The Spirit Realm

Great work on this!

In looking at the damage we can do we have DoTs, nukes, and Panther. Well our nukes are laughable but often the only additional damage we can cast for fast groups.

The point I want to make is our DoTs should not be reduced because we have Panther. In any situation we need to choose how we will do damage. In some groups we use only Panther. In others it's better to use DoTs. In others we might nuke/rain. There are times we do a blend of these but still have the limitations of time and mana in how much we can do.

We should be able to contribute about the same amount of damage regardless of the group and the mobs. Shaman should be good for any group, not just groups with a high number of pets/melee. Both our DoTs and nukes/rains need to be upgraded for resists, amount of damage, and cast times so our choice is how to do the damage in any situation not merely "what else can I cast Panther on?".

I'm not sure what the correct benchmark should be but if I could do as much damage in a 40 sec. fight with pure DoTs or nukes as I can with 4 pets/melee Panthered I would consider all 3 to be about even. A very strong part of the damage comparison consideration is that I can have 4 targets with Panther for the entire fight, not just part way through it, and Panther is almost unresistable.

atleast mention that a shaman would also be slowing, I think this is a great artile and the info in it could be used to lobby with our top 10 list

Interesting compilation. I'm hesitatant to make this point, because I have a feeling some ass designer is going to figure out a way to have DoTs get partially resisted all the way through, but you might mention something when comparing to DD nukers, that DDs may be partially resisted, but DoTs are all or nothing. A partial resist of a DoT = no landing DoT. I can poison nuke a mildly resistant debuffed mob and hit for some amount of damage (usually full) probably 9/10 times. I will see a poison DoT land maybe 6/10 times.

while this is a minor point, but druids can actually unresistably debuff the MR of animals. The spell isn't used very often (but that is not to say it isn't used.)

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?i ... ource=Live

category is: charm
it isn't really a charm spell, but an animal only resist debuff.

fyi, the in game discription is: "Spell Effect: Dazzles your targeted animal with the glamour of Tunare, making them more vulnerable to magic."

for accuracy it should prolly be added as a side not in this compelation.

PS I have a very strong suspision the debuff is actually more than the 20 mr lucy shows. I would say more in the 40-50 range.

Uh, that's just not true, wsbsteven. Every class can stack dots from the same resist line np, unless that dot includes something more than damage.

Druid spells of the same line stack just fine, same as shaman ones do. Thats not a unique ability to us. I usually have 2-3 druid MR dots running at once on goat kills since they are immune to fire and damn near immune to ice.

Well my last post was not as well orginized as the page.

As to the druid dots stacking, go take all your magic (the insects line) dots BELOW level 50 and see if they stack. They will not.

Take a necro. Take anyone of there dot lines and try and stack any in the same line that are BELOW 50 and they will not (the possable exseption is VoS and there next one down, as VoS was coded as a shaman spell first and was given to them later on). also notice that besides VoS necros share no other spells with us below 50. once above they got plague and Ebolt, Both our spells and that was the first time they could stack a pair of posions just like a shaman.

Druids. Only when you got your Kunark dots would they stack with a lower lvl one. was a big thing back in kunark that the wing would stack with the lower one for you all.

This used to be a class trait that was farmed to all other classes. But that was so long ago we can not ask them to undue it to be honest. the only shine we got left is that IF we wanted to we could stack every dot in our book from level 1 (or was it 5 we got our first one) all the way through to level 70. all other classes can only go back as far as level 50+ stuff. Not like thats much a bone but we got it.

man its got to reallly suck not being able to slap on a lvl 40ish 36 a tick dot on a mob in a modern XP group. more than likely though, the shaman dot would bounce any ways, due to lack of resist check

My guild has four bards, and is looking out for another stellar applicant to join the team. They as well as we collectively know exactly how much bards are capable of. It's like pulling teeth to get one of them to debuff bosses consistently.

What are these bard things you're speaking of? Lucky if my guild has one bard to cover the clerics on raids. Can't remember the last time I actually saw one debuff a mob.

Covering clerics doesn't preclude debuffing. Songs aren't melee range only.

Agree, bards don't like to debuff because its not as flashy--people expect four buffs in their song window whenever theres a bard. Also, when they do debuff, they don't tell anyone =p

About debuffs that were not included in the article:

Everyone should be aware of the fact that adding additional debuffs will actually emphasize the problem. HoS debuffs FR, MR and CR. No class in EQ disposes of CR DoTs. Shaman are the only class with no resist modification for Magic DoTs, while Necros and Druids have their largest modifiers on them(in case of the Necro it's only of limited use as their leech line doesn't really make the top DoT set up damage wise, but if they had to, they'd still be able to add significant damage through it).
Fire is already the resist that can be debuffed by more than any other resist by a large margin (very important issue). Druids' and Necros' highest DPS DoTs are fire based, while Shamans do not have a fire based DoT in their arsenal.

So, adding additional debuffs, especially in the case of HoS(which is the debuff that Bards actually use on a more frequent level), would only add a further disadvantage to Shaman in this article and we didn't want that. We wanted to prove our points by being more than objective in the presentation of facts, and I think we succeeded.

i have played a bard longer than a shaman, and ill tell you right now, 99% of the time, bard debuffing = HoS, thats it. part of the reson is a group expexts to see a box full of bard songs, another part is that hos isnt resistable, can be juiced up with a good drum mod while the dots resist, makin them a worthless 3 seconds each time. Now HoS lasts 18 seconds, not 1 minute like their slows, so generally on highly reisty mobs,i put hos in place of warsong, and keep up a normal twist rate. its the best debuffing that cn be dont constantly, but its impact for dps is marginal, since most of what it does helps already massivly affected resist catagories