Sylvan Frost, the level 58 nuke, just changed with the last patch, according to Lucy:

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spellhistory.html?id=4883&source=Test

It now is a level 65 fast heal. 1750 pts healed for 550 mana, 3.8 sec cast time. Of course, NI is 1750 points for 500 mana, 3.75 sec cast time. If this stays a heal, I expect it to heal for 10% more, to match the 10% increase in mana.

Well, it wouldn't be so bad to get a new heal, and that nuke was rather useless anyways. But a 10% increase isn't really worth it, if it were group heal for that amount and a ton more mana, it wouldn't be so bad, although that would be much too powerful of a group heal, but hey! Or a lot faster casting version of a big heal would be alright.

My guess is that the developers haven't tried to properly scale the new heal yet; they just copied the old heal over and made a minor change as a first step in the testing process. We've seen this often where a spell is simply copied over before later being changed (sometimes dramatically).

What we really need aside from a new heal is a stronger hp buff as well.
PoT9 has great mana regen and is needed for raids. But I would like to have something with 950 hp-1100 hp that doesn't stack with cleric buffs. Atleast that way our groups can do fine with just druid buffs. We are primary healers most of the time anways. We shouldn't have to ask for help on buffs.

I'd rather have a stronger self-buff.

Our current ones spanned 5 levels and only went up 1 pt of mana regen.

Neptunas, are you ready to pay a peridot per cast for that new HP buff? because that is what Symbol of Kazad cost for buffing 910 HPs.

Looks promising. Will prolly change a LOT one way or another, but a heal is a good start, if it stays a heal.

Personnally, I am hoping for a group heal that is powerful enough to count for something, ie not 300 hp worth /smirk. But any upgrade to NI, any upgrade to KR or a significant HoT spell is welcome. Perhaps a HoT that also acts like some kind of Bulwark of Vie?

Callahad

Great like we need a bigger fast heal to pull healing agro faster...

I like the new heal, but if they up the healing power of it to match the increased mana, I'm scared of the Agro side effects.

Great like we need a bigger fast heal to pull healing agro faster...

not sure how you play, but having a new fast casting heal and an upgrade to Karana's Renewal are both necessary, especially for high end guilds whose warriors are fully buffed past 12k hps now, and will get higher with GoD warrior AA. I doubt it will aggro any worse than Nature's Infusion does now if you are casting it too early.

i have a fealing all the spells will change alot becuase this spell is so simmiler to NI yet its for lvl 58 i doubt it will stay in

edit sry had wrong lvl on post

Seferon Goldenwolf
65 Druid
Scarlet Underground

Please, SOE...forget the new nuke, forget the new heal...PLEASE just give us a "slow"? I'd even take the BL 50% slow spell.

I know, I know...dream on...

Lilzak
65 Storm Warden
Zeb Server

You realize that the majority of level 65 BST have only their level 60 50% slow as the 65% one is a rune drop and rare then?

We need a new heal for the upgrade hitpoints of warriors if we plan to keep our spot as viable group healers for regular experience groups AND secondary healers for add tanks or even just heal the AE's coming out of these mobs in the expansion (check them out on lucy). KR will be too little healing 15+k hp tanks, and NI will definately be too little as we will be depending too much on crits by then.

The New heal will probably (and should) be more mana -> hp Efficient than NI as it is a 65 spell as opposed to a level 63 spell, plus I believe the clerics scaled up in efficiency with their new heal spells (havent checked though, but 3k heal for 660 mana is really nice compared to what NI (and the new spell) is now.

Holy Light mana efficiency is 0.8% (not even 1%!) better than Supernal Light.

Not sure I agree to needing another fast heal, Nature's infusion is pretty much more then enough if we could get a couple of the things we 'really' need. Rarely do I mem any other heal now including our partial cheals.

1. Fix agro - It's unacceptable the way we currently are.
2. Group healing to some minor extent. I'd be happy with a 800 x's 6 point heal with a nice high mana cost. At least it would be something and no one can say 800 point heal over the entire group would in anyway be overpowering.
3. Something unique - There are two spells still on lucy that look like they maybe coming our way. Sylvan's Anger and Kindle. 25% mana pres on beneficial and detrimental spells (if I looked at lucy info correctly). This could be an amazing druid additive and would give us some uniqueness that may get people to actually say, hey let's get a druid for mana pres! If it doesn't have stacking issues and if it doesn't last a rediculously time, so that you could easily just have a bot druid parked somewhere for it.

Give us something useful please. We've seen two expansion now Pop/ldon full of useless druid spells and aa's. Fix Sotw like it should have been to begin with 8-10 mins is more then enough recast time. 22 just makes the aa virtually unusable except in extreme emergencies or as a ds at the end of an adventure when you're sure you won't need it 10 mins later. No quicken teleports, no quicken mgb, no new booboo bears, these things don't help the druid class desirablity.

Sylvan's Anger is a focus effect, kinda like the one on the PoP gloves, Summer's Anger (for the Summer's Flame nuke). But seems like for cold spells atm (this focus effect will probably switch around quite a bit though).

Please, SOE...forget the new nuke, forget the new heal...PLEASE just give us a "slow"? I'd even take the BL 50% slow spell.

I know, I know...dream on...

Lilzak
65 Storm Warden
Zeb Server


we dont need slow, we have no reason to get a slow, through game balance or role playing.

please forget about it, forever.

I thought about the possiblity of them just being item focus effects too Kaige, but never hurts to dream they might actually be druid spells to help make us a bit more unique and desirable. Doesn't seem like it would be an unrealistic thing to do since Clerics were given a spell haste buff last expansion.

I could see slow for animals, I mean, really, necros get it for undead. They even gave charm to mages for summoned. Why can't we have something odd for animals.

Not like the frogs in storms wouldn't be taken with or without it ;) since they are the only animals worth killing heh.

Can we forget the slows please?

We are never going to get one and we don't need one.

Thanks!

Never say never. I mean, really. Clerics get a spell haste buff out of the blue, cool pets, summoned hammers that are insane, etc etc.... why not slow for animals? Most likely it'd be only used for soloers heh. Since if you *really* needed a slow you'd get a class that slows well, chanter or shaman. It'd be like all the other druid abilities, not quite useful enough to want them in a group. I get groups because of friends, not because of my abilities. So if my friends aren't on, I won't get groups (much). I'm already railing against WoW's "versatile" druid class. One of the devs said the "raw healing output" between a druid and priest in that game would be roughly (cough) the same, and that "ideally" a group would be happy with either as a main healer.

Now where have we heard that before?

Versatility != usefulness.

So giving us a gimp slow won't change a thing except make kiting frogs in storms a little safer heh.

Because if druids get an animal only slow it's going to help us how? As it is now we can barely ever use charm because there arn't enough things tag'd animal in the game to start with. Most animals arn't even tagged as an animal.

Ldon for example - 1 dog in ruj normal that a druid can charm. That's 1/5th of the normal adventures or 1/10th of normal/hard adventures. None of the other animal looking creatures I've seen in ldon anywhere are tagged animal.

So you want to be able to slow 1 mob in 1 dungeon in ldon.

I do understand there are a few animals in other areas of the game that this could be use on, but you want to look at the whole picture not just tiny portions of that picture. It wouldn't help at all on raid friendliness which is where druids need the most help.

Druids need something that will help them over all in normal grouping and raiding. Animal slow will not help the druid class it will only artificially make it look better. No animal slows please.

This is for all the mages out there (and you know who you are!)

Scirocco the Devil Druid Incarnate is 100% against druids ever getting a slow. Of any kind. Especially an animal-only slow, which would be a waste of new spell potential.

Agreed, no slow of any kind.

Sylvan's Anger and Kindle.

Both are just focus effects ala pop quest gloves. Every class had one put in for one of their dmg spells during the first round of spells. Kindle is for the ranger nuke, anger is ours but kinda messed atm as they play with our 65 nuke though it seems.

Seems all the new spells in that batch were written over old ones. So kinda gives me the feeling they'll be put back later since some of the originals that gotten written seemed like logical upgrades (ie: bard war song, clr and pal stun etc.)

The efficiency seems to stay the same for the clr spells. Just more mana more hp. If that holds true Scirocco should be on the money with the 10% mana increase = 10% heal increase. So 1925. Seems kinda lowish offhand, think I'd like to at least see it break 2000 before focus/aa effects.

Scirocco said it best. Animal slow is a waste of druid potential, which is exaclty why I'm afraid of it... SoE likes to give druids useless crap.

THIS IS A JOKE DO NOT TAKE SERIOUSLY




News just in.. new druid slow on test

Increase run speed by 99%
Slows your target by 5%
Buffs target with bot9
Mana cost 2000
Lasts for 3 tics

New feature to this spell it will auto cast after 2 tics until mob is dead.


Do we need a slow.. even animal? naa.. I dont think so. Too many untaged animals out there as it is.

Just doing a quick eyeballing of these new spells, it is obvious that the devs have no intention of changing the balace of things in this upcoming expansions. Every single new spell really just adding 10-15% to existing spells: 10-15% bigger heal, 10-15% bigger damage, 10-15% more mana cost, 10-15% more disappointing. This is true for every single class. There are no abilities that does not already exist.
Maybe the AA's will be more interesting.

updated snare be nice...maybe 1.5 sec cast time, and 60 % movement speed reduction? or even more possibly. at least its an upgrade to one of our core abilities.

Its a given that sony will give us useless crap. Why bother fighting that. Gimma my full compliment of animal spells! I want mez now too.

No way do druids need slow.

Now Res on the other hand......



/strolls off whistling innocently :vampire:

Dr. Evil voice.... "An evil petting zoo?"

Sylvan Infusion has been moved from 1750 to 1925 hp healed (10% increase over Nature Infusion). Mana cost is the same at 550 (10% more than NI). Casting time is down to 3.5 secs (0.25 secs better than NI). Basically, same efficiency, but you can spend your mana faster and Heal per Second is increased by a bit more than 10% in burst mode.

If it stays a fast heal in that range, I would either see it being improved to 2000 hp healed for the same cast time and mana cost, or mana cost be decreased to 525 for the same amount of heal (1925), same cast time. Imho.

Callahad

/sarcasm on wow...a whole quarter of a second faster. healing 175hps more....omg. /sarcasm off.


It's just my opinion mind you, but truly druids have truly been screwed enough on their spells over the years if this is what we're excited about.

New heal is nice to get, but don't expect me to jump up and down for this one.

Would rather get a really super fast heal that heals for less as generally I'm just trying to get the tank to hang on until some cleric wakes up.

As far as group heals...we should get one. As far as HoTs...we should get one of them too. I'm not asking for a lot although most of you think I am. I'm tired of being gimped because a certain class may get it's panties in a wad. I'm expected to heal now....SoE expects us to heal. Give me the tools to do so.

Racmoor

.3 of a second off NI would be pretty damn huge... especially with spell haste. With 30% beneficial, and blessing of reverence, that cuts it down to 2.1 seconds. I dont know how ill like having to have the more expensive spell memmed for it, but i think ill deal =P

From what we've seen so far, this is not going to be a revolutionary expansion. It is mostly going to be focused on new areas to explore, NOT a host of new AAs or spells. An incremental increase in power for all classes, but no rebalancing.

There appear to be a limited number of spells per class: 3 plus an ancient. The 3 spells are modest upgrades of existing spells, keeping efficiency constant (i.e., mana and damage, and mana and healing, both increase in proportion). We get a nuke, a fast heal, and a DoT/debuff. Pretty reasonable balance.

There really aren't any new spell lines. So no group heals for druids. Our best bet there is to push for an AA that decreases the reuse time for SotW.

As to whether our heal upgrade should be to our fast heal or a big slow heal, I think the fast heal is the best choice, because it is the heal spell that pretty much every druid at 65 uses at some point. That includes "healing" druids who do nothing but healing on raids and use KR and TR a lot, and those like me who haven't used KR or TR for months (on raids, all I ever use is NI). A big heal would be relatively useless for druids that rely on NI all the time, but the new fast heal would be used all the time. Thus, it's the best compromise heal given the limited number of new spells.

I agree with Scirocco. I use fast heals far more often than the big slow heals so a faster one is better imo. A new nuke for more damage always makes me happy as im an evoc druid. The dot/debuff is cool and it will be even better if its true it will stack with our ro dot line, as thats more dps a sec for root/rot. Altho I think it would have been a better idea to add in a cold dot, as we dont have one, but thats not a big deal.

I personally cant wait to see the final list of aa's, and cant wait to play new content. LDoN is fun, but a change will be nice.

edit: personally I think LDoN was pretty revolutionary. I mean common, instanced zones? We went what, 3.5 years fighting over spawns and camping areas? just my opinion tho :cool:

PoP was pretty revolutionary. 5 new levels, a slew of new AAs and spells, a whole new lot of possible raiding places, etc.

Fast heal is good. 10% improvement is decent, but it really depends on the relative improvement classes get in hp. No improvement in efficiency kinda bites. If it was slightly more efficient than NI, then I could only mem the one spell. Now I think I would mem the 2 : one for big heals in as much hurry as I can muster, NI for when I need to top off someone, and would rather save the 50 mana. Which would be kinda warped from another point of view, since both heal are obviously intended to be used the same way...

The DoT has been improved to 154/tick... /shrug. Thats makes it a 1694 dmg DoT distributed over 1 minute, as opposed to VoT which is 1800 over 30 seconds. However, if it stacks with Immolation of Ro, that can be interesting...

Callahad

I think if we can get Spell Casting Subtlety for priests before the GoD release, we've made a serious win.

I really hope they haven't decided our new heal upgrade is 175 hp for 50 more mana.
Is there something wrong with these people? Its not rocket science for them to give us a HOT for 2k. How about a group heal for 1200? Or even a 3k NI for 500 mana.
It would NOT make us broken if they gave us either of the above.
Even if they gave us all of the above they would still give clerics a much bigger upgrade then those heals.

WHAT I TRULY WANT. Is something that is exclusive and NEEDED. What happens if you have a raid without shaman buffs or without cleric buffs? You're more than likely screwed because of low hp.
The mana regen from BoT9 is excellent. But come on clerics can mgb HoV and most won't care about bot9 after that.
You say we get ports, nukes, dots, charms? Well its pretty versatile, but since we are not the best at wack the raiding guilds will always pick the best of the best for what they need.
Our only competition is the cleric. Guilds will take loads of clerics just for one thing. There rezz. That makes them broken already.

It wouldn't really matter if we got better heals then clerics because they will always be able to rezz and we won't. Soe needs to understand this and they don't seem to.
I won't get started on the shaman also. But for now do your /feedback and your /bug as often as you can. TELL THEM that we need something exclusive that people want in raids and in groups that matches us with clerics, and shamans.

I haven't ever heard someone say more then 5 times we NEED a Druid. I hate to say that, but I haven't. This has to change. I love my druid hes got a high fun factor. But in the end game you need massive amounts of players to progress and multiple druids are barely needed in most guilds opinions.

This B.S. needs to stop here. We need to let them know what they are doing wrong. And that this new age in eq needs classes to be divine in their own way to be desired by other players.
Either that or make some zones we can solo in suffiently for gear and AAs.
Because if we keep getting mediocre upgrades for all our spells the druid will fall..

Also on the aggro issue- I understand we do get mean aggro from casting NI too early which we are forced to do most of the time.
But I feel one of the best aspects of a druid even almost broken is EXODUS.
When I get aggro from healing I just try to channel a heal on my self and most of the time it lands. And if am interrupted to a point where I am below 30 life and aggro isn't off of me I just press the magic button.
Exodus gives us a second chance. And in a good group you shouldn't have aggro too long no matter what.

It wouldn't really matter if we got better heals then clerics because they will always be able to rezz and we won't. Soe needs to understand this and they don't seem to.

/cough

You are smokeing some nice stuff there.

Remember where the focus is with GoD: the high end. The new spells we are getting are at the high end, intended for high end groups and raids in particular. At this level, getting a res is purely a matter of convenience. Regaining the XP lost from not getting a res at all is a matter of 15 minutes or less for a druid at this level.

This new heal is NOT really an upgrade. It has a slightly faster cast time which is nice and an improvement. It also heals a larger amount which is nice, especially considering on raids I use Natures Infusion almost exclusively and not TR/KR. However, the mana ratio is exactly the same as NI. It needs to at least be a minor improvement in mana ratio. But the real issue for me here is this: On elemental raids on the boss mobs I am practically chain casting NI. In this situation the bigger heal is nice as it might make a difference but at 10% more mana per cast I will simply go OOM 10% faster and thus have that many fewer chances for my pad healing to help the clerics keep the tank alive. However, here is the one way that this spell could be made to be a true improvement: less aggro than nature's infusion. NI has way too much aggro on it--in fact its got a ridiculus amount of aggro. The perfect use for NI is pad healing on incoming of the mob allowing the CH chain to stabilize and help on a pre-slowed mob. However, if you cast this spell anytime during this initial 20sec or so of the fight you will have one flattened druid in addition to pulling aggro off the main tank and screwing up the postitioning of the mob. If the new heal has way less aggro than NI, it will make up for the other deficiencies of the spell and will overall make it an upgrade.

First to Neptunas Guild invite crapload of Clerics not becouse of Rez you only need 2 clerics for that, they invite them becouse of CH chains are the healing method on 90% of the raids and clerics CH cost 50% less and heal 50% more then druid CH.
What druid need is some sort of subtality we are agro magnet i can't even count the times when the first thing an inc mob did was go and give me a nice pet (or a quad of them) just becouse i was the closest druid around.
Our fast heal get more agro then cleric fast heal and cleric have DA if he get agro our Nukes get about the same Agro as wiz/mage nukes but they have SCS and we dont, our dot do less damage then necro but they have FD and we dont i realy think that we are more or less the last none tank cass that have very little options to control agro or reduce the risk of agro.
ranger - got jolt
rogue - got escape+ evade
int caster - got SCS + certain PoP items with SCS
Cleric - got DAx2
paladin - got DA (and are tank)
Sk - got FD And harmshield
War - got invincible
Bard - got fade ? (forgot how it call)
Monk - FD

That leave only 3 classes without
Beastlord shaman and us.
Beastlord still have there pet to get agro from them and alow them to step back and they have more HP/AC.
Shaman have better AC/HP then us but are still screwed up just like us.
And us the Leather wearing class with no way to handle agro in any way, i realy think it's about time SoE get it fixed.

You know, I think I figured out the unique ability that druids have...were the only ones with HP + mana regen buffs (PoT9) or am I mistaken on that? I think that if this is true, then they should build on that...something else to add hp/mana, maybe a group form of 'mask' line w/hp? - I know that most casters still seem to prefer Symbol + 9 over HoV, why not give us more of that kind of thing??? It feels nice to have someone say "Hey Kold, Why dont we go with Symbol and 9 for this raid?" At least I feel a little useful :p

BST got HP/mana regen buffs too.

My guild always uses symbol/9, since it has more hps than virtue.

Most classes have some sort of self mana-regen buff. Clerics in fact, have a self buff that's similar to pot9 and stacks with Virtue.

I don't want a slow. I don't want a res. I don't want a new snare. I don't want a 10% upgrade to NI. I don't want a 10% upgrade to SF. I don't want a 10% upgrade to WF.

The only things I want is to be given SCS and a decently ratio'd group heal. Is that really too much to ask for? Christ.

The only things I want is to be given SCS and a decently ratio'd group heal. Is that really too much to ask for? Christ.

I agree!

Are HP/Mana regen for BST/Cleric..Like OURS - SKIN buffs? I don't know..dont have a BST and my cleric is only 49.

I agree!

Are HP/Mana regen for BST/Cleric..Like OURS - SKIN buffs? I don't know..dont have a BST and my cleric is only 49.
The Cleric one is self only and adds HP / AC / and 6, 7 or 8 points of mana regen per tick (including the Ancient version). They do not stack with Druids Protection of the Cabbage / Nine buffs and they do not stack with a Shaman Focus spell. The best HP / Mana regen combo today for Clerics is still Nine from a Druid, Focus from a Shaman and Symbol of Kazad from the Cleric. That's a raid standard setup for a lot of guilds (NOT all).

Does that answer your question? I'm ot really sure what you meant by acting like your skin buffs.

Well I don't see the 175hp more all that great but it's better then nothing and seems people are forgetting with the right AAs it will most likely do over 300 more then NI. I personally wanted the new nuke because as it sits now if we have to use our fire nuke we lose 150 dmg so having a Fire nuke at the same or close to the same as our Cold one isn't that bad.

I can never really get the whole aggro complaint, I never catch it personally even when chain casting and criting often on big mobs, ele through time. Then again we have 5 BoWars in the guild, so maybe it's just that.

I like the new heal spell, I'd like it more if they beefed up the mana cost and the healing done. Make it 2.2k healed and the same mana ratio. But I can always dream.

An improved Nature's Recovery would be nice. *cough, dodges stones*

try healing.... then report to us on how often you die =P nukes can wait for aggro lock, heals cant (fuxin clerics do your job)

and if SCS works as well as all the int casters say it does (ie: not at all) then i really dont want any part of it

Most classes have some sort of self mana-regen buff. Clerics in fact, have a self buff that's similar to pot9 and stacks with Virtue.Our self mana regen buff is called Mask of the Forest.

I LIKE heal aggro myself. It lets me off tank in easy LDoNs. I mean... why waste a perfectly good damage shield? :) Since I only patch in hard LDoNs I don't have the same aggro issue there so it's perfect for me! :D

Sorry wasn't clear on what I was critting with.. they're heals. I only have 1 AA in SCF for the hell of it. I don't nuke.

Sorry wasn't clear on what I was critting with.. they're heals. I only have 1 AA in SCF for the hell of it. I don't nuke.
*grins* oh hehe, even still, the time i usually get aggro is when i heal a tank or especially a cleric after a mob just got into camp, which is usually on clears, mobs then make a beeline for me, and all i can do is try to heal myself, which is more aggro and and... splat. On a poair raid i usually expect to die like 5 times doing say 2 avatars, a lil less on a good night, more on a bad night....

edit: wait wait WAIT a second.. "I dont nuke" yet your sig .... DDs for life.. with the druid nuke squad, wtf >.<

Druid Death Squad is the name of the druid group in my guild before I joined, and yeah some of them like to nuke more than heal. /boggle :p But that's their thing.

But yea, PoAir is a pain in the ass. :moon:

Yaladdar, I don't know who you are, but I already don't like you.

Don't you have better things to do than spend your time making poor attempts to shoot down Druid brainstormming?

No, Druids do not need to pay a peridot for a 1000 hp buff. Its simply a logical extension of a Druid's current abilities.

Yes, Druids could use a slow. Regardless of how rare BL slows are (Don't you fret, though, it won't happen).

We don't care about the mana efficiency difference between cleric upgrades. We care about the mana efficiency difference between Druid upgrades.