect it to make some difference, I didn't realize it should make -that much-, it kinda makes your extra heal utility only 100% benificial on unslowed mobs. :(

May as well tuck it in the back of the book and never take it out, heh. I am so disappointed. - But I am done with arguing for this, it got it's nerf, Prathun has made it pretty clear that it isn't being changed.

I think the odds of him adding an atk debuff or making the heal a HoT are slim to non-existent until the spell gets upgraded again in 2008 because he wants the Spell to work as it is designed now - NOT to redesign the spell.


Well, seeing as he already redesigned it and made it useless, I don't see why there's such a big problem with redesigning it again. That is, of course, unless he just wants to get away with doing all of nothing with 95% of SoF spells like he did. Even if he does fix the PPM against blue con+ mobs, the spell is still trash due to the miniscule healing upgrade and the insane mana cost increase. And like others have said, it makes no sense for the spell to scale down in number of procs in relation to mob level, since no other spells are boned with that kind of restriction.

what Prathun has already said - IE, it -has- to scale and it -is- keeping the limits.

Maybe it would be helpful if you or Prathun could explain in layman's terms, why he changed the spell and EXACTLY how he thinks it should work and in what situations?

I mean we all got used to using it when it first came and adapted ourselves in situations and knew when to use it. Now, it doesn't seem helpful and we need to know how he expects it to work and in what situations.

And what's the bet this is going to be one of the "core" druid spells that constantly gets upgraded every single expansion and very few druids ever use? I agree this spell was being abused and somthing needed to be done..but dont keep giving us upgrades to this spell. its been nerfed so just let the spell die in peace. If we are only going to get a fixed amount of spells for each expansion as our "core class upgrades", there are spells id much rather see than this one.

If it worked properly this would be a perfectly fine core druid ability. It is clearly not doing what it is supposed to do, however. I'll be parsing it's painfully limited proc rate on group tanks over the next couple of days. The spell is, believe it or not, *timing out* on hard-hitting yellow con mobs. It appears to function properly (e.g. proc at a noticeable rate at all) only for mobs that hit rapidly and lightly.

I think the odds of him adding an atk debuff or making the heal a HoT are slim to non-existent until the spell gets upgraded again in 2008 because he wants the Spell to work as it is designed now - NOT to redesign the spell.

How would adding a debuff to it break design ? Lets consider that attack debuffs are mainly meaningful for SoF NPCs. For SoF NPCs it is expected druids debuff mobs. Adding a debuff that could be overwritten by our regular debuff wouldn't cause break any design.

Now if you don't want to ask for it we obviously can't force you to present that, as CC obviously you should present reasonable requests on, not just the ones you agree with.

Mana cost difference between Languor and Scale it doesn't take parses to see. Now again if you refuse to accept people that do use Languor on a tank and that for 500 mana it heal for upwards of 15k and "heal" for more by slowing the mob, not sure what else to say. This is from actual in game experience against current content. Take 6.5 minutes out, turn on Heal Over Time filter, have a shaman cast Languor on a Paladin that has WoT. Chain pull in an exp group in current content, not is the paladin healed by their own defensive proc and the Languid Health on top of that. The potential for it to is not only there but, it does heal for that much.

I know you say if Prathun says he wants it to proc twice, thats what he wants and we should accept those limits he set on us. But, I think we should all be willing to ask for more than what the designers say they want to give us. It will hurt as a class if every time we try and work within the constraints the designers set.

In this case, the limits Prathun is putting on the spell make in extremely undesirable as a spell in our line up - druids are telling you that the current design is leading them to drop it from their line up. Even if the proc's per minute are fixed, the 10 counter limit is way too low.

Reptile should stop being tuned to match DS and WoT. If anything it needs to be more in tune with Languor but, even more so it should be tuned that for the mana cost and the fact that we are using it beyond a self buff but, part of our healing line up. Add on top of that the unpredictability of when a proc can fire, it should be a lot better than a blast heal. Remember Reptile can lose a proc count for healing a person that is full health.

Prathun says "No" to a lot of things but, that doesn't mean we shouldn't work on him with what we druids want, which is Reptile to be better. He is using spreadsheets to tune it, we are using real game experience to show that it is losing it's place in our line up.

Don't be scared to argue constructively against his "designs" if they don't make sense for druids. It will only help our class.

Parsing only tells part of the story. While you get folks parsing what Prathan should do is buff a druid to 80 and go and main heal some tough content, then he can actually tell us if he feels this spell made his life any easier or not.

Maybe it would be helpful if you or Prathun could explain in layman's terms, why he changed the spell and EXACTLY how he thinks it should work and in what situations?

I can tell you why he changed it.

Downward scaling code - To prevent people from using masses of lower con mobs to accelerate the proc rate and render the person being swung at basically unkillable. This was primarily an issue with the Knight spells, but since we can use Reptile and replicate the effect on pretty much anyone, we get hit too.

Proc Rate Counter: The spell would proc a totally random amount based on the amount of swings generated. This could make the spell far more powerful as a heal then intended (is my guess based on everything I've heard) Lets say you pull a bunch of mobs which should, for all intents and purposes kill you. Their damage is higher then a HoT tick, so you would need instant cast direct heals to stay alive. If 75% of the swings triggered the proc, that's 54,000 Damage healed for 750 mana, which is a 72 to 1 Ration on HP to Mana. The proc rate limits this by giving each heal a maximum healing rate which is inflexible. Skin of the Reptile is now a max of 7,200 HP, or a 9.6 to 1 ratio.

Speaking for myself - I would assume the spell is meant to augment (not replace) healing on particularly difficult situations. That's what I used it for before the changes, and I am still likely to do so even after the changes.

-Fenier

How would adding a debuff to it break design ? Lets consider that attack debuffs are mainly meaningful for SoF NPCs. For SoF NPCs it is expected druids debuff mobs. Adding a debuff that could be overwritten by our regular debuff wouldn't cause break any design.
Well for one, Reptile is a direct heal, and the primary proc of the spell. Lassitude's line the slow is the primary proc, and the HoT a secondary which fires only part of the time.

Now if you don't want to ask for it we obviously can't force you to present that, as CC obviously you should present reasonable requests on, not just the ones you agree with.
And I agree, and I do pass on things I don't always agree with. That said Prathun is pretty inflexible with these spells at this time. While I do not know for sure, he is likely to be monitoring how they work on live before making any changes.

Mana cost difference between Languor and Scale it doesn't take parses to see.
It's been pointed out. Both in Beta and Since. I can't force him to change it however.

I know you say if Prathun says he wants it to proc twice, thats what he wants and we should accept those limits he set on us. But, I think we should all be willing to ask for more than what the designers say they want to give us. It will hurt as a class if every time we try and work within the constraints the designers set.
He wants it to proc 10 times per minute on even+ con mobs. He doesn't sound opposed to it scaling better for dark blues, but upon checking into it - he found the code doesn't currently allow that. Now he may talk to Code to check on scaling, but I don't know if he has, or if he plans to and even if he did, that doesn't mean code has time to spare for it right this minute.

In this case, the limits Prathun is putting on the spell make in extremely undesirable as a spell in our line up - druids are telling you that the current design is leading them to drop it from their line up. Even if the proc's per minute are fixed, the 10 counter limit is way too low.
It's actually 12 procs, and to be honest I am seeing a replay of the changes to Wizard instants. He still hasn't backed down on those after months of them complaining.

Prathun says "No" to a lot of things but, that doesn't mean we shouldn't work on him with what we druids want, which is Reptile to be better. He is using spreadsheets to tune it, we are using real game experience to show that it is losing it's place in our line up.

Don't be scared to argue constructively against his "designs" if they don't make sense for druids. It will only help our class.
I am hardly scared to fight with Prathun over things. The issue is It's easier to fight with him over things he is at least willing to consider, then something which is viewed by the entire dev team to be an problem which needs addressing. I even went so far to talk to Rashere about the changes, and I assure you they are -not- taking them out.

-Fenier

i still fail to understand the reason of the diminishing return. setting the spell to a set number of proc should have been largely enough to solve the problem ( as it seem they arent skillful enough to handle the proc rate)

and remember that 7200 heal is still under the power of a simple ch.

I think the point being missed is that most reasonable druids understand what they are trying to do with limiting the number of procs. That isn't the fight that needs to be had.

What needs to be worked on is that by addressing their need for making the spell unexploitable and infinitely scalable, they are turning into a spell that most druids will start to do away with in their line up.

As far as Languor is concerned, while we may have brought it up, we haven't got an answer. I emailed Rashere as well and he just passed it on to Prathun. Does it really make sense that we are paying 1200 mana to heal for less and have far more restrictions ?

I also really don't get the difference, so what if Languid Health is a secondary proc, it could be the 50th proc in the line up but, in the end when placed on a person taking swings from a mob, it heals the person and it can heal considerably more. Both heal period.

In my opinion we have to work on Prathun to see that it is bad for druids to have their defensive proc tuned around the Knight versions. We use it as a HoT, we use it to do our job in healing and not necessarily only knights/war but, others.

Just the fact that it can proc when a person is full health is a bad thing with the proc limiter. So if they aren't willing to take off the proc limiter, then they should at least not have procs that don't heal count.

If they have a hard limit of number of procs, then why continue with the extremely short duration of the buff. With the proc limiter it is set amount of healing, so what is the harm in increasing the base duration to 4 min 30 seconds like Languor.

Next - why is there a 30 second recast on the spell ? Why can't it be 2 second recast like Languor ? We are using it to heal our groups - it is our heal over time. So why such the big recast ? What is the balancing factor ?

In a group, a shaman can keep up Languor on 2 people for less mana than we can use Scale on 1 person. I don't agree with the argument that our is a direct heal, we've been told this is to behave like a HoT.

The deficiencies of the spell not even counting the proc limits are too numerous. Forget the fight of the number of procs per minute or the limit. Keep that as is

1) Lets get mana cost reduced
2) Lets get the base duration increased
3) Lets get a debuff proc added
4) Lets get the recast reduced.

I also really don't get the difference, so what if Languid Health is a secondary proc, it could be the 50th proc in the line up but, in the end when placed on a person taking swings from a mob, it heals the person and it can heal considerably more. Both heal period.

But the point is they both heal differently.

With a HoT, you balance around that value. If mob DPS per tick == HoT tick value +1 then the Mob can eventually kill the person. You can 'not' speed that up since it works in six second blocks.

Direct Heals on the other hand, which is exactly what reptile does, scales per swing. Against fast hitting mobs, or multiple mobs you get into the position where it's totally possible to heal several times per tick, which is what allows Reptile to exceed the shaman spell in terms of healing per second. See my example below.

In my opinion we have to work on Prathun to see that it is bad for druids to have their defensive proc tuned around the Knight versions. We use it as a HoT, we use it to do our job in healing and not necessarily only knights/war but, others.

I'm going to give you an example of how reptile could work. I could pull every spider in the front half of velks, including the Gargoyles, wedge myself into a corner and between Reptile and Fernspur kill 40 something mobs. Was it risky? Sure was, came close to dying a few times, but with a 2.3 second cast if Reptile landed at all - there was no way I would be killed as long as I had mana.

I can assure you, I would not have been able to do that blast healing. So while you may say - it's old content who cares? Does the fact I could tank 40 something mobs as a druid even if they only hit 250, seem just a tad off to you? I wouldn't have been able to do that with a HoT effect like what Lassitude has.

Just the fact that it can proc when a person is full health is a bad thing with the proc limiter. So if they aren't willing to take off the proc limiter, then they should at least not have procs that don't heal count.

HoT ticks which fire on someone at full health are wasted. It's the same concept here.

If they have a hard limit of number of procs, then why continue with the extremely short duration of the buff. With the proc limiter it is set amount of healing, so what is the harm in increasing the base duration to 4 min 30 seconds like Languor

This is a valid suggestion, I can ask about it but I think I already will know the answer I'll get.

Next - why is there a 30 second recast on the spell ? Why can't it be 2 second recast like Languor ? We are using it to heal our groups - it is our heal over time. So why such the big recast ? What is the balancing factor ?

This is how this conversation went:

Due to the 12 proc limit, can the recast on the spell be cut to match the Knight copies at 2.5?

Next Patch: Knight Copies also have 30 second recasts.


1) Lets get mana cost reduced
2) Lets get the base duration increased
3) Lets get a debuff proc added
4) Lets get the recast reduced.

I'll be honest I don't see 3 happening to the current spell(s) It's possible to see it on an upgraded spell, but what kind of values are we looking for here?

Prathun said he'd review the first point already and I'll mention the second one. As for number 4, I think based on what he did previously it's unlikely.

I want to be clear I do not want to sound off like I am against any changes, however I am being perfectly honest with you in what to expect from those requests based on what I have already gone over.

-Fenier

Again Fenier - I am not disagreeing that it was exploitable in old content to the point that it could make a person that previously couldn't take on X number of NPC with little risk.

But, that issue has been taken care of by reducing the number of procs allowed.

I am definitely disturbed that Prathun resorted to nerfing knight versions further but, we shouldn't be asking for ours to be tuned in comparison to theirs.

We are healers of others and the spell's primary purpose is to heal others, not work as a self buff while tanking.

As for the proc rate and direct heals of Reptile you mentioned

But the point is they both heal differently.

With a HoT, you balance around that value. If mob DPS per tick == HoT tick value +1 then the Mob can eventually kill the person. You can 'not' speed that up since it works in six second blocks.

Direct Heals on the other hand, which is exactly what reptile does, scales per swing. Against fast hitting mobs, or multiple mobs you get into the position where it's totally possible to heal several times per tick, which is what allows Reptile to exceed the shaman spell in terms of healing per second. See my example below.

But, the reverse also holds true, you can get unlucky and not proc for several ticks as well, where as the Languid Health will heal over several ticks guaranteed after it procs once.

In the end though - they both heal that are to behave like a HoT for us in our healing role and Languor has the potential to and will for the most part heal significantly more for a lot less mana.

I have to stress that I fully understand how Reptile was able to be used low level mobs to fight more than you ever could with a lot less risk. I used it in Dranik's Scar on my monk, pull 10 or so mobs (for factioning), lay on reptile on him, let reptile heal him like a HoT and so I don't have to use blast heals and pull agro and then just do other things like DPS.

Did the spell make it so that I was able to do something I couldn't do previously in old content ? Sure it did but, then again couldn't we all cite 100s of examples where levels/spells/AA didn't do the same thing ?

Look at Reptile in current context against a even con+ mob, you aren't going to be pulling 3-4 mobs let alone 20 on a well geared tank even. On current content, what Prathun preached to us in beta, that spells need to be tuned against the content it is intended for, it has lost a lot of it's power as a HoT for druids.

As for the debuff part, I'd say about half of Hand of Ro at least. It can be overriden by HoR just like the slow proc can be overriden. For a grouping druid, it serves the purpose of cutting down the damage on NPC while playing main healer and dont' have time to lay on proper debuffs since they never gave us a unified debuff.

I am not sure about whether or not this was suggested or if code work will even allow it but what about making Reptile and the Paly/SK counterparts so they dont work as well on older content??? The reason for changing the code on reptile from what I can understand was as u claim Fenier that the knights were over using on content such as Trakanon and more... I know that Prathun will not make Reptile the way it was but ... will he not listen to the reason of us being Priests that heal and need this tool to be up to par in some content, Would code change not allow so that it only works on Lower content for say 12 procs and like DoD and up about 30 or more procs???
Again I'm sure that your doing ur best to get Prathun to listen but maybe making so Reptile dont work on low content at all would make the dev team and them uping Reptile will make us happy, this spell was the most used in my spellbook, now it is next to Summon Fireflies

With a HoT, you balance around that value. If mob DPS per tick == HoT tick value +1 then the Mob can eventually kill the person. You can 'not' speed that up since it works in six second blocks.

Direct Heals on the other hand, which is exactly what reptile does, scales per swing. Against fast hitting mobs, or multiple mobs you get into the position where it's totally possible to heal several times per tick, which is what allows Reptile to exceed the shaman spell in terms of healing per second. See my example below.

Fine.

Why cant we get the druid version changed to a HoT then? Change it to an 18 second (3 tick) HoT in the Short Duration buff box.

Assuming a projected 12 PPM at say 600hps per proc on Skin, change it to 1400hps per tick for 3 ticks. That's a little higher than 7200hps per minute, but at the same time your target (assuming it's a Paladin or Ranger or SK) is not going to be able to proc a crit heal off of it. So I'd say that is a fair tradeoff.

That should solve most people's issues with it no?

I'll ask, but it's unlikely at best.

Moonshadow line are direct heals, because HoTs are considered out of flavor for the class.

While this spell to me does seem to be bugged, it still definitely has its uses. I have found that it does seem to be proc'ing late which makes it rather pointless when I'm soloing. But as I often group with my boyfriend who plays a warrior, I have found that it still is very useful on the higher level mobs. We have parsed it and while it does seem to be proc'ing late still, it still proc's often enough for it to be useful. Not so sure about it helping with agro so much as he doesn't have a problem with that anyway.

I'm going to give you an example of how reptile could work. I could pull every spider in the front half of velks, including the Gargoyles, wedge myself into a corner and between Reptile and Fernspur kill 40 something mobs. Was it risky? Sure was, came close to dying a few times, but with a 2.3 second cast if Reptile landed at all - there was no way I would be killed as long as I had mana.


Fenier how is this different to a cleric doing it with their spells?
Or a Zerker riposting 50 mobs to death in Dulaks Habour with his riposte disc and some uber 2hander.

And even with the 8 target limit on on the beam spells any low end zone is still beamable by a wizzie.

I'm just confused at why us being able to kill 40 mobs in velks at lvl 80 is thought to be out of line considering that normally as you lvl up you do get better at killing lower lvl mobs rather then worse. If you want to scale reptile down vs trivial mobs then logically you should scale all spells/abilities down vs trivial mobs. Reptile is now totally pointless vs a grey con mob and I really have issues with some spells just not working because you happen to lvl up. It's be like saying if a wizard wishes to ae in old seb he should be restrivcted to using lvl 50 spells because if he used new spells he would be overpowered for the content. Or that any healer should ahve their higher lvl blast heals and HoT's scale down to also not work on trivial mobs.

I guess what i'm driving at is that reptile should have a base proc rate regardless of the lvl of the mob. If you wish to make it so that you can't pull mass trains of grey cons and expect reptile to heal you then change it so that oinly the mob you have targetted can proc the defensive heal in the way shakerpaging was nerfed.

Also you might have been able to pull 40 mobs in velks and live with reptile but 99% of all druids who tried that would die because the reptile recast would have been grey out because the 125 attacks would take a grand total of say 10 seconds after which they die before they ever get a chance to cast reptile since the spell is still greyed out.

Prior to the reptile nerf, I was just saying to someone that it was nice to have a spell that your guildees found useful on raids to the point where they would ask 'can i get a reptile'.

After they nerfed our Aura and pretty much everything else (except Dire, group camo and soe which is only used to get to the raid anyhow...now irrelavant because of banner port), it was nice to feel needed in a raid environment, even if only a little. Now thanks to this, reptile is going to be a tiny reverse dent in the dps. A chance 600 heal on a 15K+ swing that drops after 12 procs doesn't sound like its going to make any tanks care if they have it or not anymore, especially with a 30 second recast.

Nothing makes me feel better than watching guildees click off my druid buffs moments after I cast it on them. Its such a good, good feeling to be so friggin worthless and unwanted. Well, not totally unwanted... there was that group of 55ish toons that couldn't find a cleric to heal them in Bastion of Thunder, so they asked if I wanted to be their 'cleric' for them. Nothing like being called a low-level cleric, either... makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Yeah, I'd love to come help heal your group in a zone where I can solo a dozen mobs on my own, a zone that was a challenge for me 20 levels and 3 years ago. Great fun. I'll bring my Lincoln Logs and Playdough too and we can have a grand ole time. Maybe in two years we can tackle Crushbone!

Thanks Sony for making druids worthless on raids again. I knew it was too good to last. Yeah we're great for soloing and powerleveling. But if you don't think the raid leaders would love to trade every druid in for a cleric or wizard during a raid, your in denial.

Why don't they just reduce/elimate the effects on lower level mobs like they did and leave the rest as is? No valid raid bothers to raid a mob lower than their raid's average level. So AoW is level 70. If a level 75 toon tries to solo, the heal procs for 1HP vs 600HP. Make it worthless to someone who is taking advantage of it, but leave the strength of it for those of us who actually use it as it was intended. Even a level 75 raid mob would earn half the 600, so it procs for 300HP. Every raid Ive been on the named is like 80+, so if a mob cons red, you get full procs. yellow 3/4. white 1/2. db 1/8. lb or less 0.

BTW: Thanks for going to bat for the druids Fenier. I don't have the time, strength or patience that you appear to have. I've got 6 years on my druid and I don't have the time, strength or patience to re-roll. However, it seems with every change they do, I find myself wishing I had kept with my first instincts and hung on to my Barbarian Shaman. I just don't feel like there is anyone at Sony that plays a druid so they know what it feels like to be a druid. Their just a bunch of coders looking at spreadsheets, and they just don't get it.

Thanks for going to bat for the druids Fenier. I don't have the time, strength or patience that you appear to have.

While normally I wouldn't agree with this statement - I do here. He is getting it from here, serverwide channel, and EQlive about the spell (non-stop). The one thing no one seems to get is Prathun is very unlikely to change it. He's already talked to Prathun (and still tries to), I've seen some of the chats. Prathun doesn't want to budge on it, it isn't all because Prathun doesn't want to either - the other Dev's agree, so you can't even try and take it over his head. (He's tried that, too...)

You may be able to have the some aspects changed - as long as it doesn't require completely reworking the spell / coding. :( I assure you, no one is thrilled with the new Reptile / Tunare / DS.

What I'd really like to see is them lower the mana cost on it & extend the duration.

What I'd really like to see is them lower the mana cost on it & extend the duration.

This I definitely agree with. If they won't change it, which it likely won't ever happen. They need to at least change the mana cost, cast time and/or extend the duration. Personally speaking, I vote for extending the duration at the very least.

Proc Rate Counter: The spell would proc a totally random amount based on the amount of swings generated. This could make the spell far more powerful as a heal then intended (is my guess based on everything I've heard) Lets say you pull a bunch of mobs which should, for all intents and purposes kill you. Their damage is higher then a HoT tick, so you would need instant cast direct heals to stay alive. If 75% of the swings triggered the proc, that's 54,000 Damage healed for 750 mana, which is a 72 to 1 Ration on HP to Mana. The proc rate limits this by giving each heal a maximum healing rate which is inflexible. Skin of the Reptile is now a max of 7,200 HP, or a 9.6 to 1 ratio.

The trick here is, before when you slowed the mob, the hit rate when down while the procs per minute stayed constant.

So before, on slowed mobs it lasted longer and generated the same healing. Now, it lasts the same duration on slowed or unslowed mobs.

And it is quite possible that the new spell was balanced assuming the duration it was likely to have on unslowed mobs.

That difference will have a large impact on game balance...

At 3 swings per cycle and a 3 second weapon delay, that's 1 swing per second. At 120 swing count, that's 2 minutes of procs from one mob.

At 10 ppm, that should be 20 procs. So this proc count looks worse than the proc count on unslowed mobs!

On a 50% slowed mob (after mitigation), that's 4 minutes of procs, or a 40 proc count.

So as far as I can tell, if the change to 12 proc count was intended to generate the same average number of procs as it did before, that number is simply wrong, especially considering that mobs are often slowed.

Fenier how is this different to a cleric doing it with their spells?Or a Zerker riposting 50 mobs to death in Dulaks Habour with his riposte disc and some uber 2hander.

And even with the 8 target limit on on the beam spells any low end zone is still beamable by a wizzie.

First, I was simply using it as an example to show that my drastically increasing the swing rate, you can basically tank anything that can't kill you before the buff drops.

However, to reply to your questions:

The Cleric still has a very real chance of death, they are banking on offsetting just enough damage to not die while hoping the their defensive proc can kill everything in time.

The Zerker can still be killed from non-frontal arc damage, and the disc has a considerably longer reuse.

-Fenier

After they nerfed our Aura

Erm, our Aura was never nerfed.

Thanks Sony for making druids worthless on raids again. I knew it was too good to last. Yeah we're great for soloing and powerleveling. But if you don't think the raid leaders would love to trade every druid in for a cleric or wizard during a raid, your in denial.

I have a problem with this statement. Our of everything we 'can' do, Reptile doesn't even enter the top 5 (imo) of things we bring to a raid.

I have to agree with Fenier.. Reptile, while is casted on raids often by me, is not one of the top things I have to offer. Not only can I keep my group up, but I assist with heals on MT, RT and whomever else gets agro. <3 assist healing.. Not to mention dps. Druids at our raids parse well and continue to do so. That's why I made a druid. Much more versatile class...I never get bored.

I would agree that at the least the duration needs to be increased. Limiting the duration of the old spell in my mind only served to limit the number of procs the spell could attain. Now that that is being hard coded, the short duration is no longer necessary.

Mana needs to be looked at to to be brought more in line with the effects the changes have had.

At the least... :whistle:

After using this spell a ton since the nerf, in solo, group and raid I've now given up on it. It's just not useful in any measurable way that humans can discern without special instruments lol. Put it next to tempest of the stormborn in the spellbook.


Gah It was funny as I said it but thinking of it it's kind of frustrating!...Our spell lists are full of crap that noone can detect whether it's even there or not! Like our AC/ATK debuffs, it's been like a freaking math convention trying to argue whether they have any impact on a fight and if so where and blah blah blah COME ON ALREADY!. Then we have our pitiful DPS and ultra inefficient heals. I mean honestly isn't the fact that druids are the last resort of every group enough evidence? Sure they'll take you if you're friends or guildies or they're desperate, or you just happen to be such an awesome player, whatever- but it's always bigoted like "he's one of the good ones".


I just want to scream at the devs:

"IS IT OK IF WE HAVE SOME ABILITIES THAT PEOPLE CAN TELL ARE BEING USED?!"

Can we have one thing that people can cite and say "It'd be nice to have a druid here for________!" In more than just the most obscure uncommon situations?

We're held back because of our versatility but WTDB are we versatile at? Healing poorly and nuking poorly and being outrun by monks and every guy with a horse and saving 171 plat on guild portal shards to a few places? We can suck at more things than any other class.

We need a a single debuff that merges all our others (or two, one fire, one cold), healing 75% of a clerics, and Nukes 75% of a wizards. Then they can feel free to fill the rest with crap like this now useless reptile and useless stuns and turning mobs into plants ?!?!?

lol now that's a useful one there:
Groupmate: "It doesn't LOOK like a plant."
Druid: "Trust me, it's a plant now."
Groupate: "So... how does that help us?"
Druid: "Well maybe there will be a cold snap or possibly a group of voracious herbivores my happen by. You never know!"

I know necros had some kind of plant nuke that was quite usefull killing shrooms and things like that in luclin. As Far as I know there were a bunch of abilities added on the flag things as animal and things like that with other spell lines, which in actuality could make for some interesting combos, like short duration charms for crowd control, Omg WTF pwned nukes, things like that.

Does this spell even work. I have chain cast on my tank and havent seen a single heal message or notice his health replenish itself. Did someone nerf the spell? Waste of a spell slot if it doesnt even work.

I use it alot in groups, and i still love it...many peeps say "why do you use that it is nerfed?"

After they group with me and get it cast on them for a few hours...they say "good god, what is everyone bitching about! it still is a very usefull spell!"

Let me start off by saying I still use it with the nerf, but not to the extent I did before. The proc rate change to the cons is the main reason that I don't use it as much (namely for Powerleveling or Farming) but hey I can't complain about the fixing of something that was overpowered. The proc rate works like this from my understanding - a level 80 who is fighting a level 75 mob would have 2.5% taken off the proc rate, leaving you with a 7.5% chance to proc per swing. If it works that way, shouldn't it also work the other way - a level 80 fighting a level 85 mob should have a 2.5% added onto their proc rate. This will balance out the detriment of fighting lower level mobs by adding the reward of fighting higher level mobs. Yes, yes I understand the higher the mob you fight the more exp, but I think there should be a bit more of a reward and not as much of a detriment for those not hunting mobs that are much higher than they are. This will also make it even more viable for use on a main tank during a raid, it helps lift a bit of the burden off the clerics if you are having a hard time keeping him up, and *if* poison/disease/curse counters were to be added it would help keep off those annoying single cast spells. For example the 'decrease aggro modifier' or 'decrease heal amount' ones.

Did some testing with the new reptile tonight.

Test location was goblin fort in Loping Plains. New content that the spells is supposed to be designed for.

SK tank was level 80. According to Alla's mobs are right around level 76. All dark blue. Certainly not trivial content.

According to the magic proc rate list:

The proc rate:

+3: 10ppm
+2: 10ppm
+1: 10ppm
Even: 10ppm
-1: 9.5ppm
-2: 9ppm
-3: 8.5ppm
-4: 8ppm
-5: 7.5ppm
-6: 7ppm
-7: 6.5ppm
-8: 6ppm
-9: 5.5ppm
-10: 5ppm
-11: 4.5ppm
-12: 4ppm
-13: 3.5ppm
-14: 3ppm
-15: 2.5ppm
-16: 2ppm
-17: 1.5ppm
-18: 1ppm
-19: 0.5ppm
-20: 0ppm

These mobs should be proccing at 8 procs per minute. I have no less than 7 parses saying that this is not the case. Here's an example:

[Tue Dec 25 20:37:58 2007] You begin casting Scales of the Reptile Rk. II.
[Tue Dec 25 20:38:01 2007] SK_001's skin takes on a scaly, green appearance.
[Tue Dec 25 20:38:33 2007] a Drangol sifter has been slain by SK_001!
[Tue Dec 25 20:38:39 2007] a Drangol sifter has been awakened by SK_001.
[Tue Dec 25 20:38:53 2007] SK_001 performs an exceptional heal! (1588)
[Tue Dec 25 20:38:59 2007] SK_001 performs an exceptional heal! (1588)
[Tue Dec 25 20:39:41 2007] Your Scales of the Reptile Rk. II spell has worn off of SK_001.

Now this is over the course the course of three mobs actually, I included the death message and awakening message from the transition from the first to the second. That small interval was the ONLY time during the duration of the spell that he was not being swung at. Mez wore off on the third mob before the second died so he actually had two mobs swinging at him for a brief time.

Despite that, the buff runs its full ~1:40 (+/- a tick) and then wears off. This means that it is NOT procing 12 times in that ~1:40. The only procs I can confirm are the crit ones, I can only see two as seen above.

Using the magical 8ppm from above on this level of mob, the spell should have worn off after 1:30 at the most.

Some of my other parses include over 45 seconds of fighting the Creepfeet Supplier which is yellow to 80. We then immediately turn to dark blue mobs again, and the buff still goes its entire duration without procing 12 times.

As a matter of fact I cannot definitively state that I ever saw it wear off (proc 12 times) before its duration ran out the entire night of exping.

These mobs should be proccing at 8 procs per minute.

Only one defenisve proc can fire per round. If the SK self buff fired, the reptile proc won't. At least, that's my understanding and what I've observed.

So, from your logs - Did you hit 8 PPM when you add the SK Buff and Reptile togther?

-Fenier

Not to be too choosy but, your log filter only show the crit procs, not all procs, and if the tank was full health for any of those non-crit procs you wouldn't even see (on either character) a "you were healed by xyz for nnn.." either.

Did you take those into account, and just how many times did you parse? Like all procs it is subject to the random number generator and is not a fixed rate (like ticks from a HoT) and in a small(ish) sample set you could see rather significant biases in either direction.

It's just like the person who plays the Casino 10x and gets 2 gold tickets, vs. the person who plays 100x and gets none.

What's the gold ticket rate? You can't tell from either of these, because the sample rate is far too low.

So I don't mean to discredit your work, but I do suggest you keep a closer eye on it for thousands of procs before drawing a conclusion; you may just be unlucky whilst some other druid is the proverbial Charlie holding the Willy Wonka gold ticket and getting a favourable proc rate. Or it could be bugged (I wouldn't dismiss that either!), but not enough info (not here anyway) to draw that conclusion with.

Fernier - I'll have to ask the SK about his self buff. My logs don't show his proccing due to my filter settings.

Does this mean a knight with their self only buff on will take up to half of the procs of Reptile, since only one or the other can fire? :(

And I do agree this is a very small sample size and definitely not scientific. Perhaps I was getting unlucky but having the buff last the entire duration without wearing off over the course of 20+ castings at least shows a trend I would think. Just some more info to ponder.

Fernier - I'll have to ask the SK about his self buff. My logs don't show his proccing due to my filter settings.

Does this mean a knight with their self only buff on will take up to half of the procs of Reptile, since only one or the other can fire? :(

And I do agree this is a very small sample size and definitely not scientific. Perhaps I was getting unlucky but having the buff last the entire duration without wearing off over the course of 20+ castings at least shows a trend I would think. Just some more info to ponder.

Well, for offensive procs Song of the Storm and Panther have some conflict, which causes one to proc less than the other, but not to the degree that you seem to have saw. Judging by how terrible Reptile is, I would say the issue is with it being a piece of junk in it's current form and not just due to the SK's defensive proc. As for "knights" defensive procs, Reptile doesn't even stack with the paladin one at all.

After a bit more use I have a couple more observations. In tougher content, ie Beza and Mechamatic Guardian, the spell seems to consistently get in all 12 procs, even on an SK with his own defensive proc buff up. In these situations the spell can be considered useful.

In light of that, I would recommend at least two changes.

One, that was already mentioned, don't have the proc start scaling down until the light blue range begins. This will keep the spell proccing at a decent rate for normal exp content.

Two, extend the duration of the spell. Since the maximum number of procs is hard coded at 12, there is no real reason to have the spell wear off so quickly, it only helps to lower the efficiency of the spell. Lengthening the duration would not make the spell any more powerful at all.

Couple of other things that might be considered:

Make sure the mana cost is in line with similar abilities of other classes.
Add a check to prevent triggering if the user is at full health. Would be even nicer to prevent a proc if the spell won't land for full, even.

Add a check to prevent triggering if the user is at full health. Would be even nicer to prevent a proc if the spell won't land for full, even.


This is not possible to do. You can stand in PoK with 100% health and chain cast heal spells on yourself. You will not heal any hit points, but you have a valid target and you cast successfully. The proc is simply an instant cast heal spell by the person on the person who has the buff. The trigger for the proc is the person being swung at (as far as I understand) with a limitation on the number of procs per minute for the spell.

The degradation of this spell makes as much sense as if nukes and melee would do less damage against lower level mobs, or AC having reduced effect against lower level mobs. This crap needs to go away, or at the very least, they should offset the start of the degradation by 10 levels or so.