This is from the latest spell changes on test according to <a href=http://lucy.fnord.net/>lucy</a>.

Wrath of Nature

Date Change
08-20 00:55 Removed Slot 2: Decrease Movement by 11% (L1) to 62% (L52)

If this is true it would be HUGE!

Wow that would just be incredible :) I do wish they'd do it for the quack staff too. They had the same gripes we did.

This could be good news, but of course, it could be changed back on Test.

If this goes live, it would make me so happy that I would get drunk off of elven wine and do a striptease on the newbie lift in Kelethin.

Here's hoping this is legit!

You guys sure seem excited. Explain to me again why I want snare off my epic. I was throwing spit balls at Clerics when this part of the petition was being debated.

Yeah, was messing around with this tonight, cast epic on myself 10 times, zero resists with 130 mr. 10 more casts, 181 mr, zero resists. Seems to be pretty cool, I hardly ever used it to snare anyway.

Hopefully this change sticks around. :)

That would suck greatly if they don't at least change the dot to something more usefull then Dirfting Death :(

I don't have Serrina her leafblower, but if this change goes live I may actually take the time to get for her (as she is a secondary, she wouldn't get guild support, would need to get friends to help on a person to person basis).

The reason it's wanted off, as I understand, the snare makes it easier to resist a lot of time. On top of that, Luclin introduced lots of mobs that are immune to snare, making epic useless on that many more mobs. I think most people would rather rely on Ensnare's quick cast time, tiny mana usage, and long length over a 3 minute, highly resisted, long casting time spell.

With this change, more druids would probably use the effect cause it won't just bounce off or be so heavily resisted, as Yrys pointed out. Also wouldn't be surprised if this was altered for the Duck staff as another mentioned.

To ccLothar:
The snare effect stopped the epic from being used on alot of mobs that were immue to speed changes, making it useless.

I also agree with the comment that the dot should be more like a weaker version of Winged Death. Shorten the current duration like.. alot but keep the overall damage the same. The duration would be longer then Winged Death, but still pack the same damage, making it slightly weaker.

"why would you want snare removed on epic??"

1. the dot could then be used on unsnarable mobs
2. the level 29 ensnare lasts longer anyway
3. the epic would be resisted less often
4. you could root-dot without fear of snare wearing off

I'm sure there are other reasons as well.. I almost never use my epic dot other than to finish off mobs that are almost dead.. trying to use the epic in the middle of quadding is an exercise in futility.. this change would be wonderful..
in addition, I'd like to see a 50+ version of the ensnare spell.. maybe make it harder to resist and make it slow the mobs down even more..


[signature size out of control]

And they will stack now...

well, perhaps..

Um it will stack if the Dot changes go live that allow any Dot to stack. But now we have the question - how many debuff slots will we get?? They said "more than 15" which can be anything from 16 to 50+. Wouldnt want to fill up slots with such a weak dot if the number of slots hasnt been raised that far above 15. I'd be MUCH more excited about this if they just changed the epic around now to be a decent dot instead of nothing more than drones of doom that lasts 3 minutes. They could leave the current damage and reduce the acting time to 90 seconds for a nice dot (60 seconds would be too much for the damage).

I just wanted to add I never did really understand why this even made the druid petition as an issue. Lets say this goes live and Verant leaves the current damage/acting time and the cast time alone. Not a very effective dot and those 10 seconds are better off medding (ok lets not get into a horse discussion).

Aye,,,it is one of our worst dots.

But no one mentioned it. So I did.

Without the snare component. And if the Dot stack junk goes through. It should stack,,,right?

Snare is what bounces it.

Still nice for mana free dot, and without the snare,,,the agro is reduced and so are resists.

In theory, is all.

We could look at this two ways:

1. The Snare was added as a way to "restrict" our epic.

or

2. The Snare was addes as a "bonus" to our epic.

Since the addition of snare proof mobs came "after" our epic was introduced I think #2 was more likely and as such I would hope that they lower the DOT time from 30 ticks to at least 15 and keep the damage the same.

It was always thought that the snare and DOT time (30 ticks) was tied together so this was the reason our Epic had such a long DOT. The only way to have a 1 minue DOT (for example) would be to have a 1 minute snare.

Now if Verant is reading this....

I am just VERY happy to have the snare effect removed even if you leave the DOT the same but if you do not want to change the DOT to make it a bit quicker can you at least make the DOT a bit faster than a 10 second cast time.

The last thing we want to seem is ungratefull to a change that somany have been asking for for so long. While a shorter DOT duration seems logical now that snare is removed on test I do not want us to be perceived as asking for

MORE MORE MORE MORE

If these changed go into effect...

DOT stacking
15 effect limit bumped up some
Snare removed from epic

and healing (all of this is eye candy if Healing is not addressed)

Then I might be inclined to pronounce Druids "balanced"

*smiles*

Keep up the good work Verant!

I think the snare was supposed to be a bonus.

But who uses it that way,,,with 10 sec cast? How can you?

You can't.

They put in snare resist mobs, to combat soloing druids and wizards,,,,pure and simple. AFTER the epics were developed.

Same as the nerfed Grey,,,and same as they nerfed the then nerfed Grey.

Saying "We dont modify epics" was allways a cop-out. Modify the game to not take epic effects,,,,tis ok. But not the other way around,,,suck my eggs.

If snare is removed from epic,,,what more on the petition is left though?

Remind me.

/cheer VI for at least trying this out on test.

I would love this to go live, reducing the duration would be the next logical step (fingers crossed). This along with dot stacking changes might make me re-subscribe, keep up the good work VI.

Firren

You can see where this is going though.

1) Remove snare part from Epic
2) Add DOT Stacking to Mobs
3) Druids now can stack their epics so we are "more powerfull".

I hope its not true but I can see this happening. Reason I say this is because they will count this as a new DOT but with a 10 sec cast time on it ...its not going to be viable in raid situations. Infact the only place I can see it viable these days is to solo and maybe a group if you dont have c2/c3.

Ok so maybe Im negative. I dont mind the snare part going off the epic I just feel they may think this is a big upgrade for a druid....if they dont then thanks VI we'll take the nice jesture :)

btw has Rowyl been promoted or something? Seems their actually doing some druid changes recently :D

Tils

From State of the Druid:

1) First, we would ask Verant to remove the 10% serverside healing penalty for all non-cleric healers. We wholeheartedly agree with the 5% bonus that clerics receive, but the penalty has outlived its usefulness. There is no question that clerics are the most efficient healers in the game, as they should be.
CHECK

Second, we suggest three ideas for bringing our healing up to a point where we are viable in our normal raid position as secondary healers.

2) Change the duration on Nature's Recovery from three minutes to 24 seconds and remove the recast time.
NOT

3) Give Druids a group heal—something along the lines of 880 hitpoints healed per member for 900 mana. This in particular was well thought of by the Druid community as it highly compliments our role of secondary healer on a raid or of primary healer of a caster/non-main tank melee group.
NOT

4) Give Druids a larger direct heal. Nature's Touch is insufficient for our current needs; the damage-per-second output of mobs has far surpassed the ability of Nature's Touch to keep even ourselves healthy, much less an entire group.
NOT

5) Give Druids a single-target version of PotG. For most 60 Druids PotG has become a 1200 mana single-target self-buff. Compare with the Cleric's self-only buff Blessed Armor of the Risen, which costs 275 mana. It has recently come to the community's attention that a single-target version of PotG is currently being developed on Test. If so, we anxiously await its arrival.
CHECK

6) Change the stacking properties of PotG and Aegolism so that Aegolism and Blessing of Aegolism will not overwrite PotG. We do not necessarily believe the two spells should stack, but the aggravation of having to recast PotG five times in 15 minutes because various clerics refreshed their group's Blessing of Aegolism is enough to drive a poor Druid to drink. Simply make it so that neither spell overwrites the other.
NOT

7) 8) 9) Second, the Druid community has resoundingly spoken out against the effect on the Nature Walker's Scimitar. The dual-nature component of its effect means that it has a very high resist rate. The duration of the effect renders the DoT component useless and worse than the level 44 DoT's damage per tick. The cast time and duration also make the snare itself of lesser value. This is further aggravated by the proliferation of mobs immune to changes in movement speed. When a mob is immune to snare, it ends up being immune to the damage portion of our epic effect as well. Last but not least, not only does the Necromancer epic not stack with our epic effect but also overwrites it. The Druid community would ask Verant to change our epic effect to a straight DoT with the same resistance as our other DoTs and a duration of one minute.
CHECK on snare
NOT on duration
NOT on necro stacking?

10) This brings us nicely to our third concern: DoTs. Druids don't receive an upgrade to damage-over-time spells after level 53. We would ask for an upgrade to Winged Death—something along the lines of 1950 damage over 50 seconds at level 58 or 59.
NOT, but there is the DoT stacking change

11) The Druid class needs the ability to teleport on Luclin. Our inability to transport our groups and guildmates around Luclin has eliminated one of our primary services to a guild engaging Luclin targets. Any Druid below level 57 finds himself unable to offer this service to a group (the ability to evacuate it from danger) since using an evac that takes the group off Luclin is a certain way to end it. Rarely will a group continue if it must spend 20 minutes returning to the hunt location.
CHECK

12) 13) The final request is a two-part request. Look at our cold-based spells, specifically Moonfire. Consider giving us a cold debuff line similar to the Ro's fire/ac/atk debuff line.
CHECK on Moonfire
NOT on debuff

5 CHECK
8 NOT

BTW, Zephyr of Brell (Shawl :cool: has been changed. It no longer has flowing thought, but the buff duration has been increased from 15% to 20%. :/

That change on the Shawl sucks. Unless they are planning to do a 9th and 10th Shawl with better mana regen.

Where'd you hear about the shawl change. That doesn't show up on Lucy.

Here are the changes:

Zephyr of Brell - Removed mana regen component, increased spell duration from 15% r0 20%
lucy.fnord.net/spellhisto...ource=Test (http://lucy.fnord.net/spellhistory.html?id=2305&source=Test)


Ancient Starfire of Ro - Changed casting time from 6.2 to 5.8
lucy.fnord.net/spellhisto...ource=Test (http://lucy.fnord.net/spellhistory.html?id=2126&source=Test)


Ancient Lifebane (NEC) - Now decreases hp by 1,050 (instead of 550), changed from lifetap to DD, changed resistance check to unresistable, changed recast time from 0 to 3, changed manacost from 405 to 340 This is now a 1,050 DD unresistable nuke for 340 mana
lucy.fnord.net/spellhisto...ource=Test (http://lucy.fnord.net/spellhistory.html?id=2115&source=Test)


Ancient Shock of Sun (MAG) - Reduced mana from 334 to 285, increase DD from 1125 to 1150 (err, this is now better than ancient starfire?)


Nothing else really.

I use the snare effect of my epic all the time. I would be sorry to see it go.

Then again I dont quad and rarely solo.

Just to clarify, Ancient Starfire has a 5.8 second casting time now, with a 3 second recast time, uses 285 mana, for 1,150 damage. This skill is evocation.

Ancient Shock of Sun has a 6 second cating time, 0 second recast time, uses 285 mana for 1,150 damage. This skill is conjuration.

OMG, it does say the mana regen was removed from the shawl on Lucy. I"m going to freak out beyond belief if they nerf the 8th shawl like that!

I see, thanks. Grrrrr, why would they nerf it like that. I could care less about the spell duration effect..just want the mana regen. /sigh

I use the snare effect of my epic all the timeWith 3 other items that are fairly easily obtainable, and much faster casting (ES gaunts, earring of woven bark, tanglewood shield), I try and land those snares and then use the epic afterwards if I need a DoT. It always seems that 1/2 of the epic or the other caused WoN to be constantly resisted.

It makes me sad. Was so excited over getting the epic, then realized less than 15 mins later that it was crap for anything other than lookin pretty and providing some ok stats.

some good.... can't wait. =)

Smartypus, Ancient Starfire and Ancient Shock are now identical except Starfire has a lower casting time. Damage wise and Manacost-wise they are now identical. I cant really say how many mages asked for that change, but it doesnt mean druids are falling on the nuking chain. Given that we mages have pets to account for our damage output, I wouldnt be too worried about mages outnuking druids in the future.

About the 8th shawl, if it goes live, its gonna save me about 10k i would have spent raising my smithing skill.

"I wouldnt be too worried about mages outnuking druids in the future"

Yea they will be using Ancient: Mod Rod .....so oom most of the all day :P

I dunno why people are concerned about other people out damaging them....at that level of game you all work as a team anyway so if 1 class gets more powerfull you ALL benefit.

Tils

If snare is removed from epic,,,what more on the petition is left though?

Healing.
Cold version of Ro's line.
A level 58+ upgrade to Winged Death.

That is if Verant decided they wanted to give us everything we asked for, which would be above and beyond our wildest hopes.

The major portion of the Petition was healing. Verant is doing well though.

I'm all for other classes getting bigger DDs. Because that is a good reason for druids to get bigger DDs as well.....:)

There is nothing that WoN with the snare effect can do that Ensnare + WoN w/o snare effect can't do better. Much better.

Something you may or may not be missing;

They are working on DoT stacking.

This is a Plus.

Sure I would of loved it to be like the Cleric Stun - if the Snare Resisted, The DoT would of still had a Chance to Land. But any change on the Epic that now sits in my bag rotting away.. well I say thats a positive.

You guys sure seem excited. Explain to me again why I want snare off my epic. I was throwing spit balls at Clerics when this part of the petition was being debated.


Reasons:
1. More and more mobs are totally immune to snare effects, thus, rendering our epic weapon's effect useless on them.

2. The Necro Epic overwrites our epic effect.

3. Bonds of Tunare overwrites our epic effect.

I'm supposed to be happy about having to mem snare again? In my opinion, unless they also enhance the effect on the epic, it's not worth the spell slot to me.

"Cold version of Ro's line.
A level 58+ upgrade to Winged Death."

I can see these appearing in PoP Personally

Tils

I have completely neglected my leafblower for the sole reason that the snare component made it useless in so many situations. If this change goes live, I definitely plan to pursue it immediately. Especially for root/dotting, 900 mana-free dmg per minute is not gimp. In addition, it will allow much more margin for error when mobs stay snared for the full Ensnare duration.

I'm very happy about the change and continue to be amazed at Verant's responsiveness. If indeed DoT stacking, WoN and debuff limits are all modified next patch, I would also be tempted to do some silly celebrating.

http://sun.he.net/~justin1/eq/sig1.jpg
Magelo Profile (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=202599)

I'm supposed to be happy about having to mem snare again? In my opinion, unless they also enhance the effect on the epic, it's not worth the spell slot to me.

Well there is several items out there that can snare: Gloves from Kunark (Elder S. Gloves, snare and tradable), Tanglewood Shield from Woushi (ensnare, tradable, and awesome item, w/o a recast this item is great) to name two.

Personaly i like the change.

The epic will again become a litle usefull.

Although i really think the should make it eather cast faster or make the dot a 1 minute duration.

If we end up having a epic with and effect, that is comparable to our lvl 44 dot drifting death, with a 10 secs casting time.... well then id say something is still wrong.

just my 2 cp.

NM, I got things reveresed.

I'm supposed to be happy about having to mem snare again? In my opinion, unless they also enhance the effect on the epic, it's not worth the spell slot to me.


How do you get away with not memming ensnare now? If something jumps you from behind, do you think you can get your epic effect off to snare it in time? Especially given the higher resist rate, assuming you aren't interrupted?

Ensnare casts faster.

Ensnare lasts almost 5X longer (ensnare's duration is lengthened by the extend affliction focus items).

The resist rate for WoN should drop from about 20-33% to under 5%.

WoN should also be immune to overwriting by Bonds or the Necro epic.

WoN will also land on increasingly common run-speed immune mobs.

All at the cost of having to mem ensnare (which can be avoided if you really want to). The tradeoff is substantially favorable for 99.9% of all druids.

Our epic does not do 900 damage per minure :)

Oh how I wish it did LOL

I'm sure they will bump the DOT time down to a more reasonable 1-2 minutes from the current 3 minutes but even if they do not it will be a BIG boost just to be able to use the epic on snare proof mobs.

*runs to bank to get epic out again*

Hope this change goes live. I'm going to feel silly with the leaf blower again tho. It's been a very long time.

I'm very hopefully to dot stacking. Main thing to be careful of is the 15 buff slot limit. It'll suck huge if there are so many dots on a mob that the shaman is unable to land slow because of it. So dot stacking only scales to a limited point.

Careful tactics time =D.


[signature file size out of control, thus removed]

And there's the message that Absor or whoever posted in regards to Zephyr of Brell, saying to check with Test druids before jumping to conclusions. From the discussions I've read, it appears they may be reworking it so that spell effects that have multiple components are broken up into separate effects. This could be what is happening with our epic as well, so that an immunity/resist to the snare part wouldn't effect the DoT part. Or so multiple druids with epics could stack the DoT part and the snare part would just overwrite every time. We'll have to wait and see exactly what they end up doing.

Argh argh argh argh! The suspense is killing me! :evil:

Verant is just splitting up effects now so snare probably wasnt removed. Unless Verant had changed the dot effect on it (unlikely), it wasnt anything to be very excited about as its only like 500ish damage per minute. Maybe if they split up effects, it will go back to the days to still working on snare immune mobs (I know it used to work back when Velious first opened).

from Graffe's

Time to dispel some misconceptions... This is straight off Test. Normally don't do this, but don't want to see a lot of unnecessary fretting:

"look at my 8th shawl and I found that it now reads:

Effect: Flowing Thought III
Focus Effect: Zephyr of Brell "

Yes. BOTH Flowing Thought 3 AND Zephyr of Brell. The revised Zephyr appears to be 20% increase to duration, no FT effect (which makes perfect sense when there is already a separate FT effect on the shawl).

Relax, folks. 8th Shawl is better, not worse. And give us a chance to figure out what the spell changes do to raids and give some feedback to the developers, ok?
Handor, 60 wiz, 210 tinkerer, 210 brewer
Lottsa, 60 war
Darwine, 52 drd and 197 tailor
Primal Brood

I'm guessing that they will also reduce the duration of the epic DoT to something in line with our other DoTs. The only reason they made it 3 minutes was because of the snare effect. Having an epic give 1650 per minute for 3 minutes was too much and having a snare lasting only a minute was too little. And Verant loves giving druids spells that are multi-purpose, which many of our spells are, such as root and damage, debuff and DoT, etc.

Well there is several items out there that can snare: Gloves from Kunark (Elder S. Gloves, snare and tradable), Tanglewood Shield from Woushi (ensnare, tradable, and awesome item, w/o a recast this item is great) to name two.

sobe, you should be ashamed for suggesting such icky items =) high level druids should not be using these items, especially the gloves. i certainly dont find it feasible to downgrade to what are essentially crap items in comparison to what i currently wear, just to retain the snare ability i had before it was taken off the epic.

batou is in the exact same situation i am. i dont mem snare either unless im quadding, which is very rare. the removal of the snare component, if the dot effect is left as is, is a complete nerf for my play style. losing the snare component is only an acceptable loss if the dot is bumped up in damage or down in duration.

if the dot stacking wasnt going in, this may be a good change, however its not in the current situation. the argument about non-snarables is moot, you wouldnt be using a 550 hp/min dot in one of the precious debuff slots.

and there shouldnt be any situations that a druid cant handle without ensnare if they get "jumped" by mobs.

"Our epic does not do 900 damage per minure :) "

He meant WoN plus DoD, 560 + 340 = 900 mana-free damage per minute.

Tat

Fayne Dethe said:

"I just wanted to add I never did really understand why this even made the druid petition as an issue. Lets say this goes live and Verant leaves the current damage/acting time and the cast time alone. Not a very effective dot and those 10 seconds are better off medding (ok lets not get into a horse discussion)."

OK, let's actually look at the numbers, and see if this is true:

(and, no, I'm not going to consider horses =)

The epic effect takes, I believe, 9 seconds to cast. That is exactly 1 and 1/2 ticks. Now we can ignore all mana regen buffs/songs/AAs/FT, etc, since they add to our mana regen whether we sit or stand. The >ONLY< difference in mana regen is the difference in med rate. A toon regens 1 mana/tick standing, and 21 mana/tick sitting, with maxed Meditate skill. That's a difference of 20 mana/tick.

Since the epic cast is 1.5 ticks, that's 30 mana you lose casting epic vs. sitting down to med.

If you're fighting single mobs (or even multiples, but not quadding), the best mana efficiency you could possibly hope for is about 6.0 (achievable for Winged Death or Moonfire, with appropriate focus items and AA, etc). For our 30 mana we gave up by casting epic, we need to do about 180 damage to keep pace with our best single target spells. At 56 damage per tick, the epic only need to be in effect 3 or 4 ticks to gain this eficiency.

For quadding, efficiencies of about 12 are achievable. That equates to about 360 damage, or about 6-7 ticks.

The bottom line is, free damage is FREE, and unless there are unusual circumstances, it's usually worth taking advantage of.

Tat

Seperating the snare effect >>>>>> removing the snare effect

Seperating the snare effect >>>>>> removing the snare effect

I wouldn't put it that much greater. What would be the best would be to seperate the effects and then make the snare slightly worse than ensnare. Then you could ensnare a mob then hit it with your epic and the mob would be dotted but stay ensnared. I guess that would be a bit much to hope for though. If they aren't going to seperate the effects, they need to up the dps of the dot. The necro epic dot is about 75 per tick while ours is only 55 per tick. If they totally remove the snare effect, they need to either shorten the effect to 1.5-2 minutes, or just raise the damage per tick.

Either way, I think removing the snare is an overall gain. I usually keep ensnare memmed even when I am snaring with the epic, and it wouldn't be that hard to work it in for those times I don't have it up (although those times are usually only on raids when others are snaring). Like the other changes they have made lately, this is only a small change, but it is at least a positive change.

Some of you guys make it sound like casting a real snare is really hard to do or something.

And some of you make it sound like you are a loser druid if you solo or your mob takes longer than 3 mins to drop.

Charmed VRs would consistantely last longer than WoN.

Go play with Elysians.

Is casting Ensnare in a second and a half, and lasting 10 minutes really that hard to do?

No snare is better than separate snare. Even before dot stacking. If both go in of course.

"Since the epic cast is 1.5 ticks, that's 30 mana you lose casting epic vs. sitting down to med."

Recall Med-Kiting. You lose 20 mana in 1.5 ticks. All you need be doing is sitting the instant the 2 tick marker passes and you get your 21 mana.

Ok I just patched the TEST SERVER patcher and saw this

-NPCs can now hold a total of 30 effects (buffs and Debuffs) before things stop taking hold

This is on TEST

About the only time I ever use my epic is if I am teamed up with another person. Or if I am quading and I have killed all 3 mobs, but there is that 1 mob left that might have resisted and has like 6% health left, so I just slap WoN on him. I never use it on raids due to the snare making it highly resisted, in fact I don't think we have ever fought any mob in the game that I could land WoN on. Would be very nice to get some use out of the epic on raids, especially if they lower the DoT duration as well. I like this change and usually always have snare loaded anyways. I mean seriously, who can depend on a snare that takes so long to cast? I like the very fast casting Ensare much more than the epic snare ;)

I am very pleased to say the least about these changes: dot stacking, 15 effect limit on mobs changed, and our epic snare...if these all hold to be true on live servers.

One reason to remove the snare from WON is to allow multiple WONs to stack on a mob, right? How is this a bad thing? With dot stackability, druids can do more damage together and individually, which is a GREAT thing and thus, I believe, it's worth living without our WON snare component.

Personally, I like the idea of removing snare.

However, now that Rebecca Cabbageleaf is in the game, I find myself less willing to accept certain all of nothing changes.

Why not just throw in a mob, that could let you trade your epic back and forth for a snare and no-snare version

Exact same stats, etc.

Do same for Necros. Its not like Warriors dont have the ability to morph thier epic already based on need. Give Druids same ability with thier epic. Simple Snare or no snare version.

None of those funky French cigarettes please.

Now, a nice Djarum Special,,,that would be nice.

corlathist has an interesting idea there.

Gah, Fyyr, not French cigarettes. DRUM. Gotta roll your own.

Random necro here to comment on the Lucy changes. :)

First off, congratulations at finally getting VI to listen to you and take off the snare effect. I for one never really understood why it was there (ensnare is so much better), and this should mean that it'll stack with my epic now. Not having a snare component should assure this.

I do hope they don't turn around and do the same thing to my staff. I rely pretty heavily on the snare effect on, as many other seasoned necromancers. The only necros I know of that want it removed, don't actually have the epic. :)

Again, congratulations. Looks like Rowyl and Scott can get things done. ;)

Jered Caladine
Warlock of Forlorn, E'ci

What a nice change. It's good to see some things move to the way they should be. I think the snare must have originally been put in there to be useful, but it just didn't work out that way in the game.

Another 118 changes (http://lucy.fnord.net/newspells.html?source=Test&date=2002-08-2105:05:17) have been made on Test... and Wrath of Nature continues without snare. Let's see how long this lasts.

From the sleep impaired mind of a Test Server Druid

No snare and I'm loving it...
Here's why...
Run Speed Immunes - Epic'd
Out-taunting when leading with Epic - Gone
Not having to worry about re-epicing to keep those 3 Elysian remains, that all broke root, snared - Gone

The biggest one I like the incredibly reduced taunt on the epic now. Can finally lead with an epic click and not have the mob ignore the rogue who just Double BS'd it, the Ranger who's smacking away and the Pali who just proc'd a slay undead crit on it for 2k...

Yes I know I don't have to lead with epic, or use it at all, but dang it I like my mana-less damage sources (Fluffy the Frequently Dead Bear doesn't count).

Changes in Damage or Time, un-noticed but with the dot stacking code implace there are still bugs to be worked out.

-Luv Stav-
ps. Blah blah, Changes on Test don't always go live, and they most certainly can change several times before then, blah blah.

Now this is a change that I have wanted to see for a looooooooong time.

Mixed feelings but 99% positive.

Dot stacking is great.. no two ways about that.

Taking off Snare.. Mixed,
now have to cast two spells. but if they shorthen the cast time on the epic to compensate it is better.
No more immune to snare mob resists.
Now they can shorten the DoT to one minute and keep the same damage and it will be much better.
Reduced agro? I never noticed as much agro on the epic as compared to ensnare. Snare used to get me summoned faster than epic.
If they dont shorthen the DoT duration then I would be upset if they didn't replace Snare with a lure based debuff like RFS.

The main problem is by the time you click and wait 10 seconds to cast (after you have cast ensnare of course) it is such a slow DoT that the mob is dead from tank damage before you do any real damage. 2.5 sec ensnare, 10 sec dot is 12.5 seconds casting if Perfectly timed. But then if you make the rangers snare you save time. The DoT is a dozen or so points of damage per second for 3 mins. Average life of a giant on an arena raid is about 20 to 30 seconds, A dragon in ToV may take 2 mins to 3.. Our DoT will be used if stacks but not very damaging unless you are sitting there root/doting mobs.

So yes removing snare is positive but the DoT needs some work.

I have mixed feelings about this ..


On one hand nice, I can use my epic on mobs flagged immune to changes in running speed ..

On the other hand .. I'm used to pulling with my epic coz of the long cast time ...


snaring then having to epic it .. just seems ... inefficient ..

always wonder why can't the two be independent of each other ...

much like stuns with DD component ...
I mean hey .. you can throw a stun spell at a giant .. it says immune to stun component but still takes DD dmg ...

so why can't I have an epic that says .. immune to snare component but yet the dot holds .. :P

Or you can still pull with epic and immediately cast ensnare, as there is no recast delay when using an item to cast spell. So you add a step, but get the benefit of being able to actually use the DoT on just about any mob and even stack with another druid for more free damage. Besides, unless you are fighting some really slow mobs, a 12 sec cast after snaring it will be too long. They could reduce casting time on epic, but probably won't.

leave the duck alone ... *shoo shoo*

comparte to your snare...

Name: Ensnare
Mana: 35
Max Duration: 10 minutes
Casting Time: 1.75 seconds


our snare sucks...

Name: Devouring Darkness
Mana: 400
Max Duration: 1 minute 18 seconds
Casting Time: 6 seconds

(i toke lvl 29 snare and lvl 59 darkness ... figured its all the same at lvl 60. Or am i wrong and druids get different snare later in levels? Not AoE snare.)

DoT stacking is great, but scares me a lot.

We have about 4 necros that raid with us a lot. We will now kill our mobs faster and with less deaths. I like it but for one thing.

What will VI do to the mobs to make them more powerful now. If you don't believe they will, you're sadly mistaken.

Racmoor

I spos necros get more use out of the snare component on their epic than we do. I know I dont use the epic for snaring. It's too slow to cast. I like it as a free dot, on mobs that arent totally immune to runspeed changes like so so many lately... hopefully they'll just do seperate resistance checks which would likely please everyone. But in the mean time I'll be glad to see snare go from the epic effect.

Rac has a point. Tuda mentioned it in that crazy long thread too, and he's right. VI's never given the players such crazy improvements, even tho it's in the name of balancing, without improving the npc's similarly.

Tia

Guess I'm one of the only Druids that actually use the Epic for snare. =P

When something jumps me, generally I root it then step back and epic it.

Going to have to actually use my Earring of Woven Bark now. =P

This is a damn nice change if the DoT stacking thing goes live though.

edit: i r speel sum gud

"hopefully they'll just do seperate resistance checks which would likely please everyone"

No, it wouldn't. If they keep snare on the epic, even if it's a separate check, don't let the epic snare overwrite ensnare. I LIKE knowing a mob is snared for 10 minutes.

"Going to have to actually use my Earring of Woven Bark now"

LOL, ensnare is all of, what, 35 mana? Standing, you regen that in two or three ticks, and it casts faster.

Tat

Straight dot on our epic would suit me just fine. Nothing more annoying then to have a mob break root the same time epic effect wears off.

*edit sig nerfed - 10k too big*

Well when comparing druid dot damage on epic to shaman/necros ours comes WAY behind. The duration needs to be shortened to 1.5-2 minutes to make it more in-line with those 2 epics. With such a pitiful DPS do you really want 5 druids all epicing a boss mob and taking up spell slots that others could use to much greater effect?

I would love to see this change take effect. To this day, I still have Ensnare memmed, and probably will always. The last thing you need is to have your epic effect be resisted a couple times (which is pretty easy for some mobs) and not be able to snare it again, especially when you are soloing.


Metethran Tiderion
60 Hierophant
Grey Silence

Brell Serilis Server

Dear lord. My epic might just be able to land on something other than an orc pawn now. I'd be very happy if this went live. We might have to send Rich flowers or a stripper or something if they keep up the nice work.


<font size=2>Jaryn (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=57050) Lightwolf - HierophantDefiant of Vallon Zek</font>

These are exciting days for the druid indeed =)

This is SUCH good news.

This pisses me off. I think they should give us a

CHOICE

Like let you turn in your current epic for one without the snare part so it stacks. Personally I LOVE the snare part. It lasts as long as the dot does and find it easier than having to bother to Ensnare everything.

The mobs that movement speed changes don't work on, I'd not be soloing ANYWAY. They can't be rooted or slowed so its too hard. The only time I'd be doing them would be in a group when the usefulness of the epic is kind of dubious, the mob won't usually last long enough unless it is some raid encounter.

More than an orc pawn? What BS. It lands on everything I do for Xp. Everyone is simply not concerned about what they can do to an uber mob on a raid. Some are not there yet and others, like myself, have retired from it simply due to not having the time to spend on them for pretty much zero reward.

Fox said:

"One reason to remove the snare from WON is to allow multiple WONs to stack on a mob, right? How is this a bad thing? "

For some reason I don't think they'll let them work that way. I don't know why but I just kind of think 6 druids hanging around in umbral doing elysians with 6 WON's on them is a bit much ;) If it does work that way I guess it is a good thing, but once again its mostly for raids. A choice would be nice. When I got my epic, I wanted it the way it was and I still do.

I'd still use the thing though, the 10 seconds is NOT better off being used for medding. I can med up to full at the end of killing a blue con mob with velious bracer and epic dots on it, mana free. Don't get people saying it was resisted so much either, any xp mob I could kill it usually stuck the first time.

A lot of us don't quad, I never do. Quadding assumes the cooperation of other customers to allow you to solo. This is something that they don't have to do and in fact verant supports them in this. To me, being at the mercy of other customers makes quadding not worth it for the solo play. I'm not really thinking about getting the most xp I can in the most optimized way when soloing anyway. What I'll often do is do two blue mobs at once, or three (jagged pine especially makes this easy) with root/epic dot/velious bracer and the occasional winged death. By the time all 2 or 3 die, I've used the same resources as if I'd done the same thing with only one and it took about the same amount of time. Usually I'm ready for the next two or three, or one. The difference with quadding is that its a proximity thing and I'm only grabbing stuff that is around that no one is doing. Its more resource friendly and I don't get locked into a selfish "EVERYTHING ON THIS ISLAND IS CAMPED!" mindset or a "have to have FOUR things to kill!" mindset. I find that limiting and not very flexible, well and of course selfish.

So the talk of the epic being useless because of quadding is moot to me. The epic is the best item I have as a druid. Its the best item that I use every time I play. I dearly love it. Its very useful. I like the velious bracer too.

The epic has nothing to do with quadkiting. So let's leave the two separate.

My testing with WoN on blue giants in WL early on showed a resistance rate of 35-40%. Pretty ridiculous.

I did a quick look at some of my root-dotting in ME recently, on toilers AND gorangas, all blue to me. Resistance rate was pretty high...about 25% or so, although I admittedly don't have a large enough sample to really tell.

What are you hunting that WoN lands on it everytime???

The difference is level. when I first started doing Kael WoN hardly ever took. Now it takes consistantly on the non-named giants and seldom do I have to cast twice. I am Raid Snarer 90% of the time since I am used to being summoned and beat upon. I got designated snarer since a druid isn't much more of a patch healer on a raid. With the new heal now the Rangers may have to take over main snare. On the other hand I Root/dot and don't quad so the snare factor saves me a spell slot and a cast.. nothing major but will have to break out the old ES guants again or get an earring with snare. I still think if they take off snare they need to replace it with some type of effect.. After all it is an epic. The lumi or ES Vanbracer, SoV bracers all have better DPS. A RSD or FoR debuff with lower resist rate would be appropriate since they won't boost the DPS to make it worth comparing to Nec or Shaman epics.

LOL...for heaven's sake, just memorize ensnare.

As for level, what do you mean?

As for level Scirocco, When I got my epic at lv 54 and went to Kael I had a resist rate of almost 50% in the arena and felt it was pretty useless. At 58 on my last arena raid I had a resist rate of about 10% with it taking on the second cast on any that resisted the first time.

The exception of course were named mobs that couldn't be snared so I used WD and RSD on them instead of wasting time clicking the Epic. So maybe it was experience instead of level that changed that part of the percentage difference.

In a raid or exp group, other than the snare there really is no reason even to use it since the DPS is so low that it is not even noticeable. With KEI on, the 12 seconds to that it would take to click the WoN could be used better meming for a spot heal or a DD. The main use for WoN is when soloing to avoid runners.

If they take the snare off and dont replace it or improve the dot I will just put the epic in the bank and carry the Lumi for outdoor since it has a much higher DPS (and is AoE) and find a clicky DD for indoor or med for DCH (Druid CH).

Scirocco is 60 and getting high resists on gorangas and toilers and FG's. Somehow I don't think this is a level problem.

I get resists on greens sometimes with it. I mean, come on.

If you are root/dotting to solo (which I do) you will have very little problem finding room in your spell line up for ensnare. If you do, drop 1kpp and buy a snare earring.

There is zero need, use, or reason for snare to be on our epic. It is much more a hinderance than a benefit. I haven't bothered trying to WoN a raid mob in months now because inevitably it will be resisted, at least once. If I need to snare..I just use Ensnare. It casts fast, lands easier, and if it gets resisted it doesn't take 10 seconds to cast it again.

The removal of snare means our epic will stack with everything, instead of being overwritten by Bonds of Tunare and the Duckstick. It also means it will be able to be used on raids again.

To make the effect truly useful, however, it needs to be shortened to 60 seconds instead of 3 minutes..with the same total damage dished out.

Aidon puts it very well.

"The epic has nothing to do with quadkiting. So let's leave the two separate."

I use the epic quadding all the time. AFAIK you get mana clicking it while on horseback. It's excellent for finishing off mobs, seperating mobs or to simply toss on some mobs and since the snare on the epic is better than ensnare they won't mess up your quad. Hey, free damage. Sometimes I'll leave a couple mobs rooted with epic on them, quad and refresh epic from a nice distance so if root breaks I can reroot and not waste med time by moving. Repeat a couple times and you get some mobs dead for the cost of a few roots while quadding.

"My testing with WoN on blue giants in WL early on showed a resistance rate of 35-40%. Pretty ridiculous."

Giants are annoying.

"I did a quick look at some of my root-dotting in ME recently, on toilers AND gorangas, all blue to me. Resistance rate was pretty high...about 25% or so, although I admittedly don't have a large enough sample to really tell.""

It's nowhere close to 25% resist on toilers. They have little MR and epic bounces at most 10% at 60.

With the current change of 30 slots on mobs druid epics will still be useless on raids, no way 9dps is worth spending a slot on if there are any number of shamans and/or necros. With unlimited slots and stacking suddenly epic and sporecaller become decent, and so do all those DOT proccing meleer weapons...

With the current change of 30 slots on mobs druid epics will still be useless on raids, no way 9dps is worth spending a slot on if there are any number of shamans and/or necros. With unlimited slots and stacking suddenly epic and sporecaller become decent, and so do all those DOT proccing meleer weapons...

That's why the epic needs to become 1650 in 1 minute without a snare.

Kulothar, that is my exact same exp as well. I've had my epic since 53, and everything in HoT and Kael resisted multiple casts. I am now lvl 58 and WoN lands on everything in both locations with the first cast almost everytime. Resist rate at 53 was around 80%, at 58 it's less than 10%. The difference is night and day.

Fairweather Pure

Ok, In HoT at 56 had a 100% resist rate.. Last night at 58 it is down to 80% resist rate on single casts and about 30% on multiple casts which still makes it worthless to use because of the low DPS.

Like I keep saying, even if they take off the snare the WoN DPS is crap. With snare it is usable for root/dot or manaless dot for quad... Useful not because of the snare or DPS but because it is manaless damage. Even if they took off the WoN and put manaless drones on it, it would be better DPS than WoN without snare. It is pitiful that a Vanbrace or Bracer from a drop you can buy or from simple camp-quest can be more powerful than our epic. They need to at least separate the saves for the snare and the dot but to just remove the snare would make the epic a piece of crap that would rot in the bank.

And yes our click spells are affected by level. You can see in on the Drones bracer/vanbracer, ES Gloves and the Lumi. If you are getting that bad of resists at 60 something is wrong.

Of course something is wrong. The open issue is if something is wrong *besides* there being two resist checks for the weapon :-)

The preponderance of run-speed-immune mobs is reason enough to remove the snare effect for me.

The fact that Ensnare is so massively superior to the epic snare, and 95%+ of all druids that have the epic also keep ensnare memmed anyway, is reason enough to remove the snare effect for me, since the lame-@#%$ epic snare overwrites it.

The fact that the snare effect may keep WoN from DoT-stacking with the recent changes (anyone verify this?) would be reason enough to remove the snare effect for me.

Put these together, and it becomes overwhelming.

I'm sure there are a few druids who will disagree. Going into totally selfish mode here, I don't care. I'm sure they are the extreme minority. They can buy ES gloves if they want a clicky snare :-)

Ummm...the reason I DON't use my epic on raids is two-fold.

1) In ToV it just won't land.
2) If it did land, the double agro of SNARE and DOT on a mob that does NOT need to be snared just removed me from being able to nuke the way I should...or even heal.

Racmoor

I would like to see snare removed, damage on dot either increased or the duration shortened with its current damage remaining constant. As for the focus effects, I personally think all epics should get a focus effect, but not sure how they would do it, if the focus should relate to the right click on the epic, or if it should be something for your class, or if it should be a general thing on all epics (maybe archetype related).

and while I am at it, do something with our baby bear, he got owned by some mid 30's mages pet the other day. he is really neat, and I love having him up, but in battle situations he is worthless. pump him to be a somewhat useful pet or something :p

ok I am done (sorry for grammar, am very tired)

*edit sig nerfed - 25k too big*

I certainly won't believe people saying they get only 10% resist rate in Hot at 58 on WoN without seeing logs.

It goes against everything I and other druids in my guild experimented.

hmmm in ToV i have tried WoN on HoT mobs about 10 times, none landed. Havent tried it since (long cast time). WD lands nearly every time, hopefully our epic will be the same way.

Sorta wonder if we get a channel bonus to our epic because it has a snare component. Ah well.

It really doesn't matter if the resist rate for WoN in HoT is only 10%, because that still is twice what it should be.

I'm still scratching my head over the people quadding with WoN. They can't be hunting in an area where you get adds, or the mobs take longer than 3 minutes to kill. By the time I'd get four mobs snared with WoN this way, I'd already be on round 2 of FoK using ensnare...

Right. The only time I ever "kite" with WoN is factioning in GD, since one cast will generally kill a drakkel wolf, and one WoN plus a WD will do a FG Scout. Just run around and hit them all, eventually the faction starts rolling in.

But for XP? Never even thought about it.

Hi, I've never posted on this site before. hehe

So just yesterday I was complaining to my group (1 rogue, 2 rangers) about how the epic snare sucks. They were like "Why doesn't the buffing/nuking/main healer just use his mana free snare?" and I was like, "hahahahahaha" Chain casting a 9 second spell just to see it resisted repeatedly is lame. I'd rather be medding for the next 400 mana freaking heal (I love critting that spell, makes me feel nifty).

Anyway - I just ran into this post today and I am soooo freaking excited. I can't believe something I have yurned for was actually being discussed and tested already.

ok so all day long in NToV I got two resists on WoN.


I was resisted 3 more times for the rest of the night. Pretty much (all but 1) things that resisted WD and everything else resisted the epic but nothing on a higher level and parse backed that up.

The only times I used epic was for its snare aspect - on raids I dont mem snare and usually the mobs dont need to be snared, but sometimes while fighting there I'd use the epic to snare stuff. In its current state, its damage is way too weak - spend 9 seconds to cast + doing only550 damage per minute?? At least wizards/mages can spend just 12-14 seconds right clicking manaless nukes that do that amount of damage or more ;p. Necro/shamans epics take less only around 1-1.5 minutes to do their full damage. On a boss mob, it would be quite bad for a number of druids to start stacking epic when those slots could be put to much better use (and couldnt you put those 9 seconds to far better use?), well I guess it doesnt matter if you have like 0 necros there and only 1 shaman for slowing so not many slots taking up by dot users.