The Beastlords' Den

Looks like the duration to the entire Spiritual lines of spells has been increased to 1 hr 12 min. Mana cost has increased to compensate.
wasn't listed in patch message.

Spiritual Ascendance Changes on Lucy (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spellhistory.html?id=5537&source=Live)

at a 369 point mana cost ><

I could do without the increased mana cost when I'm trying to recover from a death.  The increased duration is pretty much meaningless to me.  Where's the increase in EFFECTIVENESS?

Quote from: Sharrien on October 12, 2005, 02:42:40 PM
I could do without the increased mana cost when I'm trying to recover from a death.  The increased duration is pretty much meaningless to me.  Where's the increase in EFFECTIVENESS?

how does sony always find a way to screw things up? :)
Long SA is awesome but that's a pretty large mana cost increase and kinda sucks in after-death situations.
I didn't care much about the duration before but I guess now MGB will be more fun :)

I think it's fine for a group buff...pretty much what we've asked for at times.

All we need now are single-target versions of it.

Yeah, that's gonna pretty much eliminate MGB PoS for my guild, I think - unless we start bring along alt BSTs to MGB SA if we wipe :p.

I'll prolly actually have to start asking for feeds from the necros at this point after a wipe recovery.

The SD/SA duration has been discussed, and the problem was that even with full extended AA a beastlord couldnt refresh raids SD when it wore off, cuz MBG hasnt popped back yet.

1:12 sounds correctg, isnt that the same timer as MBG?`So even without ext AA u can refresh your whole raid in one cast.

900 mana! Will have to get perfection to be able to cast it now after a wipe. Also we mostly dont cast MGB version as save for gimped AE healing, at 900 mana its going to be harder to SA the raid by group :/

93 minutes and change with SCR3. 

About time they changed this imo.

Quote from: Goradana on October 12, 2005, 04:06:41 PM
The SD/SA duration has been discussed, and the problem was that even with full extended AA a beastlord couldnt refresh raids SD when it wore off, cuz MBG hasnt popped back yet.

1:12 sounds correctg, isnt that the same timer as MBG?`So even without ext AA u can refresh your whole raid in one cast.

Gora's got the right point.  They've finally made it so that we can just mgb it to refresh it.  On a full expedition of 54, that's 9 groups, so 8100 mana to do single groups on the full raid.  Ouch.. kk.. that leaves me with less than 1k of mana, so that'll definally require mgbing now.  Just hope they don't expect it early anymore.

The mana cost seems awfully steep, need to look into how it compares to similar group buffs from other classes that last 72 minutes.

Ok, did a quick check on other popular buffs.
Steeloak- 1hr 40 minutes for 2210 mana
Wunshi- 1hr 20 minutes for 2340 mana
Clairvoyance- 1hr 20 minutes for 1300 mana

All in all I guess the cost for SA is not that bad. But casting it by group like I do on raids is really going to hurt. We always save our MGB for perfection.

Mana cost is low. HoC is 3125, Symbol is 2340; Oak is 2210, Wunshi is 2340, Clairvoyance 1300 Salik 1260

Like I said, we just need a single-target version like all those other spells have.

Duration increase from 45 to 72 (160%)
Mana cost increase from 531 to 900 (169.5%)

Although in theory you make up for this with the 2700 additional mana you regen in the meantime. Casting it individually on any number of groups decreases this 2700 mana by 369 (900-531) per cast

If youre sustaining it on a single group this is a big net gain in efficiency.
If youre MGBing it (2x mana cost) this is a net gain in efficiency.
If you cast it by groups on 7 groups it ends up a small net gain.
If you cast it by groups on more than 7 groups its a net loss of efficiency. :(

This is obviously assuming nobody dies so you have to recast it mid-duration for a major drop in efficiency.

Edit: corrected my math

While I love the duration increase that I have been feedbacking for a long time, that mana increase is stupid.  I have always compared SA to Brells or SoH, both of which already last an hour plus, and cost 325 mana.  We were already paying a higher mana cost for the slightly more useful nature of mana regen vs hp/attack.  Upping the duration just brought us up to where we should have always been.

Quote from: Nusa on October 12, 2005, 04:55:35 PM
Like I said, we just need a single-target version like all those other spells have.

Like I want to have to take up two slots for SA or keep switching back and forth between them.  Single target buffs are the debbil.

Do they even remember that bst fizzle more than pure casters?  That by itself gives all our spells a "higher cost".  These high-mana-cost spells are getting to be too common... I mean our mana regen buff went up ONE point in the last year, and in that time out average-cast spell (muada's mending, bestial empathy, and now sa) cost has like DOUBLED.

While we did need some more potent spells, as two years ago we just coudn't burn mana fast enough... this is on the verge or getting silly now.

--

For SA specifically, I'd rather it keep it's old cost and duration than this.  Why?  On raids people die a lot.  On half the people SA never sees it's full duration (the old lesser one even) in many events.  If 3 people die in 3 different groups, thats now 2700 mana+fizzles to get back up.  Before it would be a bit over 1500+fizzles.

Raid wipes are going to be fun now too... (still no way I'd ever waste MPG on SA when it's better used on purrfection of spirit, even if nobody notices it nowadays)

Some have already mentioned it, but this was a highly requested change.  It was even on the top 10 list multiple times as I recall.  Before this change a beastlord with MGB, SCR3, and EEV still couldn't MGB a full raid, but now even with AA or focus they can.  Yeah the mana cost went up a lot, but so did the duration.  This won't be better for everyone in every case, but overall it's a pretty nice change.

Change seems fine to me.  Yeah the mana cost is high but it doesn't seem that out of line with other group buffs, especially those that provide mana.

damn.  this kinda hurts soloing beasts who prefer places where they can hunt w/self buffs.  my mana pool is just shy of 5k.  SD is gonna cost almost a 1/5 of my mana to cast.  add in IoS, Kragg, etc and the time i'm lose medding back up--even with paragon--is a kick in the tail.

i see how the timer plays out and the MGB and raids and such, just thought i'd toss in soloing from my perspective.  why couldn't they just gives us another SCR AA?

I dont exactly appreciate this update.  I never burn MGB SA on raids.  MGB is saved for PoS, exclusively.  Tell you what .. I wont mind half as much about the 900 mana cost if they eliminate the GOSH DARN fizzle rate in return.  Nothing is more frustrating than recovering from a rez, using a mod-rod, casting aura of eternity from my cloak, using single-group perfection of spirit, and then blowing the first cast of SA I try to do due to a fizzle.  Fix that, I wont bitch - we'll make a deal =)

But yea .. being the only beastlord on and casting SA .. 900 x 9 - 12 times is going to be a real joy.  I really dont mind the spell duration the way it was.  I understand the reasons why some people wanted it, its so MGB could repop and before it wore off.  And I'm telling ya I think most beastlords that are really raid beastlords would disagree with that logic.

"I mean our mana regen buff went up ONE point in the last year, and in that time out average-cast spell (muada's mending, bestial empathy, and now sa) cost has like DOUBLED."

While I can't argue that SA's use hasn't scaled all that well and I do hope we see some changes to it still the other issues you mention make no sense to me.

Bestial empathy might cost a lot, but it's crazy burst dps and it's overall more efficent than even nuking.  Sure a beastlord can chain cast and put themselves OOM in many cases, but we could do that throwing SV/CB/etc all over the place too.

Muanda's is still an amazing heal imo.  For those that aren't hard core raiders they can see almost 50% of their HPs back on a crit.  That is without it even being tweaked again yet.  Again, sure the mana cost is high, but the power is quite high too.

nek-  They said no to further SCR AA (SCRM) already.  Also you are just looking at what you spend to start.  The base mana cost went up, but the duration went way up too(especially with focus).  For some people that get to a spot and buff up, then yeah they will spend a bit more mana up front.  However, that will vary.  I know that whenever I go to solo someplace I always rebuff before I log out, then when I log back in to grind some I've got the buffs on me and full mana/hp already.  In that case it's just free duration.  I also know of a lot of times where SA would have faded and I rebuffed it, but we were almost done.  In some cases the rebuffing might mean more at the backend, but you've got a larger window to finish up what you were doing.  Also you have the fact that the buff is staying on other people longer.  Drop a MGB in PoK or some people in tranq or some people leaving the hall or whatever and the buff is there for awhile.

I'm really not trying to sell this change to anyone, but most of hte people that are finding problems with it are pointing out very specific situations that still require further specifics for it to actually still be a problem.  Yes the mana cost went up and that can't be denied, but look at the overall changes and the side effects of that as well as a really bad situation where you are alone, no other bst, a raid wipe, etc.

As for SA, the duration went way up.  Yes sometimes people die and yes there are some cases where you spend a bit more mana, but seriously the functionality of being able to MGB is nice.  We all know that numbers can show anything people want to make them show, but even in the case you mention with multiple dead in multiple groups at the sametime and you as the only bst(no one else helping apparantly) then you spend an extra 1200 mana *and* some people from those groups have to die again before the old duration would be reached or else the new duration starts to kick the effectiveness back up. 

I think it's great the duration has been increased, I understand completely why that was wanted. I would like to see a single target version of the spell now. I don't see what the problem with that would be, and it would be a great help in situations like soloing. All the spells that the mana cost was compared to have single target versions, I hope ours can too.

Muada's and Empathy are nice spells... I just used them an examples of how the mana cost on many of our commonly used spells is way higher that it used to be.  Theres a lot of other examples too... growl of the panther = 650.  The nearly-a-downgrade ferocity of irinou 750.  Back a year ago, a spell thats normaly memmed when fighting over 450-ish mana would have been "a lot higher cost than average".  "Ferocity" was the the only "high" mana cost spell really.

It's just that overall our spell costs have gone up a lot, and mana regen has just fallen way behind it.

Quote from: Tastian on October 12, 2005, 07:36:47 PM
nek-  They said no to further SCR AA (SCRM) already.  Also you are just looking at what you spend to start.  The base mana cost went up, but the duration went way up too(especially with focus).  For some people that get to a spot and buff up, then yeah they will spend a bit more mana up front.  However, that will vary.  I know that whenever I go to solo someplace I always rebuff before I log out, then when I log back in to grind some I've got the buffs on me and full mana/hp already.  In that case it's just free duration.  I also know of a lot of times where SA would have faded and I rebuffed it, but we were almost done.  In some cases the rebuffing might mean more at the backend, but you've got a larger window to finish up what you were doing.  Also you have the fact that the buff is staying on other people longer.  Drop a MGB in PoK or some people in tranq or some people leaving the hall or whatever and the buff is there for awhile.

i know they said no more SCR--i'm just looking for some cheese to go with the whine. =)  the timer going up is kinda my point.  granted, less casts, but it'll wear off w/i the time frame when i'll want to refresh other mana instensive buffs.  take in total, that's less nuking/dotting if i idot, that i'll be doing before the timer runs out.  and, after i rebuff, if i'm not ready to retire, i'm gonna lose some of that new extended time while i wait for my mana to regen--and that' s just looking at it from full mana, not 80, 60, 50% w/a fizzle tossed in for giggles and grins.

i feel for beasts w/o paragon and SRC 3.  it's gonna be a tad tougher soloing.

Quote
I'm really not trying to sell this change to anyone

i see that, and, i'm not delieberately trying to run down the extention, as i said, i see the usuages of it and whatnot.  it's change, and i'm sure we'll all adapt, i'm  just in that rough patch between the old and the new. =)

I can see where this change hurts more casual players.  But as a raiding beastlord, I really appreciate the change.  It would fit both worlds if we could get a single target SA spell as well.

"It's just that overall our spell costs have gone up a lot, and mana regen has just fallen way behind it."

This is true of most classes I can think of.  The devs for awhile felt that mana regen was just too high.  That's part of why we saw the small gain on perfection and why it was lowered in power right when it went live.  I guess I just see this as one of those intended things that perhaps I don't always agree with.  Yeah fero used to be our only really high mana spell, but spell costs in general have gone way up. 

Wizards at 60 had 480 mana for GSS as big nuke.  Now ether flame is 1550.  core fire is 850.  Mages have 1650 for raging servant.  Enc have lots of spells in the 1k+ mana range.


"i feel for beasts w/o paragon and SRC 3.  it's gonna be a tad tougher soloing."

It will actually depend how they play though and how long they play.  In most solo grind situations you don't die hardly ever.  If you go for say 60 minutes, then you get back more mana and hp net from the new version and save over before because you didn't have to refresh it.  If you happen to run just long enough so that you refresh the new one close to logging then it can hurt.  In some cases though solo players will see a gain in efficency from the new version.  *shrugs*

QuoteI never burn MGB SA on raids.  MGB is saved for PoS, exclusively

I don't recall the last time I ever needed to use an MGB PoS on a raid.  If a group is hurting on mana (which is extraodinarily rare, and we raid with 36 max thru ikkinz and time) then I drop a TGB para on the group.  What I hate on raids being the only bst is having to go group by group to refresh SA when the mgb one drops, for me,  this change is huge, the mana cost change, is miniscule.

What is the mana cost for other hybrid group spells?

Howl of Pred
Brell's
Str. of Hunter
Missing items?

Hybrids just don't have the mana regen rate to keep up with that high of a mana cost.  I get asked for SA constantly on raids.  People ask all the time, and I pretty much never unmem it anymore.  I have FT15, C6, oak and SA on after a rez, and it still takes forever to get anywhere near FM without casting...I know I am missing a few points (5 from items w/ AAs, 6ish from AAs?) of regen, but that's still utterly ridiculous.  I do not have the mana pool to buff a 54 person expedition (7.7kish), much less a 72 person!  I'm just glad I bought pet suspend 3, so I can have an (albeit crappy) pet mostly buffed by the time I accept a rez.

The mana cost versus our mana regen needs to be looked at hardcore - we use more mana by far than most rangers that I know, and more than many pallies (situation dependent) - make ours comparable to theirs, or raise our meditate skill cap.

Other hybrid buffs aren't really accurate since we are talking about mana regen(and hp regen) here.

dru - BoSO 2210 mana, 1h 40m duration, 9mana per tick(gives ac/hp as well)

enc -  VoC 1300 mana, 1h 20m duration, 20 mana per tick(gives mana/wis/int as well) 

dru version is ~4, enc version is ~12, our version is ~8.  If you just look at the mana portion.  If you wanted to just talk brells/howler/etc then you are talking in the 325-400(ish) range for buffs.

Part of what I don't understand though is...

"Hybrids just don't have the mana regen rate to keep up with that high of a mana cost. "

"I have FT15, C6, oak and SA on after a rez, and it still takes forever to get anywhere near FM without casting"

You are almost capped on FT, you have the right buffs.  I'm going to assume occasionally atleast have a bard going as well.  What is this huge edge that you think pure casters have on you in this case?  Have you ever seen a single cleric, dru, etc try to buff a whole raid?

I know that before the change I could recover from death, have the full raid buffed, and I'd sit around at FM waiting for other classes to recover and get ready.  This was with zero other bst even bothering to mem SA.  I won't deny that it costs more mana and in some cases(frequent deaths/wipes) will be harder to maintain, but you are looking at specific situations and trying to find problems with it. 

Well, it's a big deal to me, Tastain.  My guild dies A LOT.  That's the first thing my guild leader said to me when I applied:  "We die a lot"  And it's true, we do.  I think we wiped about 6 times tonight all together.  Not all nights are like that.  But a good deal of them are.  900 mana per cast vs 650 or 535 or whatever it was sucks big time.  That's like dieing and getting to full mana and rebuffing a raid and being at near 50m before, and dieing and getting to full mana and being OOM.  Which is even longer then for me to be in position to maximize my dps.  Mana is a big deal.  HUGE big deal.  Especially with the new DoD pet spell.  Being able to do a full mana dump on a raid mob now nets in some pretty significant DPS, and the secret more than anything else right now in being able to do good damage .. its all about the mana.  I can't be crawling to catch up to FM before the raid is ready to engage again.  I'm just glad that I basically have as much FT as you can possibly get, and my foci is pretty much in order.  I know you like to sugar-coat things when we say things suck, but NO .. this SUCKS.

For me, in some situations it will suck, but in the vast majority of cases it won't.  If I ever feel like I'm too low on mana then I'll refer buff requests to one of the other beastlords who does have mana.  If none of us have what we feel is an acceptable amount of mana and people still have to have SA, then they are just going to wait.

Mana is a big deal, but my belief is that it should be.  Otherwise there's no difference between a beastlord with a 7k mana pool and one with an 11k mana pool.  That's just my opinion, of course.

I'm agreeing with Tast on this.
It's not that bad of a change. Sure the mana might be steep, sure the timer got extended but have you ever asked the cleric hows mana for group conv/virtue. Shamans can pretty much canni themselves, necros can feed mana to themselves and who needs it. Bards, well we know what bards do.
After reading a bunch of these, it seems some want something handed on a silver platter. I hate to say it but its true. I'm not even at full FT anymore but I still regen mana pretty fast.
I am bout 1k shy of where my wifes clerics mana is and she will flat out tell you, 00m till she can mgb raid. You are not seeing the other buffing classes aspect in this. Just your own. Sure this might hurt solo'rs a bit, but, I usually recover what I cast by the time I get to where I wanna solo for the night if its one of those nights.
I just dont know what some of you are hurting so bad on mana that makes this not good *shrug* I found regenning mana was faster then regaining health in some aspects. Maybe, I'm just playing a different game.

I like the new timer, I'll pay a bit more mana to not have to recast it as often.  If you raid, I always thought it was wrong that one of the spells most requested by beastlords timer was less than the MGB timer, meaning you either had to have 2 beastlords to MGB it, or single group cast it (which really sucks my mana down).

The only downsides I've encountered is regen after a wipe, before I'd just paragon my group and quickly get the mana needed to SA.  The other downside is when I die solo'ing.  But if you rez in Guild Lobby, just click paragon and go in the guild hall, and you're back up in no time.

I do wish we were given a single target version, 900 mana gets steep when you have 1 death in a raid, or someone late and you need to recast it on their group for 1 person.

Next time we ask for something we need to include all the parameters.
What we asked for = 1hr 12 SA.
What we should have asked for  = 1hr 12 sa for the same mana

I am about 4.3k raid buffed on mana at lvl 65 with the gimp gear I have.
I only have a regen +2 item, IR 3 and MC 1,
The spells I add to that are KEI/Clair, Steeloak and Symb and SD and I think my mana regen is pretty fast.
Add to that when I am LoM I will break out the Horse/Drog/boar to help speed things along.


Right now I am the only Bst on my guild raids so I make it a point to make sure all groups have SD. I dont nuke as often as I should, with a 67+ shammy and chanter on the raids most of the time I dont slow. Most of the time my DoT's get resisted so I dont cast it after 3 resists. I do the same thing for my cold nukes as well (stop casting it after 3 resists in a row).

I try make sure I have Growl of the Lepord up and that eats alot of mana for me.

I am probably not putting out as high a DSP rate as most on this board doing things this way but I find that in Raid situations I am almost never below 40% mana. On the other hand when I am soloing I am always less than 50% mana most of the time.

Quote from: jitathab on October 13, 2005, 12:18:17 PM
Next time we ask for something we need to include all the parameters.
What we asked for = 1hr 12 SA.
What we should have asked for  = 1hr 12 sa for the same mana

I totally agree with this. Seems the only problem ppl have is that the mana cost went up. That is the only complaint I really see. I still think with an extension of time the mana cost would have to go up. Its too bad we had not discussed this prior to it going live so that everyone would of been prepared. I am glad the extension time has been given to us. I know alot of ppl had asked for it. I am a soloing beast and will adjust my soloing to compensate for the mana cost.  I am glad I dont have to cast this spell so much anymore though. I hate rebuffing myself when I am fighting. I just feel that takes away from my dps.

oh, just a thought, now that we see what a request for added time on spells does. We need to be prepared for added cost IF they every change our haste line.

Brumbkab the troll

I can see why the duration was increased so that MGB would pop before it faded.  That's a good thing for some I guess.  For me personally, the increased recovery time after death is a lot more significant since we almost always save MGB for paragon/perfection.  On Time raids we usually have enough beast power to paragon the raid once or twice on each named from the Zek brothers on up.

Recovering from death is common for us.  Right now we are progressing through Ikky and Uqua, raids where it is rare for the timer to expire on SA even before the duration extension on the 12th.

Hmmmmm.....if we could get the perfection line bumped up so that hitting it after death would give us enough to call  a pet, growl and cast SA, that might be a good thing.  :)

Solution is simple guys.  Tell the clerics you have to steal their necros if they want SA.

since I'm sorta friendly with most of the necro's here, I think they might actually listen when I ask em for a few feeds.  The only times I'll ask for feeds tho are the few times I just needed that lil bit of seed mana to get me started.  Then I'd find myself getting sprayed by all the necro's ;p  I guess for my seed mana, I'll need to start asking for half a dozen feeds vs the old 3 or 4 I used to ask for.

Quick derail - Sharrien - In Time what mobs are you using Paragon on? Zek bros AE's are avoidable if take two steps back.

Bert and CT AE's can be 95% avoided by 1 bard in the raid triangle singing (hint start on the opposite side of the room before engaging the melle to avoid the first AE which is the only painful one) i.e. place tanks in front of healers with a bard on a wall and wall pin, mellee long way away MT calls assist everyone else moves in.

Inny and RZ dont AE anything that I recall which just leaves quarm, which yeah if people dont have Vet AA can get nasty.

Or am I taking you too literaly.

Not too much worse I can think of than being sprayed with a Necros seed   :-o

Theres a solution if you are having trouble rebuffing single targets that die frequently: SD.  2 mana/tick during the course of a fight is not going to make that much of a difference.  So for those clamoring that it takes too much mana to SA people that die, just load SD and use it.  Its not the most wanted solution, but its a better solution than renerfing SA down to what it was.

The only real problem I see is after wipes, and for guilds that only have one or two beastlords.  It just takes splitting up SA duty now.  Generally we have 4 beasts on, so we will now just split SA between them instead of having one person doing them all.

I agree with Tastian though.  People are trying to find specific situations where its a bad deal, where overall, its a good thing.

No.  Overall its pointless.  If you have a guild that sits on their butts for 30 minutes before they move out, maybe its not.  If you have a guild that sits in one zone and raids it for 2-6 hours at a time straight with very litttle deaths like Ikkinz or PoTime, then its not pointless.  But for the stuff I do .. its pointless.  Anguish: 2 hours to clear.  One recast and thats one recast whether it was 50 minutes or 90 minutes .. pointless!  If we do DoN dragons .. Yar'Lir, Kess, Rikki, Vish .. assuming we dont wipe, and we might only on Vish .. less than an hour event each and you get fresh buffs before you start, even if you hit multiple targets in one night ... pointless!  Cutting our teeth on new stuff that no one on the server is killing yet, like Matriarch, Queen, Vule .. oh and hey demiplane of blood now?  Lots of deaths .. LOTS of deaths .. pointless pointless pointless!  And for the record I never asked for the buff duration to be increased .. that may have been ya'll .. but not me.  Glad you like the change, I don't.

I would use SD on every raid just because its more intelligent... but then you get 40 tells wanting SA....  people whine when you mgb HoV(yeah... we dont have a HoC cleric yet, soon tho) after a wipe and tell them to live with it....    they think 1 extra mana regen will save the raid...  300hp on a wizard will keep them alive...

Now there is no point in doing SD over SA

Before there was a 20% mana saving difference in casting SD over SA and all they lost was 1hp/mana a tick.
Now there is only a 11% mana saving difference.

Used to slow and offtank(for 5 seconds) things in raids... and patch heal.....  no mana for that now.
Otherwise is a nice spell for grouping.... bad for raiding less you burn MGB then it becomes soso
People die and want their buffs now.... not 2min from now, now

But all that being said... its managable
People WILL be close to their group leader now
People WILL have all their group in zone
It will ONLY be cast once per group less you die.... period

Just beasts gotta get a lot stricter and not let things slide now.
No recasting it 3 times on same group

Well, overall it isn't pointless just because it doesn't fit into your playstyle.  Should we say that Conviction last 60 minutes because your guild only lives for 60 minutes at a time?  No because our class needs doesn't revolve around your specific eq life. 

Pretty sure this has been on the top 10 as long as I remember, maybe even since the top 10 was conceived.

Aye.. after I'd just done it on my group & other bst did a half beat later.. if u have multiple bsts in raid, you now need to communicate with each other to prevent wasting a lot of mana.  We've been able to slack there because it was relatively cheap.  Now its not, so preventing duplication is important.

Overall, I don't mind much.. look at the old costs of some of the buffs that were group only for chanters.  Its still more and you couldn't do single.

Yes, they have fixed that... so a single one would be nice as well.

Sorry but I just disagree.

Heres my situation, we clear Anguish in two hours just the same as you.  With the old SA, we generally had to cast it 3 times or so before we zoned out.  Now, we might only have to cast it once, dependent on fast we go.  Thats a big plus, because we never have to load SA again.  We don't kill Rikk/Kess anymore, but for Vish and Yarlir, we start with Vish first, buff and kill, then move on to Yarlir.  Under our old SA, we had to buff at the beginning of both fights.  Now, we only have to buff the entire raid once, at the start of Vish.  I already sacrifice a spell slot for Fero and Fero of I; another spell slot to keep SA up.  Now I don't have to, because unless someone dies, I know its going to last and I won't have to rebuff as much.  Granted, Katonis, I and the other two of our beasts take turns at doing SA, but now, two can take the beginning of the raid, and two others can take middle/end, and be done with it.

With DoDH coming out, we have experience the same amount of wipe and learn that you have.  We also generally take our time to set up and make sure we have everything correct, which means sometimes we are sitting around for 30 minutes, and with a fight that lasts 20, SA wears off somewhere in between.  Now, when we are setting up, we don't have to worry about it wearing off.

Complain all you want to about the mana increase; those complaints hardly are enough to diminish SA's new utility.  I'm freaking extremely thankful that SA's duration was increased, and you are extremely foolish to have thought that Sony would just merely increase the duration.  It might not fit your playstyle or how your guild works, but for most of us, its something that we have wanted for a long time.  One beast's complaints on specific circumstances v. an entire community that has been clamoring for increased duration for a long time? Do the math.

They still never fixed the range on SA either.

SA has range 100.
All the rest of the line is 200.

As I said... its managable, but you have to be a lot stricter, no more casting it 3 times on the same group in 8minutes because some people were zoning.  Now SA will be done later, when other large mana cost group buffs are done like c6...  As opposted to before, when id hit anyone with it, anytime, no matter what.. because the mana cost was enough to warrant it on demand.

Now its a more priveledged buff, Im not casting it 25 times on a 12 group raid in less than 30minutes....  Im casting it 12 times, period.
Just saying alot of the niceness is going to go bye bye because the mana cost was upped, not that its a problem or that it should be diminished really.  Its manageable, and will work.

I cant imagine you not having anyone die on raiding ever.... though.
I had to keep SA memmed, not for it wearing off, I would demem and remem it then if that were the case... but people die all the time during raids... its just something that happens....  therefore it was always in a spell slot.

"Next time we ask for something we need to include all the parameters.
What we asked for = 1hr 12 SA.
What we should have asked for  = 1hr 12 sa for the same mana"

That just wouldn't happen.  You are talking roughly a 60% increase in duration of a *MANA* giving spell.  There is just no way they were going to raise the duration by such a large amount and keep the mana cost the same. 

I think a lot of people will have to play around with it and for some there are situations where it's worse.  That's just how it goes with duration based spell.  Ask the enc that used to kei, the druids doing steeloak, almost every other buffer on the raid.  I guess this is part of what I'm still missing, I don't know how many necros you have or what they do, but how is it that bsts with compareable mana and mana regen are so completely behind on buffing a 900mana group spell when multiple other classes are having to do the exact same with 1100-2k+ mana spells?  Maybe get a feed from a necro here or there, maybe burn a mod rod if you never used it.  When you first pop back in after rez, tag a group with buffs with perfection if you used to wait on it, etc. 

I do think it's obvious that some people need to speak up sooner or more or something though.  In the last year+ I've gotten over 250 pms on this board alone, had thousands of posts, gotten I don't know how many e-mails and I can't find a single one that said "don't change the duration on SA".  Meanwhile, the duration was a top 10 issue atleast once.  We had tons of bst talking about how they have no use past the first bst on a raid.  Lots bashing on perfection and how low use it is now, etc.  Suddenly it changes and now people are losing there minds over it.  If you have a problem with someone or think you might have a problem with someone other people are asking for/want then please speak up.  I'm not a mind reader.  There's a thread in the corr forums now about fero.  Take a look there and see the debates going on over group/single target/effects/etc.  If we as a class can't even totally agree about a single buff is it really any wonder that it's hard for the devs to balance certain things?

We as a class though are hybrids and we bring numerous things to a raid.  If you are the only beastlord on a raid and are single handedly providing 10mana/hp a tick to every member of the raid that wants it then your personal dps is going to suffer some because the utility you are bringing has gone way up.  This is no different than fero'n 4 people instead of casting a few extra nukes.  Mana matters, and always should have.  We have more choices now than ever and I understand that leaves some people wanting, but others seem to be embracing the options they've got.  If you are on a raid as a solo bst and are the only doing SA, are the only one fero'n a few people, possibly drop some spot heals or slow some stray mobs then your guild probably isn't going to mind that you are doing 50 less dps or however much.  It's a utility verse dps trade-off that just makes sense.  If you don't think SA is worth the extra nuke or short duration pet then don't do it.  I know tons of people over the years I've refused to fero lol.

Essant,

If *most* people are happy with the change because *most* of the time it benefits them more than the old one, then *overall* it's a good change.  You think it's pointless all the time.  Okay.  But not everyone is in a guild that chain wipes to events and has one beastlord to buff everyone.  Yar'Lir?  The only people who die on that fight are afk or naked.  Rikk and Kess?  Both jokes.  Anyone who dies on those fights (idiots, usually) doesn't get rezzed before we kill the mobs anyway, so there's no issue about me not having mana to dps for those fights because of deaths.  Vish?  If you're seriously having mana issues on this then you're missing a key part of the event.

MPG?  Can do all six trials and have only a handful of deaths.  Anguish?  OMM is the only mob that wipes us, and there's plenty of time to get your mana back because of all the stuff you have to do.  Plus it's not a fight where you get to just chain dump your mana into dps like a robot so I don't even need all my mana to start for that and it won't make any difference either way.  So in Anguish, any of the beastlords can MGB SA (there's no reason to save MGBs because there isn't a single event that we do where we need MGB heals) and MGB will be back up before SA fades.  Tacvi?  it's on farm status, only apps die there or ramp/rage-eating melees who don't get SA anyway.

DoDh?  Bloodeye?  Joke.  People don't get battle rezzed on this and if they die to the trash it's because they have ADD or something.  Shyra?  Joke.  No one dies on this event at all.  Draygun?  If you are just mana dumping on this fight then you're gonna wipe people.  If you do wipe, you have to start the whole instance over anyway because Draygun stays powered up, and again you have forever and four days to get your mana back even if you single-handedly buff the raid group by group.  I can't speak for Hive Queen or Council of 9 because I haven't been around for those.

So for me, this change isn't pointless.  Apparently it's not pointless for a lot of other people too, and it's not just people in Ikkinz-farming guilds or people who take forever to kill mobs like you suggested.

Quote from: jitathab on October 13, 2005, 02:28:06 PM
Quick derail - Sharrien - In Time what mobs are you using Paragon on? Zek bros AE's are avoidable if take two steps back.

Bert and CT AE's can be 95% avoided by 1 bard in the raid triangle singing (hint start on the opposite side of the room before engaging the melle to avoid the first AE which is the only painful one) i.e. place tanks in front of healers with a bard on a wall and wall pin, mellee long way away MT calls assist everyone else moves in.

Inny and RZ dont AE anything that I recall which just leaves quarm, which yeah if people dont have Vet AA can get nasty.

Or am I taking you too literaly.

We don't need to paragon all the time to win each of those encounters, but if it's available to use, we do so.  Those who use thier's on the Zeks are usually ready to fire again by the time we get to Quarm, sometimes by Inny or even RZ if we are slacking.  I try to make sure we use at least one, maybe two on Bert, Inny (adds/fear make him chaotic sometimes) and Quarm.  Helps a lot to keep down incidental deaths so healers can concentrate more on the tanks and keeps our pets up better.  IMO, that's a much better use of MGB than the convenience of buffing SA in a single cast.

Quote from: Bengali on October 13, 2005, 06:32:27 PM
Yar'Lir?  The only people who die on that fight are afk or naked.  Rikk and Kess?  Both jokes.  Anyone who dies on those fights (idiots, usually) doesn't get rezzed before we kill the mobs anyway, so there's no issue about me not having mana to dps for those fights because of deaths.  Vish?  If you're seriously having mana issues on this then you're missing a key part of the event.

Hmmmm, sounds like some mobs we would like to try.  Care to pass on some strats?  :wink:

I'd love to, but you know how paranoid people are in EQ.  The Vish strat is listed on Alla's though. :)

Me? I'll take the extra duration thank you very much. Good change in my book.

Good points and bad points to it for me.  Doing DoN's and having the cleric/chanter die a couple times sure eats into your mana pool for the mission; even with c6 and a bard along.  Its kind of fun actually having to worry about mana again, but i'll have to see how it goes in the days ahead.  Definately see it eating into my dps already though.

I about choked when i saw my mana drop when i mgb'd at the main bank...of course i had a fizzle right before cast too lol.  Won't be anymore 'sure no problem' to 'hey can i get SD" from late-comers to the p/u raids i go to.  Always 5-6 requests as we head to target.  And i'll be asking any other Bst's if they have SA, any bounces will tend to tick me off now.

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

even when sa was at 60 min. i would have probaly SA'd over the same group 3 times in that time frame from either the raid wiping, or 1 person dieing in that group.


another sony miscalcualtion..im not shocked one bit


this only helps in groups really. groups that are just exp grinding and not planning to wipe and know that they will be alive after the 90min for a refresh. i dont know about you guys, but SAing 1 time an hour didnt bother me the slightest...i mean 1 hr how lazy can we be to complain about that? im shock this was a top 10 for beast fixing. this can  also be useful for when a friend of yours comes to you in pok or guild hall..and wants SA, so he can then go solo.

Was raid yesterday and i must say i was liking it! but we did not wipe pretty often

Quote from: Visimar on October 14, 2005, 07:56:09 AM
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.

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.

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.

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?

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

i love the change  :-)

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Quote from: Tastian on October 16, 2005, 09:12:16 PM
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.

Your argument might make sense if all that SA did was regen mana - but it doesn't...

But the prime purpose & use of it is for mana regen.

How many of your tanks/pure melee/rangers almost always click it off, virtually a half second after you cast it?

Looking at it for mana regen is basically the only consideration I can think of.

Yeah, its got hp regen that stacks with every-bloody-thing.  /shrug.. regen will speed up down time a lil bit, but in general its not that useful mid-fight.  Rather than try to regen hps, I'll just throw heals on myself & then regen the mana.

You can sit & med up mana if you run out.  If you run outa hps, u gotta go to the lobby & summon & rez ;p

I'm not saying those fights arent a joke -- they are a joke, and thats kind of the point.  They are less than an hour from formation to kill, then we move on to the next on and rebuff anyway.

Seriously I dont know why this is so hard to figure out.

1.  Potential bonus - you may not have to recast SA nearly often over the course of a long outing - this has the potential for being a bonus SOME of the time.
2.  Detriment - it now cost 900 mana to cast SA, regardless of whether it is going to be recast often or not independant of the encounters - this is a detriment ALL of the time, regardless of the situation.

Net effect = detriment .. period, end of story - no questions asked.

OK so maybe out of all the fights we do increased duration is a benefit .. Queen Sendaii is one of them.  Don't know about demi-plane yet -- ill tell you later this week.

I solo and I raid in a Time/Qvic Guild. I absolutely love this duration change. I have experienced no issues with low mana using this spell in either my solo or raid encounters.

"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."

The VoC/SA arguement doesn't really fly though because enc have always buffed mana regen better than us.  I mean look at kei verse old SP.  They also get SCRM and we simply don't.  An enc has always buffed better and you haven't shown reason why they shouldn't or why our mana regen buff should be about on par.  This would be akin to me showing our dots verse necro dots and going "see", uhhh yeah the numbers are right, but you still haven't shown them to be relevant.  Also take a look at another mana regen buff, steeloak...

Now the hp/ac/etc some can easily argue are more useful than the +hp, or +mana on enc/bst buff, but look at the ratio of mana to cost.  Base it comes in at 2210 mana for 1h 40m, for 9 mana per tick.  That means it gives back 9k mana base.  Divided by cost is ~4.07 ratio.  Base of SA is 900 mana for 1h 12m at 10mana per tick.  That's 7200 mana at a ratio of ~8.  The ratio on the enc mana buff works out to ~12 base just for the record.

Also could you please explain to me why you skew the durations?  I mean the enc buff naturally lasts longer to begin with, and in most situations a bst would just recast to make up the difference.  Yeah a buff that gives more mana and lasts longer is going to give more mana over it's duration again that's fact that still hasn't been shown to be meaningful to the discussion.

I'm going to say this one more time because it's the focal point of this arguement that everyone againist the change seems to be totally missing...

*THE CHANGE TO SA RAISED THE MANA COST BY 359 MANA AND THE DURATION BY 27 MINUTES*

That is the only change to the spell.  People keep throwing out numbers that were true before the change.  I mean in case no one noticed enc out buffed us on mana regen before the change.  In case no one noticed our pet cost mana before the change.  In case some didn't notice SA originally cost 531 mana *BEFORE THE CHANGE*. 

What people againist this change have to show is that the addition 359 mana(the only thing that changed cost wise) is proving too detrimental to offset the benefits of the increased duration and utility.

Let me help a bit by putting that into perspective.  A totally solo bst without any FT, any mana regen AAs, anything other than sitting down and having SA going will now have to spend ~one extra minute "medding" if they so choose to be caught back up to where they would be before the change.  Yes they might sit for 7 total or 11 total or 3 total, but only one of those minutes is because of the change, everything else would have been there before.

Now for a "raiding" bst that refuses to use a mod rod, doesn't have an SK, doesn't pop perfection, just sits there with buffs/FT/mana regen maxed they have:

~25(sitting) + 4(AA) + 20(FT) + 10(SA) + 20(enc) + 9(dru) + 22(brd) ~110 mana per tick regen, that means they have to sit down for ~20 seconds extra per cast of SA.  Even with a full raid of 12 groups(lots of raids can't even be this large).  You are talking about 4 extra minutes.  This totally ignores mana effects as well and means you are the only bst doing this. 

Also note that a bst still spends less mana than clr/enc/dru when recovering from a wipe in every scenario I've ever seen shy of something obviously skewing things toward one class(such as one class using MGB and one not).

I am still trying to get some changes to SA, and I honestly would kinda like the mana cost to go down some.  I had hoped we'd see a small efficency gain in addition to the duration, but that didn't happen.  However, some people throwing out flawed data and skewed scenarios aren't doing anything except making this community look bad.  If you think 359 extra mana(max, no focus, etc) is crippling then please show it.  Don't show efficency of enc buffs because we lost that before.  Don't show me pet costs because we had to make pets before.  Don't talk to me about thousands of mana spent doing a full infusion/focus/celerity/fero/pet/regrowth/etc cycle because we did all that before *EXCEPT FOR THE 359 EXTRA MANA*.  Some please show that mana being such a wild and crazy nerf verse the duration and I'll copy/paste the arguement to the devs myself because the fact remains even though I'd like the mana cost to go down I still can't offer compelling evidance to support my request.  359 more mana per cast, max, that's what you need to show.

I'd still like to see them make it 11 per tick or reduce the mana cost because in my opinion, the spiritual line's progression didnt make sense either before or after the change.

Tacyttik, you seem to be under the impression that there are 6 ticks per minute. It's always been 10 ticks per minute, so far as I can recall. Your numbers skew the math by under-reporting the total benefit while keeping the cost the same.

As for bonuses, I consider the Prayer Shawl readily available...that's a 20% focus for SA. Of course, you have to be willing to do velious-era quests.

hak -  11 would be nice and I bring it up from time to still.  The thing some people miss is SA's progression was always poor.  I mean a static +2 return on an upgrade is still a % downgrade each time.  Going from 3/3 to 5/5 is ~67% boost, then going to 7/7 is only a 40%, 9/9 makes it ~29, 10/10 puts you at ~11%, 11/11 would still only be ~22%.  Still the worst gain yet.  Of course, we have to also keep in mind that sony did feel mana regen was very high.  Other classes saw smaller gains in their mana regen too.  Of course, you've got the AA's and stuff that raised it so some ponder just what sony had in mind hehe.  I fear that this is just one of those cases where it's now where they want it and we'll have to wait for an upgrade or some content changes to really see a boost to it again.  *shrugs*  Still worth a shot though hehe.

I feel that we can make a good case for increasing SA's mana regen.  They have given all true casters Gift of Mana, that at level 3 fires with great regularity.

Introducing this has shown to me that mana regen is not the dire concern that it previously was, because this is permitting massive conservation of mana.  A decently focused core fire landing for over 10k for the mere cost of 1 point of mana.  And if you look at the new one.. there's a reason why the wizard rune disc for warriors (wizard gets summoned & eaten, saving the warrior a hit for a round or 2 ;p) is getting a lot more use now than it had been... and why i amazingly saw a wizard get rid of his ele pants, since concussion doesn't seem to have sufficient impact now.

Actually, I'd rather see them leave the mana cost and mana regen the same, but add endurance regen to the mix.  Afaik that would be something unique that we could have.  But of course that has been shot down in the past so...

Doh, I did goof up and put wrong #s, fixed those. (VoC does 222% more than SA.) And yes Tast, I had realized that comparing us to enchanters was a flawed arguement, because they're supposed to be better with mana buffs. But there's no other class that has a buff quite like SA, one that buffs mana without a HP buff, or is a song. And never did I say I wanted us to be as efficient as enchanters, that would be unfair to them.
If we wanted to make an arguement about casting cost needing an adjustment, or better, the spell itself, we could just simply say that the previous upgrades were 100 mana more per cast, and 2/tick upgraded. SA however was still 100 mana more, but only 1/tick upgraded. Therefore the spell needs to be adjusted to 11/tick, or decreased in mana cost.

QuoteAs for bonuses, I consider the Prayer Shawl readily available...that's a 20% focus for SA. Of course, you have to be willing to do velious-era quests

Prayer shawl is a up to lvl 65 focus (IV) -10% per lvl above 65, SA is a lvl 69 spell, focus bonus is 12% which is 3% less than the DoN purchased EE V focus aug available.  Casters have EE foci (under different names) available up to 30%, I don't believe Beasts have one over 15% available but would love to be proved wrong.

Actually, Zephyr of Brell is 20%

Yes, zephyr is 20%, as rdahl said (its the focus on the prayer shawl).

Increase Spell Duration by 20%
Limit: Max Level(65) (lose 10% per level over cap)

66, 67, 68, 69, that's 4 levels, 20 * 10% = 2%, 2% * 4 = 8%, so at level 69 it is a 12% extension, exactly as rdahl said.

Well, if youre into tradeskill armor you could get 30% buff extension:

QuoteMAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO TRADE AUGMENTATION
Augmentation type: 12
Slot: HEAD ARMS WRIST HANDS CHEST LEGS FEET
AC: 45
STR: +7 DEX: +7 STA: +7 CHA: +7 WIS: +7 INT: +7 AGI: +7 HP: +210 MANA: +210 ENDUR: +210
SV FIRE: +16 SV DISEASE: +16 SV COLD: +15 SV MAGIC: +15 SV POISON: +15
Spell Shield: +2% Avoidance: +9 Stun Resist: +2% DoT Shielding: +2% Regeneration: +2 Mana Regeneration: +1 Damage Shield: +1
Required level of 70.
Focus: Bulwark of the Dragorn
WT: 0.1 Size: SMALL
Class: ALL
Race: ALL

Item Information:
You must use the solvent Class XVIII Augmentation Distiller to remove this augment safely.

Focus is

QuoteIncrease Spell Duration by 30%
2:  Limit: Max Level(70) (lose 10% per level over cap)
3:  Limit: Spell Type(Beneficial only)
4:  Limit: Effect(Complete Heal (with duration) excluded)
5:  Limit: Effect(Invunerability excluded)
6:  Limit: Min Duration(24.00 sec)
7:  Limit: Effect(Reaction Radius excluded)
8:  Limit: Combat Skills Not Allowed

heheh dumm.. think that's one of the tinkered augs that require a raid drop, no? ;p

Aye, think so.

SWEET!  I didn't even think to look at player made items.

Gonna check it out to see if that aug is truely player made or quested. 

Thanks, guess I need to constantly keep checking.

rdahl.. the container is player made.. takes like literally 30 subcombines, several are at a pretty high tinkering triviality.  Your final combine is a no-fail combine... from a DoD raid drop.  (New info for me from talking with one of the few peeps on our server who's doing this stuff)

Now that they increased the cost so much id like to see them put clicky SA (single target or group) on some things.

Particularly on zun murams scepter of chaos -- many of the other classes get nice clickys on their weapons why not us?
Also in various other raid spots (time or anguish) as well as at least one spot where a non raider could get it -- maybe ssra or something.

Chanters have it why cant we?

hak.. why u wanna make bsts have to go for that silly sparkly stick? >< I've let that thing rot before.

wow, i love the idea of SA  (and paragon too!)  giving back endurance as well as mana/hp.  That would make it an essential buff for melees as well (melees always click off SA now).   love it - make it happen Tas!

honestly, when we are doin full raid buffing on a raid its before it set off, that meens we have time to med back up again and we will have crazy mana regen from all buffs and bard songs.
what do pisses buzak off is that with the real issues we have (highend dps, new fero, raid utilities, duration of haste..) that they choose to bless us with this pretty much useless upgrade to a spell that was working damn fine. we dont MGB SA on any serius raid, this is saved for PoS(which actualy desperatly needs a upgrade as well)

Buzak Ubertroll & fluffy ubergater
of drinal

Quote from: Kanan on October 21, 2005, 07:33:03 PM
hak.. why u wanna make bsts have to go for that silly sparkly stick? >< I've let that thing rot before.

lol kez should have got it just incase like i did  :-D

"what do pisses buzak off is that with the real issues we have (highend dps, new fero, raid utilities, duration of haste..) that they choose to bless us with this pretty much useless upgrade to a spell that was working damn fine. we dont MGB SA on any serius raid, this is saved for PoS(which actualy desperatly needs a upgrade as well)"

Our highend dps got a major boost with depths via AA/spell/disc.  Especially when it comes to burst a lot of beastlords have told me how happy they are.  Some have gone so far as to say that they don't really think we have dps issues at the highend anymore.  It's still early in progression so to a degree we'll have to wait and see how itemization works out.  At this point we kinda have to be a bit ahead so we balance out at the end(kinda like in PoP).

Some people do MGB SA, and there are some raids where you have so much clearing or downtime that you can MGB SA and still have MGB back up before perfection is needed.  They've flat out said no to upgrading perfection since literally a week after the expansion went live.  I continue to bring the issue up, but it's just not something that is likely to change.  With talk of potential end regen changes though there is the possiblity we might see perfection "tweaked", but still unsure just how likely that might be.

New fero is getting talked about a lot right now, but just from the discussion on this board you can see what a big issue it is.  There is maybe a marginal concencus on a few specifics of what people want at this point, but still a lot of debate.  If we as a class can't even nail down exactly what we want to ask for it makes it even harder for a dev that will catch schit regardless of the change anyway.

The issue of haste duration is still out there and I think it's a pretty obvious change that isn't quite so easy as some people think.  Right now celerity just has a low duration, but that impacts shaman, the potions, even lower end enc.  To some it seems easy enough to just boost the duration on celerity, maybe give shaman a group 60% instead of the 50% and call it a day.  Perhaps that is what will happen, but as yet it hasn't.

Raid utilities also is a debated topic.  To some an upgrade to fero, the potential addition of some end regen, and the further upgrades to our heals will be a reasonable amount of utility.  I think the issue atm though is in that entangled state where we have to see what happens with certain other changes before we can really say for sure what else is needed.  The heal changes should be in soon from all I've heard, if we could reach a more clear overall opinion on fero I'd present it to ry within the next week or two so we could see where we stood.

On the utility side, I could see this as a useful version of Fero:

8:     Increase All Resists by 65
Target Type:     Group v1

No stat or attack  bonuses, just a group resist buff. Still semi-situational, but it would have value.

I have played with this for a while since the change, and at this point I think I would honestly vote to put it back the way it was if anyone asked me. Raiding and learning newer content, rez recovery is serious issue with this new mana cost.

I think back when we originally asked for a longer duration it was largely because raiding Beastlords wanted to be able to be able to refresh it with MGB. But the raiding content has changed a bit since then, back in the PoP or even GoD days every raid encounter did not have multiple AoE DoTs to contend with like the OoW+ ones do, and long drawn out events like Rathe make the idea of being able to just refresh SA on a raid force with MGB seem attractive.

However, nowdays in the later content almost no raid is willing to waste a Beastlords MGB on SA when it may be more effectively used with PoS against the DoT damage, especially because non mana classes get benefit from MGB used this way rather than the SA they have to click off because there are not enough buff spots.

Way back when Beastlords typically had mana to spare, even as a main slower for a group, other than the summon/buff phase to get a pet [before pets zoned] I was rarely low on mana. Anymore that just isn't so and I am already operating at a net mana loss in which extended periods meleeing can pull me down to OOM like any other class, so the added cost just isn't welcome.

It's interesting how the "State of the Union" thread says the hp portion of PoS is insignificant compared to potions, yet this one says that no one would waste MGB on SA because saving it to use as an AE heal is too important.  Just goes to show that everyone won't be happy no matter what.

Yes, kinda interesting indeed. Well, with an endgame zone that blocks PoS it doesnt really matter anyway, i only use MGB for SA for a long time now and i'm truly happy about the longer duration although the manacost sucks if youre the only beastlord and wipe often.

Yeah, Demi-plane has kinda stalled my mana usage as well. No pet most of the time due to being on bridges or extremely soft walls. Also stops Bestial empathy. No growl of the panther with no pet. SV gets wiped by trash mobs. Leaves me with nuking and SA. Granted we are just past Zi-Thulli, maybe after we get past the ae every 15 second spiders and exploding zombies, I'll find a place were I can use my pet.

Outside of raids I love the duration of SA. Makes me wish I had a 30% buff ext aug so it'd last even longer than the 104mins it does now.
In raids I'm ok with it. Its hard after a wipe to buff everyone, but really nice on raid destinations where you'll go the entire night without much risk of a wipe.

(Slight de-rail, but didnt sony say they designed raids to be pet-friendly? At least to the point where it was viable to use pets?)

Im almost 100% sure ive seen a dev quote somewhere saying no content was intended to prevent pets from being used.

Devs have also said that they don't want pets being automatic or givens on several occasions.  I really think "pets" need a major looking at (progression, damage absorbing, focus, utility, raids, etc).  *shrugs*  I do hate having my warder hiding somewhere just so I can use it as a battery for growl.  8(

Pathing is a big reason why some raids are pet-killers imo. I'd love to know how to keep Blinky alive on a positioning-intensive raid like Rikki when he winds up running laps back and forth across the zone just to move over two feet. It just seems to get worse and worse with each expansion -- and Rikki isn't the worst of them by far. :-( If pathing would actually work in a semi-reasonable manner, Blinky wold get to come out of his kitty cage on more raids.... maybe then I'd stop getting tells mid-fight like "WTF is your warder going?"

Not being a given I can understand. Having little to no chance of use in probably half of DoDH raids, I dont. I'd be fine if there was a boss or two that ate pets, but I dont think I've had my pet out on any raid from Vule on up. Pets really need to mitigate and avoid quite a bit better, have some shielding from spells and dots, and do more damage than present. Pets are supposed to be a low mana maintenance way of DPS, but when you have to resummon it every 15 minutes, it stops being low maintenance and low mana. When you cant use it, they arent dps.

With our pet having such poor mitigation and avoidance, is there any reason that pets summoned with high end focii (txevu+) couldnt have at least more HPs?

I think part of the explanation has to do with the fact that it's easier to overlook how gimped we are when we can't use a pet.  Obviously pets are extremely important to necros and mages also, but the truth of the matter is that if they can't use their pets, they aren't crippled as much as we are.  If our pet is dead, we can't use our new disc, and we can't use growl, and so on.  Our dps without the pet isn't particularly good, because our melee/spell damage is limited by our attack rate, recasts, etc.  So when a dev designs a zone with AE rampaging mobs that are extremely resistant to cold and poison, they might not realize what a soul-crushing experience that can be, because most other classes will still have something worthwhile to do.

Quote from: tacyttik on November 06, 2005, 10:17:16 AM
Yeah, Demi-plane has kinda stalled my mana usage as well. No pet most of the time due to being on bridges or extremely soft walls. Also stops Bestial empathy. No growl of the panther with no pet. SV gets wiped by trash mobs. Leaves me with nuking and SA. Granted we are just past Zi-Thulli, maybe after we get past the ae every 15 second spiders and exploding zombies, I'll find a place were I can use my pet.

Outside of raids I love the duration of SA. Makes me wish I had a 30% buff ext aug so it'd last even longer than the 104mins it does now.
In raids I'm ok with it. Its hard after a wipe to buff everyone, but really nice on raid destinations where you'll go the entire night without much risk of a wipe.

(Slight de-rail, but didnt sony say they designed raids to be pet-friendly? At least to the point where it was viable to use pets?)

I'm using my pet(s) on Zi-Thuuli, but for clearing to get him to pop, I don't.  I guess it depends on where you do the event, but generally I tear into his arse with everything I have once he pops.  Bridges and stuff like that, yea .. generally I don't use my pet as much, I still use him and keep pet rune on him for the exploding zombies but general pet usuage is cut down by abot 50% over concern of push.  And really, it doesnt matter all that much .. trash doesnt require a lot of dps so its better overall to be concerned with control.  Sister's I am using my pet on, but again its going to depend on your location you do the event, and the overall strat.  Hatchet .. can't tell you yet .. we haven't tried him but will this week sometime.

I didn't really care about the mana increase on SA,  and I'm usually the last guy to care about balance issues. I do, however, find this somewhat amusing:

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spellhistory.html?id=3384&source=Test


Tribunal duration increased 150%, mana cost was reduced by 50. It's test so all subject to change.

What you have to remember though is that trib was a BS "upgrade" since it came out.  The previous version is...

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=2529&source=Test (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=2529&source=Test)

had the 2.5 hr base duration.  The 62 version had a much lower duration at first and is just now being changed back.  Since the buff only adds 10 more to each save and now keeps the same duration the mana cost seems about right.  It was always a low mana, long duration type of spell for shaman.

Also now in line with Seasons mana/length ~ http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=3444&source=Live
Still different resist values though

Yeah I was going to mention that too, but had already submitted before I realized I hadn't lol.  Seasons is 72 to both saves(fr/cr).  8)