The Spirit Realm

Disclaimer: Not in beta, not subject to NDA, etc etc.

The latest changes to the Beta spells have shown up on Lucy - thanks to the way EQ development works, every time Live is patched it gets the latest spells file.

So, without further ado, in Underfoot we will be getting:

L83 -
5-tick slow (lassitude style - should share the significant benefits of that line and no, I'm not saying what!) and a 5-tick regen on the target's target. NB, this regen will strip off any normal regen spells due to poor slot stacking.

L84 -
Now debuffs more than it did before, still a useless spell though (unless you like training yourself and dying)

L85 -
This has had the DS removed and no longer procs Healing Twincast. Instead, it casts our ice nuke on the targetted mob, all for only 1600 mana! A complete waste of space.

L85 -
18 second reuse, casts one of 3 effects:

AE slow (around 40%, 1 min duration)
AE snare! (30%, 1 min duration)
AE massive AC debuff (504AC for rank 2, 1 minute duration)

Our BP click has been changed from a group click to a single-target click too, it's a mini-Vie plus regen click.

No change on our new AAs, Rabid Bear for example still has an unparsably small DPS upgrade and a whopping 10-point increase in its HoT (from 560 to 570 a tick).

can you post where you found the new updates for which aa lines will be upgraded, the main reason I will be buying underfoot is
for the aa line upgrades and I am curious which ones will be available. thanks

Thanks, Retron, for the info. The only one that interests me in the slightest is Splash of Runedust. Has information regarding the chance the spell has to cast the slow, snare or AC debuff been released? I would "assume" each has a 33% chance to proc each time the spell is cast, but you guys know what assuming does.

This is just sad.

So we get an 83 spell that is a waste of time and mana to cast, an 84 spell that summons a train, and two 85 spells one wastes mana and the other most likely causes MASSIVE AE agro.

I can see why we are getting an AA with fade on it, we are going to need it to survive our own spells.

Looking closer, the new "slows" appear to be using a different format/mechanism.
Compare it says decrease attack speed by 75%.
While says Inhibit Melee Attacks by (40%).
The proc'd slow shows Decrease Attack Speed by 40%.

Could this "Inhibit Melee Attacks" be an overcap slow or some other non-slow melee mitigation? Why have 2 different types of slow on one spell? Maybe I'm just getting my hopes up that this expansion isn't a complete waste.

The NDA has been lifted now so your free to elaborate

Only discussions of Underfoot are policed on the sony forums.

I'm an old shaman, started playing before kunark. I usually just lurk on the forums, but i've gotten active lately on the main boards, and i've been in beta this round. Figured i'd stop by and drop some details since no one else had yet, and the NDA is down.

Healing Counterbias:
The slow got boosted to mirror Balance of Discord (75%, -60 resist mod, 1.5 min duration), so it's a fairly reliable first cast that gets a nice HoT fired off as well. The mana costs are getting reduced a bit to the 1100 range soon. I think it's supposed to have Halcyon heal values per tick, but it currently ticks for a little over 3k. It used to tick for over 4k, but that was unintended, and it has been bouncing around ever since.

The HoT still goes in the buff bar, but it was changed to not overwrite our regen (yay). It still stacks with our other HoTs, and listlessness recourse, so it's very nice actually.

Winds of Malis:
We got spreading malo changed to a free-target (click spell gem, then position the target circle where you want it casted) AE malis. I think the numbers are the same as malis rank 1, which is the same as malosinete, as this and malosinete will overwrite each other. It seems to be unresistable, and hits up to 5 mobs currently. 700 mana i think. Fast cast/recast.

Frost Gift:
Not much to add here. Basically Ice Sheet and we get twinheal. It goes to song window, and has a 2-cast limit, but we can recast it every 12 seconds now. Twinheal not working on HoTs right now, but it CAN if they want them to. Mana cost is based off nuke + Dannal's cost. It's a bit unfair to us since our costs are overinflated as it is, but the druid and cleric versions are based off the same calculations.

Splash of Runedust:
Probably not done yet. May very well get changed, but no other info than that atm.

Edit: Oh yeah, AAs. Not a lot new, and even less new that's worthwhile. Inconspicuous Totem is really, really nice. Escape on a 10 min timer? You bet it's useful. Not bad for splitting mobs with VP either. We get a new rank of Canni AA, which doesn't really fix our mana regen issues, but is nice nonetheless (8k hp for 4800mana iirc). We also get some of our best lines upgraded. Shield block, healing boon/adept/gift, DoT crit stuff, nuke crits, more hastened VP, etc. The count is kind of low, but i'm not too disappointed.

Agree to Sordar. About Spells and AAs that pretty much sums the actual state up.
Healing Counterbias and Frost gift will be the 2 musthaves.

It's an aa iirc not a spell but im surprised no shaman has mentioned the Necromancers "Canni" unless that was pulled that I didnt see

Haha, yeah necros get the best mana regen in the game now lol. They get a crazy new AA Lich. It's about 27k hp for 22k mana over 54 seconds. The cooldown was about 3 minutes, not sure if that will get changed. Meanwhile we get a little bump in our Canni AA. I'm glad for them, but i don't understand how they get such an upgrade when we get turned down when asking for improvements. You'd think they'd be more hesitant to give such an ability to a DPS class anyway.

Do you mean this?: "Death Bloom, costs 12 AA, 3 minute reuse ... 3k damage/tick returns 2472 mana/tick for 30 seconds. Beneficial duration extension can boost this to 54 seconds." (Necrotalk.com) Pretty interesting; good for the Necros. If mob HP is being boosted in Underfoot as I have read, they will be happy campers.

Yep, that. Crazy-good mana regen, as i said.

Currently it's feeling like Canni is now a disadvantage. Because our spells cost so much more mana than equivalent spells from other classes we have the canni to keep up with the extra mana costs. That's not an advantage, that's a disadvantage.

Really Canni needs to be changed to be 25K damage, returning 15K mana or something reasonable

Yeah canni aa upgrade wasn't even on the agenda until I mentioned it then they did it. I am unsure if my mentioning it was bad or good, like if they decided once they gave it to us they couldn't give us something else since they gave us development time to do the aa upgrade.