bye bye group IOS? /sigh

[TerjynPovar]

People can keep saying that but that doesn't make it so.

The proper thing for SoE to do would have been one of two things.

1)  Add another 65 spell, making it Trushar's Mending, or
2)  Up the OoW spell without changing group IoS.

In either case, they finally would have made Tureptan Spirit useful.

Instead, they made TS completely 100% useless, just when it was on the verge of becoming useful.

[Tastian]

"I was looking forward to the group IoS spell. I still can't believe the short sightedness that changed it to a heal spell outclassed by the far easier to get OoW spell."

It wasn't short sightedness.  It's a shame it took so long for the change to go through and that has some people complaining a bit more than they normally would, but it was the right thing to do overall.  You need to understand that even if the GoD spell becomes completely useless (like how many other GoD spells do now via omens?) that we still make out because our omens heal is better.  With just PoP healing AAs Muada's hits for 809 non-focused.  That's a huge jump up from 509 base with CB.  Even if you never step foot in omens you are gaining from the change.  Yes for now some people might have to spend a bit more time buffing, but maybe a group IoS type spell will be added to our omens line-up still.  *shrugs* have to wait and see.

Here's the turn in list for GoD spells, seriously read through this and note how many spells become worthless via omens...

For Taelosian Geomancy Stone Jelki:

Bards receive the song Echo of the Trusik.
Beastlords receive the spell Turepta Spirit.
Berserkers receive the tome Battle Cry of the Mastruq (also vendor-sold, unlike any other quest rewards here).
Clerics receive the spell Holy Elixir.
Druids receive the spell Sylvan Fire.
Enchanters receive the spell Bliss of the Nihil.
Magicians receive the spell Elemental Siphon.
Monks receive the tome Phantom Shadow.
Necromancers receive the spell Night Stalker.
Paladins receive the spell Wave of Trushar.
Rangers receive the spell Sylvan Burn.
Rogues receive the tome Kyv Strike.
Shadowknights receive the spell Black Shroud.
Shaman receive the spell Breath of Trushar.
Warriors receive the tome Bellow of the Mastruq.
Wizards receive the spell White Fire.

For Taelosian Geomancy Stone Eril:

Bards receive the song Dark Echo.
Beastlords receive the spell Trushar's Frost.
Clerics receive the spell Order.
Druids receive the spell Sylvan Embers.
Enchanters receive the spell Madness of Ikkibi.
Magicians receive the spell Monster Summoning IV.
Necromancers receive the spell Night's Beckon.
Paladins receive the spell Holy Order.
Rangers receive the spell Sylvan Call.
Shadowknights receive the spell Miasmic Spear.
Shaman receive the spell Daluda's Mending.
Wizards receive the spell Telaka.

For Taelosian Geomancy Stone Yiktu:

Bards receive the song War March of the Mastruq.
Beastlords receive the spell Turepta Blood.
Clerics receive the spell Holy Light.
Druids receive the spell Sylvan Infusion.
Enchanters receive the spell Apathy of the Nihil.
Magicians receive the spell Rock of Taelosia.
Necromancers receive the spell Night Fire.
Paladins receive the spell Light of Order.
Rangers receive the spell Sylvan Light.
Shadowknights receive the spell Mental Horror.
Shaman receive the spell Balance of the Nihil.
Wizards receive the spell Black Ice.

Honestly if they add TS in at 66 you'll see most beastlords be far better off than they would have been had it stayed as a KT rune drop.  I know a lot of elemental level people that still aren't KT flagged.  Sure leveling up to 70 will help, but the truth is the spell was still much harder to attain for those that would use it most.  Right now our healing is about where it should be, some people right now are still using the GoD heal instead of the omens one even though they are level 70 believe it or not. There's a chance we'll see a group IoS type buff added to our omens line up, but we'll have to wait and see.  I'm not saying what they did was the best possible solution, but it was an expected/reasonable one given the circumstances.

[TerjynPovar]

That's the thing though Tastian.  At the *exact patch* where TS could have arguably been useful again, they effectively nerfed it making it useless.

Nobody will argue with the fact that as a result our OoW spell got better.

But I'm sorry, it *IS* Short-sighted to do things the way they did.

For that matter, since you brought up difficulty of drops, tell me how many people you predict will have Trushar's Mending *before* hitting level 67 and getting the OoW heal now.

If the answer is 0 (and it is), then WTF were they thinking?

I'm sorry, but this is extremely short-sighted on their part.

[TerjynPovar]

And if you are saying that people are level 70 and are using Trushar's Mending by choice then I truly am boggled.  I'm gonna need an explanation for why they'd be doing that.

If they don't have the spell yet, well fine...but that'll change rapidly.

[Tastian]

No I'm saying some people are still using the level 65 heal now at 70 (and 67-69) because they still don't have the level 67 heal yet.  The heal will become useless, but even now weeks into omens the spell is still seeing use.  Yes group infusion would have likely seen more use with omens coming out, but most that got from KT still wouldn't use it.  Even with this change happening very late people are still benefiting from it.  Here's what I see...

-  Every person that has the level 65 heal now, but not the level 67 heal (for whatever reason) is healing more.

-  Every person that never does KT for the level 65 rune still gains from the level 67 heal improving.

Every single beastlord, even those complaining about the change, gained from it.  Yes some people might have to take upwards of a whole extra minute to fully buff a group and in exchange for that every beastlords healing went up ~20% and was brought back in line.  I honestly don't see how people can't look at the big picture and see what a major fix that was for beastlords overall.  Yes some might spend more time buffing, yes some might heal less often than others.  It's a huge game and beastlords are very versitle I'm willing to conceed that some wouldn't have taken this change if given the option, but do you honestly think overall for beastlords this was a bad thing?

That's with how things stand right now.  However, what if (and it is an if at this point) we see a new TS type of spell added at 66 to our omens lineup now?  Even with the higher level cap lots still aren't KT flagged.  Even if people could use and wanted TS now many still wouldn't have access to it.  That's actually one of the biggest things that I've seen.  A large majority of the people complaining about this change have been people that don't even have the spell.  That never had TS.  That still haven't done rondo or sewers or tipt or vxed.  Sure they can, yes they will, but that shows you how hard and out of place this spell was to get.  

What you have to look at is how many beastlords that had the old version of TS used it?  Then look at how many would now use it and actually be able to reasonably attain it.  Now factor that againist every beastlord gaining healing and every beastlord that had the old rune gaining to their healing.  I had seen beastlords pass on well over 100 KT runes since GoD went live.  With the change I've seen some of those same beastlords getting the rune.  People aren't shy about PM/e-mailing/posting about how they feel and I totally grant some aren't happy with the change and I'm seeing about having a more sensible replacement added in a more sensible way, but seriously the number of people upset at this and negatively effected is very small relatively speaking.

[Dumpty]

What you have to look at is how many beastlords that had the old version of TS used it?

About a half dozen, and more than likely they will all post in reply to this thread proclaiming its greatness.  Meanwhile the other thousands that had it and never memmed it will not say a thing.

[TerjynPovar]

But you keep side-stepping what I'm saying.

They could have raised our OoW heal without changing Tureptan Spirit.

Rather than deny this, you, and others, keep going back to "But it made our OoW heal better!"  I've never denied that this is how Sony's mind works, and what they did.

But this...is...stupid.  It's not like Beastlord healing is overpowered even with the 67 heal as it stands now, so why do we need a useless intermediate spell?  It's not even like TM is so much greater than Chloroblast that it even matters that people are using TM at 70 rather than CB.

And again, going back to the difficulty of Kod'Taz+, this difficulty ensures that no Beastlord in the future will *ever* have TM before the 67 heal spell.  Not one, ever.  This makes zero sense.

Times change...during GoD it was absolutely correct to complain about Tureptan Spirit, as it was pretty worthless then.  However I cannot believe that any of you still support this change now.  Two weeks of worth somehow makes you guys happy, while you complained for months about it's worthlessness in the past...and yet it's guaranteed a lifetime of worthlessness in the future but you guys think it's ok.  Whatever.

[Skanda]

People actually miss this spell?

[Tastian]

"I cannot believe that any of you still support this change now."

No offense man, but maybe it's because some of us are being a bit more reasonable and not expecting an absolutely perfect change.  What you are talking about would mean beastlord healing was boosted without an intermediate step there.  It'd mean one of our GoD spells became more useful well almost every other spell becomes completely useless.  Also note that if it'd stayed where it was even more people would have been kicking and screaming that the spell dropped in KT.  If TS actually became more useful then more people would want it and they'd realize how out of place it was.  *shrugs*

No the solution wasn't as great as it could have been.  The spell could have been changed months ago.  They could have added another spell and just given beastlords more spells than other classes.  They could have just given us 20% more healing on spells and skipped progression steps, etc.  I'll totally grant it could have been done even better, but how it was done wasn't nearly as terrible as some are making it out to be.

With how the change happend we've seen our healing improve both in omens and before omens.  We've seen group infusion removed from being in KT which is the first step to having it appear somewhere else.  That is pretty decent right there.  If we actually get a new TS type of spell added at 66 then things will be so much better for all beastlords than it was before.  However, even if a TS type of spell isn't added in to our omens line up the vast majority of beastlords still benefited greatly from this fix.

[danaconda]

Before I begin, let me point out that I will NEVER under any circumstances be uber. I will never even get past lvl 60. It won't happen. If it does, it will be a long time from now, so none of these changes affect me in any way shape or form. Ok, now back to my regularly scheduled rant.  :D

Why is it a bit more reasonable to not expect a perfect change?  :roll: He's complaining. He's complaining for a very reasonable cause in my opinion. I totally agree with the fact that why would they bother changing the spell now? If they were going to add a new group IoS then they would have done so already.

Why change a spell (that's pretty hard to acquire) and then at the same time make a much easier to get upgrade only 2 levels later? Doesn't make any sense. At all. In any way I can possibly conceive.

So they upgraded our new OoW heal..... how does that affect an old spell? So they can justify why we get a bump in the healing powers of our new OoW spell? They didn't nerf TS to penalize us. They just didn't think it through. Simple as that.

Ok...now some /sarcasm.... be prepared  :wink:

Seems to me that SOE never wanted us to get the spell in the first place. Except that before, they didn't realize that maybe a few beastlords were so totally anal that they wanted a complete spellbook and might find a tiny use for the spell in some rare occassions. So now what to do? Beastlords might actually start competing with other classes for the drops? OH NO!!!!! Quick, lets change the spell to a heal and then add another heal thats infinitely superior to it as a lvl 67 spell that can be easily gotten! That way other classes can /disband the Beastlords that want to get that "crappy" spell. MUAHAHAHAHA!  :twisted:

/sarcasm off

Sorry, couldn't help myself.  :lol:

[TerjynPovar]

I don't know why I'd take offense at that Tastian.

I'm not asking for a perfect change either...I'm asking for a change that makes sense.

Changing it right as OoW comes out is the issue I have with it, and hemming and hawing about making the 67 heal better is just covering up the fact that SoE made a stupid change.

I'll be amazed if they ever add group-IoS back in, because as danaconda said if they were going to they would have already included it.

Frankly, from a non-uber standpoint...I would have taken group-IoS over an improved heal as well, which may be where my argument comes in.  I cast IoS far more often (and was far more annoyed by it) than I ever cast Chloroblast...

[Kitvear]

Well, ditto

If a GM walked up to me and said pick one, it's your choice, I would take group IOS for the same reason.  We are not a healer class, and sort-of a buffing class but I sure do a TON of buffing and IOS takes so long to cast single target on 6 people.

Now if my choice was between group IOS and group Celerity then I would be faced with a hard decision, but between a new heal and group ios it's not even close.

[TerjynPovar]

Now that would be no contest for me.  Give me group Haste! :)

[Hrann]

Well, it would be a toss up for me between a better heal and group IoS.

I can see where you are all coming from, but I think a point is being missed.  

There are people that currently, as in now, have the GoD spell, or have access to get it.  These people do not have the level 67 heal (or few of them do).  There will probably continue to be lag time for at least a little while during which that will continue to be the case.  For THEM, changing a useless spell (because they all have max stats, as discussed to death) to a heal is good.

For the people that don't have that spell, they will likely get the 67 spell sooner than getting it, so whatever happened to that GoD spell doesn't matter for the time being.  Possibly, the fact that it changed to a heal made their heal have more potency, so the change was a benefit to them as well.

Possibly, by the time they do have KT access, the spell would be useless either way.  However, it is possible that we will get a level 66 group IoS before most people who don't have the GoD spell get it, in which case the modifications are win-win for 95% of the population.

Not sure if that was clear... get it?

[Tastian]

" Changing it right as OoW comes out is the issue I have with it, and hemming and hawing about making the 67 heal better is just covering up the fact that SoE made a stupid change. "

This is where we just see things differently.  SoE has a pretty standard way of doing upgrades especially within expansions.  What you are asking for is them to literally fix our healing to be back inline with how it should have been.  To let us continue having 3 useful GoD spells well most classes wind up with 0 and ignoring the fact that the spell still made no sense where it was.

Again what I keep coming back to is if infusion of spirit had stayed where it was and our level 67 heal just mystically became what it was I'd be getting even more upset tells and pms and everything else because people still wouldn't have access to the spell that actually want it.  Most of the people complaining about this right now are complaining about something without even realizing how much they'd complain about the alternative.  Group IoS being gone is a bad thing for some and that is granted, but the spell being out of KT is a good thing.  The other half of that obviously would be it being added back in at a more sensible location.

Also some people are totally dismissing the healing fix because they personally buff more than they cast healing.  Before this change any person could take infusion of spirit from 61 and cast with a bit more time and a bit more mana they could still create the exacct same effect.  Group infusion of spirit didn't even grant a single extra point of str over the previous version.  Now explain to every other beastlord that congratulations you gained zero power to your buffing, you best case scenario saved about 1 minute of time and a few hundred mana and in exchange for that you now have 20% less healing.  Let's take that a step further and get a group version of regrowth and go back to using greater healing.  Again no boost to buffing power, a small gain in convience for some people and at the expense of power in healing again.  

I am granting some people could use group infusion of spirit, but the fact is most people complaining that group IoS is gone are the people that don't even have the spell.  I'd have to double check, but since this change happened I've only had about half a dozen people that actually had the spell group infusion of spirit and lost it and were unhappy with the change.  Meanwhile, I've personally seen 9 different beastlords loot the KT rune that before the change simply let others have.  

No it wasn't the best possible change, but it was a pretty standard change that was asked for and makes sense.  The only real people that lost out on this though are the people that don't cast a heal and do cast infusion of spirit a lot well actually having the spell.  That number is very very small compared to the entire beastlord population that got better at healing.  Like hrann said even some of the people complaining now that would use group IoS wouldn't by the time they actually get it.  *shrugs* just one of those cases where you know you can't please everyone and it stinks, but the truth is it was a good change that most beastlords wanted and are happy with.