One thing I've learned from my time as corr is that no matter what changes some people won't be happy with the change. Fero has been an issue on our top 10 list for awhile and I hope to finally see some changes to it. This, of course, raises the problem of what changes people really want to see. Some ideas will simply be told no to and others will be tweaked by sony no matter what we want. However, I don't want to be suggesting stuff, see the changes go live, and then have a 3+ page thread where people complain about the new version. With that said I'd like to have people tell me what they'd like to see or get out of fero. How they envision the spell and even some numbers if you want.
Just a few examples to get the discussion going...
- Make fero a group buff. Some want this because it'll let them maintain fero in groups easier and buff more with it on raids. For a solo bst this would hurt efficency some and with the recent SA change we've seen some that have concerns over this. Also making it a group buff would mean the spell didn't have as much "oommph(sp)" as if it remained single target.
- Keep it single target and make it an uber buff like it used to be. This would mean more casting of the buff, but more results and targeted returns. If fero is group then you have times where a monk and a rogue get it, along with a mag, an enc and 2 druids. That wastes a lot of the buff and because the spell is balanced around being easier to use, having it on more people, etc then the returns on it aren't as big. I know some don't want to be a "buff bot(or harsher bad word for a female dog term)". However, many seem to want it to be truely useful and are willing to work a bit harder to get a bit more gain.
- +double attack was a common request, but with recent changes that suggestion seems to have lost a lot of weight. There could be stacking issues, and there are some classes that now appear to be able to cap at 100% double attack even without fero.
- End regen has been suggested and might be nice, but it's unclear if sony is ready to head down that road or not. Also some beastlords won't like the spell as much then as they don't really gain from end regen, but it'd be a huge raid/group thing to be able to give to mnk/war/ber.
- Procs seem like a nice idea that have both offensive (aggro) and defensive(lifetaps), dps(dd procs), utility(snare? slow? *shrugs*), benefits. At one point sony was kinda againist this idea, but obviously a lot has changed and perhaps this could be requested again.
Those are just some of the ideas and I welcome others. I realize going in that some people will be upset no matter what, but I'm going to do all I can to make sure those people are heard now and atleast have more information available to them as to why the changes happend and what other beastlords have in mind.
Well for one , i would like the resists to scale up properly, that would be nice.
The double attack idea i think is out, with the ranger changes. I may be leaning towards the proc, that would be nice.
What i would also like to see is an increased crit percentage with fero, maybe?
This is a difficult question to answer.
Well before I would have really liked to have seen a DA, but not so sure now. I think that maybe increase chance to Crit but Salik takes care of that. And if your looking at a spell that procs damage, well Shamans have that. It seems to me that what ever they do with Fero, it will duplicate another classes spell. If I have to Duplicate anothers spell, I would want DA. At least I think that's what I want...LOL.
One thing is for sure, I would want it to last much LONGER than it does now.
Increasing the duration seems very unlikely given how the buffs function. Fero and avatar have always been short duration buffs with high mana cost. I could see the recast maybe going down a bit if it stayed single target, but I don't see the 6.5(ish) minute duration going anywhere.
Stacking would of course be an issue. Shm/dru already have +damage, rangers now have lots of +da atm and some appear to be capped by this change, so that wouldn't really help at all. Salik is +crit, but it's a pretty small gain. Accuracy isn't really on much, combat effects aren't on much. When people talk +proc damage they mean fero would make you proc more, not that it would have it's own proc. Although that is a possiblity too, but with panther line for shm I don't really see that.
I think we need to find something that works for us, helps others to help our raid utility and while not being overpowering is still very much desired. *shrugs* Keep the ideas coming.
I'd be happy with Ferocity staying single target, and Ferocity of Irionu being changed to a group buff or made uber. Since Irionu is currently such a small improvement, I don't think there would be room for anyone to complain then, they can still use Ferocity if they want.
I'm kinda on the fence on this one... although I think a group buff would be very handy, I can also see a potentially larger gain by having a more powerful single-target buff as well.
As a group buff, it could potentially have the ability to be MGB'd, unless the Devs code it to specifically limit it to single group -- this would be a huge boon on fights where resists are key. It could also shift us to the "DPS groups" many guilds set up (mine puts the Rogues and Zerkers together with a Bard and sometimes a Shaman) or at the very least get us involved with more than "SA plz." As a group buff, a single Beastlord could keep at least two full groups, maybe three (plus themself), Fero'd.
As a single target buff, it could be boosted to something really worth casting tho! Personally, if this is the path it takes, I would like to see the recast cut down so that we can put Fero up on everyone in a full group (or 5 of the 6 at the very least) before it starts to fade on the first player. But as has been noted, a lot of the potential effects that could be added are already taken or otherwise rendered moot :-( Avoidance comes to mind... or perhaps it could be "overcap attack", tho for the majority of Beastlords it would still just be normal attack... +proc would be very nice too -- kinda makes me wonder what effect keeping it on the warder would have :-D ... another idea that comes to mind would be swapping the STA boost to pure HP, but I imagine that would introduce all manner of stacking issues...
Either way, I'd like to see the resists go up a bit -- it went from 50 to 65 with Savagery to Ferocity, but Ferocity of Irionu stayed at 65.
Hopefully we can work together to whip up a nice proposal for a new Fero that we'll all be happy with :-)
Double attack no longer seems like a good idea to ask for.
Making it a group buff is looking like a better idea, now that they've reduced the buffs you can get ATK from. However a group buff is gonna cost a lot more mana, which several bsts will be lacking due to recent changes with the Spiritual line. (8k mana to buff a 9 group raid)
Beneficial ideas:
Accuracy - Cap is 150, and only high end people who have focused on accuracy will be maxed.
Combat Effects - Even less people are capped for CE (100).
DoT shielding - Here we start thinking outside the box. Shamans got a damage mod because ATK and stats only go so far. The resist part of Ferocity only goes so far too, so shielding would be the next logical step.
Spell shielding - See DoT shielding.
Strikethrough - Only useful if tanking.
Crit rate - Beneficial for all melees.
Crit dmg mod - Spell version of Veteran's wrath (would add onto VW, of course).
SS/DoTS and crit bonuses are my personal favorite ideas.
I like the original intent of the spell... but it just needs implemented using modern effects. As it is now, the mana cost certainly scales up on it, but pretty much nothing else does.
Look at the three spells as they are now first:
Savagery - lvl 60: (450 mana + peridot)
+50 resists
+100 atk
+25 sta
Ferocity - lvl 65: (600 mana)
+65 resists
+150 atk
+40 sta
Ferocity of Irinou - lvl 70: (750)
+65 resists
+187 atk
+52 sta
In the Savagery days, the sta component MIGHT have been useful in some cases. By Ferocity+ it's useless.
---
So here's what I'd propose:
Take out the +sta from both Ferocities.
Ferocity:
Add +200 hp
Ferocity of Irinou:
Add +400 hp
Add +7% melee damage (that stacks with discs and such)
Change the +65 resists +75 resists
Add +10% spell shield, +10% DoT shield
They said no to more resists at one point, but again we'll have to see what changed. I do like the idea of spell shield type of effects because it just uses modern day effects to simulate the original benefits of the spell.
The +melee damage I don't think will work given all the stacking I've seen. I know champ is +10%, lions, etc and most don't interact well with other effects.
What about flurry or crit rate? Crit is only really on enc haste, but it's also on our disc as well, so that might be something to be careful of. Flurry isn't an effect via spell that I'm aware of atm, it would raise damage, could be used on MTs, but it also has the side effect of more aggro. Original fero didn't boost aggro because the +damage came from atk. *shrugs* Keep um coming and take note of why it's so hard to change somethings lol.
Some good ideas out there for what to add for Fero. But, whatever is done it needs to be made a group buff.
Reason is mana, cost recently has been increasing. With Panther, new DoD (cant think of its name) spell, nukes, heals(I'm always put in a group with a shammy/druid for some reason and at times they can struggle to keep the entire group healed in big aoe damage mobs) I run low or out of mana on boss mobs these days.
So, if fero turns out to be a single target buff that is desired the choice is decrease my dps to keep up buffs (especially if it is kept a short duration buff) or tell my guildies I accidently deleted Fero and to bother someone else.
I think with so many beastlords having trouble with aggro(still a problem?), perhaps a deaggro type proc addition might be useful. Considering they added Roar to our AA list, they must acknowledge the problem, and I don't think Roar really solved many problems, from what I have heard anyway. But the aggro reduction may cause problems for those that use it while tanking, but would also help careless rogues/rangers/monks/etc that may manage to steal aggro while you are tanking.
Also, I really like Keba's idea of making one a group spell, but I think making Ferocity the group spell and Irionu, being slightly better, the single would be more beneficial, so we would have incentive to take the time, mana and effort to cast the single spell instead.
I personnaly would like +combat effect , flurry hmm well maybe but this seems weird since not a lot of class can do that, maybe +5 or so of base damage from weapon? this would make rogue-zerker really wanting it....
Mana costs are just on the rise and we have a lot of options at this point. If it doesn't add more dps to fero someone then you just don't fero them(used to tell pallys no all the time lol). Just like how you don't always use growl or whatever else. We definitely have more choices and our mana is very useful atm. However, making fero group could actually hurt mana spent in a lot of cases. A solo beastlord without pet affinity would either have to go back to single target or group buff(usually ~3X the single target cost) or maybe hit the pet and himself(still more mana than two single targets). If it could be put on multiple groups then you'd be spending a ton more mana, so at that point you need to only have it hit your group. However, what groups are bst often in or would they find themselves in? There are lots of times where I'd be better off fero'n myself +1 person than a big mana cost group version depending on group make-up.
Just trying to show how complicated this can be. There are big pro's and con's to group and single target. I think a person's situation will play a big part in where they stand on the buff. I mean just looking at the change to SA we see how different some people's opinions are when it comes to spells and use.
/ponder...keeping in mind I am coming from a low ep progression standpoint.
First off, I would like to say that I think the level 65 ferocity is fine the way it is. If you're level 65 you still are probably at the point where your resists and attack aren't capped yet. Not so much on the stamina but honestly, I considered fero part of my lineup to max my stamina for a long time.
Now the level 70 fero. Firstly, I think the stamina on the buff needs to go *unless* it can be made a stamina overcap. Preferably one that stacks with the shammy overcap buff. I'd prefer it to remain single target. The resists, imo, need to scale up slightly. We gained what...15 on resists from savagery to ferocity? Make it something similar to that. As far as the attack, I have mixed feelings. I'm not anywhere near max attack yet, so in that respect it is nice to have. However, I can see other things like +flurry or perhaps +combat effects being more useful to beastlords overall.
/shrug...my opinions as it were
ROFL.............hadn't even noticed changes to SA, but wondered why it cost me so much mana to SA my raids.
In terms of Fero I love some of the suggestions, I do love Shieara's suggestion of the sta helping towards overcap, especially if it stacked with Wunshi and Fortitude. Personally I could see Fero of I going down the +CE route and would be happy with that. I think if they added flurry you might see other people complain about it in someway even if they can have it cast on them.
But it certainly needs a change, I have been asked for Fero once in 2 months of raiding who still thought I had a fero rotation and wanted to be in it. Was sad to tell him no one asks for it, and quite often click it or don't make room for it. On the upside it means I have more mana to chain Bestial Empathy.
While i agree that fero is in need of tweaking, I'm against making it a group buff...The mana cost would be insane and for the duration not worth it...
Accuracy would be a good choice for an additional mod
Some sort of shielding would be nice addition, or possibly a mixture of accuracy/shielding.
a Proc mod wouldnt be bad...stacking issues could arise if grouped with shammy etc. and possibly gripes from shammies about it (duration issues)
still think the resists should have gone up a little bit
with Stamina being one of the easiest stats to max (via gear/other buffs) it could be dropped completely. I doubt they would make it an overcap that would stack with shammy ....that would be a crazy amount of sta.
If we talk about group vs single buff we have to compare it to the shaman champion buff. That one costs 1500 mana, increase 10% damage and adds 140 str, dex, agi, duration is the same as ferocity. If we can keep a group ferocity around the 1500 mark it might be worth it, if its way higher its too much to be worth it (probably still not a problem on a 12k manapool).
So just for the manacost reason i tend to "vote" for a single group version for a new Ferocity of I, 75 resists all over, 180 atk, +15% procs and 300 hp, same duration and manacost as the existing spell. Although the original aim was to increase melee damage via the atk route i dont think we can mimic that with a damage mod since there are too many around already. More procs is something we dont have yet and together with the resists it will help all melee classes to either do more damage or gain more aggro. Since most melee classes dont rely as heavily on procs as we used to a bigger mod than the damage mod on champion is something we should aim for, 15 to 20% could be about right. The 300 raw hp are there to replace the stamina part which is absolutely useless since around ele/time progression.
If they are going to reinvent it we should get something spectacular that benifits us more than others, so would support being me only.
We dont need a +xx damage component, we already have a spell for that and druids have lion etc.
When ATK hits 2k very little more ATK seems to give much benifit, so why not add 250 ATK instead. I do want to see ATK remain on this spell, otherwise maintaining the 2k current atk will be impossible.
We also do not derive the same benifit from DA as all but bards, besides Rangers now have that covered, so adding a different component will be more useful.
Crit hits will benifit many, as will procs so how about not adding a combat effect but a surviveablilty affect.
What about shielding or a rune component, ok so maybe not as exciting but it directly benifits our warders.
Maybe make it a pet super buff instead or another joint buff. gives warder like +50 spell and dot shielding and us +10 with 250 atk, and a pet flurry crit increase. 85-100 resists bonus on us too
I would not want another mana intensive group buff that wears off in 7 minutes, we are becoming very very reliant on massive mana pools for maintaining DPS levels, we should not be reduced to a choice of buff or dps.
Summary
Self only (or self and pets only :p)
Atk +250
Dot shield/spell shield +10
Pet dot shield/spell shield +50 (survive the AE's)
Pet flurry
Resists self +85-100
finally weighing in here.. I don't like the idea of it being strictly tied to pet or tied to pet at all. We are still having too much pet survivability issues... and they seem to jump at the chance to tie something else into the pet, further limiting us.
The one effect that you do not really see from other buffs atm is the increase in CE (increase in proc rate). I know warriors would fuggin love this because they are so proc-dependent for solid fast agro. I'd love it because I'm a lifetap freak & more taps = happy cat. More & more of the dps you see on people is heavily supplemented by procs.
I'd like to keep the attack, mebbe bump it up a lil bit. But add a 5-15% proc rate increase mod onto it to replace the stamina increase, which is totally useless at the level that you use Ferocity of I. I'd like to see increase in the resists, because, again, I actually use it for that purpose. And shorten the damn refresh rate. grrr.. even now having to tell someone 2 mins.. 3 mins is annoying.. I could live with a one min refresh on it. The duration does not have to increase.
This is what I would prefer.
Now, on the alternate path that I would find acceptable: group version:
Make it comparable cost to champion, but it absolutely must be /tgb'able, else you have totally defeated the point of the spell & I will un-mem it & never use it again. An increase in the resists of 15 would actually make it a very useful buff for the times when the raid is needing their resists bumped up, bcs hell.. what except PoV hits all your resists in one shot? Though, this is probably why they have resisted increasing the amount of resists gained from it.
Duration does not have to increase, as long as the refresh rate lessens. Because, again, only being able to do it on 2 or 3 groups unless I'm insanely tight on my recasting would be a major pita.
I agree not tied to having a pet up, but something that benifits pet differently from us to help it survive the AE's. Then perhaps mages would start begging for Fero to keep thier pets up too. General mellee have enough goodies let pet users get pet specific stuff.
Mostly already been said but:
1) Make one of our versions a group buff (either Fero or Fero of I)
2) Take the sta component out and replace with something else (I'd love to see a melee accuracy mod placed on it)
3) Increase the atk given (since Hunter/Pred no longer give atk, would be nice to have a boost here)
Ferocity
stamina can stay, though id like a accuracy mod.
Atk bump it 40 pts or so
Resists are fine
Ferocity of I
bump atk a bit
resists bump 10-15
goodbye sta, hello accuracy or dot shielding/spell shield/etc.... what ever is appropriate given the lore of fero
Possibly make a group spell, since shamans had FA made into a group spell.
OR
Fero stays same~ish.. see above
Fero of I
spell shield/dot shield/shielding mods
chunk of Atk
something else useful to the pet
Pet ONLY
There just needs to be a difference between the two imo..
If they not going to give Fero of I a substaintal upgrade from what it is now... theres no use memming it.
Make one group and one single
Make one like Fero, and one more defensive based with spell shield/dot shield, while still retaining some atk
Make it a uber pet buff, while retaining the original fero
So basically, keep 65 Fero like it is, cept give it more atk to compensate for rangers leaving the atk field.
Make Fero of I, either a group fero with spell shield/dot shield/accuracy(not all but one of these) instead of sta
Make Fero of I a uber pet only buff or self and pet only that gives a good chunk of spell shield/shielding/dot shielding type effects
Make Fero of I a single cast, but give it accuracy and other mods instead of sta and resists or something....
Basically change it a decent bit.. one of those three options..
Otherwise.... /shrug... we could go 3 expansions and i still wouldnt care if I ever get Fero of I
My 2 cp for Ferocity of Irionu:
Keep single target, either make the stamina go over cap or add hps to it. Add a *sizeable* procrate mod and a small (like salik's) crit mod. Leave resists the same. Leave mana cost the same. Can perhaps buff atk slightly to 200, but I don't really care.
I don't particularly care for a group version. I'd rather it was single target and very impressive.
point brot up by guild when I mentioned it for group version: mgb'able
But that is with just taking existing spell & turning into a group buff, in their heads.
I greatly fear them turning it into a non-tgb'able spell if it becomes a group buff. I see this because they would view hitting the whole raid for, as it is, 65 to all resists as being too powerful. Not mentioning the attack or anything else.. just the resists.
So, as I've said.. keep it single targ.
I doubt they'd add as much there as you want Ben at no add'l mana cost. But then again, adding up to 1/3rd existing cost would be what I'd pay for your final version there.
I only got Fero of I bcs I'd heard of the new slow coming out & wanted to be able to get it asap when it came out.. this of course before they changed the spell order ><
Quote from: Kanan on October 13, 2005, 05:33:04 PM
point brot up by guild when I mentioned it for group version: mgb'able
But that is with just taking existing spell & turning into a group buff, in their heads.
I greatly fear them turning it into a non-tgb'able spell if it becomes a group buff. I see this because they would view hitting the whole raid for, as it is, 65 to all resists as being too powerful. Not mentioning the attack or anything else.. just the resists.
So, as I've said.. keep it single targ.
I doubt they'd add as much there as you want Ben at no add'l mana cost. But then again, adding up to 1/3rd existing cost would be what I'd pay for your final version there.
I only got Fero of I bcs I'd heard of the new slow coming out & wanted to be able to get it asap when it came out.. this of course before they changed the spell order ><
Excellent point for those of us clamoring for a group version. It would also take too much time for them to code it differently to make it not mgbable but tgbable. If they couldn't do that, then I'd also no to the group version, because I don't want to be stuck with the dps all the time, like shamans that use panther/champ.
Having it as a group buff would limit it's use. Even with single target and some EE you can keep fero on a few people. Sometimes though your group just doesn't have the people that would really benefit from it. Having it be group buff does mean that the effect is wasted sometimes and that it's balanced around it often not being wasted hehe.
Also keep mana cost and use in mind. Having a 1 minute fero would mean you could keep it up on more people which would be a much bigger drain on mana. I know some bst welcome the extra utility and helpfulness they can bring to others this way, but it's obvious some beastlords would be upset over the hit their personal dps took from this.
It's two things Tast.
First, I don't like killing my own DPS to keep short duration buffs up on people. Long term buffs are livable because we just need to stop occasionaly to refresh them.
Second, if I wanted to play a true buffing class I would of rolled one up.
Prefer leaving 65 Fero as it is, single target, though wouldn't mind losing the +sta component for something useful.
With double attack now fully taken & covered by rangers, prefer CE or the spell defensive bonuses (+Spell shielding / +Dot shielding) as a unique alternative, or else stacking raw hp.
For FoI, either scale the resists up to +75 or +80 as single target, and give it upgrade to CE / spell % defensive bonuses as above, or completely redesign it as a group buff but still in the same spirit (combo dps / defense against spells buff, that fully stacks with all other spells).
With name of "ferocity" double attack was so obvious and useful ... however, if there was a way to make it add a base double attack (say equivalent to another 2-3 ranks of double attack aa's....) that would be a wonderful alternative that would make it more helpful to beasties than other classes so I wouldn't feel bad about casting it on myself at raids ;)
"First, I don't like killing my own DPS to keep short duration buffs up on people. Long term buffs are livable because we just need to stop occasionaly to refresh them."
Like I said different bst have different opinions, and that is a big part of the issue. I can already see some people getting upset over some of the suggested upgrades to fero because it hurts *their* dps some lol.
Some people just want the biggest overall gain or the best gain for their group/raid/etc. Fero of irionu assuming ~4 to 1 damage to mana on damage spells would cost a beastlord ~20-25 personal dps in exchange for having the buff up on 3 people. Of course, most bst I know fero atleast themselves, so that means part of the mana is going to them and the damage gain is as well, so those numbers are actually very skewed especially since they don't factor in SCR or any focus effects.
This is partly why some want the group buff I think. To keep it easy, hit themselves as well, and basically call it a day. Like some have shown though a group buff has some basic problems that make it more complicated and harder to tweak.
"Second, if I wanted to play a true buffing class I would of rolled one up. "
As an honest question, what do you consider a "true" buffing class. We have: Haste, regen, mana regen, atk, hp, hp, vision, travel, levi, str, dex, sta, ac, personal ac/agi/etc buff, pet only buffs via haste, pet only proc buff, multiple buffs on our class only clickies including epic1.5/2.0, ornate bp and savagesoul bp, more buffs via AA (hobble, fetter).
Part of the basis for requesting SCRM and similiar is because beastlords do a ton of buffing and many consider them to be a buffing class because we have more buffs than almost any other class in the game. I honestly am just curious why you consider bst to not be a buffing class and what classes you think are and for what reasons. The only classes I can think of that buff or can buff close to what we do are shaman? clr have a couple of buffs, dru have a few, bards don't really count, rangers actually have quite a few but if bst aren't then I don't see how rangers are. *shrugs* Can PM if ya prefer as it's not really on topic here lol, but I am kinda curious.
Probably most do not concider us a "true" buffing class because someone has a better version of every buff we have with very few exceptions.
Personally, I would rather spend me time clawing than casting during a fight, so, I think changes to fero are due, I do not think that those changes should include any shorter duration than it already has.
Just making some further comment from discussion on guild boards: reason peeps are liking idea of group more is to make us more efficient, ie, get more people fero'd in one fell swoop.
As for myself, I still like keeping it single, just altering its effect to something more useful.
Shammies commented that whining would commence were it to become group.. dunno why, since fero has always been more raw attack than any buff they did.
The thing to keep in mind with it being group though like some mentioned is you have people getting fero'd that don't need it/want it/use it. In a raid setting maybe you can make a group of all melee for the buff, but usually you'll have something else there. If they make fero group, but tgb'able then you've got a huge mana expenditure buffing multiple groups and run into the issue of MGB.
After the reactions some had to SA I want people to be totally clear on what they are asking for lol. A group buff would be more mana, and in some cases potentially less efficent. It would also basically guarantee that the buff wasn't nearly as good as if it were single target still. How that impacts people feelings will of course vary and that's why I'd like to make sure people talk it over now and see where others are at and what they want thus far.
Reason I said not a true buffing class is because we get lesser buffs then what is available and none of them can even think about breaking a stat cap. I thought of myself as a kinda buffer until 65 when everyone started maxing out their stats. In today's game about the only buffs I get request for anymore is SA by the casters and Alladnu for the melee after their Wunshi wore off or they died and no shammy is nearby. Haste is not even requested anymore though I still cast it, about half the melee I cast it on just click it off again.
Guess I did not really convey my meaning well enough eariler but I have zero desire (actually hate) to be spending my time casting a short duration buff every 2 minutes to help others achieve their maximum dps. Now if it was a group buff I can toss out every x minutes I would happily do it. I do agree Fero would have to be kept from being MGBable, that would be a bit to powerful IMO.
Quote from: Tastian on October 13, 2005, 10:07:27 PM
After the reactions some had to SA I want people to be totally clear on what they are asking for lol. A group buff would be more mana, and in some cases potentially less efficent. It would also basically guarantee that the buff wasn't nearly as good as if it were single target still. How that impacts people feelings will of course vary and that's why I'd like to make sure people talk it over now and see where others are at and what they want thus far.
er, i don't really want it as a group buff. i'm not a raider--have done mainly pick-ups, and no one has asked for it or savagery from me. in the DoN progression, i had the MA ask for it a couple times but only in specific situations. oddly, he asked for haste more than anything. :?
i like to throw savagery on my warder, and fero on me, while i've got my vet double xp bonus burning. making it a group spell--with the incumbent mana cost--would take a tool out of my toolbox for solo'ing.
i know tast, i know, this is a very "specific" sitution, but i figured i might as well throw it out there. is added endurance regen as part of fero completely off the table, or sorta kinda but if we reach a consensus it might be a factor in putting it back on the table? if so, i'm all for that. =)
I appreciate the input nek and it's good to see people talking about this now. Fero as a group spell is a big issue in solo situations, especially if you don't have pet affinity. Even if you do current fero doesn't lend well to pets because of how atk works for them and their hit distribution. I can even think of a lot of groups I've been in where I fero'd myself, but no one else. In those cases I'd take a hit going down to normal fero and lose the benefits of the "upgrade", but gain the mana cost.
One of the big things about fero that a lot of people miss is that it can almost be views as a damage over time. If you are in a situation where you've got big downtime, or a slow group or something it just doesn't pan out too well. I know through the years I've had various people get upset over my refusing to fero them, but numerically speaking it was just more dps for me to be dropping nukes with the mana than to fero them. For new fero to be truely worthwhile it'll have to grant a nice bonus.
The end regen is a very iffy subject because of a lot of unknowns. I mean some still want it on SA, but it comes down to just how much end regen does sony want, if any at this point. Think back to early FT where it was very seldom on gear and very low amounts only. If they kept this model for end regen then a buff like fero would be almost ideal for it because of how limited, mana intense, and controlled it is. That would definitely increase a bst utility and their viability on raids(especially stacking). However, as you can see here, there are some people that simply don't want that. Some would be upset at end regen at all on the buff just becuase they don't actually have a lot of use for it.
*shrugs* Keep the discussion going, lots of ideas and I think this thread is really starting to help show some people just how diverse the class really is both in play and in wants.
the only time I really ever use fero is when I need the resists. Only time I've ever been asked for it, is when someone wanted the resists. I've not been asked for enough to turn down requests, hehe.
Part of the reason I suggested no mana cost increase for my version of Fero is because I don't think the current version is worth anywhere near 750 mana. It's way, way overpriced. If they upped the mana a tad and made it really badass I wouldn't mind, but none of this making it cost 1500 mana and adding 2% crit or something.
In the past, I would have loved a group fero spell. I was feroing 4 people most of the time because I had nothing better to do with my mana. Now we have multiple tools to use up our mana -- growl, beastial empathy, and a heal big enough to be useful. Other than myself, my use of fero is now very situational. Growl+Beastial Empathy+Nukes chews through mana at a good rate....on longer fights, I have to make choices.
beng and nus touch on key points.
One of the things we have to keep in mind like I said is that fero is just a tool. If it's an in-efficent one then there's just no way we'd bother casting it. For example:
Bestial empathy is ~5 to 1 mana to damage depending on a lot of variables. That means for fero to be worth casting at say 800 mana (a bit up from 750) it'd have to contribute ~4,000 damage over it's duration. That means fero'n a single person has to give them a dps boost of ~10dps(again very rough figures). That's not just 10dps while fighting though it has to be 10dps for the uptime. If you are in a situation with 50% uptime(waiting on pulls, prep'n, etc) then fero can be a waste of mana. The buff simply has to give a noticeable and solid boost to dps that not only makes the damage worth it, but also casting the spell worth it as the buff has outside risks associated with it:
- Dispells
- Person dies
- Downtime
All of these things quickly cut into the efficency of the spell verse just casting bestial emp and getting your full return in ~18 seconds.
I do think going the group buff route is going to be a much bigger mana strain than some foresee, especially after haven seen the responses by some to SA changes. Also you have the risk of the buff simply not seeing it's full potential. I mean to fero 3 people you suddenly have to be adding ~30dps to them to justify a group cast of fero. *shrugs* Just want to make sure that people don't wind up asking for something that they will almost never cast. 8P
Why not consider making just Fero of Irionu a group spell and leave Ferocity as it is, or the other way around, so people that find the group version more useful can use that, and the ones that don't can use the other. With such a small difference in the 2 as they currently are, it would give beasts reason to use one over the other.
Also if this were to happen, I would think Irionu would be more practical as the group version since it seems like most of the people wanting it are of the raiding level, and the level 70 runes are much easier for them to obtain than casual players.
I like the idea of adding a cap breaking component.
Rather than stamina I would love to see the spell geared even more toward offense with an overhaste component.
Having two versions of the buff, one for single one for group, is a good idea but only if the higher level spell is just a stronger version and does not introduce a few very desirable effect.
The mana cost of converting the level 70 Ferocity of I to a group version of the level 65 fero would be something I would foresee the devs doubling. ie, making group level 65 fero be 1500 mana.
VoQ (level 65 chanter crack) is 1300 mana btw for a relativity check.
Now.. 65 to all resists.. what other buffs/effect grants this or similar?
PoV - A in-group-only bard song.
I frankly don't like the idea of group spell, because it will more than likely become useless if it is done this way.
Now.. to look at the things we want from a conversion of the existing Ferocity of I to something useful, in its component parts
1) Attack incr 187
2) incr stam 52
3) incr all resists 65
I think almost all would like to keep #3. Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't really understand nor have truly understood the reasoning behind it, but I like it, so meh.
part 2) fuggin useless. This is the part we are wanting to replace with end regen, proc rate mod, extra proc, whatever, correct?
Part 1) this is what we were wanting to add DA mod too. Now rangers have it, albeit its gonna get tweaked (Sidebar: if ranger casts sop, then hop, then soh, they all stack, tho dunno if effects all stack. If devs dun know, prolly should, cuz doubt that's intended), but what are we wanting in its place? increase attack (some post I saw on ranger's glade considers increase of attack to be a 1% increase in dps when you're in the high attack range), or something similar?
I think we need to be clear on what slots/effect components we want changed. If we are not specific, we get something totally different that what we all really want, & we end up with another complaint-fest like SA change atm.
With reading the SA thread I do believe any change would work best if there Sony would give us single target and group versions so people can use what works best for the situation.
again.. I"m willing to bet if we get a group version, it will be to turn fero of I at level 70 into group level 65 fero, for prolly 1500 or so mana.
Is this what we want?
Why couldnt they Change the Fero of I to a group 65 Fero, and add a DoD arc for the uber single Fero? We have no spell or disc for the lvl 70 arc correct? Then everybody gets what they want.
you are correct that we get no 70 spell or disc from DoD.
However, the howling & whining that would commence from the rest of the hybrids that are in the same situation of gaining nothing from doing the 70 progression besides some loot would be overwhelming.
The devs would have to come up with a new spell/disc for everyone who has not yet gotten a level 70 spell or disc. And asking for this = major pita for them = not gonna happen.
Id much rather have it remain single target and actually be worthwhile. And they shouldn't touch the recast time or increase the mana cost by any more than 50.
+CE or +accuracy on the buff would be one option. The stamina needs to be either direct hp or overcap. And the resists should go up at *least* 5 each or have some sort of defensive mod (shielding, spellshield, dotshield, and/or avoidance). I also wouldn't be opposed to procs (preferably dps style or lifefap but it cant be constantly resisted)
With all the mods theyre handing out recently they better not claim it would be overpowered to hand out more lol.
And how can they deny us resists when they recently released the vet aa? lol
You can keep the 65 spell the way it is for those few who like it the way it is. Its the same as irionu anyway :/
Again, I think some people are *WAY* underestiminating the mana cost of a group fero spell. The best comparision would of course be the shaman avatar line of spells. Here they are:
Lvl 65:
3: Increase ATK by 140
5: Increase AGI by 140
6: Increase STR by 140
7: Increase DEX by 140
For - 350 mana over 6.5 mins
Lvl 70:
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
For - 1,500 mana over 6.5 mins
See that? The other stats stayed the same, the spell gained the +dmg mod, went to group and costs ~4X as much. Fero right now costs 600 for the rank 65 version, 750 for single target level 70 version. If we were to get a group version of fero at level 70 that was an increased version of the level 65 version it could *EASILY* be priced at 2k(ish) mana. I'm not saying I want it to be 2k mana, but looking at the data and other spells it could even be higher at almost 2,500 mana. 1500 would be a major bargin and that's still more mana than some people are willing to pay.
Now take a look at that, and tell me, how many of you still want a group version? How many of you would be willing to potentially shell out 2k mana (1k just to fizzle it~!!) for a group version(that will sometimes hit mages and schit) of a spell that is almost guaranteed to be less powerful than a single target alternative we could otherwise ask for. Oh and remember all those people that die a lot on raids. If your rogue pulls aggro(can they even do this without mez lol) and want you to rebuff fero right away. Cha-ching 2k more mana~!!(hope ya don't fizzle).
Let's hear some more discussion please I think this has been really good so far. 8)
I'd still go with group fero, only because if you fizzle single your still losing mana and you still have to wait for the button to pop back up. Along with, getting tells all the time going "fero dropped" "i need fero" Fero me".
Group version can be good or bad depending on the 1-person vs group mana cost and just how much weaker a group version of the spell would be. If the group costs 3X - 3.5X the single-target version and the stats are pretty close, i'd go for the group spell. At least my pet would finally get fero this way =p.
-Gibani
Jkal, ask your shamans how often they get a tell from some rogue asking for champion and they are like the only living melee in the group. A group version of the spell is only going to be efficient if you hit multiple melees with it, every time you cast it. And it's most likely going to be the same gimpy version we have now. There's reasons to want a group spell, but don't delude yourselves into thinking that you'll get fewer tells for it.
And getting back to the mana cost for a second, I think it's safe to say that a 5% damage mod > 187 atk, and if it isn't it's pretty close (as far as I understand it, 5% damage mod totally smokes 187 atk once you've got pretty high atk). Well a single target 5% damage mod costs 165 mana (Lion's Strength). Lion's also lasts for 72 minutes. So when you break it down, Lion's probably provides more of a benefit than FoI does, for about 1/5th of the mana cost. Even if 187 atk > 5% damage mod in the short term, when you factor in the duration of Lion's then it *obliterates* FoI in terms of mana-to-benefit ratio. In other words, Lion's will, over its duration, provide many times the benefit in terms of damage that Ferocity will no matter how you slice it.
Or if people prefer, we could look at Howl of the Predator. It's about half the atk that FoI has, at half the mana cost. Which might make sense if it were single target, but it affects the whole group. So that makes it more efficient right there. Add in the 3% damage mod and that more than makes up for the 97 atk that it lacks compared to FoI, and again, it's a group buff with no recast and lasts an hour and 20 minutes. It still costs 375 mana. Finally, we could take a look at Ferine Avatar. It is only 47 fewer atk than FoI -- but it costs 350 mana, which is 400 mana less than FoI and it has HALF the recast time to boot. We're paying more than twice as much mana as shamans to cast our buff half as often as they do.
So what exactly are we paying for? It's not the atk -- atk/damage mod buffs are cheap apparently. Is it the stamina? Get real. I have 551 stamina unbuffed. Tons of level 70 characters are well over the cap, and you don't have to be anywhere near a high-end raider to get there. All that's left are the resists. We're paying an insane amount of mana to add 65 resists to one person for 6.5 minutes, and we have a 2 min recast on top of that.
That's clearly not what was intended for the spell. Back when the line was first introduced, there weren't any damage mod buffs. There were a lot fewer atk buffs. Resists/sta were harder to come by. It was supposed to be an expensive, short duration, high impact, high maintenance buff and back then, it was. Now it's still expensive, still short duration, and still high maintenance, but it's NOT high impact.
There's no "oomph" to justify the exorbitant mana cost.
Look at it this way, rangers complained about atk buffs not doing anything because once you're past 2k atk the benefits go way down. So they get a double attack mod (deservedly so) so that the buff actually makes more of a difference for the people using it. Shamans got a 10% damage mod added to Champion for similar reasons -- adding more atk wouldn't have really upgraded it much because of diminishing returns.
If all that is true (and I think it is), then it means that adding more atk to Ferocity didn't upgrade it much either. It means that the someone over 2k atk gets a severely reduced benefit from having Ferocity, aside from being able to brag that they have a high atk score. This spell isn't now, nor was it ever, worth the mana cost. This isn't like SA where its comparable to other mana regen spells in terms of cost so an improvement necesarily requires an increased cost. The Ferocity line of buffs are the most horribly overpriced atk buffs in the game, both in terms of actual mana and in terms of hassle (they have the longest recast, and they are single target).
So while I do want them to restore Ferocity to it's rightful place as an expensive buff that can't be maintained on everyone but REALLY makes a difference when you do have it, I think it's critical that people take into account the fact that it's already a terrible value compared to other spells, and therefore needs a boost in effectiveness, but not a boost in cost. This spell is going to need some major love added to it to justify its CURRENT cost.
very nicely put Ben.
tast- wow.. hadn't seen that comparison from FA to champ before.
No, I would not be willing to spend 2k+ mana on group fero. MGB it like some in teh guild are wanting, and I'll have been having to watch my mana the entire fight & not be able to use the DoD pet spell because I'll have to have 5k mana available in one shot. God, I think HoConviction is the only one even in that ballpark for mana cost and how often is it really used to be honest, esp mid fight? never.
SoE is starting to acknowledge that the softcaps they are putting on now are more & more easily reachable by the more casual player, not just the hardcore highend player. So they are starting to do some of the tweakage to accomodate that, ala damage mods, DA chance mods, etc. This is good to see. Now we need to establish how we would like to have our facet of this be the most beneficial to ourselves & others. Cuz as much as I love us, we aren't the most prevalent class in game, and something that is a primary benefit for just us is a lot harder sale than something that can help others and thereby allow us more usefulness.
Ferocity, as we've seen and commented upon, has been a buff that was intended to make and initially did make a big impact. Its impact has started to taper off over time tho, as the high end keeps getting higher. I would like to keep the tradition of the buff to be much the same, that is to say, a single targ, big impact, big cost, small audience buff (by small audience, i am meaning not everyone will want it, nor will it be worth the casting time to cast on everyone).
I may have my preference for proc rate mod because i am a proc and tap freak, getting my jollies from seeing all these nice crit heals & such ;p Reason I've never liked dots prolly.. no earth-shattering kaboom ;p
The way I would see the change in existing ferocity of iriounu would be this:
From attack 187 to effective CE increase of about 25%. That may be too high honestly, but something along those lines.
Resists: Keep them and increase them by 10-15 points
From stamina component as exists to a temporary overcap buff, much like fortitude, except that the 2 buffs stack.
mana cost: for this, i would be willing to pay a slight mana increase. It is overly expensive now, but again, the change that we are asking for is a major, drastic revision of the spell line's traditional path and SoE tends to get bound up in staying to a path. They do some interesting, fun new things, ie shammy maw, but they tend to do a lot along the same old lines, esp when they are just changing an existing spell. They seem to have realized that they made the HoP/SoH a lil too much atm and are altering that accordingly, and frankly making me happy in the bargain.
Welp.. last night was a lil too much fun & a nap is calling to me atm.
Very true beng and I think that's an issue as well. The other issue that I think some people are totally failing to factor into their decision making is how fero is balanced....
For us fero has to reach a balance point such that it's worth casting by giving up some of our damage in order to boost someone elses damage. This happens because instead of casting a nuke or a pet or a dot we instead give someone else an increased ability to perform damage for a short duration, at the expense of our immediate gains.
The problem with balancing this that many are missing is that damage spells for us are constant values for the most part. A nuke might give 3 to 1 damage to mana, our new pet might give 4 to 1 damage to mana our dot might give 5 to 1 damage to mana, etc. *HOWEVER* Fero gives a % to mana ratio. That is to say that we boost a melee's damage by 0.45% to 1 mana, or 2% per 1 mana or whatever. In the balancing of this spell who we cast it on also has to be factored into the blanacing. If fero is balanced in terms of damage to mana againist a top end rogue then you'd *never* cast it on a knight or even yourself because of how inefficent it would be. If the spell is balanced around say a tacvi zerker then you couldn't cast it on an ele bard, etc.
This same issue is why a group version of fero will be *VERY* hard to balance. If you have a group of yourself and 5 rogues, or imagine yourself and 5 bst all with pet affinity all no longer spending mana on fero'n themselves then the damage boosts are *WAY* up there. However, the second you find yourself in a group with a warrior you just wouldn't use fero in this case or if you did you'd take a major hit. Having a single target fero allows for this spell to hit who you want and for you the caster to better tailor it's mana to damage ratio(do I fero 2 people, 1 person, 4 people, etc). Also it allows for more realisic top end situations where no it can't wind up on 6 rogues, but 4 max, so the power of the spell simply has to be higher.
Now perfect world the spell needs to be balanced imo (group or single) such that it's a "good" choice to make on almost any melee not swinging two rusty weapons and afk 40% of the time. Much like a DoT I think it needs to be efficent at a middle point and then at the top end it can be really amazing(hitting a top rogue or zerker or whatever). Like I mentioned before casting fero on someone has risks just like trying to use a dot does, but even more so because of the duration and death factor involved.
What we have to be careful of though is that we don't pigeon hole fero in our minds into being a raid only spell so that we never use it in groups or so that solo beastlords can no longer enjoy the benefits of the spell. Right now fero is too costly imo so I could honestly justify(and will try lol) an increase in fero power *AND* a reduction in mana cost depending on the boost. However, we as a class really need to come together and know what we want and why. Also be sure that you understand some of the issues such as mana cost(possibly *VERY* high) and benefit of say a group spell if that's what you are after.
Also I don't think fero blows the spell gem and takes mana if it fizzles. It just starts the 2 minute cooldown if a rogue or someone runs out of range casting it still right? Does botch rotations and really shouldn't be there, but is there some change in how it's working that I just haven't come across?
lol more and more posts as I'm typing. 8P
CE of 25% say would mean that a person with 200dmg proc MH and 200dmg proc OH would normally be doing 400 + 200 damage per minute in procs, that's 600damage per minute, that's 10 damage a second. 25% more to that is only 2.5 damage a second increase. For the 6.5 minutes you are talking about maybe 1k in damage for 650 mana~!! lol See what I'm trying to say about above where balancing fero is rough. Some might have more procs or maybe you've got utility procs with healing or anger procs or whatever, but in some cases fero with that change would be trash and some bst just wouldn't use it at all. We need fero to be "good" always imo and great when it really gets the right situation. Otherwise the heavy mana cost, fizzles, low duration, out of range, etc issues just aren't justified. We have too many options these days and lots would rather just growl themselves or drop an extra depths pet hehe.
Personally, I hope Fero remains single target, no matter what other changes are made to it. Whilst spell comparisons can be made for Ferine Avatar --> Champion, on mana cost, single target to group buff, pure attack/stats to 10% dmg mod/stats, thats about as far as that should be considered.
For a shaman (especially with some of the new DoDh aa's) the 1,500 mana is almost trivial - I keep champ perma memmed, and with extension focii/aa's it lasts around 10 minutes for me and it is usually very easy to keep this on 2-3 groups if I am focusing on him, ie 1 Gift of Mana proc/fire = recast champ on some group for 1 mana and GoM fires often enough (with GoM at level 3) when just using canni. Recast on FA/Champ has always been better then Fero (1min vs 2min) and combined with shamans superior mana regeneration, they arent generally worried about the cost. My original character was a shaman, and I currently 2-box him with my bst.
The raw usability is what I would really like to see from an improved Fero, and one of the major changes I would like to see here is recast time, 2 minutes just sucks, and if the spell only received minor upgrades as to it's power, if it moved to a 30 sec recast I would be happy. Whatever the benefits of Fero are, the ability to dole them out in 30sec intervals would be a major upgrade imo.
Exactly, Tast. People should also keep in mind that the percentage increase in something doesn't always translate into a set amount of dps or what have you. Just as a general example, there are all sorts of effects that are things like "Increase x by 10000%" but it's not as though the character is 10000% more powerful while these things are active. If proc dps is only 5% of someone's total dps, then a 100% boost to that doesn't boost their dps by 100%.
Also it's important to remember that Ferocity is a buff. Uptime is really important with buffs -- even if a buff increases someone's dps by 10% you can't just multiply that dps increase by the total duration to come up with how much damage the spell does. You have to factor in that even if you cast Fero on someone, they aren't going to be fighting nonstop until it wears off. They could die, they could go afk, they could have to go get a corpse, etc. So this is another thing that you have to discount.
I suppose all I'm saying with this is that people should understand (and this includes the devs) that whatever stats Fero has "on paper" will have some practical in-game limitations. Fero's recast limits it a LOT. It means that you have to add more beastlords to cast in on more people within the same timeframe, because there's no way one beastlord can do anything more than cast it on a single person every 2 minutes (just talking about FoI, obviously, and not about chaining it with lesser versions). There's only so many beastlords you can add to a raid, and there's only so many people any beastlord can keep in a rotation (and keeping that rotation flawless all the time is impossible). So the least we can do is have a buff that really, really feels like it means something when we cast it.
So again, if it's possible, I'd like to see Fero of Irionu have something like:
5: Increase Critical Damage by 50%
7: Increase ATK by 200
8: Increase All Resists by 65
9: Increase proc rate by 50%
Note that slot 5 isn't increasing the *chance* to crit, it increases the actual damage you do when you crit, a la Veteran's Wrath. That should make for a nice synergy with other things that increase crit chance. It also means the mod can be larger -- if you have a 10% chance to crit, then only those hits get boosted for a 5% overall boost.
It also makes the buff scale with classes. If you put this on a 'zerker, then it will have more of an effect than if you put it on a shadowknight, and so on. I also don't think it would need a mana increase given the current mana cost *and* the other limitations surrounding it. Even my numbers might not go far enough, but we'd have to crunch them to see. What's important is getting out of the mindset that 3% here or 5% there would put this buff where it needs to be.
Absolutley and that is why I want this discussion going on now before the devs even start to fiddle with it. I want to have people understanding what they are asking for and what they are getting. Some people are obviously underestimating what fero needs to be and others are failing to realize how much power they'd be asking for. At the same time though you have different play styles and personal perceptions to factor in. For example,
"Whatever the benefits of Fero are, the ability to dole them out in 30sec intervals would be a major upgrade imo."
This is an issue because as you can see from this talk and other talks some people just don't want to buff fero. Having fero drop that low would mean some bst are trying to keep it on 8+ people. The mana cost is just too high for that. Some people focus on fero's recast as a limiting factor, but mana cost and mana regen also limit your ability to fero. For many the mana regen is high enough that the recast isn't a factor, but if fero didn't have a recast you still couldn't have 1 bst sustain a raid with fero because it's just way too expensive. I personally see the recast as a way of helping bst from literally burning themselves out and as a way to keep some raid leaders or other classes from hounding the bst too much.
Truth is there are some people that want fero to be situational as well. I've had a couple people basically express the sentiment that fero shouldn't be always on. They don't want it to be a buff that they sustain on 4 people for an entire raid, but rather a situational tool that maybe they cast on a few people before a boss fight. They'd rather just nuke/dot/pet/melee than bother giving other people the buff so frequently. Again, different people, different opinions.
Quote from: Tastian on October 16, 2005, 03:32:58 AM
They don't want it to be a buff that they sustain on 4 people for an entire raid, but rather a situational tool that maybe they cast on a few people before a boss fight. They'd rather just nuke/dot/pet/melee than bother giving other people the buff so frequently. Again, different people, different opinions.
Yes Tast, I understand those limitations, but there is no way to satisfy 'the buffing just before a boss' scenario with a 2min recast anyway. You have to predetermine your fero recipients and start the casting beforehand. Basically, the recast is a physical limitation, a lower recast would allow me the 'option' of burning my mana via fero as well. And yes, it would be super expensive to keep up on a few ppl with a shortened recast, but again, the 'option' would be there.
As a sideways observation about a spell that was super powerful on implementation, one only needs to look at the initial incarnation of spirit of leopard/panther. What made these spells so powerful? Besides the overamplified proc rate on pets, one of the main factors with its power (in a raid sense at least) was no recast on the spell, and the ability to cast on whatever melee recipient was available.
If the spell is due or being earmarked for review/change, I just don't see why we should pigeon hole ourselves into accepting the 2min recast as one facet of the spell that isn't touched. If we want a spell that is worth casting (and people want it cast on them), then everything possible should be considered - spell benefit vs mana expense vs spell usability and recast time is just one factor of the spell as a whole but we just accept it 'because it has always been that way'.
I can't speak for others, but I'm not advocating a a long recast because the status quo as been that way. I'm advocating it because then the spell can be more powerful than it would be if it didn't have a long recast.
I honestly don't know the best way to upgrade ferocity to keep it inline with other classes. I do know that when I group or solo I keep it memmed (65 version as i dont have 70) and cast it on the biggest dps class and myself. If soloing I always keep it up even if it means replacing a DD with it. I notice a big dps increase for myself with it as my attack fully buffed with fero is just over 1700. Maybe for a high end raider with 2k attack it isn't much benefit.
The mana cost isn't too bad right now as I usually have kei or mana potions and I use tribute mana regen 5 and mana pres 5 so by the time the 6min is up I have regened most if not all of it. The only problem I have currently, will change as I progress, is when grouped with 2 dps classes and I constantly keep both refreshed with fero as well as continue to DD. I will quickly get low or run out of mana then.
Upping the attack would definetely benefit my character but for raiders it won't help very much as stated earlier when at 2k attack it doesn't add any benefit. As for stamina mine is maxed with self buffs so I get zero benefit from that. The resists don't help much either though they might when raiding.
I actually find the resist part very useful, and no ones really touched on that for past few pages. 65 to all is helpful, and the only time im asked for Fero is for resists. People asking for it for ATK I say if your atk is 2k you dont need it.
No to group version, I dont want to spend vast mana on this. I want to be selfish and look after myself first instead of being a buff bitch. Make it self only even and give us some "feel good" toy. Leave 65 spell as is, change the 70.
See my reply in the other thread about Fero. The only thing that I would like to add is that if it turns into a buff that people want me to cast on groups every 6 minutes at a cost of 900 mana each, then I'm going to be deleting the spell.
What about 750 mana every 2 minutes on various people? A bst with AA can sustain fero on 4 people(counting themselves if they choose to buff themselves with it). What do some of the people that don't like buffing see as an acceptable effect/time/duration? Single group fero as was said would likely be in the 2k mana range, but hit the whole group and only need to be re-done every 6-10 mins(depending) barring a death. Though a death would likely be told to stfu and wait I'm guessing. 8P
What about as a single target spell? Do you just keep fero on yourself? Keep it on yourself + 1? Keep it on the max you can? I'm really trying to understand where some people stand on this as obviously different people have different ideas of what too much buffing or work is. It's obvious some will be upset no mater what changes, but I'd like to try to find changes that work best for the most people. *shrugs*
For Fero - I cast it on me only, no one asks for it except the occasional monk who is parsing. I can not maintain it on anyone else in a group setting as I dont have the mana to Fero and DPS. If I am the group slower I dont even Fero myself.
IF the buff is made really good everyone will want and my DPS will suffer greatly.
I havent cast Fero in a group situation in a long time, keeping track of a short lived buff for 2-3 hours never was appealing. Besides until recently I felt our own dps never got a very good boost from being fero'd, and mana was better spent nuking or using growl. I also considered our fero "upgrade" to be an insult, it costing a level 70 rune, and 150 more mana for a 37 atk and 12 sta (woo) boost.
In raids its nice to toss on the heavy DPS'ers for boss mobs, since monks and rogues are hitting over 1k dps (and some people on the boards have been saying 1600dps) and adding a few % means much more at that level.
Group fero doesnt sound too bad, since we still have a nearly identical buff at 65. But getting a group version would most likely negate any upgrades to the buff, and bring the cost up around 1800 to 2250, with the only plus being able to buff a whole group in 1 shot, which before we could only achieve by using both feros.
Keeping it single would leave actual upgrades to the buff the only option if they were gonna give Fero of Irionu an upgrade.
I mentioned SS and DoTS earlier, which would be inline with the original intention of the spell, but we'd have to keep the resist buffing, or I'd suspect many bsts would be outraged...afterall, SS and DoTS are unneeded if you actually resist the spell.
The atk could be given an accuracy component to add with the original intention of fero. Things like CE have been suggested, but as Tast has mentioned, procs have become a lower dps boost than melee.
+ Crits would be nice, but most likely it wouldnt stack with our new disc. If it did, it would most likely be the best dps booster we could get, as I've never heard of a cap for crit rates.
Stamina on it (from every post I've read) is useless. People have suggested that it add raw HPs, but I think it'd be unlikely to ever get that sort of effect on Fero.
My hope is it'd end up being:
Single target, 65 resists, +4-5% SS & DoTS, +187atk, +accuracy or crit%
Well, back when fero was still desired i used to keep it on 4 ppl around boss mobs (usually startet my "rotation" on last trash mob). Now i rarely use it all, even on myself.
I used to use it (exclusively on raids) on myself whenever i needed the resist boost and any nearby "dps" class when it was up right before a fight. But since then, the DoD pet spell has replaced it in my raid spell lineup :D
I do NOT want to see a group fero because it will most likely still be pretty useless and cost more. A single target very high impact buff with the same mana/recast currently on the spell would be nice and i might actually consider meming it and casting it then.
Any of the following would be fine on the buff:
offensive mods
defensive mods
direct hp
stat overcap
overhaste (probably out of the question but still worth listing hehe)
more resists (esp since they stayed the same since 65 :/ )
Its been said we arent gonna get more resists on it, overhaste is a bard only (outside clickies) ability and would be useless with an overhaste song, I believe stat overcap is also out of the question (and every melee stat already has a spell for it, so doubt it would stack), and direct HPs would be one of those very unlikely additions. Its not that what you ask for isnt warrented, we deserve a fix with some *actual* DPS boosting mods on it, but asking for items we know we wont get is fruitless.
Tastien, is there anyway to find out of they'd give us a group fero with DPS boosting mods on it, or if we'd have to choose between making fero group, or getting mods on it?
Some of you people need to learn how to say no when people ask you for a buff. It's easy for me since I'm naturally ornery, but I'm sure the rest of you could get the hang of it too.
Honestly I'm not too worried about the buff being one that people want me to keep on them all the time. I'm sure people want shamans to keep panther up on them all the time too, but it just doesn't happen. No one can make you buff them, especially if you need your mana for something else. The other day we were fighting some dispelling mob, and a bunch of melees wanted me to cast SA on them so they would have a "junk buff." Yeah right. I'm casting a 900 mana junk buff on them. I flat out told them no, and they got low level vision buffs instead. Keep in mind that a whole lot of the people requesting your buffs have no idea what it costs you in time or mana to do.
Plus, I remember the days when rogues/monks/melees used to bug me for Fero, and I therefore still know how to tell them, "it's not up" or "can't spare it atm." I put the buff on as many people I can under the circumstances. Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's three, sometimes it's zero. None of that will change if fero is made desirable again.
But, if fero is tweaked to actually make a difference again, it will mean that your raid is actually better if you have more than one beastlord. If one beastlord makes a difference to the raid by casting fero on 3 rogues, then three beastlords make a bigger difference by being able to keep it up on 9 melees. But as it stands now, adding two of just about any other class is more beneficial.
Still, I'm opposed to making it a group spell. If they did that, I would never cast it unless it doesn't cost a single mana point more than it does now. It's annoying enough to cast SA on casters and immediately see 3-4 melees click it off. If I cast some nonsensical 2500 mana buff (and that's not out of the question, btw -- Single target fero costs 1.7 times as much as single target ferine avatar -- so group fero could end up costing 1.7 times as much as group champion, which would put it at 2550 mana) and immediately see a druid, chanter and mage click off their "useless melee buffs" then I will flip out.
The biggest issue I see here is that some people want fero to be useful so that they have more utility, so that their value in group/raid situations goes up and they possibly gain a bit of power solo'n as well. On the other side you have some people that are basically afraid of fero being useful because it'd cut into their dps to use it on others and it would be more desired.
At first glace it seems like just tweaking the spell so it's useful works as the first group gets what they want and the second group can just continue to not use it if they so choose. The fear I have though is the second group later complaining about their personal dps or raid issues when they simply aren't using the tools around them(ie fero). Personal dps suffers for utility and adding more to others. A bard gives up dps by not dot'n so they can twist haste/mana/etc. A shaman does less nuke/dot dps because they are doing champion and panther.
I guess what I'm still struggling to find is a way to make things work for almost everyone. What is the break point on buffing for some of you people that don't really like it? Once a fight? Once every 5 mins? Once every 10 mins? I mean in theory fero is far from an "always on" kinda buff because of its cost and recast and stuff, but if it were seen as more reserved for bigtime fights and just dumped at the end going into the fight then lots would go into big fights down a good 2k(ish) mana. Thats ~10k or so damage depeneding on the situation and some seem unwilling to give up that much personal dps.
From my point of view, Ferocity doesn't need many changes if at all, but FoI certainly is a substandard spell for what it costs. I wouldn't mind the idea of making a 70 spell arc for a group version of Fero, but Ferocity of Irionu needs some serious tuning to be even worth considering using.
Ferocity of Irionu
750 mana
6.5 minute base duration
single target
+187 atk
+65 to resists
+52 to stamina
This is what I think they should do with the spell: ( listing proposed changes only )
900 mana
Self only
+200 atk
replace stamina bonus with +150-250hps
+75 to resists
+50% to double attack
+5% overhaste
+10% Spell Shield/DoT Shield
Personally, I don't care what other dps classes want from this spell...I only care about what's best for beastlords, they can keep regular Ferocity, but make FoI worth getting and using for us.
QuoteSome of you people need to learn how to say no when people ask you for a buff. It's easy for me since I'm naturally ornery, but I'm sure the rest of you could get the hang of it too
I would agree but unfortunately a few of the people i group with are the pullers and will not pull without fero on them. Even if I am conserving mana. There are still some that see a return on this buff. I know your gonna say just disband but they are in game friends. And I'm not one for pissing them off.
All I want to see is the 70 one made a group with something added and take the stamina off. Leave the other one alone. I know the issues of mana ratio to casting. Sucks fizzling on fero 3 times also. I'd rather spend 1k mana to buff a whole group and bite my lip when i watch ppl click it off that dont need it then trying to do a 4 person rotation. Even with an EE aug it lasts 10mins for me which i can handle alot more then the rotation.
My stats arent the greatest (no raid guild, actually guildless again) so I do keep it on me for the resists and atk mod mainly. I still dont have the burst pet either, cant find anyone that I know who wants to do the progression and most on my server when your looking for a group would rather do monster missions or something that involves farming for anguish.
Sorry if it turned a bit rantish but not everyone has the perfect group, max stats, or people they can rely on that knows bout your mana/spell set up.
MY guild are rapidly approaching Anguish so there are a lot of chromatic ae's floating around Apart from the odd rogue asking for fero i rarely get asked for it except in the above situation. Having a buff that adds to all resists and stacks with just about anything is very handy. Having a group version purely for the resist element would make BL's far more valuable to a raid. Yes, a lot of people have the veterens reward but that is once per 24 hours. I would welcome anything that would make me more valuable in a raid and group situation.
As for using mana, well what do we use our mana for once engaged anyway, throwining a couple of underpowered nukes out. A hasty slow on an add now and again. a spot of low powered underhealing. I dont consider myself hugely well equipped (10.6k hp raid buffed (without leopard) and a mana pool of 7.4k) but cant remember the last time I was staressed by demands on my mana except when a manadrain of similar ae is flaoting around.
Bring on the gp fero I say, I would rather have a group buffed with it than have to try to keep singles within a gp buffed. I would also welcome an extension to its duration but PLEASE lets keep the single cast version as well.
Well, different people have different playstyles but i actually run oom on nearly every boss mob without using fero or growl of the panther. Probably has to do with the fact that i love to chain our 68 dod spell. I wouldnt say no to a group fero but the manastrain (we're talking about roughly 2 - 2.5k mana a cast) is there and will of course take its toll in lower dps.
I tend to favor single target fero though, even if it means i have to cast it every few minutes on another player.
When this discussion began, I was thinking a group FoI buff wouldn't be too bad... then the mana cost numbers began to be tossed about :-o Having to cast a group buff that costs 2k+ every 6-8 minutes would be an incredible drain on even the best of us, mana-wise. At raids, I'm at around 9.7k... so I'd sacrifice about 20%+ of my mana with each cast. Jkal, your Magelo shows you to have 5561 mana... with buffs, that probably breaks 6k -- which means every 6-8 minutes, you will use roughly 35% of your mana for one buff. Maybe it's just me, but that sounds very.. ouchie! Oh, and Mogtoth... once your guild enters Anguish, you will seriously be wishing you have twice the manapool hehe! Wait until you meet this nice guy named Jelvan.... or his nasty neighbor the Arch Magus.... :wink:
It's looking to me like a single target FoI buff would be the most efficient way to go. Less mana per cast, more efficient in regards to who is buffed, and more powerful simply because it's single target. Yes, it doesn't mesh with the playstyles some of us have... but a playstyle is a lot easier to adapt and change than a manapool is hehe! :-D
Back in the day when it was kept up on 3-4 people our nukes were 30 sec recast, the pets didnt need healing, we had no dod pet and no panther line and our heals were poor. We had no use for mana on raids, and unless we fero'd we never used it up.
Now when Fero is undeseriable for many we do have a huge man use, our mana use has rocketed over the past year.
Anyway Lets look at some buffs here that have some of the affects of Fero, but not all in one spell, and see how Fero stacks up against the individual components. I am using ranger buff as previously it had ATK, and now has very good combat effects, and acknowledge that may change.
Howl of the predator - Duration 1hour 20 minutes 375 mana, 27% DA (atm) - think of this as the atk version.
Ward of the hunter - Duration 2 hours 30 minutes 450 mana 50% DA, 45 DS AC 49 HP 165 - atk version. 3 mpm
Ferocity - Duration 6.5 minutes mana 600 Atk +150 STa +40 resists +65 = 92 mpm
Irionu - Duration 6.5 minutes mana 750 atk +187 sta +52 resists +65 = 115mpm
Tirbunal - duration 60 minutes PR/DR + 65 500(group) = 8.3 mpm
Protection of seasons - 2 hours 30 minutes 450 mana +72 FR/CR (group) = 3.3mpm
Guard of Druzil - 50 minutes 225 mana +75 MR - (Group) = 4.5 mpm
So Ferocity +65 resists = 92 or 115 mana per minute
All other buffs together = 16.1 mana per minute
Add in the ranger self buff = 3 mana per minute
End result for 1 hours use for others = 1146 mana, Fero is 5520, Iri is 6900
So Fero should last 1 hour be a single target version cost 1145 mana * whatever to give 65 resists and an attack bonus. The attack bonus being DA, ATK, AC HP or similar, or combination.
The whatever multiplier is the hybrid inefficieny casting factor.
Sure maths not perfect, beacuse I have mixed group and single target spells, please check maths and put in format if you wish.
But the point is it is way to mana expensive for the benifit, and a group version could be justified without increasing mana at all.
Alternative suggestion is make fero last 1 hour for around 1200 mana single target.
Actually, I dont believe in updating my mag every time I throw in something new. I sit right at 6k unbuffed. I have no problem with mana regen. The problem I have is sustaining fero on 3 mates who constantly want it plus slowing (I dont have the lvl 70 slow) so when I get a streak of reasisted slows and fizzle fero I'm done for. Yes, I could leave and join someone else but these are guys I group with from time to time with my wife.
She's even tried explaining and they will not pull or anything without my lowlylittle fero buff. So you tell me then, you wanna risk losing wife faction over something so silly and menial to just make them happy and wanted or be the anti social rogue player that cant advance anymore.
If its made group you have to look at it and make it exactly the same as fero and drop something from it that means squat. Which is why i said stamina. No added atk, or resists but something the group could use while tweaking with the mana.
jitathab posted while I was still typing. I think your right. Now if they did that I wouldnt mind it a bit. Even if they took off the stamina and added something else to it, probably would up the mana cost with the duration being longer. I think some could live with.
As much as I'd love an increase in time, increase it's duration by a factor of 10 is not realistic. These other things you are showing: ward = self only buff. HoP = attack only buff. Rest are resist buffs.
The point behind those buffs is extraordinarily different than the point behind fero.
Sorry to be rude, but that blows my mind. They will never change fero to be an hr long buff. for one, that is 65 to ALL resists. One of the big deal in GoD was the introduction of chromatic/prismatic resists so that peeps would have to have all their resists buffed up for a fight. You honestly think they're gonna give the biggest single resist buff a 1hr duration?
Jkal.. if you feel like making a point to them, you can tell them, "nope.. hold pulls.. lom.. can't cast slow because I'm spending so much mana on fero." "Ooops, sorry we wiped.. I'm too lom for slow bcs I'm casting fero." "You want fero or slows?" I really gotta ask.. what is their reasoning for having to have fero? It adds so lil to be of use on a pull. I could understand having like hp buffs, or sow, or something that aids them in pulling.. but fero adds nothing to a pull. they hit or not, that mob's gonna agro when they throw the star at em.
I've flat out told rogues I'm grouping with that they aren't gonna get fero in the xp group bcs I can't afford it with slowing & the pull speeds. Good xp groups, i tend to stay abt 25-40% mana. Saving that much so that I can attempt something resembling a burn if it start to get ugly. That ain't room for fero.
Ferocity, savagery, etc has always been a single target buff. Can we say that, in its original incarnation, it was a very powerful, effective buff? I think, from reading through this thread, most would say yes. Now it's effectiveness has tapered off. The returns on it have decreased in far disproportion to the cost of it. So we want it changed. We all want it changed. But lets be reasonable in what we ask for. I'm one who likes to try to stick with some logic of a game, of a process, of the lore/idea behind a spell. If we are wanting a totally new spell, that would require creating a new spell arc, we are asking far too much. They will never just decide to write a new spell script just for one class. The bitching & whining they would receive would be righteously ungodly. I've got a magelo profile I call "Being Silly." There I went through & chose the best of the best items. Do I ever think I will see such things? Hell no. I'm closish to end-game.. but I do have some realism in me. We can wish that ferocity would be the absolute best buff in the game that makes us stand out over all other classes. We'd then get smacked with the nerf bat as the rangers and magi and zerkers and shammy and... start complaining abt how over-powered we are once again.
I know what I'd like: Group fero at a 250 mana cost increase, 100 all resists, CE 50% increase rate, accuracy 25%, overhaste 5%, /tgb & mgb'able, stacks with everything. What i expect and find a reasonable request: single targ, able to be cast out of group, 85+ all resists, no mana cost change, same attack buff, and replace stam with something useful, such as endurance regen 2 to 5.
I'm one that actually sorta likes casting it. Our newest bst makes me a lil ashamed cuz she's like better than i was back in VT days when I was good. I think she like cheats & stuff and actually uses timers, but still, she manages to keep it going almost constantly ;p I got a thank you for hitting someone with it mid-fight (hit reply key & his name came up so i checked if he'd asked for it & hit him with it) last night. Sorta felt good :)
If you wanted to maintain a group version of fero at all times it would presumably eat a lot of mana (assuming it is in the 2k range). But, would you have to keep it up at all times?
Currently we have to get a fero rotation going and keep it going the entire raid IF you want to ensure it is up on everyone when needed. With a group version you can just cast it as the raid target is engaged and let it wear off or refresh again if the fight is still going on (mana permitting). No one really needs fero while clearing trash in a raid unless they are trying to impress others on attk/resists numbers.
You missed my point then, given the individual components available from other classes currently in Fero the cost is already insanely high for what it does.
I used in the calcs HoP for the atk and DA component and then added the costs to the resist spells, to create a DIY Fero from the effects those spells have.
Then looking at the equivilant mana cost for the DIY version and current Fero it shows we pay a great deal of extra mana for it.
Therefore I concluded, we pay 5-6 times as much as we should for this spell. And therefore adding group could be done for no mana increase at all.
I honestly dont think they would give us a 1hr Fero either, im demonstrating how out of whack the spell is in comparison.
To go on a bit more, you can buy 48 to all resists in DoN from Augs, so SOE obviously dont pay that much weight to resists any more.
All DoN dragons I have played with ignore your resists anyway.
And no I didnt take your comments as rude :)
QuoteJkal.. if you feel like making a point to them, you can tell them, "nope.. hold pulls.. lom.. can't cast slow because I'm spending so much mana on fero." "Ooops, sorry we wiped.. I'm too lom for slow bcs I'm casting fero." "You want fero or slows?" I really gotta ask.. what is their reasoning for having to have fero? It adds so lil to be of use on a pull. I could understand having like hp buffs, or sow, or something that aids them in pulling.. but fero adds nothing to a pull. they hit or not, that mob's gonna agro when they throw the star at em.
Sure, you wanna tell them that. And then have your wife pissed at ya for the entire night cause there just sitting there. To me its just a game, but to some its what they do. I can say those things no prob. But when your trying not to be an ass in front of your wife's guildee's and want to become fast friends you make sacrifices. Like has been mentioned time and time again, everyone has there own playstyle. And Ive tried making that point, guess what they sat there for quite awhile till I gave in and casted it on them.
Some think it gives them an egde, so I am not gonna argue. I just wanna play and have fun with my wife when we play.
Quote from: Jkal_Shihar on October 20, 2005, 07:39:59 AM
QuoteSome of you people need to learn how to say no when people ask you for a buff. It's easy for me since I'm naturally ornery, but I'm sure the rest of you could get the hang of it too
I would agree but unfortunately a few of the people i group with are the pullers and will not pull without fero on them. Even if I am conserving mana. There are still some that see a return on this buff. I know your gonna say just disband but they are in game friends. And I'm not one for pissing them off.
All I want to see is the 70 one made a group with something added and take the stamina off. Leave the other one alone. I know the issues of mana ratio to casting. Sucks fizzling on fero 3 times also. I'd rather spend 1k mana to buff a whole group and bite my lip when i watch ppl click it off that dont need it then trying to do a 4 person rotation. Even with an EE aug it lasts 10mins for me which i can handle alot more then the rotation.
My stats arent the greatest (no raid guild, actually guildless again) so I do keep it on me for the resists and atk mod mainly. I still dont have the burst pet either, cant find anyone that I know who wants to do the progression and most on my server when your looking for a group would rather do monster missions or something that involves farming for anguish.
Sorry if it turned a bit rantish but not everyone has the perfect group, max stats, or people they can rely on that knows bout your mana/spell set up.
There are a couple of issues here. The first is that my comment isn't directed toward people like you who already cast Fero on certain people for whatever reasons. It's directed at those who seem to be afraid that making the spell more useful means they will be inundated with requests for it and somehow be forced into casting it on everyone who asks for it, and therefore be left without enough mana do do dps or heal or whatever else they want to save up their mana for. But if they increase the value of Fero while keeping it single target and the same mana cost, then you aren't any worse off than you were before -- you just keep on casting it on the people that you cast it on now.
The second is that that you're assuming a group version of fero would be a lot less expensive than it would really be. For example, you mentioned that you'd rather spend 1k mana to buff the entire group. The problem is there literally is no way the devs would do that. It would probably cost AT LEAST twice that for a group version, which will hurt you even more. Now you're talking about 2k+ to buff the entire group, and your pullers are *still* going to want you to buff them every 10 minutes and sit there until you do.
You also mentioned that fizzling fero 3 times in a row sucks. I agree. However, the problem is that you'll fizzle the group version 3 times in a row just as often, and that sucks a LOT more, especially if your stats aren't the greatest as you said. That's even if you get lucky and only have to pay 1k for group fero.
When talking about group buffs (this is a general comment for the thread, btw -- not directed at Jkal) everyone needs to consider how the *devs* look at them, and think of the big picture. Right now a single beastlord can maintain a 4 person rotation (with some effort). Assuming nothing else changes about fero, making it group (but not mgb) means that one beastlord can keep up a 4 *group* rotation, and 2-3 beastlords could keep fero on an entire raid of people if they wanted.
That then means that the devs have to start assuming that everyone on the raid will have it, and encounters that were tuned on the assumption that most people would have x resists now have to be tuned to assume that people have (x +65) resists. Let's not understate this -- Fero is a buff that adds 65 to all resists, and it stacks with everything. It's not a game-breaking buff right now because it can't be put on a whole lot of people without sacrificing a whole lot of slots to add beastlords, but all of that changes once you make it a group spell. It means that raid leaders who don't pressure beastlords to cast Fero on everyone they can (because it can't be cast on that many people no matter what) will start pushing beastlords to fero everyone, simply because it can be done and most of the time 65 to every resist doesn't hurt. So *that* plays a huge role in how much mana that kind of spell would cost, and it's why expecting Fero to change to a group spell without a massive increase in mana cost just isn't realistic. That change would actually pushes us more toward being buffbots -- the more convenient it is to buff someone, the more people expect to get bufffed by it. And while I definitely said you can just say no to buffing, it's a lot harder to tell your raid leader that you can't keep fero on 3 entire groups because you want to save mana for your swarm pet or your self/pet-only buff. :)
Moreover, if we push for it to go to a group spell but miraculously managed to convince the devs not to triple the mana cost, then the spell would end up being jacked in other ways. In order to prevent the entire raid from being buffed by 2 beastlords, they might change it so that you can only cast it on members of your own group. That would cause all sorts of issues with people. Or maybe they increase the recast so that you can cast it on 1-2 groups because the recast of the spell is as long as or longer than the duration. That means that it's even more costly when someone runs out of range while you're casting. It also means that if you don't have the spell memmed for whatever reason, then when you do mem it you have to wait 3+ times as long before you can start casting it, and so on.
Finally, for those who suggest that group fero would make it easier to keep up the 4-person rotation with just one cast, that's true -- IF all those people are in the same group. Sometimes you can't keep all the rogues and monks and zerkers and whomever else in one group, and then trying to keep it on those same people when they are in different groups because they need to be with curers/healers, etc., could involve casting it on a whole lot of people you wouldn't have cast it on before, which is inefficient.
keep it single target, give us an incresed chance to proc on it (CE).
that gives us a big dps boost both solo and in a group
I really cant think of a simpler way to help us out.
Btw, i see only adjusting FoI and not the lower feros as a very elitest approach, low lvl bsts are also underpowered imho, lets adjust our desirability over the whole range
I think a few people are still cluttering the facts with details here as well. I mean people talking about extra mana elsewhere is just extra options. When I'm solo'n I don't CB, FM, Growl, DoD pet, 3 nuke chain every mob. Heck when I solo I either throw out a pet every couple mobs or growl every mob(depending what I'm doing) and that's about it.
Ever been on a raid without a bard? Really noticeable diff for me and my playstyle. The extra options don't translate into definitely using or doing more. In fact, some changes are built around the idea that you simply can't do it all. That's part of why mana regen is one of the biggest balancing points for EQ.
A better fero would mean we might use more mana fero'n, and we might use less mana elsewhere. That is only happening if we are actually gaining more from fero though. No bst is going to fero an afk, drum and lute holding bard. If a bst chooses to fero a rogue it's because the fero on the rogue is better than the mana for the nuke. This doesn't just mean dps either, which is what some people miss. I've fero'd the MT, I've fero'd clerics, I've fero'd pulls(<3 firetail), etc.
Some people are talking like gaining fero means they lose something, but they only lose in one aspect if they gain *OVERALL*. That overall gain can be utility, it can be "total dps contribution to raid/group", it can be a viable option for various situations.
Someone mentioned that bst were kinda lame on mana useage for awhile and that's very true. I see the options as a good thing though and not a bad thing because in different situations different things will be better/worse.
A better fero doesn't mean we have to fero everyone, but means that in many cases the option to fero might actually be just that, an option. Many bst could choose to not do it still or to just use it on themselves. One of the big things with EQ though is you simply can't balance around some situations. I mean an annoying group, or a cranky wife, or whatever(no offense to any of the before mentioned), but that's part of what people do with it. We've all had schitty warriors in our groups, you can't totally balance tanking around a tank that spams "taunt" and does bellow or terror or anything. Fero is hard to balance(especially a group version) because of potential. The single target version is easier to balance because there is a harder cap on how many it can be on and in what situations. A long duration fero just isn't going to happen and the single target version ideas just don't fit with what fero has been and seem more like a personal request. Maybe requesting a level 70 ward of hunter type buff for bst, to help with buff slots and mana, such that we got fero + frenzy + SA or something out of it. *shrugs*
"Btw, i see only adjusting FoI and not the lower feros as a very elitest approach, low lvl bsts are also underpowered imho, lets adjust our desirability over the whole range"
It's not an elitist attitude actually. Most higher level bst already have max sta and 2k+ attk, attk over 2k has very small return. That means Fero basically gives higher end bst 65 on all resists and nothing else for a high mana cost. The lower level/stat bst are still seeing a nice gain from Fero.
I dont think you could deny that a CE or similar bonus on the lower feros would be an advantage.
The people i group with are lvl 70 and have max atk so my fero is useless there, we dont all group with ppl the same lvl as we are.
not sure if this is *exacxtly* the right forum, you may wish to move this.
Inmy newb opinion, people seem to think that beastlords have no dps issues befoer they reach lvl 70 and raid regularly.
I think thats wrong, simply, i have many dps issues at 68 and i dont raid.
I`m regularly out dps`d by warriors and hybrid tanks.
just a footnote for those not so focused on the end game that have to deal with sub par performance in regular dps groups.
its not all about the time/OoW geared player.
I really don't see lower level beastlords as underpowered. In the casual arena we are actually still quite a powerful class, assuming you are comparing us to similarly geared/aa'ed toons. Besides which, I don't know very many lower level beastlords who already have 2k attack and maxed resists. I mean I am a sort-of raider and I still don't hit 2k attack unless I sneak into the dps group which has a bard. The stamina is a little shakier these days, especially considering the gear available through DoN/OoW. That's why I advocate leaving the level 65 fero alone, or at the least only changing the stamina component. It's not elitist, it's just the opinion that the buff is doing what it is intended to do at the appropriate levels.
As far as the single target/group debate goes, I would prefer a single target buff. This is for a couple reasons. First, I think it allows SoE to give us a more powerful buff because of the limitation that it won't be able to be used on everyone. Second is a mana cost issue. I think a group version of the buff would be very prohibitive mana-wise. A single target version lets me choose if I think it is essential to fero four people, two people, or just myself depending on what I think my mana will be needed for later on. A group version means I am stuck with shelling out x mana regardless of what may be on the horizon.
Beastlords, imo, have always been more mana-intensive then other hybrids. Just look at the buffs we use growing up. We have IoS, focus, stamina, strength, dex, sow, sv, spiritual line, maybe ac buff, and then for the pet IoS, haste, and the proc buff. This is in addition to slowing past level 20 and our nukes and dots. Needless to say I don't use all of these at 70, but still it has always been a balancing act for us as long as I remember. With growl and the DoD pet it is a lot easier for us to dump mana, but it is just a balancing act. And really it's the same for other classes. If a druid goes full bore on dps they can run oom pretty fast, but they lay off because they know thier mana will be needed for other things.
Jkal I really don't know what to tell you. I mean, I think you have to realize that the majority of players aren't in your situation and playing with a bunch of dillweeds (not your wife but her friends...sorry they sound like gimps to me). If it were me I would just take over pulling duties and problem solved, but I can be a jerk sometimes so...
"I think thats wrong, simply, i have many dps issues at 68 and i dont raid.
I`m regularly out dps`d by warriors and hybrid tanks."
You need to offer some proof first of all, not just your opinion. Also you have to offer relevant proof which many fail to offer. I know times where rogues are out dps'd by beastlords. I know zerkers that are out dps'd by warriors. You have to look at AA, progression, *WORK AND PLAYSTYLE*. I've busted more than a few rogues who for some reason have a 60% slower refresh on backstab than every other rogue. I see bst with weapons in wrong hand. With 200AA and no BF, but maxed combat fury. I see all sorts of things that naturally skew results. Heck some bst are main slowing and fero'n 3 people, that will skew data. If you are slowing then your dps goes down, healing it goes down, playing shammy with buffs/haste/etc it goes down. Take a beast in a pure dps role for a few hours, then take a class X in the same pure dps role(with reasonable AAs, gear, buffs!!) and see what happens. Also keep in mind % and ratios. There's nothing I like more than someone explaining to me how the X out dps'd them by 20dps when they are doing over 200dps.
Please feel free to parse it and get me some logs. It's not that I don't want low end changes, but every *GOOD* parse I've ever seen has shown lower end bst dps(even in recent times) to be reasonable and in some cases still quite high. As always I welcome more data.
The two top beastlords of my guild (I'm one of em) are always on the top of the dps list on raid mobs like vangl. If you have good gear and aa's, you have no problem with DPS....unless you plain out do not know how to play your class.
Rekirts Darigaz
"I think thats wrong, simply, i have many dps issues at 68 and i dont raid.
I`m regularly out dps`d by warriors and hybrid tanks."
um...all things being equal, my guild's top warrior has never out dps'd me--we're both 65, and, even before i hit 65, he was working whatever aggro generation warriors use to keep aggro (not sure if hta'ts good or bad) with me in a group. he's hit a lot harder, but as far as consistantly dishing out blows, he's below me. mind you, my guild has a few chars with a couple pieces of PoP raid gear and the odd piece of VT gear, and we're far from uber raiding or OoW farmers. you might want to take a look at what those warriors and hybrid tanks are wearing/using and their AAs in comparison to your own.
i know the one time i went on a tactics raid, i was pretty embarrassed when the numbers were put up--as much as i'd like to blame it on the molasses from the lag, i just sucked; but that's compared to the folks i was with...er...and the 3 deaths i took... =)
like tast said, there are a lot of factors and you've got take all of into consideration.
*edited in--have been working on getting my warder a bit tougher, don't know if you've got it, but man, adding warder's alacrity is really filling a gap that i didn't even know i had...of course, tast was ready to reach through the screen and throttle me while trying to explain why it was so good, but well worth looking at if you don't have.
In my experience other people parsing you on raids, especially if it is one person is soo unreliable you can just ignore it.
For example on a recent Quarm kill, I parsed myself at no7 someone else at 20.
Ok we have seen a lot of different sides on this now.
Tastian perhaps you can put up a few options around what been talking about of what might actually be gainable and we debate them.
Yes I know there were some discussion starts on your first thread, just want to see some numbers.
To be honest I hesitate a bit to put numbers out there and have people see them as real options when I just can't be sure what they are willing to do just yet. If I can get some feedback from ry that this is something they are willing to tweak soon then I will try to post a few of the more popular options to give people a better idea of mana costs/benefit. For now though I'd like to see people get a better idea of how others see fero and maybe give it more thought themselves. There have been a few people in this thread and in PMs that have basically gone "wow I never thought of that, definitely change my opinion about what it should be."
as ive stated in another post, i dont actually parse myself, i dont know how and i guess a lazyness factor comes in because ive never actually tried that hard to work out how it works.
My little exerience comes from watchin numbers shoot by on the screen, and i realise this isnt a good way to get olid numbers, but it does still seem that amount of hits, and the numbers im seeing on those hits seem to make me a little underpowered.
As i`ve said, i dont parse and i may be completely missing the big picture.
I have BF maxed, 1 point each in crit blasts, warder flurries and crits ( apologies for not remembering the exact names hehe).
i have 2 points in my personal melee crits also which do seem to hit quite regularly so ive got no complaints there.
my warders top crit seems to be 147, havent been lucky enough / high enough to get any sor of focus for him yet.
im using barbed knucles in MH and ViC in offhand atm.
i guess its a newbies frustration seeing the awesome numbers som people put out and im comletely willing to accept the more experienced people who parse can tell me im talking rubbish.
im not really trying to make a serious argument, rather just put my point across as i see it, and if thats wrong then so be it.
ty to all who respond, im working on ambidexterity atm, ive dumped quite a lot into avoidance aa`s lately cause i duo withmy shammy wife and tank a lot.
if you think theres something ive missed there pls do tell me, im always looking to increase my dps a little.
no magelo, cant figure that thing out either lol
there is no doubt our new fero needs a upgrade.. its not really worth the extra mana for that little att compared to old one.
as for upgrade we have to consider not only what we as bsts would like on ourself. but actualy a total change would be interesting. in the spirit of frenzy perhaps adding a 20-40% melee dam mod(or adding melee dps in simular ways thats stacking with everything). and then reducing armour class by like 200. that way making it a powerfull offensive buff, but not one to be taken lightly on the tank and such. as for resists it would be nice with a upgrade, but not essential, 65 all resists is kickass as it is. and using both feros you can keep 6-8 people on fero depending how much you pay attention and can extend the duration.
otherwise making new one a group one would be kickass as well.
Buzak Ubertroll & fluffy ubergater
I was reading one of the thread on pet flurries and it gave me an idea. I guess the effect would be similar to Combat Effects but not quite. I was thinking of Fero allowing a flurry of procs to go off from your weapon(s). Make it 0-2 additional procs per round with a 25% chance of success of firing(whatever seems right) or maybe just 1 additional proc mainhand for the duration of the buff. It could eliminate stacking issues with worn CE items and give the buff it's own category. The buff would be vaulable to DPS types as well as tanks for aggro.
Anything that would involve requiring coding will be almost impossible to convince them to do. This is why the most realistic thing we can expect is some type of mod that is already implemented.
The problem with Ferocity as I see it is that it used to be a spell which was more desirable but the long recast, and shortage of raid buff slots, have largely driven it out of favor in my experience.
With Irionu the gain was so small that there was not much point, although for those still raiding content that doesn't involve keeping 3 buff spots available for mob AoEs having it on a seperate cast timer from the original Fero did allow one Beastlord to cover more people.
My vote would be to change Irionu as follows and leave the old version alone:
1) scrub the gains over original as they just are not worth the effort (possibly even a slight reduction over original Fero maybe acceptable for group form)
2) Target type group (and MGBable), essentially make it group form of original Fero (You can even leave the recast as is).
3) Possibly slight duration increase, with extension focus at the very least it should last through the average boss fight.
4) Ok here is the spell that should have the high mana hit, I don't think 900 or even a bit more would be unreasonable on this one because of the massively increased raid utility.
Essentially isn't a spell meant to be a buff you are going to keep on a group full time but in situations where you are engaging a named mob and need a blanket boost to resists + the attack doesnt hurt those not at cap this is the spell you use. Fero is still there for the other uses.
As an MGBable grp buff I suspect that with the current buff slot shortage on raid mobs when full resists are needed this may very well be something raid leaders would willingly trade off our MGB of PoS for.
welp... considering how important resists are becoming and a prevalence of mana-tapping AEs, I'd definitely say that one mgb of a grouped fero would be prefered over PoS by raid leaders.
I don't particularly want that, but that's what I know other classes would very much want.
For raids resist importance has already been designed out of some content. All DoN dragons totally ignore your resists and ignore Vet AA. Had similar issues in quite a bit of GoD content.
I wouldnt want to loose the resist component though as it does help when grouping and the content which doesnt ignore resists.
"4) Ok here is the spell that should have the high mana hit, I don't think 900 or even a bit more would be unreasonable on this one because of the massively increased raid utility."
Like was covered above a group version of fero would mostly find itself in the 2k-2.5k mana base range. MGB'd that'd mean somewhere between 4k and 5k mana depending and that's if it were MGB and not just group buff or even target group buffable.
The idea of making the upgrade a group buff or a more situational buff has been mentioned, but again I want people to realize what they are asking for. There is just no way they'd make a group version of fero that cost so little mana.
Many people seem to agree that fero of irionu in its current form is underpowered and ineffective. New content basically ignores resists, attack > 2000 has a diminished effect, and most are capped with stamina. I've said before that I dont believe devs will give us a new buff that's both group AND powered up. You can put it on your wishlist, but logically it's unlikely.
That being said, ask yourself what you really want...do you want a group version of a watered down ineffective buff? Admittedly it would be nice to mgb it, if it's marked as a mgb-able spell. But still, with many ae's, you have -500 resist mods, which means even at 600 resists, you wont have a good chance at resisting. Which is what the devs want. They want you to be hit by AEs. It forces you to have gear with spell shielding, and dot shielding. You have to upgrade your gear in a way that you have these effects before you can do new content.
I'd like to see FoI given some original spell intent changes, so that when other classes look at what we get, they arent crying about how we shouldnt have it. It should be an UPGRADE from the previous spell. Spell shielding and dot shielding are along the resist intent, and if other beastlords are like me, their 'geared toward dps' armor is lacking in those 2 fields.
%Crit mod would be along the atk intent. Cleave seems to give a bigger bonus than ferocity effects, and since rangers got a long lasting, group version of a DA mod, something like %crit mod seems reasonable for a single target short duration buff.
Stamina...I dont think we're gonna get anything that fits in this line. I'm almost certain Tastian quoted devs saying there was NO chance of getting raw HPs from FoI. Besides, if raw hps were put in FoI, it would stop being a 'raise dps' buff, and start being a tank rotation buff from the start of a raid to the end. Or at least on tanks during boss mobs, when it matters.
Side note, I remember someone on the boards talking about frenzy, saying that we should get an upgrade to that line. I wouldnt mind a stat-cap increasing self only buff (that does NOT stack with wunshi), as a way of upping at least our own stats when we dont have access to wunshi. Just a thought.
There would have to be some pretty significant other changes other than just conversion to a group spell to justify a 2k-2.5k base mana cost. Because no 6 minute base duration spell would be worth that in MGB so it would religate the spell into the very rarely used category which is probably a step below where the current version is already.
IMO, if not going to make something that is going get used there is no point to changing anything at all. Reading the stuff proposed in these changes lately strikes me as a case of "if you are not working for me, then you are working against me". Needless to say I would rather not have working against me.
It may not be a fair comparison, but I have to look at other changes happening at the same time as what was done with SA for example to judge whether I think it was a fair trade. And frankly, what I see is this; Howl of the Predator has a mana cost of 375 with a duration of 1 hour 20.0 mins and Strength of the Hunter 325/1 hour, they are trying to retune these spells to make them more powerful too, but I don't see the mana cost nerf bat wailing on Rangers the same way it is on Bsts at the moment.
I dont know about you but its already far below the 'rarely used' category for me :D
In any case 2k mana is rediculous and even the peoplewho want it to be a group buff admit that -- therefore it cant be a group buff.
The way to get the most from our money is to keep it with all its downsides -- single target--long recast -- in order to make it extremely potent on the few single targets we can put it on.
However, this idea requires them to change it from barely above nothing as it currently stands to extremely potent heh.
"It may not be a fair comparison, but I have to look at other changes happening at the same time as what was done with SA for example to judge whether I think it was a fair trade."
No, it's not a fair comparision cass. SA gives back mana, that always plays into things when a spell is being balanced/tweaked. Look at SV for us, with a 312 mana cost. That is very much in line with other buffs of that type. In fact, it's less mana for more base duration than the ranger version. Our version of HP buff (allandu) is very similar to other buffs(closest to probably ToKragg for shaman from before). Even SA as a mana giving buff is between steeloak for druids and claire for enc. Lots can argue where the usefulness of the other aspects of those buffs fall, but overall SA is still middle of the road for efficency.
"the mana cost nerf bat wailing on Rangers the same way it is on Bsts at the moment."
Other than the change to SA what else has the mana cost nerf bat hit recently?
"There would have to be some pretty significant other changes other than just conversion to a group spell to justify a 2k-2.5k base mana cost."
It was covered earlier in this thread, but if you look at avatar for shaman(which is the closest thing to fero) and other group buffs you see a pretty clear pattern when a spell is turned into a group buff. Now mind you champion gained +10% dmg mod on it, but other than that it's identical to ferine avatar as I recall(and being group of course hehe). FA costs 350 base per cast and champion is 1500 mana per cast. Right now normal fero costs 600 mana, so if a group version with upgraded stats were to happen it could easily be in the 2-2.5k range just based on prior spells. That is why a lot of people aren't so keen on the idea of a group version. The group version carries a lot of "balancing" with it that would really make it annoying and almost unuseable in a lot of situations. By keeping the spell single target the places it can be used go up, the potential power the spell has goes up and it still has the potential to give us some added utility in various situations(group and raid).
Other group buffs tend to be at ~3X the cost of the single target version of the spell(1300 group claire, 400 normal claire, 2340 group mark, 780 single shot, wunshi same as mark, etc.). Even under those rules fero would be in the 1800 range(3600 to MGB) which is far, far more than most beastlords would want to use. Especially in a situation where your group might have a couple casters that click it off, or just imagine the fizzle on that lol, poof there goes 900 mana.
Oh don't get me wrong, I can live with SA as it is now by all means. But given the dynamics of the game today, versus what they were when the duration change was originally requested I just don't happen to agree that the extra mana cost was needed or justified given the relative value of the spell currently.
I may be wrong but I believe that duration request actually predates the release of OoW and was originally made with regard to SD. Pre OoW (which introduced a bunch of new over cap stat buffs - along with raid mobs that average 2-3 AoEs) SD was pretty much in the required set for Raid buffs, so yes it was change that would have been really helpful then. But today SA just does not have that status as a "necessary" buff anymore, not only do I click it off myself (which is a truly sad state of affairs) but I know Chanters and Clerics that click it off regularly too.
As I see it this is just a case of a great idea that sat on the shelf a bit too long. Over 3 expansions ago it would have been most welcome, and I am absolutely certain that the Bsts that are today using SA then same way we did with SD back then in predominantly pre-OoW content probably really like the change. As for those of us that have moved on from there into the newer content this probably isn't something we would have traded the extra mana cost for. Because SA nowdays largely never lasts the full duration it was originally before the increase in most raids. SD in the pre-OoW days had a status almost akin to clarity, today however SA is closer to resembling a Necro's Twitch; ie: I want SA when I am low and need mana, but once my mana is closer to full I need the open buff spot more.
But this is getting off the thread topic which is Fero. Group Fero with a reasonable mana cost (and I think I would consider has high as 1500 reasonable) is something which I could see getting used. However with that said, I should mention that I have retired Fero from my mem'd spell sets since the increase to SA (before that I pretty much only kept it mem'd for the vanity set anyway; ie: vanity set = rangers and rogues that want to see those 3k attack numbers). And this is not really something that I personally have much concern about one way or the other at the moment.
There is about a snowball's chance of survival in a blast furnace of it ever happening I think, but the current hot topic at the moment is endurance regen. New melee disciplines suck up endurance the way spells do for mana and tanks recovering from dying are feeling the pain for how long it takes to fill the endurance pool back up. So there is a push out there for something to be added which addresses this, and it might be nice for Bsts to pick up a little added raid value from this if something does get put in. A borderline sadistic joke would be to add endurance regen equal to the mana and health regen in SA, considering all the tank types that smugly click it off. But I suppose Fero might be a posibility for this too, although it is difficult to imagine Fero as the spell equivalent of PoS for endurance.
can't remember if its been brot up before (and I don't wanna dig thru the other 7 pages to find out), but could the stamina component be replaced by an end regen component?
(still a fan of single over group version ;p)
The more time I spend doing single target fero, the more I want it to stay that way. No group version or we end up wasting half of the effect on casters. Give us more mods on the spell we have now, that should be a nice and easy solution.
End regen gets brought up a lot, but that is an issue that still needs sony to chime in on just how much they want, if any. Less than a year ago they were still againist end regen for various reasons and that meant a pretty blanket "no" to the idea. Now it seems there is some more talk, so it'd come down to:
1) How much end regen do they want
2) Where do they want
3) How should it be aquired
It's possible end regen would be added and bst wouldn't see any of it, or perhaps we could see it added to SA and/or fero and/or perfection. It's just a very unknown thing because we don't even have a clue the target we are aiming for.
"Group Fero with a reasonable mana cost (and I think I would consider has high as 1500 reasonable) is something which I could see getting used."
1500 just wouldn't happen as was said a couple of times. I mean right now it takes a beastlord 1800 mana, 3 casts of the spell, more time, etc to keep level 65 fero on 3 people. 1500 mana is only 2 level 70 fero's atm. There's just no way the spell would receive a boost(which is one of the biggest issues people have), and see the spell gain the ability to be kept on more people(simply can't maintain the spell on more than 4 atm), all for the mana of putting it on only 2 people. If it did happen then you run into a lot of the balancing issues that will make the spell worse in many people's eyes.
- Spell gets balanced around the large increase in number of targets that can be fero'd
- Is it group only? TGB? MGB?
- How many groups does a beastlord try to keep fero'd/is expected to keep fero'd
- Having multiple casters/players click off the buff with the effect wasted instead of being able to pin point where the benefit goes, when and how.
Single target fero not only grants the beastlord more control, but it allows for more power to be had in each cast. If fero were suddenly MGBable it'd have to be balanced around a single beastlord having it up on 72(ish) people for 9(ish) minutes. 3 beastlords on a raid could basically guarantee the buff for most mob encounters. Those extra saves and any other benefits then have to be "balanced" to a degree most wouldn't like. Even as just target group buffable a beastlord just gained the ability to keep the buff on 3X+ as many people as before. This becomes an issue for some beastlords because they just don't want to do that much buffing. At the sametime if the spell is restricted to just the beastlords group then you run into a lot of situations of it being wasted. Even if raid groups were always made around bst like some do for bards you have issues of death, range, etc that still factor into the overall picture of fero.
Those same changes would also mean the spell loses a lot of power in solo and group situations where the benefit just isn't surpassing the costs(mana, etc). Really though it's still a big unknown because not only do we have to have some sort of concencus as a class, but we also have to see where the devs stand and what we might actually get. It seems pretty clear that the biggest issue people have is that the level 70"upgrade" is just horrible from the 65 version, even without factoring in all the other game changes. The spell needs a boost in power, possibly a tweak in mana depeneding, and perhaps some changes in terms of availability(group, shorter re-cast time, etc). Been a pretty good discussion so far and lots of information so lets see what else people have to say...
I'm not big on the endurance regen idea. We certainly don't need it for ourselves. Tanks might love the idea, but they also struggle with buffs like the rest of us. Short-term buffs have this tendancy to fill slots needed for HoT's or other effects.
I'd certainly be willing to lose the stamina component. It's been a long time since I buffed someone without maxxed stamina, outside of special cases like Uqua. I'll take increased duration instead...or reduced recast time.
Or here's another idea....make the 70 version into a self-only buff, with a longer duration and no recast time...that at least distinguishes it from the targeted version while still being useful.
Correct Nusa.. adding End regen does us little to no good right now. But how much good really do the rest of the effects of fero do for us? For me, its nice & all to have the tiny return on the attack & I like the resists, but again, stam component = utter waste.
The point of adding end regen is to make it a useful, desired buff.
I'm one that doesn't mind buffing it. I'd love to get tank tells asking for it bcs they need it for the regen, or have to actually put effort into keeping it up again & removing the ostrich factor I keep finding more & more acceptable in some circumstances. Got a wizard buddy who's tired of that toon bcs he can fall asleep/watch tv/surf pr0n/etc and stay perfectly functional in the raid or group. It's nice to have to be involved a bit more in the management of the game, to be involved again.
I know some want as much automated as possible.. I do some of this myself, esp for the few times nowadays when I box, but to have things set so that your gameplay consists of reaching out & tapping a key occasionally & then going back to doing something else... no thanks.
Personally I think some form of Endurance regen is going to go into the game, the Dev's have been against it but endurance has essentially become mana for melees and the scaling costs more powerful disciplines are reaching that point where something has to be done so that tanks can recover endurance fast enough to do their job if they die. It's also something which several classes are pushing for at the moment, and primarily a raid centric issue since a typical XP group doesn't usually require a tank to use multiple high end disc's to get and maintain agro while helping to stay alive. So the reason I like the option is because raiding is where Bsts could use a value boost since SA & Fero do not have the desirability they once had.
But with that said I am not certain that Fero is a place to put Endurance regen, since it would tend to shift the dynamic of the spell quite a bit. Logically, PoS or SA are the niche spells that look more attractive for this addition than Fero does, and speaking for myself I would be a whole lot happier about that extra 300 in the mana cost for SA if End were added to it improving its value.
But as to Tastian's comments about the mana cost for a group version of Fero relating to the number of people which a single beastlord can keep covered by a spell.... Certainly there are tradeoffs to be made which could address that, even something as simple as extending the recast time by another minute to 3 minutes (or even doubling it to 4 minutes) would reduce the number of groups which could be covered outside of MGB, and arguably could add value to bringing another Bst into a raid where are demand is currently dwindling. And I am not trying to argue for or against this, just offering the options.
Aside from the Endurance however, allowing the STA portion to buff over cap is also a thought since without that stipulation it doesn't have much value.
The thing that can make fero attractive for end regen is that it's very limited. A single target buff, short duration, high mana cost, etc. This allows them to put some end regen in the game, but not make it a given so that suddenly every person with end bar is getting +X per tick. Adding the effect to SA basically guarantees everyone has. Putting it on fero means it's still very limited and choices have to be made. Does the MT get? Dps? After wipes help recover? Lots of options. This is why the issue of end regen is so up in the air atm though because we don't know if sony will decide that everyone needs a boost, or that it should be more selective, or what they'll actually do with it. The idea of it being on paragon has lots of potential too as it tends to fit with the spell and would be limited, but still wide reaching at the same time.
The main issues with a group fero are:
- Less bang than a single target version(for various reasons)
- Might be inefficent in various situations(solo, only a couple melee, etc)
- Mana cost
That's, of course, not to say that it couldn't happen, but throught the threads on the subject these are the main issues people have with the thought of a group version. Even if level 70 fero were given a 4 minute recast time that means a bst with buff extention would go from being able to fero 4 people max, to being able to fero 12. That's 3X as many people and that's with the recast doubling. That also ignores any pet affinity enabled pets that might be in the group and although current fero doesn't benefit the pets as much as PCs usually it's still a boost and does factor into the decision.
The other big problem that comes of this is the more people a beastlord can fero the more some people will be expected to fero. Some beastlords have repeatedly over the years expressed their dislike over the thought of becoming a buff-badwordforafemaledog. Currently a beastlord has more options and demands for their mana than ever before(nukes, dod pet, growl, beefed up heals, etc). Even without a desired fero it's not hard to burn your mana as fast as you get it these days hehe.
Stat breaking sta or just a straight stacking hp mod has been mentioned a lot and that seems like a pretty reasonable request. There have been a lot of ideas and I think next week I'll try to throw some different combinations together to give some people a little better idea of what some possible tweaks might be.
Endurance regen on fero is not desired from me. Buffing a just-rezzed warrior who is going to wait for rez effects to fade anyway is just a waste. Being expected to keep Fero up on warriors just after a wipe wouldnt be great either, because the buff is going to waste usually (not pulling mobs when clerics are OOM), and I'm short on mana as well.
I'm not exactly opposed to warriors getting the end regen along with a few more DPS, but if Fero is truly meant to add some dps, it's effect is less wasted on a monk or rogue. Besides, unless its given a high end regen/tick, buffing a rezzed warrior mid fight isnt going to help all that much (according to allak defensive costs 10/second). It would have to add 24/tick just to keep them EVEN with defensive's cost.
Putting it on Paragon would be nice, because it could be given a high per tick regen without being overpowerful (casters may not need the mana, still on 15min timer). However the best thing sony could do for end regen is make it ramp up the longer one is sitting, like they did with HP regen. 10k endurance takes about 27mins to fully regen from 0 with melee's end AAs (36/tick, 360/min). But without even looking, I'd wager that sort of thing is already on at least 1 melee's top 10. Maybe if we brought it up as well, they might consider it more.
"Besides, unless its given a high end regen/tick, buffing a rezzed warrior mid fight isnt going to help all that much (according to allak defensive costs 10/second). It would have to add 24/tick just to keep them EVEN with defensive's cost."
36 from regen aas & 24 from fero? (was confused for a sec at sec vs tick cost. So used to everything being in ticks ;p)
I do think the issue of having end regen built into fero could cause a lot of situations like where you are keeping 3 or 4 people buffed for no fighting and the buff basically becomes a melee twitch for bst(our mana for their end). This situation would probably favor perfection where you are already hitting casters for the mana and could give melees a bit of a "boost".
Maybe instead of stamina, fero will just give a (/pulls out a random round number) 500 endurance pool boost (adjust it as appropriate), increasing the melee's endurance pool by an amount (and doing an endurance "heal" to fill them up by amount buffed).
That could do a useful change to replace the stamina statistic & will make it desired & useful by a lot more peeps.
May've said it elsewhere, but I'd love for SA to be useful to everyone, even tho SoE may say the hp regen is, it ain't really. Pop in end regen (5, 10, whatever they determine to be a decently balanced figure) and throw some of that on PoS as well to give an important infusion of end as needed.
I don't like seeing all this talk about improving sta regen and sta pool. We don't want it any better then it is now, trust me. It would make the spell very desirable and would greatly increase our usefulness on raids, but melee would tear stuff up if they had more endurance to use. Remember that endurance allows them to use their disciplines and if they can use them more often that means we fall farther back in dps again.
wow smoke... lets work to detriment of others to better ourselves. You know why I want my rogues & monks to have bigger stam pools? So that I can be able to use my hotkeys to ask them for Thieves' Eyes & Fists of Wu. They aren't willing to do that atm bcs of endurance pool and regen issues.
The classes that we should be closest to in dps, we are. We are, in some very high AA & nice gear (/humble cough ;p) situations able to pass rangers equipped with their 2.0 (tho he's frankly a bit of a slacker anyways).
I'm happy with our dps situation. I know I show up higher than the other bsts in my raids cuz they'll actually use dots (I fuggin hate em) and all my dps shows, whereas theirs does not. I really dislike the amount of downtime that I have to deal with because of the people having to med up mana or endurance.
But then again, smoke, I think we look at things from a totally different standpoint. I was never that extraordinarily unhappy with my dps, even when I prolly should've been. I have zero qualms about buffing people. If I'd not wanted to have any buffing capability, I would've made a rogue or a monk or a warrior, not a class with buffs. And I look at my part of a raid as more what can I do for the raid. I've killed a raid before, coupla times. But I'd like to think my being around has helped more than its hindered. And if I could see something that would make peeps want bsts along, want them in their groups, want them in their raids, that would make me very happy. It might start to suck having to be a melee's twitch bish, but it would give me something better to do than turn away from the screen to watch the tv. It would keep me in the game, more involved.
Can't say I want to see endurance regen on fero. If that is going in, I'd rather see it on PoS or SA/SD. Heck, I'd like to see it on both, with SA/SD adding a couple per tick and PoS adding a raw amount of end over time, like it does with mana and hps. Talk about making beastlords more useful on raids...
But anyways, if it does go on fero I'd rather see it add x end. to the pool and then regen that amount, rather then be a constant regen effect. Err, so in less confusing terms I'd rather it emulate growl of the panther then feral vigor.
aye shiera.. was throwing that out bcs was just in mindset of end regen thinking only.
Having it do end pool buff would fit the theme of the spell better.
I must play a different game than y'all, but I see very little need for endurance regen. As mentioned previously, disc timers and rez effects pretty much make it unneeded.
``Ferocity'' implies savage damage. Let's keep it as an offensive buff.
Quote from: Oiingo on November 15, 2005, 04:40:01 PM
I must play a different game than y'all, but I see very little need for endurance regen. As mentioned previously, disc timers and rez effects pretty much make it unneeded.
``Ferocity'' implies savage damage. Let's keep it as an offensive buff.
Endurance Regen would be very beneficial to tanks classes
Id honestly rather see a nice offensive mod than endurance regen or pool increase. It would fit considerably better on our regen themed spells/abilities (SA, perf)
hmmm.. guess some of my point here was missed.
Fero's got the 3 components to it and after each are my comments/wish list
attack - I still don't have much of a better idea for replacing the attack portion since rangers got my DA% incr mod wish. Abt only thing I've come up with is a proc mod rate increase.
Resists - I like em as they are. Getting a 15 or so point incr would be grand.
Stam buff - Here is where I want the end pool buff to be.
ie, spell is this:
1: incr proc rate 25%
2: incr resists 80 - all
3: incr endurance 500
4: heal endurance 500 (this to get the endurance bumped up from the casting.)
Something along these lines (with something better in the attack/proc rate slot) is what I'd like. My endurance number may be unreasonable. I got nfc what the costs of discs etc really are, so adjust that number to be appropriate.
I don't much care about endurance regen, *except* if they ever make us into endurance batteries for melees then I will quit. I didn't sign up to spend my entire time in EQ twitching melees.
I've been pretty quiet on this lately but I hate to say it, I agree with Oingo
QuoteI must play a different game than y'all, but I see very little need for endurance regen. As mentioned previously, disc timers and rez effects pretty much make it unneeded.
``Ferocity'' implies savage damage. Let's keep it as an offensive buff.
Flame it, Rant it, Squash it .....This is one buff were none of us will agree on. I've already pissed one person off on this cause he thought I was directed alot of my feedback and comments towards him but I wasnt. For that I am sorry.
I truly see a benefit from this buff but, it does not deserve any type of regen buff whatsoever even though I know I'll get chew'd by some of the others who are more vocal then me.
This should be a savage buff, it should have some sort of meaning when it hits us or another. Not help there endurance/mana thats what SA and SD along with paragon and PoS should be directed too.
I think alot of us has lost sight into what alot of our buffs should be cause Sony just feeds and feeds and feeds and we just gobble it up till we are satisified. Lately, I've been wondering why I like playing a beastlord and its not because of the buffs but the idea of the class itself.
Sure, I want to help out the rogue that likes to burn endurance like its candy or the warrior that needs to save his/her group. But I see other buffs that do that.
The way I see Ferocity no matter what lvl is just that, Something that makes us attack better. Take all the other parts of the spell away and you just have a simple attack buff. Like most said, they already have attack maxed. Most use the buff for resists but as we are finding out, more and more stuff is ignoring our resists. Some of us can cap stamina no prob so that part is kinda pointless.
It's basically down to a worthless buff then. So how do we improve it? Can we still make it worthwhile dps buff?? does it have to cater to casters/priests or is there a part that make there nukes/ds/dots more effective???
I think what we need is a buff, that brings out the animal in all of us. Be nice to see that cleric that is trying to help preserve mana but trying to cast a nuke every now and then to all of a sudden have the power of it just grow. Or that rogue that once saw a benefit of it with his backstabs see numbers that out of this world.
I know that is asking for a hell of lot. Its getting to the point where I dont even mem the spell anymore either. But thats what I think it should be. I could care less of stepping on anyones toes. It should be a unique ability for us as is. With zerkers being introduced and class envisioning still going on, we are down to bickering among ourselves making it to a point where even new people question me about some of our abilities.
Well, thats bout all I can think of to comment and thats at the tip of my tongue at the moment. So take it what its worth.
Quotewow smoke... lets work to detriment of others to better ourselves. You know why I want my rogues & monks to have bigger stam pools? So that I can be able to use my hotkeys to ask them for Thieves' Eyes & Fists of Wu. They aren't willing to do that atm bcs of endurance pool and regen issues.
I can't help but think you really don't understand the grand scheme of things, Kanan. There is something in EQ we call "burst dps", this is a condition in which our DPS is raised temporarily by using abilities or spells. Now, in the case of hybrids, our burst dps is really done through disciplines which are on a set timer and nukes which have a set refresh rate. Our melee counterparts on the otherhand, have many disciplines in which to choose from. These disciplines give them great power on a short term basis but they have to watch what they use, and when because they have limited endurance. The limit of this endurance pool, and regen of it are set to where they are to achieve balance.
Personally, I like how things are balanced right now, which is why I said what I said. I'm not asking to nerf anyone like you seem to insinuate. To me it's similar to the pure caster situation. There is a reason why they have capped their mana regen where it is, and there is a reason why their mana pools can only get so big. It's to maintain balance, not only between classes, but in the encounters which they have already tuned. If you start talking about adding a completely new mana regen buff in there it will mess the whole damn system up on down the line. This is why we can't even get them to raise SA even 1 per tick. Imho you can cry all you want about having end regen added but it just ain't gonna happen.
I would really prefer to keep fero much the same as it already is, that line of spells is a part of our lineage and has worked very well for us up to this point. If anything just need to add a foci of some sort to keep up with the times, maybe +15 to combat effects, or maybe accuracy boost of some sort. Maybe even make it a group spell on your group only with a long refresh. That would be neat I think and not too overpowering.
QuoteAnd if I could see something that would make peeps want bsts along, want them in their groups, want them in their raids, that would make me very happy. It might start to suck having to be a melee's twitch bish, but it would give me something better to do than turn away from the screen to watch the tv. It would keep me in the game, more involved.
My oh my Kanan, I don't know what class you have been playing but I never have a problem getting groups and I'm always busy, whether it be in a raid situation or in groups. If you are watching TV instead of paying attention, maybe your should take you own advice instead of giving our class a bad rep~
QuoteI would've made a rogue or a monk or a warrior, not a class with buffs.
I'm pretty sure we will see endurance regen in the future, most devs already hinted as much. I just dont want to see it on Fero. A boost to the endurance pool however is in line with the original stamina idea although you could argue that a raw hp buff would be the same.
Main focus of Fero should be to enhance ones combat power as it used to be with the atk buff part, especially with FoI since the only difference there is the raised atk. So it should get some pretty large combat focus gain. Be it a big increase in chance of procs, or a damage modifier for crits (wouldnt that make rogues happy? +100% to crits?), it doesnt really matter which, it just has to be a focus that isnt given to another class already and that is actually usefull especially to most melee classes.
fero has been a 3 part buff, always. For a long time, the attack was the only part that was of interest to folks. Due to the minimal return upon this portion now, the resists have shifted to become the point of interest.
This part's wrong.
I've done my beating of the offensive portion of this horse and am mostly tapped on ideas beyond what I've presented in the past.
I think most of us are happy with the resists.
/points at top of this page. I do think adding end regen to fero, now, is not the way to go.
I'd dearly love to have it be raw hps. But I'm gonna go realistic here, and say we'll never get it. So the other point that would be beneficial and stay in the stamina thrust of the buff is where I got my idea for an end pool buff.
Quote from: smokepaw on November 16, 2005, 04:42:50 AM
I would really prefer to keep fero much the same as it already is, that line of spells is a part of our lineage and has worked very well for us up to this point.
If the spell worked well for us now, we wouldnt have 9 pages of discussion on how to make it effective. Throughout this thread people have said how little resists matter at the high end, and how little the attack helps people with >2k atk. And stamina, I won't even go into that part.
I'm not sure if you're a casual player that never raids, or if you're in DP, but in anguish there are spells that even if you resist, they still hit you. How is it working well if it has a minimal effect? People are probably right by saying it's more effective to cast another BE pet than to cast Fero of Irionu. I'm not sure exactly but people said it's ~120dps? That's over 2k damage and less mana.
And I'm just curious...by upgrading the spell, and making it more 'ferocious,' how does it make it less of our lineage? I guess it does fall in line with some of our spells becoming less effective from weak upgrades..
Didn't have time to read entire thread, but I like the idea of single target fero with STA changed to raw HP's ( and or AC ? ). That alone or accuracy / CE in its place would make me happy.
this spell is based on old needs: STA, ATT and resists.
its pure and simple, what we need is to have these changed to have similar effects now as they did at that time.
STA=HP
ATT= sum kind of melee focus(which stacks, so not a fero3 effect, but evt. a 30% bonus to double attack)
resists= these buzak still see as a good gain, but if anything dot/spell shield 10% or sumthing like that.
if they changed ferocity to this pattern it would not be a change of purpose, but merely a update to keep spell uptodate.
and it would be sumthing that would give us more a feeling of purpose on highend raids.
Buzak Ubertroll & fluffy ubegater
I like the idea of proc mods. While it wouldn't be the end regen that tanks, and rog's and such would be looking for more procs = more damage, and tank hate procs. I wouldn't argue against dumping the attack for 25% (or whatever) proc mod, and maybe some CE or Accuracy. I do agree that it should be maintained as an offensive buff. The resists are very nice (not gonna try and lie about that), but maybe should be switched to a more modern version such as a % spell shield. Just random thoughts as I re-read through this thread.
having glanced through it again, and truly thinking on it, I don't think the endurance truly needs to be here, esp not as an End regen spell. IMO, that should be the Spiritual XXX line's job. Proc mod seems to be the item that most of us are asking for, at least the option that I've seen most mentioned.
Changing resists to a spell/dot shielding seems like a good idea. I hope they don't screw up & make it be a capped out item tho, ie, SS for first 5k damage taken, etc ><
The idea of CE being put on fero...it's something I'd rather not see. Although there are some situations where I'd love to proc lifetap a lot more to regen some health, more procs, especially ones with a secondary function (stun, lifetap, debuff) appear to pull more aggro than just doing the dps with melee. Also I dont want fero to be a warrior necessity, something the warriors feel they need 100% of the time to pull extra hate from procs.
Also, procs dont generally progress. Some higher end weapons may have harder to resist procs built in, but it would make 1.5 the same as 2.0 in terms of dps gained from having fero cast on you. Both have 2 aug slots, and the only difference in augs available is something like the tacvi/blood dmg augs.
Crit mod rate would progress as you attained better weaponry, and wouldnt take away dps if you upgraded to a weapon that only had a rune proc on it.
I do agree on the cap thought, cant have it fade after so much damage taken. That would be quite painful on the encounters that pump out the ae damage where everyone needs to DPS hard and fast.
CE is something the vast majority of beastlords can agree woudl be great on fero and i hate to see someone dissenting from this for not very good reasons.
The thing is... CE for us is considerably more effective than crit mods... We get 100% of the intended gain for CE mods because they are not based off your double attack rate or anything. Whereas crit rate increases are entirely based on your rate of attack for how much straight dps they add (of course the % increase isthe same i think but our base dps is lower, hence lower gains) So youre saying youd rather have something that would be gimped for beastlords from the start?
Regardless, when is the last time you used a weapon with a rune proc, seriously? But even if you did use a weapon with a rune proc, youd benefit from more procs in the form of more runes :p
That being said, I'd be open for ANY changes whatsoever to this currently useless spell.
One of the big things that a proc rate mod would help though is that it is easier to standarize the damage from it and "balance" the spell. Yes it means the scaling isn't as huge, but at the sametime it means a spell isn't being over balanced.
Like I've tried to explain fero needs to have a reasonable damage to mana ratio in realistic situations, but with how broad the damage ranges are atm that's a very hard figure to nail down. I'll try to break this example down...
- Right now depths pet is good for ~5 to 1 damage to mana. That varies a bit, but 5 to 1 is a reasonable figure. Fero of I atm(the spell we are talking about) costs 750 mana. That means for it to be on par in terms of damage to mana it has to account for ~3,750 damage over it's duration.
- "duration" is a sticky subject because base duration on fero is about 6.5 mins, but you have numerous other factors that both extend and lower that duration. Focus effects, AA, downtime(fero only works while hitting something), etc.
- Using 4 minutes of "fight time", that is to say 4 minutes where fero is actually helping melee, means that the spell would have to be adding ~937 damage per minute or about 15 damage per second.
- Now it gets *really* sticky because how do we figure what that damage is...
a) 15dmg per second is 10% of someone who is doing 150dps (that's a pretty decent number on a beastlord)
b) 15dmg per second is 5% to someone that is doing 300dps(easily hit by numerous melee classes at the higher end)
c) what about burst where some people clear 1k-1.5k? at 1.5k the buff only has to be "active" for 2.5 mins. Most can't sustain a 2.5 min burst, but gear is improving, some mobs have resistances, etc
Once you factor all that in you see how hard it is to balance fero. If fero is balanced so that it is mana efficent for a solo beastlord to cast on themselves(something many got used to), then the spell is several times more powerful and efficent on others. If the spell becomes mana efficent at the 4(ish) minute mark, then if you have a highup time group and sustain it the numbers get very high. Part of that is the nature of buffs(haste works much the same), but fero is so mana heavy and such a short duration that if you balance it around a beastlord casting it on themselves that is only doing 70(ish) melee dps, then throwing it on someone who is doing 500+ melee dps is just a crazy boost.
I agree that adding a CE type of effect would standardize some of the damage, but having the spell "balanced" around some of the scaling through damage ranges means the spell runs the risk of being completely worthless to some of those that can aquire it.
If the spell had some attention given to proc rate mod then that proc damage is very standardized. Some exceptions do exist(ie ED/SSB), but in those cases it actually helps the beastlord as they are the class most likely to be using the "boom" type of weapons.
You are right that the proc mod might make more warriors want it, but in that situation aren't we just seeing more utility added to the spell? Right now I know zerk/rog/rng have been the main targets for awhile, but if the spell is efficent for damage regardless of class *AND* some classes want it for aggro or other possible reasons based upon the situation isn't that a good thing?
Remember that most are talking about keeping the atk where it is, so there would still be some scaling gain, but not as much. With the proc rate mod thrown in to help beef up the damage contribution and add some more utility to it.
Really do feel this has been a great discussion, but re-reading this thread it's easy to see just how many different situations beastlords play in and how they view their class/spells/etc.
Ok, I can see how CE would make it so it wouldnt benefit us the least. Might even keep the mana cost down some.
I would just be worried that the devs would set the number too low, because the spell would make a 70 with purchased weapons and no AAs (for argument's sake, lets say only had enough AAs to have the 30% ext dur) gain essentially the same dps as a 70 with maxed AAs and 2 high end weapons.
That being said, it does look like CE would be the best option for the DPS portion of fero.
Low scaling is not necissarily a bad thing. I certinaly wouldn't begrudge any more casually equipped/aad player gaining from the spell. In fact i almost think its better if everyone gains, assuming they set the gain at an acceptable level.
In fact if you look at how the spell was, causally equipped players actually gain more from the attack than high end players who already will have high(er) attack (since higher attack means diminished returns on the same amount of atk added)
But as i already said i would be happy with pretty much any (big) changes to this spell as it is in extremely sad shape atm.
EDIT: after rereading tast's post i noticed he specifically says atk is a good scaling effect so ill trust him on this :p But that doesn't change the fact that not scaling much isn't inherently bad unless it means they set the amount of gain for everyone unacceptably low.
I got in a few more hours of fero parsing today, so hopefully have some numbers to throw up soon. Fero is definitely a pita to balance though because when you realize the spell is available to any 70th level beastlord and also the same buff the best geared rogs/zerkers get it's just crazy. For the spell to be useable on a 70th level bst with maybe flame claws or something and not just be insane on higher end people is a very tough act to balance. Perhaps having the benefit be a bit more standardized via CE would help the spell overall. *shrugs*
Can't say for sure yet either way, but it does need some looking into and there's quite a few ways they could go with it. If I can somehow find a few more hours this weekend I'll throw up some parses on fero.
Well, another thing to consider is that Fero is a buff, and the damage/mana ratio of buffs completely blows away that of direct damage spells. Expecting a 5 to 1 damage to mana ratio for FoI is expecting WAY too little of it. You can bet that the damage to mana ratios of things like haste, lions/might, champion, wunshi, predator, etc. are astronomically high compared to a damage spell.
The only "buffs" that get tuned as though they are direct damage are the ones that have a very short duration and a very large effect, like the Panther line of buffs for shamans. But as a general rule, a buff is supposed to be much, much, much more efficient than a direct damage spell.
As I said buffs also have many other issues that make a pretty drastic difference between "potential" damage per mana and "actual" damage per mana. Things like, downtime, death, dispells, afk, poor play, etc. all factor in and reduce the efficency down. I hope I didn't make it sound like fero should be on par with these spells, but rather, if I can spend the mana and in 18 seconds basically guarantee myself a 5 to 1 or so ratio, then FoI had better be making a very noteable contribution, not only on paper, but in actual situations where fight times/downtime/etc factor in.
We also have to keep in mind that fero does have other properties besides just the atk/offensive portion. Part of the problem too is that the +sta on the spell is worthless for honestly everyone I know who has the spell(feel free to say otherwise I honestly just don't know lol) and the resists have stayed very static despite other changes in the resist/spell system. Much like with beastlords as a whole part of the reason people are focusing so heavily on the dps part of fero is because the other "utility" parts have fallen off even more.
Oh, and I have some fero parses I'm trying to finish now. After my intital tests I decided to grab another data point, so once I can invent 3 to 4 more hours of "free" time, I'll finish those up and post some results that should help give us some better numbers to discuss around. Hopefully I can have that taken care of by monday of next week.
If they must keep the +Sta component... make it an over sta buff... that can stack with wunshi and fort. Was thinking of what I might like to see other that the offensive aspects of it, and the resists. instead fo Sta, or raw hp... I would love for the lower level fero to have a haste component to it... say 65% (whatever the shammy haste is, but still short duration and high mana cost), and have the 70 fero get a haste component (little higher), and make it overhaste... not stacking with bards. It's the whole Idea of My Lips Curling Into A feral Snarl (or whatever it is), and getting more of a stat that is maxxed. The way Fero sounds... it should be an offensive, dps buff. The resists are nice... but I wouldn't flinch if they removed resists to add more dps mods into it. I think the day of tanks wanting this buff for the resists has come and gone... along with the sta. Just my 2 copper though.
To throw in a lower-level opinion of a (currently) non-raider, I use Fero while soloing and grouping (65 version as I'm only 65). I don't think anyone needs the stamina component. I certainly don't. Honestly, if you're not stamina capped with IoS or Fo7 by the time you're eligible to have Fero cast upon you, you're just not trying. As it currently stands, I just cannot see a point to having +sta on Fero or its upgrade. I suppose a case could be made to keep it as-is on Savagery, but it'd be a weak case.
Now, if the +sta was an overcap addition, I wouldn't mind it as I do enjoy my hps. I imagine that it still wouldn't get much use on raiding if it didn't stack with Wunshi though. If given the option, I'd certainly prefer combat effects of some sort in place of any form of stamina addition.
While soloing I definitely like the increased resists and keep Fero up largely for that reason. If you remove the resist component completely, I'd think that it should only be done for the level 70 fero. If you've got that spell I think it's a safe assumption that you're not hurting in the resist department and are grouping with people of a similar standing.
Well we have to remember that fero is a much older spell and often times older spells simply lose their luster. Omens fero on the other hand is a spell people have been complaining about since beta(I know I was there lol). Also it's an issue that needs to get corrected soon imo because progression shows that it should be due for an upgrade soon. Much like how feserting malady originally suffered because "plague" was a horrible upgrade to "malaria" my fear is that if we don't get FoI straightened out now then fero of X down the road will also suffer.
The sta component does need work though and so does the atk as can be seen by changes made throughout the game. Tons more items of "special" mods on them, other spells have been changed, champion was changed, pred was changed, etc. This isn't a case "we want what they have", but a pretty obvious case of "hey, ya know why you changed that for them, well we are in the same boat" type of thing. 8P
Tast... I couldn't agree with you more. It seems a lot like they listen to the other classes reguarding their spells... but continue to do the cut and paste jobs on ours.
I think the only thing we agree on is that we want fero to be unique, not a copy of some other classes ability. ;p
That I can agree with... and for a long time Fero was very unique. But in it's current state it is just a copy and paste of old fero... with increased stats that have outgrown their usefulness. Fero could easily be adjusted in all of it's forms to evolve more into todays game. Savagery... keep it the same (maybe take out the reagent, or did they already?) Fero 1... take out Sta component and add maybe a CE or something similar. Fero 2 (70 version) change the resists to DoT/Spell shielding, and attack to strikethrough or proc mod or crit mod. Then we are set up for future versions to further evolve with whatever the game turns into then. There have always been 3 parts of this line of buffs... resists (magic defence), sta (= HP, melee defence), and attack (melee offence). When it's looked at this way it's easy to see which can be changed to make it better, and modern without loosing the feeling or orignial intention of the spell line. Naturally Sta reg buffs are worthless now for most, lore for the loss of sta compnoent can be something stupid like through ages of combat the beastlord became more attuned to battle, and learns how to make himself and others more of a ferocious beast, sought on carnage. Thats how I think of the spell, and how it should be. Shamans don't have a spell like that, or anybody else. Aside from SA, and Fero... we dont have ANY other buffs that other classes don't have. Fero could be a nice little niche for us to take back.
Parses are up here...
http://www.beastlords.org/forums/index.php?topic=6078.0 (http://www.beastlords.org/forums/index.php?topic=6078.0)
Should help put some numbers to what we are talking about and make it easier to weigh what we are asking for. Once people have an idea what they are looking for I'll translate it into some atk/ce/etc numbers so we could see about what the spell would have to look like.
Are there some people that are ok with how much ferocity adds atm, but would like to see the mana cost go down to increase efficency? Or do most people want to keep the mana cost about where it is and see an increase in benefit to increase the efficency?
I'd rather keep the mana cost where it is and increase the efficiency. Anyone can quaff a mana potion, but more efficiency/attack can only come from gear. While soloing I generally don't have much of a problem with mana (and I don't use potions) and I recall from my raiding days that mana was only an issue when I had to buff an entire raid with SD and I didn't have MGB.
Although FoI costs a lot i would rather see the manacost where it is and increase efficiency to a reasonable level. That way probably more melee classes would ask for it.
Manacost is still a factor to me personally since i do manage to get myself oom on boss fights using BE and 2 nukes, that might have changed a bit since i now save 25% mana on my BE pet but didnt had the chance to test that out enough yet.
Based on your data Tast... Fero needs a change, and not with mana or duration. The increases in DPS that you show... just don't scream Ferocious to me.
well.. I'd like a mana decrease, but I'd rather see an absolute effectiveness increase if I had to choose one vs the other. The mana cost is very high, but I'll deal. I don't wanna have to deal with its poor effectiveness nor efficiency.
ie, mana same, incr effectiveness & therefore efficiency
lowering manacost is not really a solution.
we need to make this spell a determing spell for us again, giving us a tool for raids specially.
Buzak Ubertroll & fluffy ubergater
If Fero is made into a group buff, it should only be the OOW one - the PoP one should remain a single target buff. That way no one gets peeved, since the OOW one is not really much of an improvement as is. ;p
But theres already 10 pages explainign why we dont really need a group spell. Id rather have the effect go up with the same mana but id settle for anything :p
Yeah there's been a lot of good discussion on the subject already. What I think I'm going to do at this point is run some numbers on the effectiveness of some other major buffs(avatar, haste, etc) and see how they've progressed to get an idea of where abouts fero of I should be at. The parses still show fero being quite good in many cases in the 65(ish) range, but especially with the 2k softcap on atk the return on FoI is lacking. I'll try to put up a few options with combat effects and whatever else, with a varying range of boosts and see what peole think. Then finally be able to offer up some hard data/numbers in terms of what we want/would like to see.
still say we got the best correspondent ;)
I agree that we by far have the best corespondant of all the classes. The most knowledgable, well written, and best at communicating with the community. We are all very lucky to have Tast on our team :-D
Now with that being said... I'm really good at thinking of work for other people to do :evil: I don't have the knowledge, exp with the numbers, or the general abilty to... but. We need to come up with a simple line graph or something that is easy to look at and see notable differences) of evolution of other classes dps buff spells such as avatar, and whatever else then compare them to fero on a similar graph. Then make some of the suggested mods to the spell, plug it into the dps calc, and see what we really would need to get up to par with the others. Sounds like a simplistic approach, but we first need to be able to see simply how far behind the buff is (in numbers) compared to the evolution of other buffs that are available for DPS. Only choose the ones that are generally asked for raiding, casuals like myself will always just grab whatever is available, as most of the time they all are not. It would be interesting to see how much of a dps increase there would be for somebody with an attack at the 2K softcap if the attack component of Fero were changed to CE, or accuracy, and see how much of a gain/loss of dps it would mean for those not at the cap (side idea... has anybody suggested a DW bonus to it? Can be a guaranteed DW check for those classes that are at, or would come to 100%DW wield without it). Feel free to use my magelo as a comparision for a non raider. If work would let me get excel I would give it a go myself. If we are going to seriously try and get some changes made to this spell, or whole line, we should start a poll on some of the suggested changes, divide them up by the catagory (ie DPS, resists, and hp) and see what the vote comes out as, then move from there. Right now all we are saying is that Fero is beyond lackluster, and everybody has suggestions how to make it better... but that is hardly going to institute a change from Sony. I think we will see a change come about much faster if we get together data that clearly says Fero is behind the DPS gain curve against other buffs by this much average gain at this point (65 Fero), and this much at 70Fero... we propose changing this to this, the average DPS gain would be... you get the idea.
After being in Demiplane, I must reiterate my want for a group Fero. I realize its probably not going to happen, but I'd still love to see it :P
Group fero might actually be a nice choice for an "ancient" type of spell, but they've never done that. The slightly better nuke is nice, but fero is one of the biggest conflicts between "casuals" and "raiders". Looking at chick's profile he's only at ~6.5k mana. In a group situation a fizzle ~> success on fero would put him in a very bad position mana wise if he were also trying to act as slower or really do any other buffing. You also have lots of group times where looking at the numbers from the parses group fero would just be a major waste of mana.
On the other hand raids have made up groups for bards, they have higher mana pools, etc that would make such an option not only more valueable, but more feasible. *shrugs* I'll see what I can come up with for some numbers.
Also I'm working on the numbers as well, but remember we always want to try to discuss beastlord things in a beastlord context. Looking at some of the other spells will give us an idea of where the game has gone or what the devs had envisioned, but when it's all said and done we need to be able to say "beastlords this", "beastlords that" and not come across as "oh sure they finally give rangers a fix to pred and now beastlords want more too".
As for graphs and stuff I try to stay away from those every since thott's shaman graphs. 8P If someone else wants to put some more visual aids to the data or work on some other numbers i welcome it, but please make sure you have the numbers right and please feel free to ask me for other numbers.
I just said graphs because of the work I do, we habitually present data in graphs ( but since I'm low schmuck on the totem pole... have to get the copy and pasted stuff on Word emailed to me... lol). And when I said to compare to other classes buffs, I didn't mean to try and compare across different classes, but to get a better idea of DPS buffs curve of power throughout the expansions. And ya... If I am playing fake shammmy in a group... the option for fero'ing myself is pretty much negated by mana. Most of the time if I am slower means I'm also throwing out dex, Alladnu, SV (unless a Pally around), SA, SoW to the puller, slowing, and self healing when I get smacked from a resist... I just can't maintain that and fero.
WTB Group Improved Fero (CE +30, accuracy +30, spell shielding 50%, DoT shielding 50%, 75% proc mod, 50% DW mod, 100%melee crits) duration 1 hour, mana 2. :mrgreen:
Quote from: Chickennuggets on December 16, 2005, 06:31:47 PM
WTB Group Improved Fero (CE +30, accuracy +30, spell shielding 50%, DoT shielding 50%, 75% proc mod, 50% DW mod, 100%melee crits) duration 1 hour, mana 2. :mrgreen:
/chuckle.. that was a nice laugh :P
Mana cost is way to high. Put it in for the cost of 1AA with a cast time of .5 sec and a recast time of 10sec.
Pssh, I wouldn't waste 1 AA on that useless skill. :p
Just another silly idea to throw onto thread -- ( Perhaps have a % increase that heals land for on the person like the pre-nerf paladin epic. Maybe 5-10% to replace the resists )
Doubt this could actually happen, but just something that came to mind that I didn't notice mentioned before.
I would prefer no change in the mana cost of FoI, just make it worth casting (like others have said before). Im personally leaning towards a pseudo combat effects mod, maybe something slightly different like a 'Cascading' proc effect or something.
For example, FoI would give the wearer an innate percentage chance to 'flurry' their procs, or on any successful proc, there would be a chance for a proc flurry of 0-2 additional procs. Would maybe even make this worth casting on pets in shaman groups for extra panther/leopard procs as well as their innate/epic procs, and would most likely be sought by tanks for additional burst stun/anger procs.
In essence, this would equate to an increased proc rate with FoI on (like a base CE modifier) but there are many ways they can achieve this with the current game mechanics and this could be something unique like I believe FoI should be.
There is a DoN progression AA that adds to your chance to crit every melee hit, nuke, heal and dot tick by about +2 or +3%. If they added that ability to Fero, say at +10 or +20%, it would make fero useful to cast on any class again.
Love the idea of Fero being a group spell that adds say 10% to all crits like the don aa. At 500 dps, that would be 50 dps per person in the group, 300 dps for entire group. By the way, does the Don AA add to our pet crits ?? If not, everyone else is getting 3% dps boost from this aa while we're getting roughly 1.5% boost (warder+BE pet do about 50% of total dps). Sound familiar?
Adding 10% to crits would not add 10% to total dps.
The reason why Combat Effects is a better choice than crit mods is because no melee class has an advantage over another. Any melee class would gain the same amount of a chance to proc. Our natural division of power wouldnt have a detremental effect with CE, as opposed to crits, where our warder and BE pet are part of our melee. Since this is our spell, it would be nice to not be the melee class that gains the least from it.
As for DoN AAs, the most likely response is no, it doesnt help our warder. None of our other AAs, except the warder specific ones, boost our warder's abilities. However having our normal AAs boosting our warder's abilities has been discussed elsewhere, and most are of the opinion that our warders should gain from our AAs, since we give up so much to have them. It would be nice to have my warder crit a proc, and maybe if it had the Ext enhance AAs, panther would last longer on me :-D
From my parsing, a 175 dam don aug parses at about 7 dps give or take with WA5. So all your weapon procs total about 20 dps - you'd need 100% CE boost to get a 20 dps boost and 100% doesn't doesnt sound like something they're likely to do.
Not saying CE boost is a bad idea, but if they throw us a 25% CE boost, its gonna be not much more valuable dps-wise than Fero is now imo. I'm looking for something substantial, like in the 25 dps for each member range. I've seen shammy leopard parse at 80 dps if kept up, don't know what their champion does, but its more than fero from what ive read. Just saying i'd want something substantial if it were to be changed.
Ideally they'd apply this to our pets as well, but if they didn't I'm perfectly OK not getting full benefit of the spell as long as it makes me more valued in group/raid settings.
Champion adds 10% to melee, so a 500dps monk would get 50 more dps. (A discing melee hitting 1500dps would gain 150dps.) Which will keep on adding 10%, even after monks and rogues get better weapons. However unless they add some new function to the spell, such as a recourse to permanent pets only, we'll get the short end of the stick if they make it a melee damage dependant addition. But CE, unless given a high amount, may give everyone the short end. A possible problem with CE would be it given a low amount so it doesnt over power leopard. 100% boost would make leopard 160 dps, which would be nice, and still much less powerful than champion (also dependant on another class for dps).
There really is no easy way to do it. Crits would easily add to fero's effectiveness, but risks raising mana cost and lower effectiveness for us. CE would likely keep mana cost down, and equalize gain due to availability of procs, but would almost be guarenteed to be underpowered. Maybe some combination of the 2 will work.
My personal choice being a non raider and rather drunk atm Would be to make Fero have an over cap on the reisists (good for the raiders) and reduce the atk and add either crits or combat effects instead of the pure atk it adds now. This would make it more effective in raids an in pure groups Where some may be at caps for resist and atk before...Whether this is a single or group buff thats for others to decide..Sta could be totally lost in this spell since virually every melee I know even at 65 these days is at or near to cap :-)
sorry if I reapeat others But couldnt read all 12 pages again
ok this suggestion might be out of line, and will require alot of work from moderator.. but start a new thread and post all the realistic suggestions we come up with in these 12 pages, the issues and problems. that way we will have a much easier overwiev of what the situation actualy is and what others think can be done about it. atm we are basicly having 9 of 10 posts repeat whats already been said because it takes too long to read through 12 pages..
then we just take it from there and if a SoE person should actualy look by they will have a realistic chance of seeing what we want, and our SoE corispondant as well..
Buzak Ubertroll & fluffy ubergater
I'm keeping track and following the thread. Once beta is done I'll put a new thread up with a summary of what has happened here. Also the parses weren't up for part of it and there are a few other things I'd like to verify first.
/dearly hopes that means we're gonna see a change :))
Ya, more Stam added, double mana cost, and half the duration.
nah they are adding CHA to it, and innate stamina regen again.
i would be perfectly happy if the only change to fero was adding end regen. i cant speak for anyone else, but that change alone would have every rogue and zerker i raid with as well as most monks and warriors asking for it again. making one version group would be cool as well since our other class specific buff effects are group as well (sv,sa). also even with 9k end when i solo or duo i run out alot chaining rake/protective/fury making it a useful change to some extent for non raiders too, tho non raiders likely are still getting alot of benefit from the sta and atk. just my 2 cp on it. definitely something needs to be done to justify spending the extra mana for FoI when regular fero is just as good by the time you can get FoI. even if said change was 15 end regen per tick over 10 for normal and 5 for savagery (just as an example).
p.s. i know its an old topic but it was stickied and i just recently signed up for the board, sue me =p.
I cba to read all 12 pages on this subject. Id just like to say;
Making fero a groupbuff wouldnt be a problem.
I heard a rumor that the next expansion will have a lvl increase to 75 or 80.
Most other groupbuffs have always had one singletargetversion first and then groupversion of the same buff 2-3 lvls later. Oak and conviction comes to mind. So say we get an upgraded version of fero at 72 and the groupversion at 75?
Would give us the choice between single and groupbuff.
but fero isnt intended to be a group buff kind of thing. Its intended to be an extremely limited, extremely powerful melee/slight defensive boost to only a few people per beastlord.
It's the kind of thing that generates utility if it were desirable.
The only problem is that when they gave us an "upgrade" they blindly ignored the rapid reduction in usefulness of pure attack while increasing the amount given by such a small amount that the buff is now virtually useless.
However people fall into the assumption that making the buff more convenient will make it more useful, when in fact only an increase in power (quite a sizable one in fact) would salvage the fero line.
Quotebut fero isnt intended to be a group buff kind of thing. Its intended to be an extremely limited, extremely powerful melee/slight defensive boost to only a few people per beastlord.
Yes and so was Ferine Avatar to begin with......
Its called Champion now and is a groupbuff :wink:
and it costs what 2500 mana?
If you could be arsed to read the whole thread you would have seen this has already been raised and discussed a lot.
i wrote several of the posts discussing it...
i'm just pointing out that theres no simple solution for fero; simply making it a group buff would be ineffective and would most likely be a complete waste of a "spell slot" (aka bsts get x amount of spells per expansion)
Quote from: PusurI cba to read all 12 pages on this subject.
:-D
Sry if i brought up an already overdiscussed subject :|
Just wanted to say what i had to say.....
And considering that beastlords are already waaaay underpowered it wouldnt be too much to ask if they gave us fero as groupbuff for the same amount of mana as the singlecast one.....(wishful thinking) :mrgreen:
Well as it stands now, beastlords have no reason to be in a DPS group over other classes. Zerkers and rogues are no brainers for those reasons, but warriors are filling out slots more often then not anymore. Any change to fero should reflect our rightful role in DPS groups over a class who should be doing less DPS then us.
Now I don't think it needs to be a group wide buff, but rather only castable on group members. That way if they want fero they need to be in our group. It works for bards rather well. The draw back will be of course the other group utility this fills, but with resists now and days it really isn't much of an issue. Spell shieldings, very high resist mods on NPC spells, and etc....the resist portion is only a slight perk for the less resilant members anymore.
I think we also have to face the fact that the mana cost on this DPS upgrade is greater then the mana to DPS our other spells have now, such as the swarm pet. So the mana cost needs to be lowered or the duration lengthened; maybe a bit of both.
Another problem with fero is the same division of power we get. It is so far more useful on a monk or a ranger then it ever will be on us. I suggest a pet recourse effect be added to this to help diminish this issue, cast on us and a recourse hits the pet or useable on any pet class. The effect could be debated i think.
Now I not quite sure where to approach the change need to attack portion of this spell. Attack on this abiltiy is still quite low for us, but on some other classes it is sort of a decent upgrade. Adding additional focus on top of the attack portion, be it proc, lifetap, increase crit, etc. Really not sure....just know the whole double attack thing is worn out and reaching a cap soon for all those but bards and beastlords.
just wondering, if there was any word on if there going to change the new fero at all tast, i know your working on a lot of issue's atm but was just wondering is all.
Limited and badass. That's all I want.
Talking with monks, rogues and berserkers, they really seem to like the idea of accuracy over the cap while maintaining the cost, targeting and duration.
Doesn't do anything for us, but I'm not sure what the answer is there. Perhaps a damage bonus mod on the target for all direct damage spells.
Fero Rk I: +10 accuracy over cap, +2% DD modifier
Fero Rk II: +25 accuracy over cap, +5% DD modifier
Fero Rk III: +50 accuracy over cap, +10% DD modifier
I'd think something like this would be easy to code and it's all PC-based and would simply work off a buff check with the only possible server-side modification being a way to have over-cap accuracy.
Are you insane? That would actuallty make us useful for something. Beastlords aren't meant to be useful. :-P
isn't +15 accuracy 1% increase to dps so +50 accuracy would be about the same as a 200 increase in attack at over 2k attack, correct?
over here, http://www.eqoutrider.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33 (http://www.eqoutrider.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33) the rangers say its a 1% increase in chance to hit, not just dps.
Now, playing with copro/animist's spreadsheet, with my gear, at 70, changing accuracty 10% changed dps 1.99. Not 1.99%.. just 1.99 dps
1.99/325 (abt where I'm at atm in ideal conditions on that sheet) ~ .612%
1.99/250 (call it tacvi geared beast (bst only weapon & 1.5, fero 2, cleave 3, acc 50, CE 15)) = .995%
bleh.. now for a rogue/zerker/monk etc, the increases would be more.. but probably not that much either.
Man, it sounded like a good idea too =/
Someone please prove me wrong and point out what I did wrong here so the idea works =/
EDIT:
Done some thinking and here's the fruits of my thoughts atm:
Now.. this 1% increase.. obviously the dps return on this changes for everyone, since you will have more hits hitting. The damage from a single hit isn't getting changed, but more hits are landing, therefore you should see an increase in damage output. I think what we need to know is what this 1% increase in accuracy is for each of the classes.
OK, change of plans!
Fero Rk. I: stackable 2% damage modifier, +2% spell/dot shielding over cap
Fero Rk. II: stackable 5% damage modifier, +5% spell/dot shielding over cap
Fero Rk. III: stackable 10% damage modifier, +10% spell/dot shielding over cap
The catch: Buff lasts for six minutes base with a two minute recast timer, just like we have now. After the buff wears off your target, there is a 30 minute cool down buff that prevents them from receiving this buff again until that wears off. Casting on a player also gives the buff to their pet, which should help propel beastlords and magicians over warriors and bards during parsing and put them back where they belong.
As was pointed out earlier, this should be a short duration, extremily effective buff that helps someone both do more damage while also withstanding it. That seems to be the ``vision'' for this buff line. I've also often wondered why it should only be cast on melee when it could be so beneficial to a larger variety of classes.
The only downside I could see is with rangers, as they tend to do a great deal of melee and casting damage so would receive more benefit than most. As for wizards, beserkers, monks and rogues, they would generally only have it for 6-10 minutes every 40-45 minutes with max extension, which shouldn't alter encounters too much.
Quote from: Oiingo on October 06, 2006, 03:44:18 PM
OK, change of plans!
Fero Rk. I: stackable 2% damage modifier, +2% spell/dot shielding over cap
Fero Rk. II: stackable 5% damage modifier, +5% spell/dot shielding over cap
Fero Rk. III: stackable 10% damage modifier, +10% spell/dot shielding over cap
The catch: Buff lasts for six minutes base with a two minute recast timer, just like we have now. After the buff wears off your target, there is a 30 minute cool down buff that prevents them from receiving this buff again until that wears off. Casting on a player also gives the buff to their pet, which should help propel beastlords and magicians over warriors and bards during parsing and put them back where they belong.
As was pointed out earlier, this should be a short duration, extremily effective buff that helps someone both do more damage while also withstanding it. That seems to be the ``vision'' for this buff line. I've also often wondered why it should only be cast on melee when it could be so beneficial to a larger variety of classes.
The only downside I could see is with rangers, as they tend to do a great deal of melee and casting damage so would receive more benefit than most. As for wizards, beserkers, monks and rogues, they would generally only have it for 6-10 minutes every 40-45 minutes with max extension, which shouldn't alter encounters too much.
Given the other ranked dmg mod spell we have (pet haste), I would guess that Rk. I could be like +3%, +3%, Rk. II would be +4%, +4%, and Rk. III would be +5%, +5%, which honestly seems like a good return if they are truly stackable, and over caps.
I'm liking the spell/dot shielding idea. It's kinda how the + to all resists are supposed to work, too. Is there a save vs corruption on the new fero? That alone would make it marginally better than what we have now, at least until more players build up corruption resists.
it'd have to be +3/4/5 or +4/5/6 at ranks 1,2, and 3.
Notice that ranks arent supposed to be huge upgrades on the order of 5x improvement. Theyre generally only marginally more damage/healing/efficient/whatever.
P.S. Is it now a true statement that BE is always more mana/damage efficient than fero with the gain in efficiency from pet aas, and loss to fero of higher atk values and much increased mana cost?
Quote from: hakaaba on October 06, 2006, 07:09:08 PM
P.S. Is it now a true statement that BE is always more mana/damage efficient than fero with the gain in efficiency from pet aas, and loss to fero of higher atk values and much increased mana cost?
Wycca's parses were done on lvl70 test dummies, I believe, (i.e. optimal conditions) and w/ the best weapons in game. They showed that it would take at least 6.5 minutes (iirc) of perfect fighting to match the BE pet. I don't recall if that was FoI, or simply Ferocity - either way, little dps difference from that, despite the large mana difference.
Factors to consider:
How long will the person actually be fighting w/ Fero on them?
*length of fight
*script
Will BE pet be likely to die from AE ramp/spells (seems not likely from my experience)?
Likelihood of recipient death/dispell
Actual gear/AA/ development, and class of recipient.
So - no, it won't *always* be, but it is certainly most likely to be.
From my own parses on beta i didn't bother to buy the new fero and refused to take fero rk2 from my guildies so far. There's no point at the moment with how fero works out in dps increase.
at lvl 75 now and I got all spells except the new fero (and the dropped only one I havent found it)
and i'm also in a raging fight atm with my guilds rangers/rogues they insist on getting fero when i'd rather save my mana for BE....
Quoteand i'm also in a raging fight atm with my guilds rangers/rogues they insist on getting fero when i'd rather save my mana for BE...
Very simple fight to win. Tell them no when they send tells and don't cast it. They will get the idea really quick. That's what i've done. I simply don't cast it anymore because it is absolutely worthless. So worthless i didn't waste the piddly 1kish plat to buy the new one.
hell.. I mem'd it once.. looked at its incredible mana cost and de'mem'd it & Loaded up the 65 version again.
The only reason I'll load it up nowadays is for the resists.
The rogues & such love having the 3k attack numbers, but frankly, it don't add enuf to be worth the mana imo.
And I won't cast it on someone who doesn't send me a tell. /t kezarvexius tends to dissuade some enuf. I had some peeps trained to use hotkeys, but they're too cocky or lazy to use em nowadays.
I posted Wycca's parse to explain to our dps classes why we no longer cast it unless asked. It was received quite well honestly. Its made a few people realize just how worthless it is. I rarely load Fero anymore, and on occassion, when asked nicely for it for parsing reasons, I will cast it, but as it stands, its a waste of a spell slot.
Can someone please link this Wycca parse so I can show the berserkers, monks and rogues that insist on telling me Fero is 20+ DPS to them.
did anyone ever think of, instead of adding effects to fero, asking the devs to change the attack formula?
For example, very high attack could innately start adding accuracy or improve da chance. Even simply raising the softcap would be a temporary solution.
Wycca's Magelo: http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=163913 (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=163913)
I'll be testing hunter and fero both, which are purely attack.
I'm about 5hr 14min in, and while its still fluctuating a tad, its holding mostly (I just got interrupted, had to goto PoK, had to nab 75 and bug prathun), but it's looking like Ferocity is roughly 11.8dps at max raid buffs. Not exactly earth-shattering, but considering the dps we've gained the last few expansions from weapons (20dps AM wraps vs blessing, or 10dps AM wraps vs tonfa in this setup) or from augs (Tunat aug vs DP aug = 5-8dps gain) or from focuses (Fero5->6 = 5dps), I'd say that its not inconsequental. Of course, all of these figures on everything is from lvl 70 test npcs, so we don't know the *real* gain on say, your average raid mob (is there such a thing? =P).
I would venture to say that 11-12dps on a max raid buffed monk, is on the low side for a buff that is single target, limited duration. If it was on a long duration buff that was commonly mgb'd to the raid, I would write it off as acceptable. I'm not a beastlord, but I (speaking for my raids and groups) would like to have a tgb'able group fero buff that was actually a decent dps boost. Single target spells are so Velious, and fero needs about 3x the dps upgrade it gives if its group. I'll be parsing champion later (and other atk buffs), but it should give you a good basis for argument.
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Post on teh beta forums: http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=SSSpells&message.id=82&view=by_date_ascending&page=8 (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=SSSpells&message.id=82&view=by_date_ascending&page=8)
I realized I gained some attack from the level boost, and since the parse wasn't fluctuating majorly (and a 0.5dps fluctuation wouldn't change the results of the parse much), I decided to not go above the 5hr parse I have of fero.
Sorry for the formatting size, but I don't know how to shrink it.
Parse results officially-
Ferocity = 11.7dps boost (it needs major help, more than simply more attack)
Lvl 71 (no skill changes from 70 though, merely the 5 cap raise on stats)- 150accuracy, 75 combat effects, 300worn attack (i use tribute to hit it fyi), etc etc maxed, my gear is in my sig.
Buffs - Fist of Wu, Cry Havoc, Thieve's Eyes, Ancient : Call of Power, War March of the Muram, Storm Blade, Symphony of Battle, Strength of the Hunter, Howl of the Predator, Talisman of Wunshi, Champion, Talisman of Might, Spirit of Bih'Li, Hastening of Salik, Spirit of the Panther, Ferocity of Ironu, the bard buffs are maxed with appropriate drum/etc, AA, and puretone just fyi via lvl 70 betabuff.
Parse #1 - No fero
Offensive Damage for Wycca, by Type
Damage By Kills Total Duration DPS ADPS AD Max Avg Min Accuracy Evasion Defense Hits Misses Blocks Dodges Magic Parries Ripostes
[ Total ] 0 16529620 05:15:12 874.03 874.03 10 800 241.51 6 74.27% 0.00% 0.00% 68442 23716 0 0 0 0 0
Critical Magic 0 200464 05:14:28 10.62 10.60 257 800 270.53 100 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 741 0 0 0 0 0 0
Critical Punch 0 3816366 05:15:11 201.81 201.80 29 735 482.17 104 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 7915 0 0 0 0 0 0
Magic 0 2020527 05:15:08 106.86 106.84 27 800 248.50 6 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 8131 0 0 0 0 0 0
Punch 0 10492263 05:15:12 554.79 554.79 10 735 203.12 25 68.53% 0.00% 0.00% 51655 23716 0 0 0 0 0
Damage report by YALP using a DPS run interval of 600
|
Parse #2 - With Fero
Offensive Damage for Wycca, by Type
Damage By Kills Total Duration DPS ADPS AD Max Avg Min Accuracy Evasion Defense Hits Misses Blocks Dodges Magic Parries Ripostes
[ Total ] 0 44189972 13:51:28 885.78 885.78 10 800 245.56 3 74.00% 0.00% 0.00% 179954 63212 0 0 0 0 0
Critical Magic 0 501588 13:50:46 10.06 10.05 263 800 263.44 4 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1904 0 0 0 0 0 0
Critical Punch 0 10081922 13:51:23 202.11 202.09 29 735 490.51 104 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 20554 0 0 0 0 0 0
Magic 0 5357066 13:51:27 107.38 107.38 26 800 247.54 3 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 21641 0 0 0 0 0 0
Punch 0 28249396 13:51:28 566.26 566.26 10 735 207.94 29 68.25% 0.00% 0.00% 135855 63212 0 0 0 0 0
Damage report by YALP using a DPS run interval of 600
Sorry for the goofy formatting, but there's all the data from the parse.
Quote from: hakaaba on October 10, 2006, 08:27:17 AM
did anyone ever think of, instead of adding effects to fero, asking the devs to change the attack formula?
For example, very high attack could innately start adding accuracy or improve da chance. Even simply raising the softcap would be a temporary solution.
I'd be shocked if they even considered that, due to teh amount of work required. Their hands have been pretty darn full lately w/ other game-breaking/making changes.
> improved DA chance - at level 70, melees were just about at 100% double attack (think 98%). At lvl75, they now are.
>Raised softcap - wouldn't fix fero, due to high-end peeps being often over 2.5k attack.
Yes, we hashed the idea of simply changing the attack formula in serverwide chat one day and someone pointed out that it would likely be more difficult to implement, hence the idea of simply adding onto what is already established. Instead of ``fundamentally change how the game works,'' we are left with, ``add this extra check in the middle of this routine.''
if( player.ferobufrk1.active? ) damage=damage*1.3
if( player.ferobufrk2.active? ) damage=damage*1.5
So on and so forth. Simplicity.
Honestly, though, changing the attack formula would be the better option, and I'd really rather see that instead. Same goes for stats and anything else that is using legacy code from the earlier days of the game.
What about overcap attack? Have fero attack be added at the full linear benefit rate. like what they did with shield ac.
QuoteRaised softcap - wouldn't fix fero, due to high-end peeps being often over 2.5k attack.
Sure it would, if they raised the softcap enough. (a lot)
I am still not convinced that even if they increased the soft cap of attack up to 3000 that it would make much of a difference for sustained dps on most other dps classes besides beastlords.
Theres linear gains up until the soft cap, where it transitions to a logarithmic gain. I'm going to make these assumptions:
all logs are base 2 (substitute all 2's for e's if you prefer)
logs have a constant T determined in the code- the amount of attack it take the benefits to halve (lose a factor of their base (2))
x is any number you like
k is a constant multiplier determined in the code. Theres probably 2 different k's for the linear and log formulas.
from 0 attack to the softcap, every constant gain of x attack yields the same kx dps gain. For every T you get above the cap, you gain 1/2 the gain of the previous T attack (the nth gain of T attack over cap yields kT/(2^n) dps)
Lets assume they increase the softcap by a modest amount, say exactly T
Not only is this attack now giving you linear benefits, but all of your additional factors of T attack slide up the scale by a factor of 2, causing only the lowest gain (the last T attack you have) to drop off.
Net gain: kT - kT/(2^n) where your last set of T overcap attack is the nth.
Every increase of T in the softcap adds another kT and subtracts the lowest gain you were previously getting. This is actually a significant gain.
Quote from: hakaaba on October 10, 2006, 06:20:20 PM
What about overcap attack? Have fero attack be added at the full linear benefit rate. like what they did with shield ac.
QuoteRaised softcap - wouldn't fix fero, due to high-end peeps being often over 2.5k attack.
Sure it would, if they raised the softcap enough. (a lot)
That would utterly unbalance melee vs. casters.
Yeah, i know, but we've been asking them to make fero worth a damn since...omens? I figured trying a different strategy couldn't hurt.
They seemed to have looked at all the various attack parses sent their way for about 30 seconds, prompting the changes to Spirit of the Hunter w/ it's double attack mod. Wish we could hold more face to face discussions w/ the devs as a community, where they don't have the option of not replying/ignoring everything from all melee classes on this topic :(.
Making a whisical post, I know there's a 0% chance of any change being made...
I was thinking I like the idea of a 25% or 50% CE boost. The DPS boost on a player wouldnt be any more than current fero, but it would have situational group/raid uses. It would be helpful to keep on MT for an aggro boost, especially on those raid mobs that FD or mem blur. It would be very nice in conjunction with Pathner. Also, it would rock on our warders who proc at 50-75 dps currently as well as boosting chance of Fetter or Steeltrap triggering. This would be a buff that would benefit ourselves most but also be of some group/raid usage.
But of course, I'm just daydreaming, I know there's no chance of a change.
I like that idea, but I like accuracy overcap more. Higher end dps classes are getting away from proc augs, and moving to damage augs, due to both higher dps, and lower agro. With an overcap accuracy, agro will not increase on the melees (you still get agro for misses), and it will help *all* melee more than a bit of a boost off of panther/bard song, etc,....
Basically, outside of ourselves, the tank would be the only one getting a real benefit from a combat effects boost at demiplane+. All melee past there (it seems) put in as many damage augs as they can manage, and some even leave proc augs out due to agro issues, even if it leaves empty aug slots.
Agree with the accuracy overcap thing. Only if its made a group spell tho. I really dont want to be single buffing 20 people before a boss mob or worse doing a fero rotation like i used to because of the 2 min recast time. OMG that was so not fun.
Thats why I thought CE would work better, give us some usefulness but mostly just keep it on our own pets.
maybe have the incrased atk from fero make you hit for max dmg more often, it wouldn't actually increase your accuracy or you max hit but it would increase your dps.
iirc, that's what attack already does, Laissez.
Somebody correct me if I'm just dense...
2 things atk does chance to hit based on weapon skills, and chance to hit for max dmg more often, tho looking back on it an accuracy overcap mod would be better.
I agree that fero does need a big boost....either the accuracy mod or a CE mod something making it worth while to start using again as a bigger utility
what would be nice is if they made fero a over cap type of buff for attack
if changing the actual effect on this buzak see one other possibility of making it usefull.. make it a longduration 60mins or more, and possible for group as well.. that way we can keep a raid/group with it without it bothering us much for mana/time.
Buzak Ubertroll & fluffy ubergater
Changes I would like to see to Our Latest Fero @ 75
1. Group Buff - Our Focus is a group buff and adds more hps than the single target focus we got at 71-72
2. Timer change - The current 8:48 timer (mine atm) is as usual too low for it to make sense on using it . 15 Minute timer would be nice .
3. Attack values - make them actually mean something so when spell is wanted the want is warranted .
If we have a group Fero the one thing it would do is no matter who had it would benifit from the Resist value . So even if it does land on a Necro , Mage , Cleric for example their resists would go up thus helping ith low Bard attendence .
Just a few thoughts .
/Hiss at group fero.
I've said it before, multiple times in this thread, and I'll continue to say it:
GROUP FERO IS DA DEBBIL!
I've beaten the horse of why I think this until its a greasy grey paste.
I believe the advantages greatly outweigh the negs . Sticking to my guns on this , no matter how short the gun timer is !! lol
please.. dig through the thread & dismantle my arguments against it. I feel strongly, but don't feel like repeating myself once again as to why it sucks.
what if fero had an inate chance to resist spells? instead of being a dps modifer
Quote from: laissez on January 13, 2007, 04:03:09 AM
what if fero had an inate chance to resist spells? instead of being a dps modifer
Hmmm, maybee an ATK modifier like it always has had, but instead of having resist mod on it, add a % chance to completely avoid incoming spells......... I think that would be good.
Quote from: dainfrol on January 13, 2007, 04:19:57 AM
Quote from: laissez on January 13, 2007, 04:03:09 AM
what if fero had an inate chance to resist spells? instead of being a dps modifer
Hmmm, maybee an ATK modifier like it always has had, but instead of having resist mod on it, add a % chance to completely avoid incoming spells......... I think that would be good.
That would entirely change Fero from one of the (supposedy) strongest offensive buffs, to a still lame-o offensive w/ probably lame-o defensive parts.
Other points:
Fero is a single buff. Strong spells are typically on raids, and going to hit whole groups. The healers won't need to heal the group any less if only one person avoids a spell. Result: No point in casting it unless it's a group spell, or you're stuck healing yourself. Solution - group spell rune. It has the advantage of being both group and predictable, both sorely needed in that instance. Oh wait - let's take that away from Enchanters now?
Let's keep Fero as a purely offensive buff, but let it be worthwhile.
was just a thought that came to me when we were killing mad mary-anne and needed max resists and popped fero, so the devs oviously intended it to be some sort of buff like that. But with today's mob aoe resist checks it the resist don't help alot, maybe an upgraded fero would have an overcap accuracy along with a innate chance to resist and incoming spell.
All the melee in my guild, like fero the current way it is. The rogues LOVE to see their attack vaule higher, and frankly I do too for myself and love the resists.
The way I'd like to see Fero is that it should remain the same in the aspect of attack+, and resists+. The change should be that stamina+ be removed completely, and make the buff ADD temporary hps, like 200-300 hps maybe?, also another factor that would be cool is a percentage+ in double attack and or strikethru/accuracy...
All I know is we need to keep the attack and resists, the melee love it, but I would like to see some kind of change. It's just hard to decide and come up with something, since other classes now have so many abilites that we can borrow from. I will say thou I do not agree nor like the idea of resiting incoming spells...it just doesn't make sense to me.
Quote from: Mewzee on January 31, 2007, 01:38:09 PM
All the melee in my guild, like fero the current way it is. The rogues LOVE to see their attack vaule higher, and frankly I do too for myself and love the resists.
That's frankly, out of ignorance. Yeah, the number on their UI is pretty I guess, but Fero parses out to match an *unfocused* Bestial Empathy pet when a lvl70 monk (Deathknell level gear, max AAs, overhaste, etc,....) is attacking almost the entire time the buff is on them.
The effects of attack over 2k are truly miserable, and if Fero's going to keep +attack, the whole attack system/scaling needs to be drastically reworked.
QuoteThe way I'd like to see Fero is that it should remain the same in the aspect of attack+, and resists+. The change should be that stamina+ be removed completely, and make the buff ADD temporary hps, like 200-300 hps maybe?, also another factor that would be cool is a percentage+ in double attack and or strikethru/accuracy...
All I know is we need to keep the attack and resists, the melee love it, but I would like to see some kind of change.
The melee are stupid /shrug. Not to say that I haven't kept fero on some friends since they asked for it, or were parsing burns, but it's really worthless compared to raw dps tools.
QuoteIt's just hard to decide and come up with something, since other classes now have so many abilites that we can borrow from. I will say thou I do not agree nor like the idea of resiting incoming spells...it just doesn't make sense to me.
Double Attack bonus - worthless for several dps classes, so I'd never want that. Monks, rangers, and a couple others I think are at 100+% double attack at lvl70.
Strikethrough - pls no. Again, monkeys end up at 100% strikethrough from AAs/gear. Zerkers have innate strikethrough, though I'm not sure how high it is. I'd rather not have a buff be instantly useless for a class.
Accuracy - that's the one that I think almost everybody can agree on. Rangers, I think receive the highest accuracy in the game, and end up at app. 75% from AAs/gear. That's a lot of room for the fero line to grow into.
Defensive side of the buff:Resists - the resist system is borked right now, and in need of serious repair. Who knows if Rashere will ever have time to actually do that. iirc, the changes from TSS beta never made it live due to too many problems. +65 all resists are kinda gimpy against -1000 resist check AEs.
I'm starting to like the idea of a
hefty spell and dot shield %age on it. Healing gets more strained with every expansion, and every retired cleric. It's in line w/ the history of the spell (defensive buff against casting), it's a steady factor (vs. say, a %age to proc a spell rune mechanism), and would additionally give a bit of utility to help keep new apps/alts alive through mobs.
Thoughts?
Have to agree with Khauruk here. Just because the melee love to see their attack rating higher doesn't mean it's actually doing anything. It's kind of like if the UI showed how much stamina you really had and for every 100 over cap you got 1 hp. Are people going to suddenly want stamina buffs so they can see how high their sta can go ... whoopee I got 2 more hp! (although in that situation the stamina buff lasts for a long time instead of just 8-10min)
Simple fact is that Ferocity needs a complete and total revamp. +atk +sta +resists just isn't cutting it in today's raiding world. i know non-raiders can use it but if memory serves me right, the first in the Fero line only dropped off boss mobs in Luclin (THO if thinking right) when it came out so designed for raiders in mind.
It was obviously intended to increase both dps and the ability to resist spells (hp too because back then nobody was at cap). Currently it does both of these things extremely poorly. Khauruk is on the right line of thought for ways to increase it.
The spell can't be a simple +atk. Instead a % increase in accuracy or a decent proc (although this line of thinking is played out with the shm and enc spells) or maybe a decent overhaste (although the recent finding that delay below a certain amount does nothing might make this idea useless). To be honest, im not sure what could be done as most possibilities were given to other classes, i.e. hitting harder to shm/dru, procs to shm/enc, overhaste to bards. Maybe accuracy is the best way, figure a rogue doing 2k dps with 75% accuracy and buff gives him 5% better accuracy, thats about 130 dps increase. Thats much better than the 10max the spell currently gives.
The resisting spell side is a bit simpler as there are really only 2 ways i can think of to make it actually work. One would be a decent % spell shield and the other would be a decent % to resist spell modifier. I say decent sized for both of these because back in the day having +50 resist across the board was HUGE when resist modifiers were extremely low. Now with resist modifiers so high that some spells are virually unresistable, it makes resists pretty useless. Personally i think i am more inclined to the % to resist spell (as it fits better to original intent with possibility to resist instead of lowering dmg) but either one would work fine.
The ferocity line of spells needs a good long look from Prathun and i hope he does it. As it stands now, i havent cast Ferocity in months. When TBS came out i never even wasted the 3k(?) plat to buy rk 1 of Ruthless Ferocity and turned down every Rk 2 copy that was offered to me. The spell is simply not worth casting in its current form.
Quote from: Khauruk on January 31, 2007, 04:08:33 PM
Double Attack bonus - worthless for several dps classes, so I'd never want that. Monks, rangers, and a couple others I think are at 100+% double attack at lvl70.
Strikethrough - pls no. Again, monkeys end up at 100% strikethrough from AAs/gear. Zerkers have innate strikethrough, though I'm not sure how high it is. I'd rather not have a buff be instantly useless for a class.
Accuracy - that's the one that I think almost everybody can agree on. Rangers, I think receive the highest accuracy in the game, and end up at app. 75% from AAs/gear. That's a lot of room for the fero line to grow into.
Defensive side of the buff:
Resists - the resist system is borked right now, and in need of serious repair. Who knows if Rashere will ever have time to actually do that. iirc, the changes from TSS beta never made it live due to too many problems. +65 all resists are kinda gimpy against -1000 resist check AEs.
I'm starting to like the idea of a hefty spell and dot shield %age on it. Healing gets more strained with every expansion, and every retired cleric. It's in line w/ the history of the spell (defensive buff against casting), it's a steady factor (vs. say, a %age to proc a spell rune mechanism), and would additionally give a bit of utility to help keep new apps/alts alive through mobs.
Thoughts?
I would agree.....on most of this.....fero indeed doesnt play a big factor in todays raids like it did back when PoP was the main expansion, but with that being said you still get a 10+ dps gain from having fero as aposed to not having it.
NEXT!
I feel accuracy isnt good for the long run less they make it a overcap buff as most higher end bsts are capped in this area and it would prove useless for us
Combat Effects mod - I feel this would be the best suited for our class, would be unique and as long as SoE makes it a over cap mod or stackable with caped worn CE I think this would be a worth buff in the long run.
Also changing this to a group version, ya I have mixed feelings on it also but for the raid bst it does prove to be a useful tool as we have lost alot of our utility that we used to have on raids
Changing the resists to a % resist mod like our pet spell breakersguard I think would rock making it that much better and basicly updating it to todays raid standards as like Urim said resist are nuts in todays standards compared to when fero was originally released
We are part shaman but even shaman have seen their upgrades to their avatar line...lets just hope SoE doesnt turn a blind eye to us again like they have been
This isnt all about fero but I still think its a valid point
Thanks disco as he was the original poster of this on TSS beta, most of this stuff still holds true and has yet to have anything done about it
Most of this was originaly posted by disco a while back on TSS beta but....since SoE is slacking I feel it needs to be reposted I like it I know some of these are a little out-dated and some are in developement but I would like to see others implimented
1. Our warders are still lacking a heavy DPS upgrade that makes them as viable as other pet classes. The pet focus from DoDH was a very essential upgrade to the survivability of our pets, but unfortunately, the dps did not scale as well as we would have liked. Oroshar was a simple piecemeal upgrade that was supposed to have been reviewed after PoR launched, but with Rytan leaving, it never got the attention it deserved.
2. Much like Magicians, Bestial Empathy has become a nice addition to our DPS. I think that adding additional levels of this spell, that would allow the Beastlord to call multiple werewolves, would be a step in the right direction of possibly shifting -beastlords' grumbles about our warder's viability as simple DPS.
3. Beastlords, since Luclin, have become increasingly a DPS class rather than the original utility class that we were supposed to have been. There was talk of utility based procs for our warders during PoR's beta, and it's been an idea that's been hammered to death on the Beastlord forums. Adding different types of procs that affect the group (Via the same mechanics as necro/sk taps), would be a welcome addition that might add desirability for our class in not only single group situations but raid situations. Adding procs that tap mana back to the group, increase a certain combat skill for a small duration – the suggestions here are endless, but would require significant balancing for them no to be too overpowering.
4. Group Fero – this ability seems to have the beastlord community split. There are those of us that want it, and others that don't see the need. Frankly, with ATK being where it is on high-end raiding, its usefulness simply doesn't compound to what it was originally intended for. There are numerous suggestions for a new spell line that might fix this, and with the way TSS is handling spell progression, it might work very well. Fero itself needs an overhaul, to perhaps rid its self of the +STA and +ATK, to give actual combat effects, such as +crit, +accuracy or something such as that. Making the spell a group spell, or perhaps even an aura, would increase the use of the spell and bring it more in line with what is needed to make it a viable option.
5. DoTs – a lot of us disliked the change to Scorpion Venom, especially in tanking situations, because it destroyed a principle snap agro ability of beastlords. We are left spamming Incapacitate now. That was one of the only DoTs that I think beastlords really ever used, because they simply are horribly balanced and not worth a spell slot. I would be nice to see in TSS a DoT that was actually worth loading, instead of having three nukes up.
6. SA – We've been constantly told that adding one mana regen to Spiritual Ascendance would be unbalancing, yet we see clicky effects that do 10 mana regen on their own. The SA line has needed a major upgrade, not a piecemeal upgrade, for a long time now. Beastlords have suggested that endurance regen be added to it, to make it a viable spell for all classes, but nothing was ever heard back. Perhaps the last few spell levels of the new SA spell (I am assuming there will be one) could have an endurance regen component.
7.With the way the game has changed since Paragon was a much desired raid/group item, there must be some larger changes to this skill besides simple stat increases. This, even moreso than Fero/SA were the defining ability of beastlords on raids. It needs more help.
I would suggest something unique, that would provide a nice, but non-overpowering boost, while giving bsts some raid desirability they've been losing.
Something akin to -
Add 10% Chance to fire Gift of Mana
in addition to the base mana/hp regen of it. Another one is the % regen vs pure numbers mentioned above, but I think we all can understand how that may not be possible (balance concerns).
Theres many things that would work, but IMO the base boost to Aura of Spirit will still end up lacking and not address the issues I mentioned above. Thus, this (or something similar) as an extra is needed.
8. SV - This spell line has guide us through and been a very benficial buff to us. There are those of us who love this buff and think its very useful and a nice trade off from the paladin line and ranger line of hp buffs. I am suggesting adding a mod to this making it in essense like howl of the pred like rangers have but with hp / atk / and another mod, Combat affects, a stackable cleave mod, accuraccy mod something making this buff worth using again. Thus making it a worthwhile spell to buff raids and dps classes with adding to our utility aspect
-That about sums up what I would like to see changed in beastlords this time around. I feel we have lost our jazz and nitch in raids like we used to have. We are a rock solid class in groups, but in raids we lack the need to be there anymore. Any questions or comments please post.
This is my opinion but I think fero is fine the way it is. I have commented on the fact that we need a group Fero buff. but I don't believe we need to change anthing from the past. Maybe in the future though they can have a group version of the one we get at 73?. Because if you make them all Group, then you have to worry about stacking. I for one am happy when I have GoD, Seasons, and Shammy PR/DR resist and then stack Fero on top of it. you are adding 143 fr, 143 cr, 146 pr, 146 dr, 146 mr by stacking those. and the only ones not using those resist are very high end guilds.
That may be the case, but nobody, and I mean nobody, who is using this buff for resists is using the +sta. They need to do something about that.
Quote from: HumlaineI feel accuracy isnt good for the long run less they make it a overcap buff as most higher end bsts are capped in this area and it would prove useless for us
I'm not sure about Khauruk, the person you are quoting, but when i think about adding accuracy to the buff im not talking about the mod2 +15 accuracy that are on many items and augs. I'm thinking about something along the lines of "Slot 2: Increased chance to hit (5%)" or however they code those things. So that if you are normally hitting with a 70% accuracy then with this buff you'll be bumped up to 75% or thereabouts. It pretty much scales itself. Those that do higher dps (people in the raiding scene) will see a bigger benefit from this than those who do lower dps. Plus, i think the highest accuracy % ive seen from parses has been around the 75-80% so there is still lots of room to grow with this.
For those that are still saying fero is fine the way it is. Please go back, read all the posts and look at the parses that have been done. At best it adds 10ish dps for 750-1000 mana depending on the spell. That is just ridiculous. I wasn't parsing back during the Luclin to PoP days when having the fero line meant something but i have to believe it was adding more than 1% dps increase back then when people were nowhere near the atk cap. If it was adding more than 1% during that time then fero has essentially worsened. It's unacceptable and nobody should be happy about it.
ahh now I understand urim....I through you ment that just wasnt completely sure
Khauruk, thanks for your info and post, because I never really understood why some of the suggestions I gave would be turned down. I don't have a clue about the numbers, and parsing side of spells too much, so your explantion helps me understand better why it could be seen that way that the buff would not turn out so great with strikethrough, double attack ect.
I also will admit I didn't understand why everyone was posting that they don't use Fero anymore on raids. I didn't understand what is the info that has been provided to make everyone think its useless at raids. I love using Fero for the resists boost alone for myself because I am not at max AA yet or even close to it, so can someone please explain to me in detail or point me to a post where I can read more about this info so I can understand the problem better? Someone said that the attack value over 2k is useless? Are you sure about that? and if so why is that, what seems to be the issue there that is causing this? Coding problems?
Well back to the topic at hand - If accuracy seems to be the deal thou, then I will definately go with that! In fact I remember a conversation I had with an SK guildie of mine, and they were interested in my worn accuracy and they considered it very important. So if a tank class thinks that is a important stat then I think the melee will agree as well and I think thats the direction we should head into. I also strongly agree with combat effects.
The dot shielding+spell shielding on Fero? Well...chanters have spell shielding..so I think maybe we should have Dot shielding alone? I think that would be good - that way we don't take something away from enchanters, unless we make both effects be allowed to go overcap maybe?
The way I'm looking at it right now...Fero that gives attack+, resists+, and accuracy and combat effects overcap and that stacks with worn effects would be kick ass with any needed adjustments to fix the attack values issue and better resists issue.
Attack over 2k:
You've probably heard people mention AC softcaps, and overcap returns. Attack has the same mechanic (doesn't vary by class though, unlike AC. Attack and AC are interchangeable in some ways, if you look at Fenier's parses about attack debuffing on the druidsgrove, but that's another matter!) as AC. Attack is an amazing thing up to 2,000. Over 2,000, each additional point has far less effect than a point gained below 2,000. This is a linear function - so, (made up numbers follow), say each point of attack below 2k was 5 dps, and that 2,001st point was 1.5dps. Each point of attack from that point is 1.5dps (The real affects are much much more miniscule than this).
Wycca (monk of <Triality>) did parses on the effects of different levels of attack, different attack buffs, etc,.... during the TSS beta, and helped the community really nail down it's value in relation to dps. For the ferocity tested (lvl70 Fero iirc), he had to be attacking from the rear the for most of the duration of the buff (w/ extended duration AAs, focus) to match the damage per mana value of an *unfocused!* Bestial Empathy pet (I believe this was w/o any pet AAs to boot). This was with max accuracy, overhaste, the best monk weapons in the game at the time, etc, etc, etc,....
So, if it wasn't enough to outdo our base unresistable damage on a high dps class (one w/ the most attacks/minute in the game, so huge effect for a monkey), it surely won't stack up near a focused, AAed Bestial Empathy pet.
This of course isn't taking into account when you're forced to not attack, if somebody dies, etc, etc, etc,....
So yeah...attack over 2k, while not useless, isn't something to sacrifice anything to get. It's been parsed for ages now, and it's just lame.
Coding problem? Possibly a problem w/ EQ growing beyond the original vision of the devs. Probably well understood by the developers (though not admitted to afaik), but it'd be a huge pain in teh ass to fix/alter, so they're just sitting there whistling while we bitch, since they don't have the time to fix it.
Resists on Fero:
I don't know what/if you are raiding (haven't looked at magelo), but the resist system is broken right now. The devs know this, and spent a lot of time in TSS beta trying to fix it, to no success. The resist system dates back to original, old world EQ, and has never scaled well at all.
Resists are extremely high - and to counter this, look at the negative resist checks on the AEs/DoTs that raid bosses are casting. -450, -500, -600, -600 chromatic, -1000 - all are very common. +65 doesn't stack up, when the spells are designed to be rarely, if ever, resisted!
+ Combat Effects on Ferocity
I'm against this, and I think most would be when I explain my reasoning.
Look at the high end dps class magelos. Do you see procs augs in their weapons? No - for any melee class Tacvi+ (or rogues Ikky3(?)+), they're using raw damage augs. Or at least they ought to be trying to. Demiplane+, I rarely see anything different. Heck, damage augs are now single groupable for many! Proc augs are much more agro, and much less dps.
+Combat Effects aren't even king for Beastlords anymore since lvl71, and the advent of innate double attack. The Steampowered Cogblaster is just lackluster once you hit lvl71, when compared to other attainable weapons for a raider at that level.
Warriors and knights (in sword/board) are the only knowledgeable raiders trying for proc augs, since it helps their agro and/or survivability (Hi, Rune 3 proc on Jade of the Ether!). And tank agro is becoming much less proc-dependent with swing agro foci, etc,... demi+.
So - + overcap CE on Fero is a worthless idea since it's against the "point" of the spell as a dps buff.
Accuracy on Ferocity:
Yeah...I meant overcap accuracy. Sorry for not specifying.
Quote from: Khauruk on February 01, 2007, 07:16:12 AM
Resists on Fero:
I don't know what/if you are raiding (haven't looked at magelo), but the resist system is broken right now. The devs know this, and spent a lot of time in TSS beta trying to fix it, to no success. The resist system dates back to original, old world EQ, and has never scaled well at all.
Resists are extremely high - and to counter this, look at the negative resist checks on the AEs/DoTs that raid bosses are casting. -450, -500, -600, -600 chromatic, -1000 - all are very common. +65 doesn't stack up, when the spells are designed to be rarely, if ever, resisted!
I am on a pvp server where resist are life and death.
Ahh yes...Zek. The redheaded stepchildren of EQ.
another thought, Shield ac is very different from other kinds of ac b/c it acts like ac from under the softcap thus making a shield exponenially more effective than adding 100 ac. Turning fero into some sort of "sheild like" atk buff were it actually added dps like you were under the cap would make it very useful, also making the sta part of the spell add over the cap like they did with fort wouldn't be too over powering. Tho if this was played out bst would constantly be torn on who too buff a tank or a dps class. But in eaither case its better than not useing it at all.
Quote from: laissez on February 02, 2007, 05:12:48 AM
another thought, Shield ac is very different from other kinds of ac b/c it acts like ac from under the softcap thus making a shield exponenially more effective than adding 100 ac. Turning fero into some sort of "sheild like" atk buff were it actually added dps like you were under the cap would make it very useful, also making the sta part of the spell add over the cap like they did with fort wouldn't be too over powering. Tho if this was played out bst would constantly be torn on who too buff a tank or a dps class. But in eaither case its better than not useing it at all.
Not too bad an idea, though I don't think there's any current mechanic in the game to raise atk softcap, so probably just as difficult to write in for the code team.
As far as STA overcap - it's not worth enough HPs for a tank class to bother w/ the buff slot. Those are too precious already. I'd just get rid of the STA and either put a straight HP portion on the buff, or (better idea, imo), give it up entirely, and focus on the spell defensive and melee offensive portions of the buff.
Quote from: Khauruk on February 02, 2007, 07:16:39 AM
Quote from: laissez on February 02, 2007, 05:12:48 AM
another thought, Shield ac is very different from other kinds of ac b/c it acts like ac from under the softcap thus making a shield exponenially more effective than adding 100 ac. Turning fero into some sort of "sheild like" atk buff were it actually added dps like you were under the cap would make it very useful, also making the sta part of the spell add over the cap like they did with fort wouldn't be too over powering. Tho if this was played out bst would constantly be torn on who too buff a tank or a dps class. But in eaither case its better than not useing it at all.
Not too bad an idea, though I don't think there's any current mechanic in the game to raise atk softcap, so probably just as difficult to write in for the code team.
As far as STA overcap - it's not worth enough HPs for a tank class to bother w/ the buff slot. Those are too precious already. I'd just get rid of the STA and either put a straight HP portion on the buff, or (better idea, imo), give it up entirely, and focus on the spell defensive and melee offensive portions of the buff.
What buffs do a max stat warrior need that would take 20 buff slots?
Symbol
Druid Skin
Cleric AC
Vie
Brell's
Wunshi
Might
Fort
Sense
Panther
Champion
Ranger AC
Spell Rune
Resists - Talisman, fire, cold, magic, Fire ds
Haste
Minimum 2 clickies
2 slots for HoTs - one cast, one AE
Some use illusion pots rather than shrinks
And that's 24 slots (some situational) all w/o thinking about it.
Don't forget Divine Intervention in some cases.
Well, our MT on raids has it on him during all boss fights.
Symbol
Druid Skin
Cleric AC
Vie
Brell's
Wunshi
Might
Fort
Sense
Ranger AC
Spell Rune
Haste
DI ----- most definately
Minimum 2 clickies
2 slots for HoTs - one cast, one AE -----AE HoTs are now in bard slot so that doesn't take a buff slot, what does take a buff slot is a group HoT or single cast from shammys thou
Panther -----most warriors wont have this
Champion ----- nor this - they wont be in group with a shammy most likely more like with clerics and droods
Resists - TOT - only if the situation calls for disease/poison AEs other wise they wont waste the slot.
fire&cold = Seasons from druids in one buff not two
magic - another one if the situation calls for it unless they got low resists - not too sure /shrug
Fire ds ---most wont have a fire ds anymore they'll just use a ds clicky or druid ds maybe /shrug
Some use illusion pots rather than shrinks ---newp if they're smart they will shrink most of our warriors never wear illusions during raid time
Here is something I've been told and I wanted to know what you guys think.
I've been told in tells by knights (pally & sk), warriors, and even other melee, when they're asking me for Fero on raids, that the reason they want it is because "it helps them proc more".
Now with the info we have on the spell - it doesn't give +combat effects, just higher attack, so does fero in fact due to higher attack rating give you higher chances of procing DDs on weapons or buffs (such as proc clickys, sks, pallys, ranger ect) Or is that hogwash? =P
its hogwash.....its a pure dps boost nothing else....it adds nothing special but more atk and the other crap
Tell those people in your guild to learn how to read spell info. Ferocity in NO WAY adds anything to ability to proc.
Ok so i have a question for you folks.
I'f you had the option between adding one of the two things to our current fero witch would you rather have
1) 15% over haste - dose not stack with bard over haste but would be good to have on dps that dosent have a bard in there group
2) 15% damage mod - would not stack with champ but would be good to have on dps with out a shamy
I't was a question i was asked resently from a source that chats to dev's and helps with a lot of the spells that get ether changed or put into the game. Some feed back would be welcome as to what i said is just my opinion and i would like to get a few more opinions of my fellow beast.
Post away !
Would rather something that stacks with those group based buffs. :?
Quote from: recoil silverclaws on April 18, 2007, 09:27:54 PM
I'f you had the option between adding one of the two things to our current fero witch would you rather have
1) 15% over haste - dose not stack with bard over haste but would be good to have on dps that dosent have a bard in there group
2) 15% damage mod - would not stack with champ but would be good to have on dps with out a shamy
Neither. Both would be stepping on the toes (or playing second fiddle to, depending on how you look at it) other classes. Would you try to recruit a Beastlord over another shaman for the second choice? I wouldn't.
Goals (as I see it):
*New fero wouldn't conflict/have stacking issues with other classes abilities
*Fero would have abilities unique to the buff
*Fero will be a strong offensive buff - heavy mana use, but really nice return. With the spell system being broken, let's have that part of the spell fall by the wayside.\
*Fero would be worth casting on ourselves.
Best option I've heard so far: + accuracy, not affected by the worn item cap. The highest accuracy anybody can attain is rangers w/ ~75% (worn + AAs), so there's a lot of room for growth there still.
On one of the chats, the devs said they wanted to look at fero but didnt know where to start as it would be time consumiung and complicated. /shrug
I dont see us getting anything worthwhile as far an offense enhancement from fero. Accuracy just doesnt thrill me. I would like to see some things that are in tune with the original intent of the spell. Overcap increases to stamina and a spell rune of some kind that blocks AOEs and possibly curses. A block to curses would be in high demand and may make it necessary to lower the recast time on the spell. Keeping the mana use high would limit the amount of people the spell could be cast on by one beastlord and make it necessary to have more than one beastlord in a raid to keep the essential classes "curse runed".
Is a curse rune out of the realm of possibilities? It would give us some much needed raid utility.
Quote from: Rhoam on April 19, 2007, 02:45:12 PM
Is a curse rune out of the realm of possibilities? It would give us some much needed raid utility.
It sounds interesting.
How often are curses still used in TBS and TSS raids? (ballpark approx. %age of AEs)
It's not what I'd like to see personally, but worth exploring, certainly.
If i had to absolutely have to choose one or the other, i would choose the 15% damage mod mainly because there are items that u can obtain that adds a 10% over haste mod ( i.e. Symbol of the Overlord (anguish), Moonstone Mind Sceptre (Demi).
hmm.....Then again, how would this stack with our Panther series? if it does? Is this a self buff only, single target buff? group buff?
A curse rune does sound interesting however before i would agree to that i would like to see how we vs SoE would like to implement it.
i.e.
1) Cast time, self buff only?, group buff?, single target buff?
2) Would this also be a cure to curses as well? or is this strictly a proactive spell only?
3) What level curse would it protects us from? Minor, Major. All?
Sorry for all the questions heheh.
I personally would have picked the damage mod mostly because one of our parent class's is the shamy and it would make the most since but as a few have pointed out the stacking issue dosent solve the problem of it being useful on raids. This was just a brain storming question i don't expect to really see anything till the next beta to be a change to fero in any form. I think the point of the stacking issue is tho that both versions of over haste and champ max a player out all ready so its not that they wont land but just that having a newfero with one of the effects just wouldent add anything extra but don't quote me on that tho lol
As for stacking with growl it wouldn't if it was the damage mod since the higher % would just take over.
A curse rune seems interesting shamys get something like that all ready as a group clicky when clicked at the right time it blocks the next cures counter spell from landing i.e. lethar2 DT. Giving fero that same rune type in my opinion wouldent realy work tho since as most know a rune spell disappears after the max damage/curse counters are met and with the recast of fero and the mana that probably wouldn't work all to well, something that keeps with the thought of how fero used to be is best but it is a neat idea.
I really like that Fero curse rune idea, thats a completely new idea, and I for one am open to perhaps totally revamping the spell completely. Sometimes starting fresh is what needs to be done to solve a problem like Fero utility.
I know if my Fero could do that above for certain events in TSS/TBS and future expansions my class would be in demand on those raid encounters and maybe my mana bar would actually be at 50% instead of 90-100 during raid instructions/prior engament of mob, due to being busy casting this buff on everyone I can.
Fero should be more worthwhile in the next expansion content, at least. Rashere plans on increasing NPC AC drastically so attack buffs are useful. We'll see if his plans are carried out well.
Quote from: Khauruk on May 11, 2007, 04:02:00 AM
Fero should be more worthwhile in the next expansion content, at least. Rashere plans on increasing NPC AC drastically so attack buffs are useful. We'll see if his plans are carried out well.
Can I only stress how bad this is in relation to the already diminished abilities of our pet?
Quote from: Shamno on May 11, 2007, 08:59:35 PM
Quote from: Khauruk on May 11, 2007, 04:02:00 AM
Fero should be more worthwhile in the next expansion content, at least. Rashere plans on increasing NPC AC drastically so attack buffs are useful. We'll see if his plans are carried out well.
Can I only stress how bad this is in relation to the already diminished abilities of our pet?
But, with the new expansion there'll be a new pet haste. We'll have a good opportunity to show the drastic dps reduction from pet melee, and lobby for a strong +str or +atk boost in our pet haste upgrade.
Slapping more AC on mobs is NOT, i repeat NOT, a fix to Ferocity. If that is the route that SoE plans to take regarding this buff, they are far dumber than i imagined. And the fact that people seem to think its a good thing boggles my mind even more.
fero is fine, its the way atk is calculated that needs to be fixed.. IMHO.
like AC for tanks, atk needs to have zero softcap for the higher dps melee and needs to have more impact the higher it gets.
From what I understand from talking w/ Rashere, and reading primarily druid and warrior forums:
(warning: disjointed reading ahead)
Attack and AC are intrinsically linked. Debuffing an NPCs attack effectively raises your mitigation AC a large amount (see parses by Fenier on druid's grove). Debuffing an NPCs AC effectively increases your attack (in theory anyway...I don't know how effective this is outside of Vex Thal). NPC AC has stagnated for many expansions (just like NPC Attack has stagnated between GoD and Solteris), which has helped Attack buffs be almost useless. Take a trip to Vex Thal, and look at your melee dps compared to any other mob of the same levels - the difference is astounding. I'd love if somebody would run some attack parses on those mobs to see where the "new" softcap lies - I'm betting it'll be much higher than the 2-2.2k usually quoted (note to self: Finish VT key someday).
Raising NPC AC is not a bandaid - it's how the system was supposed to work in the first place from what I can see. Miserable AC levels already caused them to change the effect on (worn) Ferocity VII - the original effect was useless since you virtually never scored a minimum hit. Miserable AC levels have caused ranger and beastlord atk buffs to be worthless. Raising NPC AC will fix the offensive problems with the Fero buffs (defensive is another matter).
What remains to be seen is if they're able to retune itemization, casters, pets, pet spells, preceding content, etc,.... so that it doesn't become in effect A) nerf melee for the next expansion, or B) only positively affect the very top end of raiders working on SoF content.
Quote from: Fightclubx on May 12, 2007, 02:45:53 AM
fero is fine, its the way atk is calculated that needs to be fixed.. IMHO.
like AC for tanks, atk needs to have zero softcap for the higher dps melee and needs to have more impact the higher it gets.
The way game mechanics work right now, I don't think that's even possible to code. Attack and AC *ARE THE SAME THING* - just different sides of the same coin. Fenier's parses proved this.
Your understanding of Plate class AC seems to be skewed - they all do have a softcap, and a drastically lesser return past that softcap. Just not as miserable as ours is. Also, AC doesn't have more impact the higher it gets. Once AC surpasses the NPCs attack you see very slow gains from it as related to average DPS. There's other impacts (DI obsoletion at the far high end), but average dps even against most raid mobs barely decreases at a point (see Bedavir's parses on thesteelwarrior.org).
yes what I meant was, that for non tank classes, the higher AC gets the less effective it is. wich isnt true for true tanks, and yet.. ferocity loses effectiveness for ALLLLLLL classes see where i'm goin with that?
Quote from: Fightclubx on May 13, 2007, 03:20:57 AM
yes what I meant was, that for non tank classes, the higher AC gets the less effective it is. wich isnt true for true tanks, and yet.. ferocity loses effectiveness for ALLLLLLL classes see where i'm goin with that?
I see, but it's either not true, or very arguable.
Attack gains post softcap do add very little, I agree. This needs to change via one mechanism or another, and boosting mob AC follows the KISS method - already in place mechanisms that have been ignored. Other possibilities exist, I'm sure, but would possibly require far more coding/resources/complexity.
AC though is another matter. A - all classes have softcap, so any AC past softcap is less effective per raw AC gain. B - all mobs have an attack rating, which puts a sort of secondary softcap in place. Gains decrease once you've passed the mob's attack point. There is a point that raiders start to see pretty quickly in group content where mob damage is minimal, and the more AC you throw on, that doesn't really change.
The results from piling on more AC are there, but debateable for many as to their worth. At the extreme high end AC (reaching 4k+ unbuffed for warrior), there is a level of upper dI "obsoletion," (and you can read lots of parses and statistical analyses regarding that at thesteelwarrior.org), and a tending of raid boss (pre-solteris) damage profiles to start to resemble xp mobs...a very cool thing. Overall aDPS taken though hardly changes at all.
All classes still gain from the AC, though for bst/druid, silks and arguably rogues, it's just not worth attempting to get. Even some rangers/monks find it worth equipping AC augs if they're often tanking/melee soloing, as their return is still reasonable (amazing really, for monks).
(derail)
I'm convinced that there's something entirely screwball with beastlord mitigation though, and I'd love to gather a series of parses once I'm able to get back in game (and finish damn mitigation AAs...cost so much for so little gain), and get a few people to agree on a solo spot/mob type to parse at different raw AC values. I'd love to see the hit spreads even on green/grey mobs a la Grieg's end...it's going to be sad, imo. (/derail)
So yeah...I see where you're coming from, and where you're going to (I think). I just don't agree with your path, I guess. You can't just recalculate or change the attack 'softcap' without entirely changing core EQ functionality. There is no attack softcap, it's just NPC AC stagnation (would still love to see attack 'softcap' tests in VT...probably seriously higher, proving my point even more).
It would be a melee nerf of extreme proportions. right now, caster and melee dps is somewhat balanced. If Mobs AC were raised enough to shift the attack softcap upward so increased attack would actually mean something, everything below that would be shifted back downward, too. Am I correct in that? It would affect groupers at a much harsher rate of return than it would raiders, who are already so far ahead of the atk softcap. Everyone would shelve thier melee and roll wizards and druids again.
Quote from: hokarz on May 13, 2007, 06:56:19 AM
It would be a melee nerf of extreme proportions. right now, caster and melee dps is somewhat balanced. If Mobs AC were raised enough to shift the attack softcap upward so increased attack would actually mean something, everything below that would be shifted back downward, too. Am I correct in that? It would affect groupers at a much harsher rate of return than it would raiders, who are already so far ahead of the atk softcap. Everyone would shelve thier melee and roll wizards and druids again.
For this to be an effective fix, it needs to affect more than just SoF group/raid content. For it to be done right, there'll be an insane amount of reitemization/content retuning. A very sticky wicket. What you said is also part of my replies to Rashere.
From todays Dev Chat
Quote
[10:50] <@Brannoc> *Kernos* Any hope of a group version of the beastlord ferocity spell and any plans to make it useful again?
[10:53] <@Prathun> Because of the diminishing returns on offense, and the fact that most other melee increase effects are capped, don't work for all classes, or don't stack, it is difficult to improve upon Ferocity (or similar spells).
[10:53] <@Prathun> I can look into introducing a group version of previously single target spells, as I did with the beastlord mini-focus in Serpent's Spine.
So dont hold your breath for improvents I take that to mean.
I thought we re-hashed the group ferocity question to death? If it's not mana effecient to cast it on one player, it's not going to be mana efficient to cast it on a group, at least one of whom will be a healer of somekind. That's not fixing the spell at all :(
Rashere's planned changes (raising mob AC) will certainly (if extreme enough) make Ferocity desireable again. If done right, a group version could be very nice then, as well. But, we'll see if they don't inadvertently break all melee dps, or make it desireable only for high end raiders at the same time. Here's to hoping!
Quote from: hokarz on May 17, 2007, 04:14:46 AM
I thought we re-hashed the group ferocity question to death? If it's not mana effecient to cast it on one player, it's not going to be mana efficient to cast it on a group, at least one of whom will be a healer of somekind. That's not fixing the spell at all :(
It was hashed to death like every other discussion on Fero has been. The trouble is some beastlords like to buff others state they will never buff anyone and most sit somewhere in between.
Prathun has said twice now that Fero's usefulness has decayed over time due to the caps, he has also said that it is difficult to make Fero any better than it is due to various reasons. Yet even after Tastion pointed this out to him god knows how many expansions ago he continues to give us new versions of the Ferocity line.
Comparing Champion with Ruthless Ferocity I believe we have a case to have it made into a group spell with at worst costing no more mana than Champion.
Champion gives 140 to attack whilst R. Fero gives 224, most of which is wasted because of the caps.
Champion gives 140 to str, dex and agil whilst R. Fero gives 62 to stam, melee are more likely to have stam capped than the other 3 stats.
Champion gives 10% damage bonus whilst R. Fero gives 67 to resists, its a melee buff whislt resists are nice both spells are meant to be short duration dps increasers.
Champion has a duration of 6 1/2 minutes and a 1 min recast time whilst R. Fero has the same duration but a 2 min recast time.
Champion costs 1500 mana R. Fero costs 900. Or look at it this way a shaman can keep Champion on 2 groups for 3000 mana whilst for 2700 mana a beastlord can keep R. Fero on 3 people. If you add in a shamans greater buff extension ability and mana savings from specialisation they can probably keep it on 2 groups for the same as it costs us to keep it on 3 people.
Then you add in the royal pain in the arse it is to actually buff rogues these days, for me a group version for when these AC changes go in would be a god send.
But maybe thats just me. Either way from what hes said I cant see them adding a mod2 to it.
Group Fero .... seriously!? This crap is still being brought up?
*IIIIIFFFFFF* mob AC goes up high enough, it could be worthwhile. Especially if implemented w/ Fero as rank 1, group Fero as rank 2
If it removes single target fero upgrades, it's junk
If it's added and nothing else happens to change viability of attack buffs, it's junk
But, since devs aren't interested atm at adding mod2s to Ferocity, and are rather looking at 'fixing' the system that's making it suck....if they succeed, a group Ferocity could be useful.
I can't imagine the devs going back and changing AC values on all the present mobs, so that leaves future mobs with the higher AC values requiring more attack. So, in the present form Ferocity sucks. In the future it may be useful. I can't recall if fero and champion stack now. I hope in the future that they will and add a sv vs corruption to ferocity of xx. I wouldn't mind a group version if it was more mana efficient that what we have now. And by mana efficient, I mean it would cost the same to cast single target 2 times or group version, once.
Today i went on a hunt for information for a way to try and find something that would improve/fix fero my first thought was to maybe add a hundread hands effect to it but at a small modifier bass of 1 rather then 5 (what the zerker ancent cry is) i had high hopes but the more info i found the less the idea seemed like one we could get away with. I ran the idea by a good friend of mine bouncing the idea off him and he pointed out that while it might be good now upgrading the spell from 1 to 2 later on would be very problematic so i scratched that.
While bouncing ideas off him he brought something up that could be a good way to go. Adding a accuracy % to fero something around 5% would be a good starting number and as the spell gets upgraded later on it could move up 1% at a time. Now 5% isent huge think if you have a accuracy of a flate number like 70% with fero on at a 5% accuracy mod your accuracy would come out at about 73ish% he is a very big numbers guy and knows eq's system better then anyone i know probly as well as the devs and said it is doable. The only thing in the game atm that i know of is the sk epic click
http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=48136
I like the idea mostly because it isent stepping on anyones toes it has room to improve upon later on with out causing huge problems and it stacks with everything in the game and most of all while it is a descent amount of an improvement its far from game breaking.
So what do you guys think i know it was something brought up earlier but i now know it is possible to do if people like the idea i could bring it up to prath or at the least send him the info as best i can to at least let him know of the idea. And im a firm believer that group fero is the devil and wont solve anything = )
Accuracy would be a good idea but one quick question, does +accuracy have a cap? This is an important one because if there is even this can be quickly outdated.
+accuracy is capped at 150 as a worn effect. It would need to be coded like some of the ranger AAs, or apparently the SK epic click (link please). Right now the devs seem to be not noticing when we say accuracy not affected by the worn item cap, as they are thinking of the mod2 suggestions as being worthless in high end raiding for just that purpose.
Aye i don't mean the mod accuracy i mean a set % i did link the sk 2.0 the click it self adds 40% that stacks with everything. Here is a direct link to the click it self.
http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=6268
The +% accuracy is the exact thing i've posted before and it is what i sent Prathun during the TBS beta along with other changes to the spell. I received no acknowledgement that he even received it or looked at it and the fact he is talking about increasing mob AC to improve Fero instead shows he doesn't want to change anything about the spell.
Fero is pretty much dead and nothing short of revamp of combat code or complete revamp of spell will fix it and it appears that it wont happen anytime soon.
this is the link for the ranger aa Hunter's Reconnaissance that they can MGB I noticed it has accuracy in it as well.
http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=11231&source=Live
Sorry urim like i said i knew i saw someone say this before i wasent trying ti bite on yea. lol
I have some inside sources that have told me and even ask my thoughts on some type's of changes (like over haste or a damage mod that wouldent stack with champ or bard over haste) so saying he is refusing to change it might be a little out of hand i think he is playing with different idea's on it and since he dose know it is a issue and has said a few times i hope with the next exp he will have something ....ANYTHING to show he is at least trying.