Spiritual Line Duration Increased (Stealth?)

[Discordant]

i couldnt disagree with you more Discordant. your obviously living in a perfect eq world where no one in any of the groups you SA die. when 1 person dies in a group, they will send you a tell asking for it...thats means the 5 other people are also gonna get a refresh. Basically if 9 people die and you SA them in that 90 min time frame, its basically as if you have re done the raid anyway, but this time its alot more mana. this extended duriation does absolutely nothing for high end raids...becuase people die alot

Generally, the people that need SA do not die alot in my guild, unless we are doing progression in DoDH and we have to learn something.  And even when they do, unless our guild leader tells us, I don't generally SA in the middle of the encounter, because most of them don't last long enough where the dead will be a factor.  There are occassions when this might occur, but they don't happen much.  And all I see is people griping about the mana cost and not really about the duration.  As I've said before, that is your perogative.  I don't mind it all that much, but so far, I've been nothing but happy.  Is it a bit much? Yes? Is it justified? Yes.  Again, if you thought Sony was just going to upgrade duration without upgrading the mana cost, you were living in a perfect EQ world.  SA is a fairly needed buff.  Our only gripe is that we don't have a single target version like Chanter's VoQ.

[Baracca]

Although the new mana cost is a tad bit steep and will take some getting used to. I'm satisfied with thas change overall. The duration increase was long overdue.

[Kanan]

It was worthwhile last night.  First real raid I've gotten to do since the change.  It was nice to only have to redo it about once.  Also was nice to be able to mgb it effectively after the wipe & getting a lil feeding from da necro.

And we've organized who will do SA now.  We always have at least 2 bsts along.  Often 3.  So one takes the tells to do the filleups, while at mgb time, the other 2 split evens & odds & work em that way.  Doesn't totally drain us, and i was back to FM by the time we were on next boss.

[hakaaba]

As for the people complaining about how this is bad for soloers...look at it again.  Sure its a larger cost up front but you regain way more mana in the extra duration than you lose initially.  Obviously it sucks when you die but how many of you die often solo anyway?

[iamweaver]

Besides, the last thing I do before I log out is refresh my buffs, since I will come back FM. 

[sicshift]

i love the change  :-)

[Tastian]

What still gets me are the people that talk like SA was free before or something.  It cost 531 originally, it now costs 359 more.  If you were SA'n people in 3 groups that died every 10 minutes or whatever before then you were still spending way too much mana on them.  I don't recall anyone before ever requesting a 30 minute 350 mana SA. lol

I mentioned it before but the solo'r that SA's themselves has to sit for 1 extra minute(max) and then has 27 extra minutes(min) where they just don't have to rebuff.  If you buff before logging, then it's mana free and the extra duration is gravy.  Again in some situations it can be worse(especially with dispells), but there are also a lot of situations where it's better. 

Yes there are some cases where this is more mana, but some people are seriously focusing in on those cases alone and aren't even talking about it accuractly.  For me I hate fizzling the fugging spell, but new SA isn't costing me 450 mana on a fizzle, it's costing me ~170 more mana than fizzling it before did, on a raid that's literally seconds of difference.  Meanwhile when doing some clearings for stuff that's on total farm status I just don't rebuff SA anymore.  I buff it when the main buffs get done, maybe tag a late comer, and call it a day.  I've had times where I spent more mana than before, and I've also had times where the change has saved me thousands of mana.  Am I the only person that was ever in the middle of a farming raid and was like "schit SA dropping in 5 mins won't last the fight" and had to do an entire raid rebuff while all the other buffs were still ok?Also keep in mind that to MGB it takes up to 2X the mana cost.  If you are at 900 you can MGB it instead of paying 1800 for it.  hehe  I think as people play around with it a bit more they'll see the differences, maybe make some changes, etc.  I don't claim that it's perfect and to be honest I'd have perfered that the mana cost went up a bit less so we even gained a tidge of efficency lol, but oh wells. 

[tacyttik]

Personally I think it's time Sony finally made SA what it should have been 2 expansions ago, and make it 11/tick. I love the new duration, hard as it is to rebuff after a wipe. However the mana cost suggests that it should be 11 per tick, instead of 10.

Spiritual Purity: 700 to cast, 7/tick
Spiritual Dominion: 800 to cast, 9/tick
Spiritual Ascendance: 900 to cast, 10/tick
(Duration of all 3 is the same, 72 mins)

I didnt go any farther back because SR is 550 to cast, (5/tick) and lasts 72 mins, and SL is 200 to cast and lasts 45 mins, so there was a lack of logic in casting costs farther back. The cost for SA is not linear with previous spells, nor is the gain, and I think it's time sony finally put it how it should have been, or reduce the mana cost. I'll hope for the 11/tick change, but knowing sony we'll get neither.

[hakaaba]

It has been 2 expansions and the cap for several things has gone up.  I find it hard to believe they could justify saying 1 more mana regen on top of the hundreds that are available would completely unbalance everything.  Especially when theyre releasing cheap easy to find mana regen potions at the same time theyre making that excuse lol.

[Visimar]

i dont really SA during the fights either..its the after fights..the ones who have died. as im SAing them im also refreshing people who already have it. My guild easily does a named within the orginal 60 min SA i had. so you see i never had a problem with SA fading out, becuase within that hr, i would have most likely SA'd the groups anyway from deaths. plus, its horrid on wipes....its not worth the extra mana in my opinion, the old wayy was waaaay more flexible. i rather shoot SA's without much of the mana penalty..recover fasters..and easier on the mana..becuae either way if/wehn it fades at 60-90 min  ill probably be FOM anyway.. its the situational times that bother me..the death tells..the wipes.

[Baracca]

Started looking at the cost increases for the spiritual line

I for one am happy with the Duration increase. It was a long time issue that has finally been addressed. They may have gone a little overboard on the cost vs/duration

The change added 27 Mins to duration so added roughly 60% to Duration.

SA - was 531   now   900   10 mana/hp per tic - 70% cost jump?
SD - was 425   now  800   9 mana/hp per tic - 88% cost jump?
SP - was 350   now  700   7 mana/hp per tic - 100% cost jump? cost doubled
SR - was 275  now   550   5 mana/hp per tic - 100% cost jump? cost doubled

Some Ideas on a More Viable Cost increase

figure in roughly 60% cost increase for 60% time increase

SA - was   531   now   849   10 mana/hp per tic (This) NEEDS to be bumped up to 11 hp/mana to justify cost
SD - was   425   now   680   9 mana/hp per tic
SP - was   350   now   560   7 mana/hp per tic
SR - was   275   now   440   5 mana/hp per tic

Reflecting 50% cost increase more reasonable for effect/duration

SA - was   531   now   796   10 mana/hp per tic (This) NEEDS to be bumped up to 11 hp/mana to justify cost
SD - was   425   now   637   9 mana/hp per tic
SP - was   350   now   525   7 mana/hp per tic
SR - was   275   now   412   5 mana/hp per tic

Reflecting 35% cost increase Ideal for effect/duration

SA - was   531   now   716   10 mana/hp per tic (This) NEEDS to be bumped up to 11 hp/mana to justify cost
SD - was   425   now   573   9 mana/hp per tic
SP - was   350   now   472   7 mana/hp per tic
SR - was   275   now   371   5 mana/hp per tic

I think a 35%-50% cost increase would be in line for this. a 70-100% is way outta line.

Maybe this will be tweaked a little more in upcoming patches.

Definitly want to keep the duration increase though. A step in the right direction.

If cost is doubled shouldnt duration reflect the same? 90 mins instead of 72?

As for me . I still like the duration increase, cost will just take some getting used to.

[Pakratz]

After raiding with this new spell a few times, the change isn't as bad as I thought it would be.  It is definitely a painful nerf to my situation (only BL on raids where people die fairly often).  But I find myself generally having enuf mana after recovering from the initial OOM from GBGing the raid.  After a wipe the raid did go without SA for some time, but it was only a matter of maybe 10 minutes before i got em all buffed.  Would very much still like to change it back, but like most painful things, I'll learn to live with it.

The funny thing is I used to be FM all the time on raids, what with raid buffs, alot of down time, and no way to really mana dump on a boss mob, so this SA change wouldnt have as much impact.  Now that we have Beastial Empathy (friggin awesome!), I'm OOM at the end of a boss fight.  No complaints tho, i love that BE.

[Tastian]

Bara -  Yeah I've looked over the costs and durations.  The thing to keep in mind is that mana regen buffs tend to run differently than other buffs because they are giving mana back.  There is a net mana effect that has to be considered over the duration as well, not just the efficency.  I think the lower ranks are a bit pricey, but then again the lower ranks aren't getting rebuffed as much, raid wipes, etc.  Will bring these issues up soon though and see if we can get one final set of tweaks.

Pak -  I think a lot need to play around with it and lots are attributing too much to this change.  The BE pet is a mana drain because it owns and I know a lot of bst that put themselves OOM with it a lot because they just chain it lol.  I know some bst that did the same exact thing when they first got growl too as they tried to basically run it full time and still nuke/slow/heal/dot/etc.  Once people actually play around with it some and adjust a bit it won't seem nearly as bad.  Being a solo bst and lots of wipes is the worst situation for the change, but that is a situation that is bad for everyone and I think that is what some overlook.  Look at what a solo druid would be dealing with or even a solo enc.  Death has a penalty and this makes it a bit worse, buffing classes can get overwhelmed and we see some of that.  Again I think some of what people complain about are things others actually like about the spell.  I know one bst that was actually giddy(sp lol) because they finally mem'd SA for the first time in months on a raid because it was simply always handled before.  *shrugs*  We'll play around with it a bit more, suggest a couple tweaks and then see where we are at.

[Sorien]

Personally, I like the change.  I'm a lvl 62, so I use SP on my solo outings.  I have no problems with the mana increase. 

Of course, I only use my own buffs when solo'ing and don't wait for more than 2 minutes after I initially buff up to go out and start the killing. 

I never have been a heavy mana user during battle while soloing except to refresh buffs that are fading.  The only consistent use of my spells during a battle is my slow.  The rest, I rely on my melee/procs and pet melee/procs.  I tend to save my mana for emergency type situations where I get two or three and need to heal myself & pet heavily.  I will usually throw dots on all mobs and work to keep pet alive during those times.

I'm usually going into initial solo battle at around 30 - 35% mana.  Now I will just go into battle at around 25 - 30% mana.  As a pretty big time solo'er now (Since I have just recently left my guild/Any fun guilds on Stromm looking for BST atm?), I have absolutely no problems with the increased duration and actually welcome the increase big time.

Of course, I won't complain either if enough peeps 'cry wolf' and the mana cost actually goes down tho.  Hehe

[tacyttik]

The thing to keep in mind is that mana regen buffs tend to run differently than other buffs because they are giving mana back.  There is a net mana effect that has to be considered over the duration as well, not just the efficency.

Number time again!

As Tast said, SA gives mana back so it's tricky to calc mana costs. Crunched some numbers to compare SA to VoC. I'm ignoring HP regen on SA and increased mana pool/increased stats on VoC, because nobody really cares about the HP regen, and the same goes for the stats on VoC. I realize those components go into casting cost, but really the effects are essentially unwanted when compared to the mana regen components of the 2 spells. (Personally they could take the regen off of SA and I wouldnt notice, or care. In fact I'd be all for it if they'd bring the casting cost inline with other mana regen type buffs.)

Calculations were done with the initial durations, durations with max buff AAs, and durations with max buff AAs and a store bought focus. I'm not sure if there are any items that will extend a level 70 beastlord buff by more than 15%, but there are several caster only items that have a +30% buff extension focus. The max duration on VoC would come out to be 864 ticks (180%) , but I wanted to stick with items anybody could get.

SA:
Initial:                   720 ticks, 7200 mana regen'd
130% (max AAs):    936 ticks, 9360 mana regen'd
145% (AAs, focus): 1044 ticks, 10440 mana regen'd

So the most we can ideally get out of SA is 6.2k mana.

VoC:
Initial:                   800 ticks, 16000 mana regen'd
130% (Arch AAs):  1040 ticks, 20800 mana regen'd
145% (Arch, item): 1160 ticks, 23200 mana regen'd
150% (max AAs):    1200 ticks, 24000 mana regen'd
165% (AAs, focus): 1320 ticks, 26400 mana regen'd
180% (max dur.):    1440 ticks, 28800 mana regen'd (added this one just for fun)

Obviously the enchanter has to work a little harder to get the extra 20% from AAs, since they have access to a buff AA we do not.
VoC costs 44% more than SA, however it [initially] gives 122% more mana. SA in it's current form regens mana at half the rate of VoC, but the casting cost is close to 70% of VoC. I can understand mana regen buffs being a little odd for casting costs, but it'd be nice to be more inline with other mana buffs, especially since we're so limited in buff extension options.