New top 10 list(10/20/04)...

[Tastian]

This will be spell checked and see some structural changes before being submitted, but atm this is how things are looking.  There are several things that just missed making the list, but it's a work in progress.  A couple of the items on the top 10 list should see pretty fast responses for better or worse, so that will allow other items to be added in later.  Please keep the feedback coming and don't think that just because something isn't on the list it is forgotten or anything like that.  Please PM me any spelling/grammer errors, I spotted a few as I re-read through this, but I want to get this posted now so I can get more feedback before submitting on friday.



Beastlord Top 10 list for 10/22/04

1)  Beastlord slowing:

Beastlords currently are unable to perform the role of main slower in a group to a reasonable level in an increasing number of zones. The problem with our slow isn't the % it does, but rather the resist rate on the spell and as a result of the high resist rates the streaks of resists we see.

Proposed solution:

Add a new slow spell for beastlords in our omens spell line. Make the spell have a higher mana cost than sha's revenge and put a -30 mod on the spell. This will allow beastlords to better land slows and fuction as main slower for groups without having the beastlord actually debuff the mob or effect how other classes or even other beastlord spells are landing.


2) Beastlord sustained dps:

This is an issue that comes about because of progression. Beastlords simply gain less % wise from a weapon upgrade than other classes do. We gain less from certain AAs, less from worn atk, less from melee focus effects, etc. With the GoD expansion and now omens all of those smaller % gains have added up to beastlords at the higher end doing less sustained dps than they should be. Please note that this is a problem that comes about because of progression, itemization and a few other factors. Beastlord sustained dps is nice up through about the plane of time level of the game. However, after that things start to fall off and beastlords dps simply doesn't scale up as well as it should resulting in beastlords doing less sustained dps than they should be.

Proposed solution:

There are actually a lot of changes that could be made to help address this issue, but most of them have their own issues.

- Fix beastlord AAs so that they grant a larger % gain to one part of our damage so that overall the % gain to our dps is on par. PoP gave us BF which was an awesome beastlord only AA that gave a large boost to one aspect of our damage (melee), but the overall boost was less. GoD on the other hand gave us pet AAs that were very overpriced and did relatively little. Feral swipe is another GoD beastlord only AA that does very little damage for its cost. In omens beastlord offensive AAs are limited to a generic caster crit upgrade AA, a generic melee crit upgrade, and a generic dot crit upgrade. Beastlords are paying 2, 3, 4X the AA as some other classes and still not getting the same overall % gain.  

- Fix pet focus effects so that they give a better boost to the pets. This idea has a lot of merit because it allows for the boosts to be given where they are really needed.  Currently in omens old pet focus effects scale down in usefulness and no new pet focus effects have been found yet. Adding new pet focus effects and upgrading how they improve the pet would allow our pets to see a similiar boost as our melee does through upgrades and help beastlords get closer to the overall % gain they should be seeing as they progress.

- Add more beastlord only items that help deal with our division of power. The point here isn't to make "better" items, but rather items that fit beastlords better. Adding more items that improve multiple parts of a beastlords damage would help address this problem and again allow the upgrades to be put where they should be.  Beastlords need more items and weapons that are geared around how the class functions so that we are able to progress as we should.


3) Beastlord "burst" dps:

This is a similar issue to #2 in that it comes about largely because of the beastlord division of power. Most other classes are able to "burst" by using a disc to raise their damage or mana dumping. A beastlord, however, can't mana dump because our nukes are on a 30sec refresh timer. Also our discipline only effects the melee portion of our damage. That means that while other classes can disc and almost double their damage for the duration of the disc a beastlord only doubles their melee damage.  This leaves their warder damage, proc damage, and non-melee damage at the same level as before.

Proposed solution:

The easiest way to fix this issue is to make it so that beastlord burst disc and AAs boost more than just the melee portion of a beastlords damage. Bestial alignment is a GoD AA for beastlords that raises just our melee damage currently and has roughly double the reuse time of most burst disciplines. Lowering the reuse time on this AA to be inline with other burst disc type of skills and having it give our pet a buff would help raise our burst dps. Another thing to consider would be adding an effect to it that raises our non-melee damage well the effect is going. Again it's an issue of the division of power and beastlords need some way to "burst" the other aspects of their damage and not only their melee damage if they are expected to stay inline.


4) Beastlord aggro issues:

I know it seems kind of funny to talk about aggro problems right after talking about how beastlords aren't doing enough dps in various cases, but that's just how it goes. The fact is beastlords generate far too much aggro for the damage they are doing. In fact, part of the reason many people think beastlord damage is higher than it really is currently is because beastlords are generating so much more aggro than they should. The main cause of this is because of how much aggro is associated with non-melee damage and the fact that beastlords have to be close and melee'n while doing their non-melee damage. Please note that beastlords are ok with getting aggro well slowing or doing other things that generate aggro, but doing 100+dps less than another class and still pulling aggro off the MT isn't right.

The largest cause of aggro problems currently for beastlords are poison dots. Many beastlords simply can't use these in a group or raid setting because the aggro they generate is so much higher for the damage done than other forms of damage. Initial aggro tests done showed the level 61 poison dot having roughly double the aggro to damage ratio of our nukes. Add in the fact that extra damage from crits/focus don't raise nuke aggro, but tests have shown extra damage from crits/focus to raise dot aggro and things just get worse. Actually things get worse even without factoring in focus/crits because the level 66 beastlord poison dot has 80% more poison counters on it than scropion venom had. This spell should be a proc on an uber warrior weapon, not a spell for a dps class that has no reliable means of actively lowering aggro.

Proposed solution:

Again there are a few options here and I think the solution lies in a doing a combination of things.

- Look at poison dots, please. The aggro they generate for the damage they do is simply broken. The fact that repeated tests done using various classes have shown the increased aggro from focus/crit on dots is wrong. The number of poison counters should either be adjusted or some -hate needs to be added to these spells like tigir's insects was given because atm almost no beastlord can actually cast these spells as a means of doing damage.  

- Consider giving beastlords some AA/Spell/Skill that lowers aggro in a reliable way. Roar of thunder with omens was a nice start, but the amount of aggro it actually lowers isn't that great and it's only available once every 15 minutes.

-  Look into weapon procs.  Beastlords rely more heavily on weapon procs than almost every other class in the game.  Weapons like SPF and ED are major dps weapons for beastlords.  The major difference between these two weapons though is that the SPF proc adds almost no aggro well the proc of ED has resulted in more beastlord deaths than I can count.  Again the idea isn't to give beastlords better weapons or procs, but to give them weapons and procs that better fit them.


5) Perfection of spirit:

This is a 3 tiered omens AA that upgrades beastlords existing paragon of spirit AA at a cost of 5AA per rank (15 total). The major problem with this AA is the amount of mana this spell is currently giving. Paragon of spirit was an original beastlord only AA back in luclin. Paragon of spirit gives 200hps and 80mana per tick. That was back in luclin when complete heal (400 mana base) was the main heal being used in CH rots, when most wizards were using sunstrike (450mana) or maybe GSS(540 mana). Back then having paragon give back ~480 mana was a nice boost. Also back then the healing of ~1200hps was a solid amount as well. Now skip ahead through luclin, through PoP, through LDoN, through GoD and into omens and we finally see an upgrade to one of the only unique things a beastlord has. After waiting all this time and spending 15 more AAs a beastlord is now able to heal 267hps a tick and 110mana per tick. For referance in omens a cleric is likely usin a 740 or 890 mana heal, and wizards are paying 800mana for a nuke.

Perfection of spirit doesn't give enough to justify the AA's spent or the time spent waiting for an upgrade to this. Paragon used to heal a sizeable number of hps, but hp pools have gone way up and so has AE damage. Beastlords understand that other classes have gained heal over times and most can even deal with the healing portion of paragon lagging behind other classes, but the mana returned is simply too low. Through most of beta this AA was giving twice the boost to mana it currently does at each rank, but then right before omens went live this was changed.

Proposed solution:

Please raise the amount of mana this spell returns. Most beastlords were ok with paying 5AA per rank for the +20 mana per tick boost the AA originally gave. Changing this AA back to how it was throughout most of beta would make the AA far more worthwhile.


6) Epic 1.5 effect:

The effect is bugged and doesn't play nice with our spirit of xxx line of buffs. Whichever buff is higher on the pets buff list is the proc that will actually fire. If epic 1.5 falls below rellic/irionu/etc then the proc won't fire. If it comes first in the buff list then the pet gains the epic proc, but loses their stun proc. We were told code would be going in to fix this with the 13th patch, but those changes never even went to test.

Proposed solution:

- Fix the stacking so that a pet can have both it's spirit of xxx proc buff and the epic 1.5 click. Many beastlords simply don't use the epic effect atm because they might lose their stun proc when they don't want to or might fail to gain the epic click when they want to, etc.

- If possible please change the click so that it doesn't target our pet. We have AAs like mend companion and hobble of spirits that don't change our current target to the pet.

- Consider changing who gets the various benefits of the epic click. At the level of play where most beastlords will get this item their warders simply don't tank very much. Many beastlords would much prefer seeing this effect divided up like bond of the wild is so that the pet receives the offensive portion of the buff, well the beastlord gets the defensive portion. This change makes the effect fit better with how beastlords actually play at this level of the game.

- Finally the epic 2.0 effect appears to be mismarked currently. The effect is currently listed as having a -10 resist mod on it, but since the epic 1.5 has a -50 resist check it seems likely that the effect is meant to have a -100 check on it.


7) Hobble of spirits:

Hobble of spirits is a beastlord only AA that grants our pets an extremely unreliable snare. As it stands the AA is largely a waste of points because it doesn't stack with our current spirit of xxx pet proc buffs, and the duration of the snare is random.  Beastlords have been asking for adjustments to this AA almost since it went live.  

Proposed solution:

Please consider changing this AA so that it stacks with our spirit of xxx proc buffs. That way beastlords wouldn't lose a lot of damage and their stun proc just to gain the unreliable snare proc.  This would make the AA much more useful, but wouldn't actually change a beastlord's ability to snare.


eight)  Pet buff box:

The ability to now see pet buff timers is a nice change, but pet classes are still wondering if changes will be made that allow us to manage our pets buffs like we do our own. There are many stacking issues, ninja buffing happens and especially with pet affinity it's very common to have a buff on your pet that you don't want for whatever reason.

Proposed solution:

Allow us to click off or somehow selectively remove the buffs we want from our pet.


9)  Omens utility issues:

Beastlords have always been a dps class with group utility in the form of slow and buffs.  Slow was mentioned above, but buffs also need to be mentioned now.  Especially with omens beastlord buffing could some adjustments.  The main problems are lack of useful buffs, marginal increases to buffs we do use and the tediousness of maintaining buffs.

Proposed solution:

-  Add a new effect to Ferocity of Irionu. The main suggestions are adding a +proc rate mod or +double attack mod to the spell. The spell originally raised hps/dmg/resists. Staimina is easily capped, the resists didn't improve and the small boost in atk just isn't enough.

-  Change Ferocity of Irionu to be a group spell. This would make it less tedious to main the buff on people in a group and also add a bit of raid functionality to the spell as well.

-  Change Focus of Alladnu to be a group hp buff.  

-  Change Spiritual Ascendance to give +11/11 instead of the +10/10 it currently gives.  The spell line for beastlords has followed the same progression from level 44 up to now.  Even by keeping the same constant +2/2 boost the % gain we see is still diminishing.  Please remember that unlike many of the other mana regen buffs that also recieve upgrades to the hps or wis/int they give SD is only a regen buff with the mana being by far the most important part of it.  

-  Increase the duration on the entire spiritual line of hp/mana regen.  Currently a beastlord even with maxed SCR AA can't sustain MGB'n SD because the spell has such a low base duration.  Beastlords aren't asking for 2+ hour base duration, but would like to see atleast a base duration of 1:12 like our hp/atk buff line of buffs has.

-  Consider giving beastlords access to the SCRM AA.  This AA is from way back in luclin and fits the beastlord class well.  Our buffs are already balanced around the benefit they give and giving us access to this AA would greatly help lower the tediousness of buffing a group.

-  Add a group infusion of spirit spell at level 66 that breaks the stat cap.  Beastlords got group infusion of spirit as a level 65 spell with GoD, but for the expansion and where it dropped the spell simply didn't fit.  Now with omens out and the stat cap going up more casual beastlords can use such a spell and having the spell break the stat cap allows it to be useful to all beastlords.


10)  Beastlord pet heals:

Pet healing is one of the main things the beastlord class was built on.  We had hands down the best pet heals in the game.  In fact, our heals for our pet were compareable to cleric heals.  Since PoP though our ability to heal our warders have fallen off in a big way.  Both our level 61 and our level 66 pet heal spells have a 9 second base casting time.  That is simply too long for the heal to be useful.  Beastlords are a melee class and in most cases the 9 second pet heal simply isn't practical.  Many high end beastlords don't even keep a pet heal spell mem'd anymore and instead find themselves relying on the exact same tools every other pet class uses (pet mend, pet regen, PoC, etc).

Proposed solution:

-  Lower the casting time.  This is main problem with the heals as they stand now.  Most beastlords are ok with the mana to hp ratio of the heal and the healing per second they can attain.  Many beastlords now are unable to keep their pet alive againist various AEs and encounters and keeping a pet alive on such fights should be something a beastlord excels at.

-  Consider adding more curing to the beastlord pet heals.  Again beastlords were always the best pet heals by far, consider adding both poison and curse cure effects to the higher end pet heals.


Beastlords have always been a dps class with utility in the forms of buffs and slows.  With the last couple of expansions we've seen decreases in our relative dps, our ability to slow and the desireability of our buffs.  This list was compiled based upon what beastlords have done in the past and what we as a class believe we are supposed to be doing currently.  I have tried very hard to express these issues in terms of the beastlord class and the definition they have appeared to have in the past.  There are a few spots that other classes are mentioned, but it isn't in a class envy way, but rather to illustrate a game mechanic or progression issue.  Most beastlords don't want to be shaman or monks or any other class.  We seek to be what we were; a solid dps class that can function as main slower and offer assorted buffs when other classes aren't present.  We have very few class defining abilities and we'd like to see those remain powerful, but reasonable.  If anything we have asked for is either unclear or doesn't fit with what the current working definition of the beastlord class is then please let us know that so we can go from there.

[Jkal_Shihar]

Looks good to me Tastain. Pretty much you covered everything that has been talked bout. :)

[Tastian]

Thanks I really tried to squeeze as much in as I could without making it into tale of two cities.  There are a couple issues on the list such as the epic click that should be taken care of soon, but I think that just like with the BF bug it's good to keep it fresh in their mind and show that it is important and needs to be fixed.  They've already said it'd be fixed once and it wasn't and I don't want to see the issue linger.  *shrugs*  Some of the issues will take a bit to get a response and have to be evaluated, but I really do hope we see atleast a couple positive responses.  By postitive I don't mean everythign we ask for, but some feedback atleast.

[Jkal_Shihar]

Yeah, maybe it'll bring the fun factor back for me to get out retirement. hehehe.
Anyways, glad to give my thoughts on issues to help those that still play.  :D

[Shrouded]

NM just noticed answer somewhere else

[gungo ninescullz]

now this is what i would like to see from sony to help bst in raid/groups.
* items are the changes

SPELLS:

Nukes- fine atm w 35-40% epic foci, and the ancient nuke we are kicking out fast 1500 cold dd

Dots- fine after recent changes on live server to make the disease dot a faster dot. Our dots are now decent, but w dot crit aa's and the rare dot foci's its actually decent dps. And our super agro poisen dot is actually useful for pet kiting =p

Pets- fine atm pets are fairly balanced between classes, mage pets can tank a wee better, necros are about the same as ours. ours do better dam then most cept mage rog pet. But over all i liek to see more lvls of pet foci in game. maybe a few pet item devices like the fire shank, but bst usable.

Guard/rune- fine actually one of the more useful raid/group spells (cept on mobs w dam shield)

Vigor/regen- fine not terrible useful but still cool for faster recovery

*S/A- its still a good spell just not a good upgrade. No one asks for sd/sa anymore for the hp regen which is partly what it was intended for as melee and caster beneficial spell. imho instead of making it a 11/11 regen like most posters on bst boards ask i rather they make it a 10/30 spell.

growl of beast- fine as is

hp buff- fine as is- single buffs are better to buff pet and although it might take u time to cast it on the few times that no one has shammy focus. It's not a big deal. The versatility of a single target non-raid buff > the laziness of casting on multiple times.

Pet heals - fine as is. Really for a near ch (w AA and foci) its not that slow of a casting time considering w spell haste foci i can cast this spell in less then 6 secs (even faster w cleric spell haste).

heals - new heal and foci (marr's) and aa's we can do near 1500 hp heals crit which is ok for our healing abilities.

*Ferocity Irionu- Bad upgrade really. increase resists to +70 and add a 10% proc rate modifier on it and it actually will be useful. (and improve our proc dps)

NEW SPELL:

*Mini bst Malo- a neg 45 CR/MR 14 min duration 3 sec cast time can't stack w tash (mr) cant stack w malo (cr). why because we are the third best slower in game means shammy should have a better non resisitible slow (nihil) and better malo. although i think ours should be a faster cast it shouldn't infringe upon other classes. But we should be a viable option if someone needs a slower. Atm we cant slow many named or any mob w a higher resist rate then normal. (NEW SPELL)

AA:(utility)

*Perfection of spirit- for one of our main raid utility spells its upgrade is well below par for the current xpansion. More mobs have aoe mana drain now then ever. and for 15 aa's the final version is simply not enuff. hell even in groups its not even a noticible difference. the prenerf version of 350/140 like most claim is a better upgrade. (FIX)

AA:(DPS)

*Bestial alignment- as recently stated our dps has fallen on the class balance scale a bit. Imho one of the easiest ways to improve our overall dps is to increase the duration of bestial alignment to last at least 1 min (double the current duration)(FIX). Also i would like to see the reuse down to around 20 minutes(NEW AA). (NEW AA upgrade and FIX)

*Frenzy of spirit- again an upgrade to this ability is due. we dont need another ability my poor hotkey table is maxed. But an improvement on this current aa will upgrade our dps by adding a 10% crit + 12% double atk and/or hundred hand effect. with these adjustments our dps should be back up to where we should be at. (NEW AA UPGRADE)

*Feral strike- for our last dps upgrade this ability lacked any real potential. The best way to handle this AA is to lower the reuse down to 15 -20 secs essentiallly 4x or 3x the current dps it adds of less then 1%. (FIX)

*Pet Proc- its about time we get the Epic/Hobble/Pet procs to stack. This will increase dps on the pet a tad from epic, and make hobble actually a tad useful in groups. (FIX)

*Roar of Thunder- a great AA imho for dropping down on agro list, what this AA needs is another AA to lower the reuse on it to 6min max. lets say 3 steps at 3AA a step. So 15 min to first step reuse of 12 min, then 9 min, then 6 min. This AA will also have the added benefit of increasing dps a tad as well. (NEW AA)

P.S These changes will give us better overall dps and offer a small, yet decent increase in burst dps factored out these changes should place us back right below monks on the class DPS balance.

P.P.S i dont think we need overcap buffs that imho should stay w shamans, they need all the usefulness they can get.

[Yllandra]

My only thing with the suggestion on the slow...

We need to keep the speed of the cast on it. (Yes, I very much enjoy landing my slow before a chanter does =p)

Also, with increasing the mana cost to make up for a resist modifier... the new cost can NOT be outrageous.  We are a hybrid class after all, and we don't have quite the mana capabilities of the other slow casters.

for a -30 resist mod... I could see maybe paying an extra 60 mana-ish. Providing the slow percentage isn't too much lower than what Sha's currently is. This would put it to a 210 mana cost.. not too bad, imo.

An alternate idea, would be giving us a variant slow, similar to the shamans, which runs on a different resist than Sha's.

Not necesarally Disease based, like the shaman's. Our nuke line is cold based, maybe a cold based slow? We tap into the homeland of our furless northern bretheren (barbarians) to sap the speed from our enemies with the chlling embrace of Everlost! <- just tossin' an idea, rambling at 4am =)

[Gimrol]

Overall, the list is very good.  I think it addresses most of the important class issues without asking for anything thats too outrageous or unbalanced.

I've got two  fairly minor comments:

4) Beastlord aggro issues:

The largest cause of aggro problems currently for beastlords are poison dots. Many beastlords simply can't use these in a group or raid setting because the aggro they generate is so much higher for the damage done than other forms of damage. Initial aggro tests done showed the level 61 poison dot having roughly double the aggro to damage ratio of our nukes. Add in the fact that extra damage from crits/focus don't raise nuke aggro, but tests have shown extra damage from crits/focus to raise dot aggro and things just get worse. Actually things get worse even without factoring in focus/crits because the level 66 beastlord poison dot has 80% more poison counters on it than scropion venom had. This spell should be a proc on an uber warrior weapon, not a spell for a dps class that has no reliable means of actively lowering aggro.

Proposed solution:

Again there are a few options here and I think the solution lies in a doing a combination of things.

- Look at poison dots, please. The aggro they generate for the damage they do is simply broken. The fact that repeated tests done using various classes have shown the increased aggro from focus/crit on dots is wrong. The number of poison counters should either be adjusted or some -hate needs to be added to these spells like tigir's insects was given because atm almost no beastlord can actually cast these spells as a means of doing damage.  

Perhaps it would be a good idea to request a focus effect similar to Innoruuk's Sarcasm that is targeted towards poison based dots.  As I infer, Innoruuk's Sarcasm is specifically targeted to help enchanters with the aggro from tash (and is itemized only on enchanter usable items).  Making a similar focus effect for bst/shaman/necro would fix the specific problem of poison dot aggro without affecting the rest of the game.

9)  Omens utility issues:

Beastlords have always been a dps class with group utility in the form of slow and buffs.  Slow was mentioned above, but buffs also need to be mentioned now.  Especially with omens beastlord buffing could some adjustments.  The main problems are lack of useful buffs, marginal increases to buffs we do use and the tediousness of maintaining buffs.

Proposed solution:


-  Change Ferocity of Irionu to be a group spell. This would make it less tedious to main the buff on people in a group and also add a bit of raid functionality to the spell as well.

The shaman community has already been told that avatar/ferine avatar/champion will not be changed into a group spell.  The problem is that once it's a group spell, it becomes MGB-able.  MGB-able avatar is considered to be overpowered/unbalancing by the devs and i'm fairly sure that MGB Ferocity would fall in the same category.  I think it would be better to push for increased duration and/or reduced mana cost for the ferociy upgrade.

Again, overall the list is good.  Nice job.

[Taiglin]

Just for clarity I would suggest adding a line at the beggining of the second point explaining why

"Beastlords simply gain less % wise from a weapon upgrade than other classes do. We gain less from certain AAs, less from worn atk, less from melee focus effects, etc"

I have little doubt the folks around here know the reason. Chances are though readers from other classes or some of the dev team might not be as familiar with our DPS split issues. I doubt it would need to be something longer then a line or two.

Great job though on this (like it would be anything less). Need to have Cop interject something so it can be classified as another hugs and shrugs production =).

[Dummkopf]

Pets- fine atm pets are fairly balanced between classes, mage pets can tank a wee better, necros are about the same as ours. ours do better dam then most cept mage rog pet. But over all i liek to see more lvls of pet foci in game. maybe a few pet item devices like the fire shank, but bst usable.

All pet classes need better pets as it is, but actually mage pets kick our pets butt, even the GoD MS4 pet out-tanks and out-dpses our OoW lvl 68 Pet by a fair margin. Our pets need a healthy increase in DPS and HP, most of all the focused versions of it. Beastlords should not be able to summon theyre own pet weapons, but i would really love to see the lore tag removed from the burning shanks.

Pet heals - fine as is. Really for a near ch (w AA and foci) its not that slow of a casting time considering we are on the hybird casting table and w spell haste foci i can cast this spell in less then 6 secs (even faster w cleric spell haste).

Even with aa and foci our pet heals are way from being a CH, our new one just heals about 25-30% of my (raid buffed) 68 pet, Mend is still our best heal with 7k base healed for no mana and no casting time.
The innate hybrid spell haste doesnt work on pet heals since it works only on detrimental spells and not on beneficial. So you need a 30% spell haste focus to get the casting time down to 6s.

heals - new heal and foci (marr's) and aa's we can do near 1500 hp heals non-crit which is ok for our healing abilities.

I would like to see that focus youre using, or do you have maxed OoW healing aas and they increase heal power way more than the pre-OoW ones? At the moment i can do max 809 heal non crit with full pop heal aas and no focus. Not that i think we should get better healing, its is in line with other classes at the moment, just a bit low for the highend gaming, healing 11k on me or 10k on the chanter next to me is kinda slow ;)

[Askyn]

Personally .. for pet heals I would love to see a pet HoT ( Heal over time ).

I think this would be better then a direct heal becasue they could tune the casting time / recast timer and amount healed better.

Also just think that it would be better over all. Most would use a Hot with a decent casting time I think then a direct heal.

[Grymlok]

Frankly, would have be a huge heal/tick for me to want one.  As-is, pet loses hp while "tanking" with PoS running.  Also, would be 90% useless in raid situations with huge ae DoTs.

[Tastian]

"The shaman community has already been told that avatar/ferine avatar/champion will not be changed into a group spell."

3:     Increase ATK by 140
4:    Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 10%
5:    Increase AGI by 140
6:    Increase STR by 140
7:    Increase DEX by 140

Mana:    1500    Skill:    Alteration
Casting Time:    3    Recast Time:    60
Fizzle Time:    2.25    Location:    Any
Time of Day:    Any    AE Range:    60
Deletable:    No    Interruptable:    Yes
Short Buff Box:    No    Timer ID:    3
Target Type:    Group v1    Spell Type:    Beneficial
Category:    Atk Buff    Source:    Live 10/13


The shaman level 70 atk buff is already a group buff and they can flag group buffs to not be target group buff able and not MGBable.  


I'll see about a few re-wording and maybe adding in a bit of clarification in spots.  My real fear was with all the changes having the list be too long.  I've had them ask for clarification of points in the past so I figured I'd rather further clarify a point down the road then bore them to sleep.  8P

Also like was mentioned our pet heals aren't healing that much damage and even on a crit with maxed healing AAs my pet still isn't healed to full if they have outside buffs on.

Also our pet boost is very weak imo once focus effects are factored in.  The base gain to pets is ok, but with DPoC giving literally nothing to the level 68 pet and MoE remaining our only decent pet focus and having no new omens pet focuses showing up atm things aren't that great.

[Rarrum]

Something does need dome about pets in general... but that can wait.  I think the issues on this list are more important.

Another alternative to giving us the ability to land slow is give us a malo that lasts 18 seconds or so.  That would be long enough to get off a few slow attempts, but not long enough that it would have a huge effect on damage done by casters.  It would also help us land incapacitate (which is the only thing I 'can' debuff with a shaman in the group... and thats assuming the shaman is lazy and doesn't bother with that line).

[flush]

I think it's wishful thinking to hope we'll receive some form of Malo. I'd take a slow with a built-in modifier to resist.

2 types of slow - give us a non-magic based slow and a new MR slow like you mentioned.

Also Focus of Alladnu should be a group spell (or is it? I forgot)

What about giving us Spell: Cripple finally?