Ideas for 2011 expansion/State of the Class

[Hzath]

My topics for spells are:

Kron's - Make this a pure nuke.  I've posted it before, but remove the kron's maelstrom gaze (1 tick doom effect) and replace it with kron's maelstrom chance so that the fourth nuke fires instantly and there are no stacking issues and all damage is instant.  The alternative is increase all nukes by 1/3 and remove the doom/4th random nuke all together.

Spiritual V____ line - It needs something to make is favored by portion of classes in some situations.  Ideally my wish would be add something like 1/2/3 spell/dot crit chance across the ranks so casters and possible hybrids would choose this over brells and strength.

Neivr's Aggression/Protection - These never really got tuned in beta.  They're a good idea to have a type of stances so the warder can be more offensive or defensive focused while sacrificing the other.  Currently there's almost no different when using either spell.  It's a good idea if some time can be put into making them more effective.

Yowl at the Moon - Pipe dream request of .5s cast time.  It's a dps loss to cast when burning, rangers made a similar argument when they received FSoA to get a cast time reduction during beta.  This would be huge to have all our tools available during a burn.  Ideally I would say leave the Feralgia line 1.5 cast time so that similar to rangers our simple spell (yowl/focused tempest of arrows) gets a quick .5s cast while the potentially more effective versions (feralgia/tempest/fusillade of arrows) remain 1.5s cast time.

Spectral Rampart - The duration is too short.  The recast being (almost) double that of dragonscale guard is balance enough to warrant the .5s cast time.  The duration doesn't need to be 3% of its predecessor's as well.

Growl of the _____ - The passive healing gained from this has dropped to an almost negligible level.  The original version healed for 150/tick during the DoN expansion at level 70, the current version heals for 387/tick at rank 3.  Player hp values and mob dps values have skyrocketed well beyond the healing this provides. I would like to see the current version somewhere around 800-1000/tick.  We're frail, on raids the passive healing could really help push our survivability closer to other melee dps classes.

Dots need better resists mods, mostly our disease dot.  I don't think I've landed it 10 times all expansion on a raid mob.

Fix Empathic Fury.  Make it not target or require a pet to be alive to use it.  Make it so we can't waste it if another disc is running. Make it behave EXACTLY like bestial vivisection does currently.  I sent a pm on what needs to be done to Aristo months ago but I'll send it to you if it isn't obvious from the spell data.

NEW IDEAS

A frozen venin/kron's maelstrom type spell for DoTs.  Something like a .5s cast that casts both our poison and disease dot simultaneously, or a 1.5s spell that casts slow+both dots at once at the cost of decreased mana efficiency.


Pet or pet+self only listlessness (defensive proc slow) type spell

[Karve]

Give SV a 7% chance to twincast which stacks with all existing twincast lines, and I have a feeling casters would seriously love it.

I put 7 just to hopefully see some returns on it taking the available stacked values to 10 or so.

[bradam]

Could always go some kinda heal twincast thing on SV, I dont think anyone has any spells for that yet.

[Ranar]

aye .. i think some kind of caster mod on our SV line is main thing i like to see done .... it would fit in nicely with 3 choices .. ranger's for attk .. pally's for Hps.. and our for the casters's ..

[Khauruk]

Give SV a 7% chance to twincast which stacks with all existing twincast lines, and I have a feeling casters would seriously love it.

Twincast for nukes wouldn't stack w/ their buffs or enc aura, so not that great an option.  It also wouldn't affect DoTs,

[/quote]

Could always go some kinda heal twincast thing on SV, I dont think anyone has any spells for that yet.

Healing twincast would work nicely though to add a healer-centric line on the spell.  That is in the request list now.

[Khauruk]

Key points with spells from the last expansion.  Details are listed below in the "state of current spellbook" section.
*Bestial Vivisection - ***NEEDS*** to go to short-buff window.  One of our top requests this go-'round.
*Spiritual Valor - needs huge reenvisioning to make it worth upgrading.  Requested target niche - buff for casters.  One of our top requests this go-'round
*Wilaps - needs a huge re-envisionment.
*Neivr's Aggression/Protection - needs massaging, as they're just very lackluster.
*Focus of Emiq - needs duration increase.
*DoTs - need re-envisioning.  Better resist checks, decreased duration with higher damage/tick.  Nuke portion on disease dot.
*Spectral Rampart - needs duration boost.
*spirit of Kron - needs dps boost, or to be broken into a dps line and a stun line of procs.
*Growl of the Tiger - discontinue.
*Tuzil's/Shout - sorely need cast time reduction.
*Deadlock Jaws - needs re-envisioning.  Currently useless.

New spell ideas/requested upgrades:
Group Ferocity - now that we have a useful ferocity, the aggravation needs to be reduced.  Please make a group ferocity version of the upgrade.  Even restricting it to a version which we can use only on our group would be awesome (targetgroupbuff disabled, or self-target with group autocast).  Turning this into an aura would be a great option as well.

Empathic Fury upgrade/remake - please make this a self-disc with an autocast for the pet version.  We've had the current one for 6(?) years now, it's time for an upgrade, and one that doesn't change target to our pet.

Minor Crowd Control ability - Our pets were a viable, if limited, version of crowd control for many years, and we'd like to see that return.  We'd love to see a short buff for our pet which allows it to lurch a target, which we can use in conjunction w/ our pet heals, Companion's Relocation, and pet runes to control a single add.  We know the power this ability brings, so restricting it to the same mob level as mezzes would be an appropriate restriction.

Unity-type effect for our DoTs - many beastlords would appreciate a unity effect to cast both of our DoTs for an expansion simultaneously.

Killshot Buff - something along the same lines as the Invigorated by the Hunt (ranger spell).  We have no useful killshot AA or spell, and would love to see some form of this put in (and no, Taste of Blood AA line upgrades would not suffice.)  Something like the Ranger AA line Hunter's Fury would be awesome too.

State of our current spellbook:
86
*Bestial Vivisection - awesome, we love it.  This really needs to go to the shortbuff window though, as it makes Empathic Fury and Protective Spirit very difficult to use, esp. for keyboard-based players!
*Spinechiller Blood - Normal DoT problems.  Even with our resist reduction AA (Focus of Animus), resists are a pain in the butt.  Duration is too long - please amp up the damage and make this a 3-tick dot.
*Respite - awesome!
*Neiver's Protection/Aggression - good ideas, but they are simply too small for many of us to use it.  A bit of a boost would be appreciated.
*Salve of Sevna - last years changes to the casting times were very nice.
*Focus of Emiq - Please continue making this a copy of shaman focus.  The short timer serves more to irritate people we buff rather than make them seek out shaman focus instead, as it overwrites their sham version.  Please increase the base duration to between 45 minutes and matching shaman focus (the duration is not why people seek Unity - it's all the other wonderful effects).
87
*Wilap's Mending - useless spell line.  We don't need so many pet heals - Salve line and AAs are all most use.  Combining Wilap's and the Promised heal line into one would be a good choice though - decrease the cast time to 1/2 or 1/4 second (matching Promised), and give the same large wear off effect, a bit more mana efficiency and a bit larger HoT, adn that's a spell we might use.  As it stands, many beastlords never even buy the spell, much less use it.
*Shiverback Endemic - suffers from all the issues that disease dots always have (see above w/ Spinechiller Blood, but amplify the problems w/ resists/duration).  Lack of nuke portion means it doesn't trigger tonics or mana reiteration line of buff.  Make this a 3-tick DoT with substantial resist check and we might use it.
*Spiritual Valor - One of the sorest points for us in our spell lineup.  Still a useless spell 99% of the time which nobody asks for and many players don't even know exists.  Please make this have caster-specific effects on it, so that we have a nice breakdown of Brell's for tanks, Stalker for melee and SV for casters.  A small addition to DD/DoT crit chance or crit size (even on the order of 2%) would give it the edge to be requested by other classes.  A small boost to twinheal chance (1/2/2%) would be plenty to be desirable for healers.
*Sha's Reprisal - wonderful addition, use it constantly!
*Jorra's Mending - Nice changes, please keep them up.  We would love to see a reduction in cast time to 1 second though.
*Flurry of Claws - we're a bit puzzled by this addition, but some use it regularly.  Nice for farming low con mobs, but never sees any use in most groups/raids.
88
*Spirit of Averc - we love the pet boosts last expansion.  Please keep the same relative strength for this one!
*Spectral Rampart - Cast time is great, and generally we think worth the reduction in hits blocked.  Please please please(!) boost the duration though!  A 4 or 5 minute base duration would make us overjoyed with this spell.
*Sarsez' Bite - good as it stands
*Promised Wardmending - see comments for Wilap's Mending above.  As it exists currently this receives very little use.
*Nature's Fury - awesome!
*Incomparable Velocity - great
*Bolstering Warder - Some mechanism to let us audiotrigger when this fades off our pet would be amazing, but otherwise the spell is useful as it stands. We'd love to sacrifice some efficiency for heal size though, as it is useful mainly when soloing.
89
*Spiritual Enhancement - awesome boost.
*Spirit of Kron - the actual dps from the proc is still very tiny and we'd love to see the size of each proc boosted considerably.  That said, we like it.  Please remember to switch up the resist check this time around - depending on content and fights like the Masked Invaders raid, Fire would be a good thing to see cycled back around.  We haven't had a Fire resist check pet proc since Prophecy of Ro.
*Growl of the Tiger - a useless spell line with the presence of Tuzil's Feralgia.  Please discontinue.
*Glacial Roar - we're still puzzled by the inclusion of this last year, but it's nice in niche content.
*Glacial Lance - the boost last year was very nice.
*Frozen Venin - we still love this.
90
*Tuzil's Feralgia - we love it!  The Tuzil's Growl needs a good bit larger HP boost and HP regen portion though! It has grown very little since the Depths of Darhollow creation of the Growl line of spells.  Please reduce cast time!  It's too long for anything but sustained dps - a reduction to 0.75 or 0.5sec cast time would be perfect!
*Spellbreaker's Rampart - limited utility given the generalist nature of our other pet rune spells.
*Shout at the Moon - We love it, but it needs a cast time reduction to 0.75 or 0.5 seconds to be useful when we are burning at all.
*Rush - upgrade as normal pls.
*Kron's Maelstrom - we love it.  Stacking issues currently suck, but we'll see what happens with the next patch to Live.
*Deadlock Jaws - Discontinue or drastically alter.  It never gets used, and a small increase on the DoT portion each year doesn't make it any more interesting.  If this had no DoT and was a 20 minute spell (no counters) we'd love it.  With maximum 2 hits, 1100 mana cost and no controllability, it sees no use.  Changing this to work like a pet-procced Listlessness would be reasonable also - pet proc for a 25% slow, and we still have to cast to get a full slow on the mob.
*Callous Ferocity - awesome upgrade, please continue.  The recast timer is tres irritating, but far less than prior.  Please boost duration to 15 or 18 minute base, so we can buff people just before an event starts, and not need to rebuff mid-event.

[Tadenea]

it has been passed on, thanks if any updates let me know

[Khauruk]

I will do.

[Hzath]

I like the healing twincast idea for SV

[Sikkem]

I like the healing twincast idea for SV

Nice writeup.

Do clerics still use Yaulp? because if they do SV blocks it so clerics might prefer to still not have it as a buff.

Any word on that extra bonus AA that was mentioned last beta also?

[Khauruk]

I like the healing twincast idea for SV

Do clerics still use Yaulp? because if they do SV blocks it so clerics might prefer to still not have it as a buff.

Any word on that extra bonus AA that was mentioned last beta also?

Thanks.

If we dump the attack off of SV, then the stacking problem with Yaulp is gone.

AAs - the only one they really mentioned was a potential for a 4th spire, and no....no mention in a few months that I've come across.

[bradam]

Would be a bit of a nich spell but I'd love to see a AE slow to go with the other AE's we got.  Useless in raids but I'm perma grouped with an enchanter and ae slow would be wonderous for chain pulling  =)

I forgot about yalup, I'm all for dumping the attack on SV.  If I wanted the attack stuff I'd harass a ranger.

Wouldn't hurt to slap a summon pet gear spell on there, I know its prolly a lost cause but never hurts to ask...


And just as a minor convience I'd like the Grow spell.  I'm always getting chewed for group shrinking someone that didn't want to be shrunk.   Plus petamorph wand - brownie would be funny large sized   :lol:

[Ranar]

very nice write up khauruk , and thank you for the time put in consoildating everything ..

one thing i would like to see added would be splitting the aa pact of the wurine into 2 buffs ... runspeed + illusion on 1 ... the goodies on the 2nd ...

never know this go around might be able to get it . might as well toss it in the hat .. hehe

nevermind just slipped my mind that tad needs only spell info ..... maybe we can go ahead and start some aa list going for future reference..

[Khauruk]

Aye, I'll be asking for that once the time for AA input rolls around.

[Zunar]

*Deadlock Jaws - Discontinue or drastically alter.  It never gets used, and a small increase on the DoT portion each year doesn't make it any more interesting.  If this had no DoT and was a 20 minute spell (no counters) we'd love it.  With maximum 2 hits, 1100 mana cost and no controllability, it sees no use.  Changing this to work like a pet-procced Listlessness would be reasonable also - pet proc for a 25% slow, and we still have to cast to get a full slow on the mob.

This could proc the AE slow mentioned about already, to make this spell situationally useful imo