These were in the process of review when beta ended and the game launched. I would like against to draw attention to their drawbacks, as stated by Tastian in the beta forum:
1) Cast time - the cast time of these spells are one of the major reasons they are lacking in DPS. They need to be adjusted to the cast time of our nukes.
2) Resists - Diregriffon's is very resisted from what I've seen in TSS. It is a waste of mana in its current state if the resists are not fixed.
3) DPS - this was adjusted quite a bit before the expansion went live, but did not do enough to dispell the cast time/resists problem.
Any other comments?
I agree. I'd place dot fixes second in priority spells-wise to fero fixes.
- Spell slots: To use dots that "situationally" perform better we give up having spells that perform better the majority of the time. We don't always have warning before a "favorable" dot situation would show up, so those momments get lost as we'd be better off using other spells that perform better more often and give up that small gain in efficency at those times where dots would have been better.
- Hidden costs: All the things that make dots worse in real use than on paper for us. To me this includes loss of melee dps from casting time, loss of dps due to crit dot AAs not being nearly as good or functional for beastlords as nuke crit AAs, focus effect itemization, and even fight durations in many cases.
I really do fear that old school dots of this type are just done for us. The changes, although simple, would be major. A resist mod, much better mana efficency, etc. would be required to actually mem them a reasonable amount of time. The dots would just look broken on paper much like old knight 1h used to when people didn't understand the situation. Especially with other changes we've gotten though the dots just need more and more to keep up and a simple +damage, -mana won't do it. *shrugs*
I played with diregriffon a lil bit last night and was very unimpressed. I do totally lack any poison foci, det effect extension, and only have 1 level into crit affliction (I was despairing of what else to buy at that point).
This said, I think it would take an efficiency that the devs would be unwilling to give us due to the margin it would need to be over/in comparison to the king dotting classes. This will probably be the last time I ever really mem that dot, since cold foci are far simpler to obtain and are on frankly better items for bsts. The use of dots is so incredibly minimal. Only use the disease dots have had for long old time has been when killing rooted mobs, since it won't break root. That's about it. And I would use that in about 1 situation that we do about once/week, so upgrading them at all = total waste of time.
In typical cookie-cutter thinking, I understand why they would give us upgraded dots. However, if they really listened to ppl who actually play, they would realize that these new spells will not be memmed at all by the vast majority of players. Might as well give us a blank parchment to take up a spot in our spell book.
With a big resist mod, they might be worth looking at in some situations. As it is, it's just a disappointment that this "counts" as something given to us when we could have had something useful.
What we could have had instead....
A ranger buddy linked a new spell he got that cures disease, poison and CURSE in 1 spell. I think it's appropriate for rangers to have such a thing, but it's just as appropriate for us. We've been asking for curse cure for a long time.
The dot did make me more useful in a kiting group, but its absolutely a situational tool. I also got my throwing up about 40 points in that session.
only time i ever mem our dots is somewher where the mobs have huge cold resist like downstairs in RSS. these dots from TSS are a waste of space and had to have been included by someone who does not play a BL. As it stands we have no offensive spells worth having until we get our new warder, with the minor exception of new sv for a small amount of extra ATK.
it's got add'l attack? ;p jk, I know it does.. I only cared abt the hp upgrade ;p
Tried a 69.1 hard.... dirgriffon resisted 70% or more of the time.
Chimera Blood resisted about 40% of the time.
30-45% resist on all other dots.
Getting massive resists on both dots wherever I go. I am trying to collect a wide array of parses in different zones, but atm my overall resist rate across PoP, TSS, and some PoR is over 50%. 8(
If some other people want to simply type "/log on" and then zip up their logs and send them to me I'd gladly try to work their data into mine. The claims seem crazy, but they are thus far true and to have the data to support it would be nice.
I'll get you something soon. guess time to clean out the other log file again anyways ;p
I'm not sure if a hotfix went in last night, but Diregriffon's hasn't been resisted ONCE, in two hours of exping in Frostcrypt and the disease dot has only been resisted twice.
Well mine is still resisted about 70% of the time on light blue mobs even. Its just not worth buying the spells atm , in fast i didnt buy the 72 disease dot. If they dont change this I think we should be refunded the price of these spells. They cost a ton and I cant see trying to use this with the number of resists, its just a huge waste of mana.
loaded up Diregriffon and chimera blood and tried dot'ing the spiders in 69.1... 15 casts 12 resists. Loaded up malaria and plague and it was the exact opposite. Disease dots stuck over 90% of the time. The resist was a rare event using disease. Maybe we are suppose to use our dots situationally?
Aren't all spiders in EQ now supposed to be highly poison resistant? I seem to recall reading that somewhere w/ the mob hp/damage revamp from a few months ago.
They did say that some of the "new" resist code got left in place by accident and would be patched back out, to help deal with excessive resists. Lots of patches and so much going on atm I'm not sure when what went in lol. I'm just going to keep randomly trying them in different spots and once things settle down see where we stand. *shrugs*
For me, with less than 300 DPS, DoTs are worth it, if I pick my mobs for my dots. I use all 10 spell memorization builds, and can swap out dots, slows, whatever in about 5 seconds. I don't poison spiders, I don't disease undead (poison isn't that great ,either). If a mob procs a poison/disease effect, I don't try to hit them with the same effect (like dragorns with disease, or murksliders with poison). Part of the game is knowing when to use what spell, or even what weapon ( my proc-heavy main hand Gold Dragon Mace gets bagged against hot RSS and other fire-based mobs). I am also fortunate, since my gear has detrimental spell haste and DoT extension on it.
Still, I wonder how much the new resist revamp will affect our DoTs and nukes. I was getting resists of about 25% or less when I was selective on DoT use when duoing. I guess I need more data now...
*** edit: bah! I missed Tastian's post on page 2. Guessing we need to wait and see, at least those of us without raid DPS :). ***
"For me, with less than 300 DPS, DoTs are worth it, if I pick my mobs for my dots."
As an honest question what is "worth it"? Have you actually checked parses and logs and calculated your dps and mana to damage ratios? I know in a lot of situations where I could work in a dot, I'm still not better off doing so. For instance, there are lots of spots I can solo, but from a dps, mana, exp standpoint I'm actually better off just using growl, using depths pet, using mana for heals, etc. because of a variety of factors. In some groups I actually swap my "dot" slot for fero because even it works out better than the dot once all factors are taken into account.
I'm trying to pull numbers from a variety of situations, but with the issues such as limited dot focus, resists, and fight duration I constantly am having issues with dots actually coming out ahead. When one realize that these are spell slots that could be used for other things(maybe a poison based nuke, group haste, etc.) the very situational variation in dps they provide makes me question them.
If they truely were "situational" I don't think I'd mind that much, but even with maxed crit affliction AAs I constantly have a hard time making them worth it; unless I'm sporting massive mana regen in a spot like blue RSS where I just won't land nukes. *shrugs*
Would really appreciate any data people have on this ranging from resists, to damage, to fight duration, to whatever. As I said, just type "/log on" and PM me and we can go from there. 8)
TO tell you the true i dont thinki have even had a dot membed othere then that ranged fight othere to just see how much they can crit for ten i finsed te aa's. dots take to long to cast for te damg tey do( yes even wen tey cirt a ton) i normly keep up 1 Heal 2 Slow 3 NUke 4 NUke 5 te dod pet or aste Depending on wat i am killing 6Fero7 petbuff 8 pet buff9 GROWL
agien to i am close to 700dps witout bruning my mana or disc's(pet/spell it all)
this was also b4 te dub atk stuff they ahve done
Speeking of that have they remove the aa's for dub atk?
yes i am slacking still only 70 but agien hard to play in afganistan.
but overe all Dot's= Shity
spent the last 2 nights getting tastian data on the bloody things, dotting a fair amount in the hive in 69.1. Gods I'm tired. But impression so far, just about the resists: Disease dot is resisted far less than the poison dot.
They're both serious mana hogs and so not worth memming, much less casting.
I'm going to bed. G'night.
I have to agree with Iamweaver. They are more situational then anything else. When doing the hive i dont use dots at all, poison was getting little to no resist on the Shiliskin there but not enough of them were pulled for me to keep the spell up. In Direwind, not 1 single resist on my dots. Cast everytime on inc and wore off just before mob died so i got full benefit from dot with no loss to my melee dps, was using Diregriffon. Sunderrock was the same as was Icefall. I did however have the typical resist in Icefall. With spell haste on and the shorter cast time I have been challanged to find a better spell selection now for the majority of the zones. Typically now my combat set is slow, dd, dd, dd, heal, pet heal, fero, BE and growl. Thats soloing, with a cleric or main healer in the group I will drop my heal and load up poison dot and use my first nuke slot for recasting utility buffs as they fade. I need to start logging this stuff and parsing my results to send you the info Tast so you can do something with it. We should also start a seperate thread stating specifically which areas the dots are best used, sort of a what to use in this zone kind of thing. And yeah they definately are mana hoars. Going to have to start soliciting for crack again, mana pots just arent cutting it in chaing pulling groups.
QuoteAs an honest question what is "worth it"?
Here's my honest answer:
Post-DoDh, when without Clairvoyance/Oak I stopped using ANY DPS spells other than the DoDh pet unless I needed real burst DPS, to stop a runner, etc. In fact, I had just decided to spend RPP and get Lupic the Hulcror mask for the detrimental spell extension the week before DoDh came out, and I groaned a bit when I saw the new spell ;). But since TSS, I am reincorporating my DoTs and DDs if the pull rate/mana regen calls for it. I often duo with my cleric, and am finding that burning mana on both toons, then resting up, is more efficient EXPwise than my old playstyle. It also gives me more time to chat with friends, finish emptying out the dishwasher, etc. :)
Well after some more exping in Frostcrypt and Ashengate today, I can confirm the following:
FC - Diregriffon's was not resisted once. It hit for near full everytime, and given that our nukes in that zone are resisted 95% of the time, it makes using the dot much much better. The disease dot also was only resisted about 10% of the time, which again makes is worthwhile to use in this zone. Situational here probably. I am going to check Valdeholm and see if the same thing holds true out there for these dots.
AG - Diregriffon's was resisted about 20% of the time, but I kept it memmed because the mobs seemed to resist our nukes a lot as well. I didn't check the disease dot in this zone, but I have a feeling that it would land equally or better than Diregriffon's.
While it seems that there are some uses for it, the dots still take too much time to cast and are a bit mana heavy. I think honestly if they tweaked the resists, spell casting time and mana use, I would possibly keep Diregriffon's memmed over a third nuke.
Tastian, wasn't you saying how good dot's were for damage from us...2 years ago? Has our personal DPS increased so much recently that that's no longer the case? Were you being sarcastic or am I misremembering something?
It'd depend what you are talking about specifically, but a lot has changed. Much like how SPFs were amazing for us at one point. With the lower damage on them now(still waiting for an answer), with the increase in double attack, more AAs, etc. it just changed. Depths pet, return on fero, change in cast time on nukes, and a number of other major issues impact how "good" our dots are because it's all relative and opportunity cost is what really comes into play. *shrugs*
Two years ago xp group fights didnt last 30 seconds. Then again in that timeframe ive gone through Time, GoD, DoN and all of COA except OMM.
I use the DoDh pet and ice nukes everywhere i go expect ice immune mobs. Odd fact, mobs in Icefall dont resist ice nukes much.
I would love just to ditch the dots entirely and replace with an upgrade DoDh pet instead. Or give us poison nukes.
Could just be me but it seems that the non TSS mobs resist the dots more often then TSS mobs. I seldom have a dot resisted in Direwind.
QuoteI seldom have a dot resisted in Direwind.
Against which MOBs? The wildlife seems to have no Poison Resist, but I had some issues with the gnolls, depending on their class. Again, it's a situational tool (man, I seem to be using that word a lot :)).
When doing 69.1 hard, which i do a lot, I rarely use any dots other then disease dots as I will get up to 10 resists in a row on poison. I will use the disease dots and my cold DDs and if I have plenty of mana I will try the posion dots but they rarely stick. I typically do 69.1 hard with 1-2 necros and 1-2 mages so the mobs are usually dead long before the dots would do full damage anyway.
When i duo I never mem any dots as they are just to slow and have high resists. I keep 3 DDs memmed and sometimes 4 depending upon where I am going. On my druid I also rarely keep any dots memmed as I can spam his 1294 DD and mem to full before i bring another mob to camp with the new TSS regen. The Druid also gets a cold DD that lowers fire resistance so his fire DD almost always sticks for full.
I convinced myself at least a long time ago, that spiders where highly poison resistant, similar to places likes Velks or RSS basement mobs are resistant to cold spells. I always use disease only dots on spiders, and there are other places/mobs I would never use disease on.
One use for any dot, that I've used for years now, so far hasn't been mentioned. Most people talk of pulling with slow. Me, especially if I'm 2 boxing, with my druid, or pulling/tanking for a group, I actually pull with a dot, and slow when I get to camp. The slow doesnt really last that long, and at least my assumption is it's wasting mana, letting that slow wear off as mob is happily following you to it's death. Started doing this way back in Velks, up by the Frenzy camp, where our cold DD's are useless. After clearing all the nearby mobs, I was able to target, by long hrs. of experimenting, all the mobs from that safe spot all the way down to the sentries about 2/3 of the way down the stairs, and hit them both with a dot; they'd both be around 85-90% health before they got close to me, slowed one on inc. sic pet on other, slow that one next. 2 dead sentries very fast, actually dot on both, nearly wearing off before they made it up to me. On any "normal pull", I typically get at least 2 ticks, of damage, plus the initial damage, on whatever dot I'm using before reaching camp on a pull, where with a pull with slow would have been still at 100%, and having to reslow soon afterwards... makes sense to me, have I parsed it, for proof; no; however "some" damage should be a bit better than "no" damage. This would be another one of those "situational" cases.
Have been using disease dots quite effectively in 69.1's and mage pet tank groups, with both disease & poison in Sunderock as well.
At least one person said all group content fights last less than one minute. That all depends on the mob, and the group. Not everyone is upper end, but we do try experencing as high level content as we can.
That being said, I'd certainly like to see the damage/mana ratio's on all our dot's get improved, never hurts to try! :)
I am using a lot Diregriffon's Bite and Fever Spike in Valdeholm and I have not problem to land it.
I am pretty pleased but I still found them way too much resisted on others mobs. Maybe with the resist issu going on we will see a change on the resist rate on others zones making them a real spell line to use more often.