As you may know, the Pet Affinity AA is being changed so that the owner of the pet has to get it in order for group spells/songs to affect his or her pet.
The details of this have been clarifiied by Rytan/Ryan on the bard Concert hall boards:
_____________________________________
The AA was changed for the reasons Laeelin mentioned. There was a lot of concern from buff classes that most people wouldn't spend the 20 points to be able to buff someone else's pet. How many clerics do you think would think it was a good investment? From a bard specific point of view it seems as if it's more expensive then before (several players having to spend the AA instead of just the bard) but over all you're looking at a cheaper price for the player base as a whole.

Additionally, this AA will not work on Charmed pets, but it will work on MGB'd spells.

We're looking at making a replacement AA for the classes that have had this removed. In the case of bards we're most likely looking at some kind of melee oriented AA.

-Ryan

______________________________________

So not being in the beta, but still with a curious mind and a concern for the druid AA's, I wonder ofcourse whether they are still going to give Pet Affinity to druids. If so, then it is 20aa to boost our baby bear! (Dire charm pets being a 'Charmed' pet, I assume they wont count, though it would be nice ofcourse if they did...).
Lets hope they do the decent thing and give us a new aa instead of this one, like they are with Bards, etc. Time will tell...

I for one would be very surprised if we were not given a replacmement AA. Spending 20AA's to allow others to buff little Booboo is going to be even less worthwhile than Quickened Teleportation. :)

AA Snare plx!

Bleh, no AA snare, at 35 mana I don't mind it locking down a slot. We need something useful, like Harness Storms.

Through the power of nature, druids are able to harness the raw power of the storms more than ever before and turn it against their enemies.

It'd burn off all your mana and half your health, and do 1-1.5x damage your mana pool. It'd be a large PBAoE at around maybe 100-150 range, and lure. Recycle 2-3 hours.

If they leave us with this for an AA it will be even worse than Quick Teleport. The only buffs my bear gets anyway is Wrath of The Wild before I send him to his death.

I am heavily against druids having this pet AA, since we have no real summoned pet. Boo boo was intended to be nothing more than window dressing, and spending any AA points so other classes can hit him with group buffs is ridiculous.

I have to agree Scirocco. I don't know how many times we have been told we are not a pet class by other classes so we should not complain about booboo being so weak so giving us this aa would be yet another slap in the face just as the teleport aa.

It'd burn off all your mana and half your health, and do 1-1.5x damage your mana pool. It'd be a large PBAoE at around maybe 100-150 range, and lure. Recycle 2-3 hours.

OMG... Zone into an LDON with 1 druid with 6kish mana and a bard. Get the bard to pull the whole zonein. BOOM. 9k damage lure style to every mob in the zone? Ldon over. Net time: 5 minutes.

Get 12 druids together and you could clear most elementals planes (Without named, maybe even with?) in a matter of minutes.

Overpowering a bit?

Not really, they'd treat it like manaburn if they did that. They learned the first time. They'd make it where you could only hit with one at a time for a while. And being as we're druids, it would have a 10 day RL time reuse timer or something silly. Okay, maybe that is overdoing it, but they have the tendency to give us longer time limits than other classes for reuse on similar aa's.

I heard that the pet affinity aa is being removed from the druid class.

/agree Scirocco

This calls for a stickied thread IMO, with lots of ***'s and --==--'s, and also maybe in our main forum?

Our level 25 bear is useful for farming silk for tradeskills, and that's pretty much it. Even if replacing this AA would mean deleting Booboo from our lineup then I would say go for it!! Lose booboo, gain new useful AA.

I don't know what else to say, or how else to say it; this AA sux the big one, is completely useless, would be resented by the Druid population, ... you name it.

Replacement please.

OMG... Zone into an LDON with 1 druid with 6kish mana and a bard. Get the bard to pull the whole zonein. BOOM. 9k damage lure style to every mob in the zone? Ldon over. Net time: 5 minutes.

Get 12 druids together and you could clear most elementals planes (Without named, maybe even with?) in a matter of minutes.

Overpowering a bit?

:cry: Ruin all my fun, why don't you.

Naw, I wasn't being overly serious, but I did try to keep it somewhat plausible. *grin*

And the damage was meant to work like manaburn, so it'd be 6-9k damage if it was a 6k pool. Perhaps instead of making it instant, make it a 4 tick dot with lightning effects and the sky falling and whatnot.

They'ed probably make it an outdoor's only spell...

This calls for a stickied thread IMO, with lots of ***'s and --==--'s, and also maybe in our main forum?

No need for that yet, I think. SOE has been very reasonable this time around making obvious changes (such as to our new nuke and DoT). Let's wait and see if we still have Pet Affinity in our lineup before we make too much noise about it. I don't think we will, so our focus should be on what to fill in the gap with. IMO, the most likely possibilities would be (1) reduction in SotW reuse, or (2) spell casting subtlety.

This calls for a stickied thread IMO, with lots of ***'s and --==--'s, and also maybe in our main forum?

Let's wait and see if we still have Pet Affinity in our lineup before we make too much noise about it. I don't think we will, so our focus should be on what to fill in the gap with. IMO, the most likely possibilities would be (1) reduction in SotW reuse, or (2) spell casting subtlety.

100% agree. 99% certain it won't stay in the lineup. I like SCS the best. Another possibility to add is quick MGB. Other possibilities : improvements to healing adept/healing gift, Fire and cold familiars, add-on to wrath of the wild (make it much better or much shorter casting?)

Callahad

so our focus should be on what to fill in the gap with.

Hrmm... preferably something most of us could agree on? ;) I'd be quite easily convinced, as long as the AA would be more useful then Quick Teleport.

Reduction in SoTW reuse sounds good. SCS sounds good.

Or how about:
1) AA allowing outdoor spells to be cast indoor?
- Level 1, 30 AA, up to level 24 spells
- Level 2, 30 AA, up to level 49 spells
I doubt they'd even consider it though, biggest reason being harmony (even with huge cost).

2) Unresistable snare - nothing immune

3) Activated increased chance to crit a heal (like the new AA with increased chance to crit a newk)

4) Mini DA - Not full immunity like Clerics, but how about half? ie: 50% vie, self only, same duration as DA at 18 seconds.

I'd just settle for any way to mitigate damage. So far as druids we only have recovering damage through heal/regen, and prevention through making them die faster (nukes/Damage sheild). Although on that note when mobs have that many hp's and hit that hard our damage sheilds are trivial. Heck in some zones I can go a couple rounds of full damage sheilding on myself and the mobs won't even go into summon mode. It would give me something to do on raids other than Chain NI and land half of them for 0 healing.

this i tell you now. no good will come of the removal of a useless 20pt aa. we will have it replaced with another useless 20pt aa, or a scaled 4/6/10 aa that is equally useless in it's 3rd level and just plain ludicrous in it's 1st.

no good will come of it. but then, it couldn't be any worse anyway... /cackle

I can't believe how many people think is it great to have an AA that lets you reduce the SotW reuse timer. SOE really has you.

Cleric and BL have better HOT AAs with a faster reset timer. You think it would be great if for our ****ty HOT we got to spend even more AAs just to reduce the recast timer so that it became a HOT with the same recast timer as Clerics and BL that still remains the worst (yet most expensive) of the three. Great.

I can't believe how many people think is it great to have an AA that lets you reduce the SotW reuse timer. SOE really has you.

Cleric and BL have better HOT AAs with a faster reset timer. You think it would be great if for our ****ty HOT we got to spend even more AAs just to reduce the recast timer so that it became a HOT with the same recast timer as Clerics and BL that still remains the worst (yet most expensive) of the three. Great.
What kind of math are you using to say that SOTW is the most "expensive" of the three. Currently for Level 3, SOTW costs a straight 9 AAs. Clerics Celestial Regeneration (level 1) costs 23 AAs. Remember, SOTW has no pre-requisites. Celestial Regeneration requires 6 AA in general, 12 in Archetype and a requirement of Healing Gift 3. Healing Gift 3 is not the first Archetype skill on a Clerics list. Finally it takes 5 AAs for the skill.

Or we could compare it this way, Level 1 SOTW = 4 AAs and Level 1 CR = 5 AAs. Level 3 SOTW = 9 AAs and level 3 CR = 14 AAs.

I can't believe how many people think is it great to have an AA that lets you reduce the SotW reuse timer. SOE really has you.

Cleric and BL have better HOT AAs with a faster reset timer. You think it would be great if for our ****ty HOT we got to spend even more AAs just to reduce the recast timer so that it became a HOT with the same recast timer as Clerics and BL that still remains the worst (yet most expensive) of the three. Great.I agree, but given the fact that no change has been made as of yet it's probably safe to say SOE doesn't agree.

What would you rather have? A flat out "No" on the SoTW reuse timer, or a "Yes" with the restriction of having to spend 20AA to make it happen?

I would trade Quick Teleportation and Pet Affinity combined for the option to grind out a SoTW reduction, and in a heartbeat at that. Those other two are completely gimped, and gaining something useful is much more important to me then having sucky replacements for those sucky originals.

Wyte

Our level 25 bear
He's not old .. he's 37.....

honestly he's a lvl 37.. and he's my baby dot in ldon adventures...with some buffs he is fair dps honestly... I've had him do one nukes worth of dmg in a fight before... that's really not bad.

No, Aaeamdar is right. People shouldnt be asking for an AA to reduce the reuse time on SotW, it should be a given. The fact that its not 15 minutes already is pretty stupid.

He's not old .. he's 37.....

honestly he's a lvl 37.. and he's my baby dot in ldon adventures...with some buffs he is fair dps honestly... I've had him do one nukes worth of dmg in a fight before... that's really not bad.

hes around the late 20's mark my words. And his dps parsed against both pofire mobs and postorms frogs has been a little more than 4 dps (melees kiting with me parsed it). Must have been a long fight or a weak nuke to do a whole nukes worth of damage :) (6 minutes at least)

No, Aaeamdar is right. People shouldnt be asking for an AA to reduce the reuse time on SotW, it should be a given. The fact that its not 15 minutes already is pretty stupid.Of course he's right. He is absolutely correct. It should automatically be 15 minutes.

But look at the history of the situation. We explained and fought tooth and nail to have it changed. I'll post a summary of the discussion originating from HERE (http://pub149.ezboard.com/fthedruidsgrovegeneral.showMessage?topicID=31776.t opic), which I wrote a looong time ago in THIS (http://thedruidsgrove.org/forums/showthread.php?t=22&page=5&pp=15) thread.

--------------------------------------------
The case for lowering SoTW recast to ~ 15 minutes
Recent Fan faire information leads us to believe that at least part of the reason for SoTW recast being 22 mins instead of 15 mins is because of the DS/AC component.

Re-hashed from Fanfaire Thread (http://pub149.ezboard.com/fthedruidsgrovegeneral.showMessage?topicID=31776.t opic):

Aludair Autumnwynd:
During one of the pannels earlier this afternoon;
The issue of SoTW refresh time was brought up. Scott's answer to the reasoning of 22 minutes was " Yea, Math is hard..."

Sobe:
I believe the last comment on this was - Its 22 mins because of the AC and Damage Shield increase - Math sucks when adding other components to a spell.

Whats the difference in heals with full AA's and Focus Item Increase? - hate to turn this into a SoTW conversation -

Wyte:
Comparison (without Spell Casting Reinforcement Mastery):

Celestial Regeneration - 15 min
300 x 8 = 2400 HP's

Paragon of Spirit - 15 min
200 x 6 = 1200 HP's
80 x 6 = 480 mana

Spirit of the Wood - 22 min
250 x 5 = 1250 HP's
55 DS (per hit)
48 AC (per hit)

The Cleric version is the king of healing. If the other components are what is keeping the recast delay so high for Druids, then lets take a look at the two AA's with other components:

Paragon will add mana to everyone except Warriors, Rogues, Monks, and Bards. Casters/Hybrids (mana users) make up 2/3 of the classes.

SoTW will increase damage through DS, and mitigate due to AC, based on people being hit.

Paragon: 480 mana times number of casters + hybrids in the group.
SoTW: 55 points per hit taken times number of people being hit.

Group Setting:
Assuming 2/3 casters/hybrids, 480 mana x 4 people.

480 mana is enough for pretty much every top damage spell/mitigation in the game - mage DD (1550, 2000 bolt), wizard DD (4k?), Cleric CH (7500 HP's), Paladin wave of prexus, Druid DD (1550), Necro dot or tap, etc...

55 DS times 20 hits = 1100 damage.
55 DS times 30 hits = 1650 damage.

Compare mana gain for group to needing to be hit 30 times just to get 1650 damage out of one single person being hit.

If you have multiple mobs in camp, unslowed, the DS adds up. But how often do you SoTW with multiple mobs in camp? Even then, how often is each person (or at least 2/3 of the group) being hit 30 times? [Edit] Not to mention, the goal is to reduce damage taken in a group setting, ie: via Slow and Mez.

Raid Setting:
No difference from group, except for MGB.

On MGB, SoTW fares even more poorly, especially when dealing with AE damage (where most people aren't being 'hit' physically). 55 DS for a raid, where 1 MT is being hit, and 2 - 4 others on rampage duty is trivial. Trivial I say, compared to all casters/hybrids gaining 480 mana. 480 mana x all the clerics, wizards, druids, mages, necros, palidans is huge. In fact, in this setting Paragon seems the most powerful of all the 3 mentioned AA's.

So why, again, is SoTW 22 minutes? It doesn't make sense to me. I agree that 15 minutes is very reasonable.

Oldoaktree: (math corrected)
Recalcs -

Celestial Regeneration - 15 min
300 x 8 = 2400 HP's
2400HP x 4/hour = 9600hp/hr

Paragon of Spirit - 15 min
200 x 6 = 1200 HP's
80 x 6 = 480 mana
1200hp x 4/hour = 4800/hr

Spirit of the Wood - 22 min
250 x 5 = 1250 HP's
55 DS (per hit)
48 AC (per hit)
1250 x 2.72/hr = 3400/hr

Druids have lower healing output through AA on an hourly basis than BL do. Don't let the lower HP/tick of paragon fool you.

Yes, this is a tool that is more valuable if it does more on a per use basis, so I won't complain there. But it is ludicrous that two other classes with similar aa's get such tremendous advantages.

But, sadly, history tells me they are very unlikely to improve SOTW.

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= END OF CROSSPOST .. yada yada .. =

Back to regular scheduled programming...


So we have fought for it. We believe we are right. They have done nothing.

Do we then say "we either want it for free, or not at all"?

I would rather say "It should have been 15 minutes, but I'm willing to spend some AA points on a worthwhile new AA to make it 15 minutes".

Wyte

Glarnor--the point on an AA snare isnt the 35mana its the spell slot it takes up. And more importantly the fact that rangers have one based on ensnare a spell we get like 20lvls before them. This needs to be remedied and give Entrap to druids as well as rangers.

And while you're at it.... CHANGE THE HASTENED TP CRAPOLA AA

Add the fact that most of the buffing before a adventure are done before that the group enter into the donjon make Pet Affinity even more useless.

It become only usefull in adventure only if you can zone your pet with it buffs. That ask for another aaxp skill that we don't get.

In the GoD, SOE will add another adventure camp to make a total of 6, and adventure are done commonly. Unless it is a all pet user group, I don't see a group enter in the adventure, then buff then med and finaly begin to kill the mobs. The 4-10 mins of the adventure timer that are lost mean less lucky to win the adventure when it is a close call (a no optimal group, a hard adventure, bad luck.....).

Eridalafar

People shouldnt be asking for an AA to reduce the reuse time on SotW, it should be a given. The fact that its not 15 minutes already is pretty stupid.

Feel sorry for the chanties then who have to pay for hastened mgb.

Yea, druids are left asking for AAs to upgrade their existing AAs and the other classes get cool neat ones. Could every druid here that uses SoTW for the DS and AC component over the healing component raise their hands? If the AC and DS is what is raising the recast time, then I'm all for giving that up and just getting a HoT...then reduce the recast time to 15minutes.

As far as the cleric above that said you have to get all that stuff first......well, the items you listed are important to a cleric and I'm sure they're working on them anyway. Don't pretend it's a path that you wouldn't get unless you got this at the end.

Why does every druid AA have to be compared against a clerics?

Do the devs say

Dev 1 "Hey, This would be a neat healing AA to give to druid."
Dev 2 "Sure, just give the cleric the same....oh btw...make sure the druid version is inferior to the clerics in every way"

Just give the druid some unique AAs will ya. Honestly, take a few minutes and come up with something original....oh, and not stupid. (See Teleport AA please). There is a GREAT list of examples in another thread

Racmoor

eridalafar there are 10 new GoD instanced zones, i would would imagine there to be 2 more camps

For now a wayfarer's camp is 8 adventuring zones and a average of 2 raiding ones. Just look at the file name in the EQ repertory (ex: MMCa to MMCj) to see it.

But they will probably add new items in all the 5 actual camps. It is easy to do and add more stuff to get from this expension.

Eridalafar

As far as the cleric above that said you have to get all that stuff first......well, the items you listed are important to a cleric and I'm sure they're working on them anyway. Don't pretend it's a path that you wouldn't get unless you got this at the end.
This was to me and you've completely taken what I've said out of context I wasn't trying to explain why SOTW should be kept at 20whatever mintues it is now, I believe it should be lowered. I was just correcting a, completely, false statement. Aaemdar said, and I quote:
You think it would be great if for our ****ty HOT we got to spend even more AAs just to reduce the recast timer so that it became a HOT with the same recast timer as Clerics and BL that still remains the worst (yet most expensive) of the three.
All I did was point out that this was an absolutely false statement. You're comparing SOTW which, at a minimum, costs 4 points for a Druid to obtain level 1 of with 23 points for Celestial Regeneration after getting pre-reqs. Or looking at strictly at the AA istelf, 4 for SOTW Level 1 vs. 5 for CR Level 1. 9 for SOTW level 3 vs. 14 for CR level 3. I also looked at the Beastlord ability and find that it takes 5 AAs in Class skills to get, once again more than the 4 needed for SOTW. I just wanted to correct a false statement since far too many people see something that somebody wrote and start believeing it to be true. In this case, his statement was completely false.

Now you are, sort of, right in that Clerics will eventually get Healing Gift 3 (the big requirment to CR). But it's not the first thing that a Cleric wants in Arche skills. Spell Casting Mastery is. After that, you're looking at a ton of useful AAs that are, arguably, better than Healing Gift for a low AA Cleric. Mass Group Buff, Healing Adapt, Divine Arbitration among others just to name a few. Healing Gift doesn't do a lot for Clerics since CH is a primary heal and it's RARE for the CH to be used to it's full effect (especially after Healing Adapt levels are added in). Clerics eventually need to get HG since it's a pre-req for a lot of Class skills but I can assure you that most Clerics don't get it right away (and yes, I know that somebodies brother's friend plays a Cleric and got HG first, he's an exception and not the rule).

Anyway, I have no complaints with SOTW being reduced to 15 mintues and I think it should be to stay in line with the other heals.. In fact, I'm shocked that it hasn't been changed already and I really have no idea why SOE doesn't reduce it.

Quick FYI, there's new thread pleading the case for a 15 min SoTW here (http://thedruidsgrove.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6333). Hopefully having it out in the open instead of buried in another thread will give it the needed publicity and scrutiny so that it'll be changed. Please go post your support, or argue against it for that matter (if you have a reason to).

Islington, you can't compare how many AA's it takes to get a certain ability.

Only the actual AA cost of that ability.

Because for druids there's all sorts of useful AA's they'd rather get than SoTW (well, I can dream can't I? the Druid's AA list is a pale shadow of usefulness compared to a cleric's).

In reality, druids spend 12 AA's on ONE spell (Nature's Infusion + HG3), another 12 on two (Nature's Infusion and the rare cast of Karana's Renewal + HA3), etc. And of course, 15 more each for the advanced versions.

27 AA's to make Nature's Infusion do 19% more woot.

Islington, you can't compare how many AA's it takes to get a certain ability.

Only the actual AA cost of that ability.

Because for druids there's all sorts of useful AA's they'd rather get than SoTW (well, I can dream can't I? the Druid's AA list is a pale shadow of usefulness compared to a cleric's).

In reality, druids spend 12 AA's on ONE spell (Nature's Infusion + HG3), another 12 on two (Nature's Infusion and the rare cast of Karana's Renewal + HA3), etc. And of course, 15 more each for the advanced versions.

27 AA's to make Nature's Infusion do 19% more woot.
I think you completely missed the point of what I was trying to say. It was stated that Spirit of the Wood was a more expensive AA than Cleric's Celestial Regeneration and Beastlord's Paragon. This statement was completely false and I showed why. That's all I was trying to say. So I have no idea what you're even talking about.

"You're comparing SOTW which, at a minimum, costs 4 points for a Druid to obtain level 1 of with 23 points for Celestial Regeneration after getting pre-reqs"

That's what I'm talking about. A false statement.

"You're comparing SOTW which, at a minimum, costs 4 points for a Druid to obtain level 1 of with 23 points for Celestial Regeneration after getting pre-reqs"

That's what I'm talking about. A false statement.
If you're going to quote me, then quote my WHOLE statement. If you would have read my whole post instead of hitting reply after skimming the first two lines you would also see that I posted:

Or we could compare it this way, Level 1 SOTW = 4 AAs and Level 1 CR = 5 AAs. Level 3 SOTW = 9 AAs and level 3 CR = 14 AAs.

As I said, the statement that Cleric and Beastlord MGB Free Heals are cheaper than Druid's Spirit of the Wood is COMPLETELY FALSE no matter how you look at it.

And no, my statement is NOT false. I have no idea where you get the idea that it is. At a minimum, a Cleric needs to spend 6 points in General, 12 points for Healing Gift 3 and then an additional 5 points for Level 1 of Celestial Regeneration. 6 + 12 + 5 = 23 AAs. What part of that statement is false?

In case you are not aware, Celestial Regeneration is a Class ability. To unlock Class abilities you must spend 6 points in general to unlock Archetype abilities and then an additional 12 points in Archetype to unlock Class abilities. Beastlord's Paragon works the exact same way, it's a Class Ability. However, Beastlords do NOT have to spend their 12 Archetype points on a specific skill in order to unlock Paragon. Spirit of the Wood is a Planes of Power ability and this particular one has zero requirements other than level. Once a Druid is of the appropriate level, he/she just dumps 4 points into the skill to gain Level 1.

As I said, no matter how you look at it, Celestial Regeneration and Paragon are more expensive than Spirit of the Wood.

Why are you trying to argue otherwise? You simply will NEVER convince me that 4 is more than 5.

Please, Islington, the druid needs to get to level 61, etc, and sotw is not the first thing a druid will buy, SCM3, buff extension to make it worth while, etc etc. And unless you really enjoy soloing frogs in PoStorms (assuming you can get the camp), that's a lot harder for a druid than a cleric. Who has it tougher now? Its fairly easy to guess.

You honestly believe that Cel Regen is the first thing a Cleric is going to get? The EXACT SAME THING applies. Clerics have things they want / need to get first before getting Cel Regen and the required Healing Gift 3.

At any rate, I completely give up. It's obvious that I'm not going to be able to convince you that 4 really is less than 5.

I'm done. Go ahead and get whatever last word you want in.

P.S. And because it's probably lost in the shuffle, I have no objection to SOTW being reduced to 15 minutes. I support this and am pretty shocked that it hasn't been already.