Omens spell issues...

[Nalitra]

Make Ferocity of Irionu a group spell (following the same progression of Shaman Avatar line) .  Drop the stats back down to exactly the same as Fero, and just make it group.  

Up the mana cost to about 1750.  


Spiritual Ascendance :  If they absolutely refuse to up this to 11 hp/mana a tick and increase the duration.  Then leave it at 10 but add an additional feature to it:  Increase endurance by 10 a tick.  


Healing of Mikkily :  Drop the cast time from 9 sec to 5 sec.  Leave recast as it is.


Spirit of Undalla :  Drop this pet spell from level 68 to level 67.  


Festering Malady:  Get rid of this spell altogether and replace it with a level 70 slow.  

2:  Decrease Attack Speed by 65%
3:  Increase Disease Counter by 24
 
Mana: 350 Skill: Alteration
Casting Time: 3 Recast Time: 5
Fizzle Time: 2.25 Resist: Magic
Resist Adjust -30 Range: 200  


Our guild leaders asked each class to post a list of spells prioritizing the spells in order of "must have" for raiding purposes.  They are trying to figure out spelll distribution as it benefits the guild the best.  

I couldn't honestly post even one spell as a "must have" to benefit our raids.  I think its very sad that not even one spell in our line up would be beneficial enough on raids to list as "must have."  

I sure hope this changes.  

Nalitra

[Bengali]

By contrast if we got "group celerity," no one would be able to tell the difference between a level 67-68 beastlord casting haste and a level 63 beastlord casting it.

I'd love a group haste... however, Talisman of Alacrity IS group celerity.  By giving us that we'd be directly stepping on shaman toes.

I know, which is another reason I don't want group celerity at the moment.

Your suggestion of a group 40% haste spell?  That's not bad.

When exactly would it make sense to use this? One of the biggest complaints that shamans have is that a group version of a spell that is less effective than the single target one really hurts their incentives to use the group one.  This is particularly true when the single target version will take some people to the haste cap and the group version doesn't take *anyone* to the haste cap.  Sooner or later you're going to have the same exact problem that shamans have -- which is that you cast the group buff and *still* have melees ask you for the single target one because it's more haste.

If you do a search on the shaman's crucible for "talisman" and "alacrity" you come up with 230 posts, and it seems like just about every time it's mentioned it's in the context of how much it sucks.  People have even voted for it to be on the shaman top 10, and it appears that the reason it didn't make it was because many people felt that it was such a no-brainer change that it didn't need to be there (that is just my sense from what I was able to read in the past hour or so -- I haven't followed the issue all that closely before now).  Also, the consensus is that it's an issue of convenience, not power:

Making our group haste (talisman of alacrity) buff as much haste as our single target haste (swift like the wind) would not add any power at all to shaman, but would drastically decrease my annoyance factor in groups.

Now I'm all for convenience, particularly when it comes to Celerity.  There is not a single entity in the space-time continuum that hates casting celerity as much as I do.   Every time I see "haste fading" or "haste plz" in group (98% of the time it's as I'm in the process of refreshing it or I'm trying to slow something) I want to punch a hole in my monitor.

But group alacrity?  That is the worst of both worlds.  Extra mana for a group buff and I'm still going to end up casting the single target one that I can't stand.   There's a crazy thread on the shaman boards about the whole issue, and some of the posts are pretty extreme, but I think this about sums up the issue in a reasonable fashion:

I think the 10% difference in haste is noticeable, and I have definately had melees complain about it on the rare occasion that I do use TOA. Strangers never say anything, but if I cast TOA on a close friend of mine they almost always say "why did you give me this? cast SLTW now you lazy ass". I think that for maximum performace, melees should get the best of every buff. Sure, TOA is good enough, but SLTW is better. It might be a very small %, even if the above parse is wrong, but it is still better. What would you think of a chanter that uses clicky tranq off his ornate pants rather than giving the group voq? I wouldn't make a huge deal out of it and I probably wouldn't say anything, but I definately wouldn't like it.

[Tardar]

Can someone explain why a single target haste has to have spell cast time of 47mins.  In a good Ldon group, assuming you have to haste 4 players, and slow mobs inc.  It can take forever to get everyone hasted.  The cast time is so long, by the time you have hasted 1 person, you have to stop and slow on the next mob, and so on.  And what if slow is resisted?  Now you have to wait till the next mob is slowed, so the person you are casting on doesn't run oor.  Short duration buffs suck, I don't care how good they are, they take away from the fun, cuz I am constantly having to refresh something.

[Skratchen]

Our guild leaders asked each class to post a list of spells prioritizing the spells in order of "must have" for raiding purposes.  They are trying to figure out spelll distribution as it benefits the guild the best.  

I couldn't honestly post even one spell as a "must have" to benefit our raids.  I think its very sad that not even one spell in our line up would be beneficial enough on raids to list as "must have."  

I sure hope this changes....

I couldn't agree more.  I think just about every beastlord is underwhelmed with the spells planned for us in OoW.  

Our 2 raid spells (Spiritual Ascendance and Ferocity of Irionu) are ever so barely upgraded that I doubt people would notice if we just used the old PoP version spells.  

IMO, there should be a noticable difference.  Like everyone else posted, SA should be 11 hp/mana per tick and the duration lengthened so that it is equal to MGB timer.  

The new OoW Ferocity is likewise, very disappointing.  For the slightest stat boost, the mana cost has gone up dramatically.  I wouldn't bother obtaining this spell (in it's current incarnation) ahead of other classes in my guild who would be trying to get their spells.  This spell line was clearly designed for raiding and in that frame of thought, it needs some serious *ummff* added to it to make it worth obtaining and then casting.  

I think a few minor tweaks/additions, would make this spell desirable.  First, add a minor mod to it(damage or double attack.... or whatever would be deemed appropriate).  Also increase hitpoints rather than increasing stamina (which most beastlords would have their stamina stat long capped out).  And finally, maybe either increase endurance regeneration and/or increasing resists from 65 to 75.  Those kinds of changes could make the OoW Ferocity desirable enough for beastlords to want to get it and other players prefer it over the PoP fero.

[Fibbs]

I read some of the stuff here but not all so apologies if its a repeat.

I'll be happy with Spiritual Ascendance if it was 10hp 10mana 10 eduro per tick. otherwise i'm with the 11hp/11mana camp also.

I'm a melee fan so some tomes/discs would satisfy the lack fo spells for me. perhaps a crit disc or something, obtained from some time consuming yet simple quest you can knock over in a an hour or so.

Ferocity or what ever the new one is called. As i've said in a rant, we'll effectively be casting this twice as much now on raids, the resists are too good to pass up. so,  just make it a group spell, extend the duration and the recast to balance this so it doesnt become game breaking.

The result would be we can still only cover 6-9 people max during the same round, but only have to cast it 4 times rather than 6-9 over the duration. Does that make sense? ultimately it frees up melee time for raiders without unbalancing raid average dps.

I think i have the numbers messed up, but it concerns me that ill be a gimp bard casting stuff constantly on raids.

Nukes are on the money for me, DoT's as was said by someone, following the malaria line is a great idea. Still would have been nice to get a disease or poison based nuke.

As for pets, the pet buff should have an avoid/dodge styled component in it. I don't want the best hp's or atk or AC etc etc i just want a pet who can go the distance and keep mobs occupied if needed.

Still I'm happy over all with whats coming up from OoW.

Fibbs

[cougerofeq]

I thought it was stated that there were no HYBRIDS anymore and that every class was its own?  If thats is the case then we are not limited by shamans or monks anymore - just overall balance.

Having slow, sd and paragon.... and apprearing to do decent DPS due to our agro issues even though we are the lowest of the melee.... and having the weakest pet of the pet classes... I think we have fallen behind in the balance equation.  Omens in its current state is not doing anything to help that I can see.

I pray I'm wrong as I will not start over again - getting to lvl70 and tons of flags and AAs make it a non-option.

[Tebdliz]

Get rid of Festering malady and give me something at least semi useful.  Heck even group IoS is more usefull then this.  At least that actually has some limited uses.  If for some reason you insist on giving me this waste of spellbook space at least make it level 66 so when I get it instead of something useful I dont feel the need to cry for a week.

[Fibbs]

did someone say that we should get group shrink?

if not there 's a spell we need.

Fibbs

[jitathab]

It  does appear that the only spells that will get used at all on raids will be, the new pet  and pet haste. The rest just do not add anything at all. The new Fero our top of the line lvl 70 spell has a paltry 75 attack current. Almost any bst with 40PP in thier pocket can get 100 atk in tribute. SO spend 40pp for 100 atk you can turn on at will or go out of mana trying to keep Fero up on people.

Long duration dot - well fine for solo, but how many mobs last for 2 minutes in any other situation at all.
Short duration dot - great another way to generate agro

Pet heal - too slow.

More Ice nukes - Still useless against certain classes of mobs and zones.

SA 1 more mana regen? oh come on if the rumours of raising the FT cap are true to around 30 this will give a spell line that has lost considerable amounts of relative power.

I would like to see -
Group Celerity
Group Kragg
Spirit of BinLi - Billy - can never remember the spelling ( more atk bonus on that than our new UBAH Fero)

And personally I dont care what the other classes get or dont get, we should go for the things we agree as a class we actually need.

From this line up of spells it would appear the relative power increase from 65-70 is significantly less than 60-65. All in all it just lacks any creativity. Out of 15 spells there are 2 must haves and possible 3 if you need both pets.

[Rhaynne]

The new Fero our top of the line lvl 70 spell has a paltry 75 attack current. Almost any bst with 40PP in thier pocket can get 100 atk in tribute. SO spend 40pp for 100 atk you can turn on at will or go out of mana trying to keep Fero up on people.

Three things here:  1) Ferocity of Irionu adds 187 attack, not 75 2) Ferocity adds attack if you're at the worn attack cap or not.  For someone with 250+ worn attack, buying tribute vengeance does absolutely nothing for them.  3) You can use ferocity on other people, raising their attack... buying tribute vengeance only affects you.

I agree it is a poor upgrade, but because the attack change is minor and there is no change to any other parameters of the spell.

More Ice nukes - Still useless against certain classes of mobs and zones.

Every classes has some mobs or some zones where their spells are less effective.  While I think a poison based nuke would be great, I'm not going to quibble.

SA 1 more mana regen? oh come on if the rumours of raising the FT cap are true to around 30 this will give a spell line that has lost considerable amounts of relative power.

While I can't comment on specifics, suffice to say the rumors are "proabably" a bit exaggerated.  Regardless, SA should be 11 per tick at the minimum.

[Siodan]

did someone say that we should get group shrink?

if not there 's a spell we need.

Actualy whats needed is shrink not being group dependable, you should be able to atleast shrink people in the raid your in or something. With all the raid abilitys they were thrying to give us alowing shrink to hit raid and not just group would Rock!

[Oneiromancer]

An out-of-group shrink won't happen for the same reason that an out-of-group invisibility won't happen...too much potential for abuse/griefing.  Not that ninja-shrinking someone is so bad gameplay-wise, since they still won't get smaller than halflings/gnomes, but it can be annoying if you don't want it (thus kind of "griefing").

Game on,

[Tastian]

also, some beastlords currently have issue with group shrink because of how it effects pet.  Giving beastlords a version of group shrink would just make beastlords have to yell at themselves.  8P

[Siodan]

An out-of-group shrink won't happen for the same reason that an out-of-group invisibility won't happen...too much potential for abuse/griefing.  Not that ninja-shrinking someone is so bad gameplay-wise, since they still won't get smaller than halflings/gnomes, but it can be annoying if you don't want it (thus kind of "griefing").

Game on,

yea i would never advise an out of group invis, and i was thinking about the abuse (if only we could fix the players themselves .."ideal world" then that wouldn't be an issue)  but thats why i thought up the "raid version" shrink so that you can hit your raid and stuf.. that would be very helpfull and could not cause grief as you should follow the raid leaders wishes anyways... and for the bstsy and pets you just need to tiny companion your pet before shrink hits (i haven't really been talking about a bst group shrink was more talking about all existing shrinks), and once again if the raid wants the pets as small as they can be and won't wait for pets to be shrunk by their masters..well thats the raids fault then.   Since i like my pet big (he don't get stuck or have to run around as much it,s no skinn off my back.   :)

oh and last second thought... why not just do liek the ports and tl's and rezes and just put a confirmation box?  "blah bla would like to shrink you" ..or  /allow raid /allow guild /allow blah blah  "allows" people like a consent to invis or shrink you even if not in group.     it's just with so many raids where shrink is VERY VERY manditory (not just usefull) this would really help ... consiereing there are always those gerks that refuse to shrink themselves and cause grief for others.

[Grymlok]

I want one thing: FIX OUR PET PROGRESSION!

Why aren't we getting new pets on the same level path were were (aka 1/2 levels).  First pet at lv 68 is retarded.  67 was "ok" then they pushed it back.  Stop being lazy and give us a smooth progression in pets, rather than getting a "jump" at 68.

Or does our new pet suck?  I haven't seen anyone mention pet power.