The Spirit Realm

In the developers defense, they did at least get some unique ideas.

Nope, not that I know of.

Sporal Spire I take it is the new Druid Knockback root?

It's chromatic resist check with a neg 50 to add to that... plus it's 30 seconds recast. I was about to freak out until I compared it to VP.

The Pushback on SS is 2. For comparrison VP1 is 8 (VP3 is 16)

So this druid version seems like it'd barely get it out of melee range. Aside from them having a nice root that'll rarely get resisted, at least it doesn't look like we got another one of our abilities improved and given to another class.

Breath of Antraygus.... holy crap! we finally get a PBAOE or am I reading this wrong?

You are, it isn't an all around you, unlimited target spell. It is a cone effect. New target type for a spell, and we get to be the guinee pigs Don't worry, they will actually find a way to make this useful before they discontinue the line for us and ensure that all wizzies and mages reap the benefits of our testing. On the upside when they introduce focus effects that work up to level 90 they will remember to give us a focus for cone based DDs, of which we will have this one spell. We can aug that on with our Fire DD focus Breastplates of course.

heh, you mean the SoE's "phase shaman and slow out of the game by level 100" plan will still have us getting focus effects at level 90?

W(o)(o)T!

Hax

Some info from Lucy about the some of the spells mentioned here.

Skin of the reptile (the druid proc spell). Costs 750 mana, 1 minute duration and a 30 second recast. also, it has a 120 hit limit. The proc name includes the phrase "Trigger rate mod 400", whatever that means. It procs a 600hp heal. I'm not sure what the proc rate would be like, but probably it wont be much better than an HoT under most circumstances.

Spore spiral (the druid root). Costs 200 mana, 1 min duration, 30 second recast, chromatic -50 adjust, push back 2, push up 4.

Lingering sloth (our slow proc). Costs 500 mana, 4.2 min duration, 2.25 second recast (gem refresh time). Other points of interest: (a) its catagory is listed as Dot [Undead], so it may only work on undead mobs; (b) the proc includes "Trigger rate mod 400" in its name; (c) the proc lasts 3 ticks (18 seconds), and is a -50 adjust disease resist spell, again listed as Dot [Undead]. It sort of sugests that there are going to be encounters with large numbers of undead mobs with low disease resists.

Hungry plague (the spreading slow). Costs 450 mana, recast time 2 minutes, duration 1 minute. Checks against disease again, with a -50 adjust. This one doesnt mention undead as a limit. The slow is for 40%, basically its a balance analog of Grummus, except that it has a very long recast time. Based on its infection mode and the long cast time, again it suggests encounters with lots of low disease resist mobs. The recast time suggests that they dont want you doing this too often as well.

That fact that we get 2 specialized disease slows strikes me as a bit odd, they appear to be very specific, which suggests that they are intended for something specific. It may be that a significant number of encounters in the expansion will involve mobs that are very MR, and DR slows (ie shaman) might be required. Perhaps folk who have done more of the raid level testing can shed some light on this. Failing that, we will see in a week or two

Some time ago, Spirit of the Leopard was introduced, which also had a 400% trigger (or proc) rate. It went off 30 times a minute on pets and was swiftly nerfed, and nerfed hard. (I'm sure clerics whinging over on the Sony boards had nothing to do with it! ).

Clerics acquired a ward that has a 400% trigger rate, which dealt damage when the cleric was struck. Unlike Leopard, it wasn't nerfed - it's the same damage that Leopard and Panther were originally. It procs like crazy and is how (uber) clerics can solo in Riftseeker's Sanctum. I've no doubt the druid one will be similarly impressive.

The cleric proc and these two are defensive proc buffs, panther was an offensive proc buff, the mechanism for calculating proc rates is likely different. if the cleric defensive proc buff is also a mod 400 proc rate, the two new buffs will likely proc at the same rate, 4.2 mins in the case of the shaman buff(plus focus extensions - 7 minutes?), and 1 minute (1.5 mins with extensions) or 120 hits (whichever is the shorter) for the druid buff.

For reference, the enchanter AA ability also adds a 400 rate proc. It goes off fairly, but not incredibly often, and, like all random stuff, is kinda spotty, so sometimes you'll proc a ton and other times not at all.

Oh, and i wouldn't put too much (read: Any) stock in Lucy's "category" field - that's field is -not- pulled from the spell data file, and is basically just someone's attempt at categorizing the spell. It's probably wrong at least as often as it's right, especially with new stuff. Unless the spell says "Target Type: Undead" instead of "Target Type: Single" or whatever, it's -not- undead only.