The Spirit Realm

by **Finori** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:04 pm

If you still have the parses, why don't you exclude the proc and pet damage and then report back. You need probably longer than 1h to normalize the damage from a pet proc weapon. I am amazed that you spend all that time parsing yet didn't care for a setting to improve the statistical relevance of your results.

Website · by **Jaraman** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:21 pm

Website · by **Yesak** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:10 am

The problem with debuffs is we have the best slows and that is all anymore. We used to be top at the multi-resist debuffing with our mal___ line spells. This is no longer the case. The top debuff we always have shared with mages and still do, however, the usefulness of the unresistable debuff has really been marginalized. I get a resist message on our AA (that we share with mages) almost never. Used to be no big deal to share with mages because our unresistable line was a nice advantage. Not so much anymore. The cripple line has been pretty much abandoned for shaman, and given to druids. While slightly annoying, nothing game breaking and worth making a huge fuss about. Just means we are not the top debuffer, might argue best all around but then bards beat us there. So besides slow that is HIGHLY mitigated to the point of no real difference in shaman vs. chanter, we are not even close to top debuffing.

Another issue is CC. Enchanters are kings of CC, no issue there, give them all the help they can get. But what I have issues with is that druids and rangers both got VP-like spells. That used to be a shaman exclusive. Again, nothing ground breaking or worth crying over but you can note it.

As far as DPS goes, here's my take. Way back when (PoP era, and probably OoW too to a lesser extent) druids were the best DPS of the priest classes. But the gap wasnt very big. The longer the fights went on, the more DoTs the shaman could stack, the closer the parse would be. Shorter fight, druid would pwn with nukes. Just the nature of the beasts when comparing nukes and DoTs. But overall druids were only slightly ahead. These days, druids are far and away the best DPS. This is where I take issue. Our DPS should be better to narrow that gap with druids still being ahead. I dont ever want to overtake them, I just want a smaller gap.

Now moving on to the group enhancement. We are NOT the best overall group enhancers. We are the best group enhancers for a CERTAIN TYPE of group: IE melee heavy. For caster heavy groups, enchanters do much better with their aura that adds a nuke proc, mind buffs and CC ability to keep those pesky mobs away from the casters that tend to die quickly. Think about it, our main buffs (champ, lynx, unity) do pretty much nothing for a caster. Nice for caster pets but do you want to take a shaman for that group to make a pet better or a chanter to make the caster better? Not even close in my book. Gimme the chanter any day of the week. Only advantage would be our back up healing, but with mercs around I rarely find myself having to heal unless its an emergency where a chanter could have CC'd things and solved the issue alot easier. Again, here I have no problem. A caster heavy group SHOULD have a chanter instead of a shaman and a melee heavy group SHOULD have a shaman instead of a chanter. I think this is the way things ought to be.

These are just my thoughts on the topic. Again, I dont think much needs to be changed other than finding some ways (that i've outlined before) to improve out DPS and therefore usefulness in groups. The rest has been some much needed balancing and loving for chanters and druids. But I could be totally mistaken, and that is why people who play more than me post on this

Website · by **Kumudil** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 2:19 pm

by **Finori** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 5:27 pm

Thank you. This is much closer to what you would expect from Champion:
720 = 1.07 * X
X = 673
1.1 * X = 740

Of course it is mind-boggling that the pet proc alone accounts for 20%. They already admitted that it was unintended but that they won't change it.

Website · by **Brohg** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:00 am

It's much more for beastlords, and to a lesser but still significant extent, shadowknights. Those guys have pet boosting AA.

Website · by **MiniChu** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:15 am

Website · by **Yesak** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 9:14 am

Not complaining about roots. More power to you to have all the kind of root spells you want. Just the knockback part is the thing. The ability to park a mob and kick it away from the group in one spell is key. If I remember right, the knockback root was shaman only. I think chanters had some sort of knockback stun or the like but VP was shaman only tool.

*shrugs* just my opinions and like I said in a previous post, I think shaman are doing pretty well and all I'd want improved is our personal DPS

Website · by **MiniChu** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 10:54 am

Heh... well; I will give you that much - we did not use to have knockback in our roots.

But before you cry havoc, let me illustrate how this is excactly what I mean with the above statement - "You are pure, so spells work as you expect them to".. Our knockback is not even big enough to move a mob out of melee range, let alone a groups. If I go toe-to-toe with a mob and root it, it will still hit me. With a little care and patience, we can position the mob around, and that is the only use the knockback has for us - however it requires alot of casts, and I would estimate I'd need at least 4 if not more casts of my root, to move a mob as far as VP... so by no means is this a CC tool that allows us to control a mob, tossing it out of harms way to save our group in one spell... I've killed plenty of rogues, using my roots when they think a mob is under control

It's simply a small boon to help us move things abit around after stuff is under control - such is the life of a hybrid

Website · by **Brohg** » Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:48 pm

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=13791

Virulent Paralysis (Rk. IX)
Push Back: 18

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=9919

Vinelash Cascade Rk. III
Push Back: 2

Try NINE casts to match VP.

The real difference isn't the knockback, of course, but the Target Type. Totally different abilities to me, I was never bothered at all.

Website · by **MiniChu** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 4:35 am

Not entirely right Brohg,

You are comparing the wrong spells. Vinelash is our AE Cone type root n' snare that we share with druids - while this is a wonderful root, the knockback is close to not even being noticeable as you mention yourself.

You need to compare VP to our lvl 70 root (yes, lvl 70) if anything; Elddar's Grasp: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?i ... ource=Live
This has a knockback of 4 - meaning 4.5 as small as VP - so still not even close to the Knockback of VP - but a tad better compared to Vinelash.

Edit: Note btw, this spell is level 70 and is the result of the PoR spell missions. So this is hardly something that has been introduced with SoF or even that recently to inflict on the Shammy VP uniqueness.

Website · by **cliffy** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:35 pm

And even before Elddar's Grasp druids had Spore Spiral from DoD level 69 http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?i ... ource=Live

Same knockback as rangers' Elddar's Grasp though, so VP is still significantly more knockback per cast.

by **Rommuluss** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:56 pm

Good question.

And the evidence is crystal clear, by my own experience, observation and empirical evidence:

Shaman were put out to pasture some time ago. Other classes come onto this board and try to make chicken salad out of chicken s***. But it aint cooking, Mr. Puck.

Our s0-called 'attrititable DPS is largely a joke( except maybe Epic, haha), debuffing has long since been no better or worse than other support classes, and our DPS blows.

As the author of this posts correctly states, we got melded into the 'priest class interchangeable', making us indistinguishable, boring and unquestionably overated.

The Future for Shaman: There is none without a serious marked change in attitude among the developers.

As I posted elsewhere, they are 'aware' of the problem. But since Pack of Ainna was our last 'great new spell'....I won't hold my breath.

On a side note: There is no future in our guild for Shaman. No applications will be accepted. Since there are so many better ways to use a raid slot....Cleric or Druid comes quickly to mind.....or virtually any DPS. This Shaman will be commanding his guild from the sidelines when there is a WL.

(All Class boards have one thing in common: Complaining about their Class' power and so forth. But this makes perfect sense, since the essence of this game is about power progression. Its built into the very fabric of this game. So, I make no apologies for wanting my class to be improved.)

Rommuluss
7th Hammer
Diligence

Website · by **Ughbash** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 8:26 am

by **Finori** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 1:18 pm

Website · by **Kumudil** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 1:26 pm

by **Finori** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 1:47 pm

Website · by **Kumudil** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 2:17 pm

Website · by **Brohg** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 2:25 pm

by **Finori** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 2:39 pm

Website · by **Kumudil** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 6:53 pm

"Any merc is by far a better mainhealer than you." I may should have been more specific.

Dannal's Mending Rk. II
Slot 1: Increase Hitpoints by 5249 @L85
Cast Time: 3.75 sec
Recast Time: 1.500 sec

group healfocus max is 55% which on medium should come out as 27.5%
so shaman heal lands for a medium of 6692 HP

where are the crit chances with max. AAs now? around 30%
this would make it a medium of 8700 HP heal, but mixed by the RNG from 5,3k to 13,4K

The mercs heal is fix some 10,7k heal straight, each single heal back to back
I am under the impression that they can cast that as fast as we can, am I wrong with that?

plus they have a fastheal like Twelfth Night isnt it?
Increase Hitpoints by 5355
Cast Time: 0.50 sec

T5 mercs can do their healing back to back far longer than any real priest, isn't it?

Don't they have promised also?

Around 25% more heal each heal back to back and no streaky RNG, for me that looks far better. (And thats after you got your max focus, not when you face those named first time).

For me with access to group-foci this looks like the winner isn't the shaman. What am I missing?

by **Finori** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 7:44 pm

Website · by **Sowslow** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 8:18 pm

Website · by **Brohg** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 11:04 pm

Who will keep people from dying better has little to do with all of those numbers. The only time a mercenary is better than Brohg is when Brohg is afk.

Website · by **Kumudil** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 1:58 am

Website · by **Ughbash** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:26 am

Sounds like the problem is not your healing... Sounds like the problem is your tank.

Website · by **Kumudil** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 9:49 am

When your whole group isn't raiding, you end up with a tank in groupgear;)
Our Tank is a Paladin and as he was the one who missed less of all aktions, he was always the one ahead of the rest of the group gearwhise.
I am at over 3k aas, he's above 3.3k AA now. None of the whole group is missing more than 2 slots of T5 gear now.

When we started exploring T5 we hadn't finished all T4 gear yet, because we got boring on camping the T4 essences. Even for a bloodfield trash our cleric needed already help from me, to keep the tank alife. A second trash in camp was almost a warranty for a wipe. Some later we went there with merc instead of cleric, when cleric was off due to the afternoon shift at work. Merc chainhealing + some patches from me worked. There would have been no way to be there without the merc at the days the cleric wasn't on, atleast not be there and pull mobs and survive.

Its not about the content, I like it most, when it is challenging. With me as only priest in group, I dont think we would have made it into T5. Numbers do count, when the merc can heal 25% better any single heal back to back and even this needs once a while support because tanks hp bar is going down.
No Ai or Unity is going to compensate that.

Today I might could mainheal there. But we are almost done and whole group is around maxgear of this expansion. You can't name that challenging content anymore for us. If I would try to mainheal, for shure still there would be no way to to all the shaman stuff. I will be locked chainhealing as fast as possible with unity or AI when falling behind. 2 mobs in camp are OK stuff now for our group but 3 trash in camp we still have to pull all we can to survive.

Website · by **dohrian** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 10:49 am

I agree with you Kumudil, I am also all T5 but T4 BP, 2k6+ AAs, and with a war friend tanking about the same, but I do not think we could handle 1 named + 2 trash in Dranik (Xonea when I forgot to put boxed ranger's tank on passive on named pull) without cleric merc...
Group is war + T4 merc healer, me (shaman) + T5 healer, boxed ranger + T4 merc dumb tank.

Website · by **Sowslow** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 11:21 am

Not exactly sure what you are trying to say, is it that no one priest can heal top content by themselves? As other have mentioned, to do top end group content you need top end group players. I don't think I have seen anywhere that a top end group priest is able to handle 3 in camp with out an extra healer or CC? Are you saying clerics, and even merc cleric, can handle this and for an extended period of time? Seems you need a better puller, better CC or another healer if you are going to get 3+ in camp. I don't think you are going to get the game changed to accommodate that.
You have 2 AA debuffs that can be clicked between cast and you can precast lass, champ, panther and hot. So, I also don't see where you cannot do your "other" shaman duties while being main healer. The only big thing you cannot do if you are chaining heals is dot or dd. But if you are the main healer, then main heal. I don't see the problem.

Website · by **Kumudil** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 12:14 pm

Sry if it was confusing what I wrote.

Now in almost max T5 gear I might be able to Mainheal.

With the real cleric or a merc healer we now can also survive 3 mobs. When we started in T5, a second mob was likely a wipe. That was just to illustrade the difference between T4 gear and T5 gear.

"As other have mentioned, to do top end group content you need top end group players."
But when you are growing up and doing progression and want to be the mainhealer, you should be able to kill a T5-named with the whole group in T4 gear only, otherwhise you have no chance to get to the T5 gear, isn't it?

Kill T5 mobs with full T5 gear is a complete other level of difficulty. Killing them in raidgear is another pair of shoes again.

Aside from that .. our puller is the Paladin almost exclusive and I love it. Keeps you from getting bored

If the whole night there would be just singles inc, I might would fall asleep mid session.

Website · by **Yesak** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:12 pm

In most normal groups, I can main heal without much of a problem. If there's a pull of 3 or so, a cleric can heal better just because they can heal faster for more dmg. Same with druid. But chaining our heal works more or less equally well. If the tank isnt very good, a merc healer or a real cleric isnt going to be doing great anyway.

My problem is that on raids, I cannot reliably keep my group up without some sort of back up healing. My guild is almost through Crystallos, just missing BM and Kera and working our way through SoD raids. The main problem I have is that I need some sort of group heal more often than what AI gives me. In the best circumstances I can do it but too often my groupmates are dying before I can do much. Anyone else have this problem, or do I just suck at healing?

Website · by **Ughbash** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:58 pm

Website · by **Brohg** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:42 am

At that point of progression... Vyskudra is where you're losing guys? Vyskudra is a challenging encounter for everyone, that's just the breaks. Where in SoD are you?

Website · by **Yesak** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 12:31 pm

We just beat Showdown at the Crystal Core on our first (maybe second) attempt. We've been farming Rott and Queen Mal on low attendance days. Not sure how much more we've done in SoD. We've been pushing hard on Crystallos, only been in there about 2 months. Spent the better part of 2-3 weeks just on Air 2. We also only raid 3 days a week so we progress a tad bit slower than most guilds.

It is not only on air 2 that I seem to be losing people. TBH, I dont know if this is because of my flaws in healing, or the fact that my melee DPS crew tries too damn hard to post the best parse they can and ignore their audio triggers for AEs and what have you. This is a known flaw for them and parses have become a touchy subject.

If it is common for a raiding shaman to be able to keep his or her group up in raids then I'm tending to think it is either a flaw in my healing style or my melee DPS people not trying to avoid damage. Just a few thoughts

by **Finori** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 1:09 pm

In my experience I can always keep my group alive if my group members stick to "proper protocol", i.e. do not grab agro, watch riposte, listen to the AEs. There is only 1 fight where my healing is really tested - that's the end of trophy room. We still haven't figured out how to completely eliminate the auras and just power through them. Unfortunately the fail mechanics have become so severe that is almost impossible to keep someone alive when they kick in.

Website · by **Kruzar** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 5:28 pm

Being a melee raider... I just want to say that Air 2 is a horrible place to be trying to get up in the parses. Your melee should be concentrating on getting all the various adds down, paying attention to the big tempest, and listening for the emotes. There is one nasty one on that event, that if it is not cured is a bad viral... if your melee are not listening for that, they are really messing up your raid force. I think it is static charge or something. Other than that... the fight is not that hard...

For ou guild the fight takes like 30 minutes or so.... I haven't really timed it... but it is not a fight for burning the dps hard.

Website · by **Samanna** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 10:43 pm

So... it sounds like the Shaman is still very desirable in the group game... which is good, because after a real, live in-person lunch with Yesak and a Cleric and a Shadowknight, I am thinking about re-installing EQ again. Perhaps I can make my way on up to 85, even if I can't find the time to raid.

:!:

Website · by **WaringMcMarrin** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 10:54 pm

Yes EQ is evil and will suck you back into the game!!!!!

Website · by **Zeone** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:33 pm

I have no issues with keeping my grp alive during raids aslong as they dont do dumb things monks aura is a good example and take agro. But it would be nice to be able to dps some and actually make a signifcant damage =0) we use too and i think they should give some back!!!!

Website · by **Ughbash** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:04 am

The Spirit Realm

Who is online