Fero changes?

[Kanan]

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.

[hakaaba]

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 :/

[Tastian]

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)

[Jkal_Shihar]

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".

[Drexion]

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

[Bengali]

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.

[Kanan]

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.

[Tastian]

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.

[Kroe]

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.

[Bengali]

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.

[Tastian]

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.

[Kroe]

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'.

[Bengali]

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.

[Gunzak]

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.

[jitathab]

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.