Druid Wishes

Discussion in 'Priests' started by Allayna, Aug 9, 2019.

  1. Ninelder Augur

    I am well aware(I play and raid with both, sometimes boxing both.) Playing group healer or playing raid CC is plenty stressful on its own; combine the two and watch your hair fall out.
    Allayna likes this.
  2. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    So those of you in beta... how did we do this cycle with new spells and AAs?
  3. Szilent Augur

    spells are just spells from 111-115, at least so far

    Druids got a couple great AA moves in consolidating wolf forms (+2 hotkeys back in UI space!) & hastening Season's Wrath (with attention, can maintain it on a single target)
  4. Allayna Augur

    Also, Stormstrike AA altered and it’s timer severed from Firestorm. Now there are 3 AA nukes, ice, magic and fire resist based and they are all separate timers. They no longer do more dmg the higher a mob hp is, but they cost mana and frequently crit for around 220K, iirc?
  5. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    Figured storm strikes days of costing nothing wouldn’t be long for this world after all the other changes they’ve made but it lasted longer than expected.

    3 different timers sounds nice, are the mana costs prohibitively high to use them? Also did they stupidly increase the recast for some reason?

    I assume they refused to remove timer link on our heals so we continue to struggle with reactive healing while other priests continue to multibind fast heals inbetween mob swings and we watch 2-3 rounds land inbetween heals?

    And anything to ease the spell gem squeeze? Folding skin to vines into Blessing of Ro? Blessing of E’ci for ice debuffs? Maybe an AA for Reptile, Growth short term Debuffs that effectively occupy slots when you wanna use them? Aura extension to longer than 6min?
  6. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    So I looked into the values for the Storm Strike change and this seems to be slightly a nerf due to the mana cost.

    They seemed to take the over 75% and under 75% values of the old spell and put the current value in the middle of those two. I guess that’s fine.

    Adding in the Frost variant and splitting out the reuse timer on the Fire variant is a good change.

    However it’s the mana cost that has me most concerned. Unlike other classes a druids strength is preserving mana, not recovering it. Our only mana recovery tool is the bear spell. What we rely on is:

    Specialization - At 285 skill with a 45+ skill from spec aug, we preserve about 16.5% per cast.
    Wolf Form AA - Single wolf form offers 10-25% Preservation. Group wolf form offers 10-15% Preservation. If we split time between them evenly, we are talking roughly 14.5% flat preservation
    Focus Effects - Beneficial and Detrimental Preservation are at 1-22% for an average of 11%
    Sympathetic Effects - Primary/Secondary items with procs on spell casts that return mana to the caster a decent percentage of times

    All of this combined together we spend maybe 50% of the face value of a spell, maybe even less. Obviously every other class has access to Specialization, Focus Effects and Sympathetics. We really separate out due to wolf form alone. That average 14.5% mana preservation allows us to hang with other classes while they use abilities that recover their mana (assuming no mana drains).

    The issue with the mana cost added to these AAs is that they have none of these apply. These AAs aren’t classed under any spell school (even though some like Shared Camo are), which means they don’t benefit from specialization. They, like most AAs, have a default level set to 255, making them ineligible for the mana preservation of Worn and Wolf Form effects as well as not being eligible for sympathetic procs.

    In the end this means we are paying face value on all of those mana costs. I don’t think this is something the developers considered when tossing the mana costs on these AAs.

    I’d like to see the mana cost for all ranks dropped about 15-20% to reflect the fact that our class is weak on mana recovery and strong on preservation which doesn’t apply to these AAs. They seemingly cost more than the Magician and Wizard equivalents, two classes much stronger in mana recovery.
    Allayna and Wulfhere like this.
  7. Szilent Augur

    is the comparison with magician & wizard AA nukes the one you want?

    Force of Elements XVIII MAG/254 2200 0.5s 0s 0s Magic -65 Single 1: Decrease Current HP by 24375

    Force of Will XXI WIZ/254 1750 0.5s 0s 0s Magic -25 Single 1: Decrease Current HP by 19500

    Nature's Bolt XXIV DRU/254 2250 0.5s 0s 0s Magic -25 Single 1: Decrease Current HP by 36500
    Sancus likes this.
  8. Ninelder Augur

    This is misleading and reactionary. Not going to go into what all effects wizards that make their stuff better. I am sure you already know.

    His problem is fear of being oom. Other classes haven't had the whole "fear of being oom" problem for a very long time. If a druid dies or gets hit with mana drains, your raid leader might as well have brought another class, any other class. That druid is going to try to find a place to sit down so that he might find a way to be useful 5 mins later, while his group dies around him.

    He is worried about the whole becoming completely useless problem, that no other class has had to worry about for a over a decade now. This is what causes all druids to be overly cautious with their mana. But thanks for chiming in with half a segue of misleading information.

    To answer your question Darchon it's not that bad. I was using more mana but not enough to make me cautious. I have not tested how its interacting with ADPS. Most ADPS has a mana cost requirement, so adding a mana cost is actually a good thing for druids DPS-Wise. While it is true that before a druid could nuke with this right after a rez, I don't think that recently dead druid DPS is going to top anyone's list of game-breaking problems. A better fight would be to ask the devs to make the bear pet work while you have rez effects(currently it does not.)
    Allayna likes this.
  9. Raeff the Druid Lorekeeper

    I agree with Darchon and Ninelder. The mana costs on these AA, while seemingly reasonable when viewed out of context, become burdensome and unreasonable when viewed in the larger context of a class that has terrible sustained mana regen (my BST- a hybrid class - has better mana regen than my druid by quite a bit!), no substantive way to recover mana upon death, and consistently high mana cost to the whole spell kit.

    Moreover, the damage of these spells seems a nerf. I can accept that slightly nerfed damage IF some attention is paid to our other areas of weakness.....the aforementioned issues along with burdensome long cast times, unconsolidated buff and DOT/buff lines, spell/timer linkages that are obsolete, and lack of a HOT.

    Without substantive attention in those areas, these recent changes to AA nukes will make little impact on our value to group/raid or solo playing.

    Fine, keep the mana cost as is, but PLEASE consider increasing the damage slightly, and PLEASE give us some major attention in our other many areas of weakness.
    Allayna likes this.
  10. Dagum Elder


    Pretty horrible so far. Spells cost more and do just about the exact same as they used to.

    For instance horde of Polybiads: from 17089 mana to 20507 mana. From 13000 damage to 15150... So your paying 3.5k mana to do 2.1k more damage.

    NBW: 18.3k mana to 22k mana. While doing 5k more damage...
    Sunflame: 2k more mana for 2k more damage.
    Chill of the wildtender: 4k mana for 1k damage on the front and 3k damage on the back.

    Sadly between having TS/GMM gear of last expansion and having the final group gear of this expansion will equate to an extra 14,368 mana. So far there is nothing new for mana regin. We don't even get general mana regin aa's in archetype(last upgrade so far is Ring of Scale)

    This is just data. In my opinion we will be less powerful than in TBL after the expansion. The stupid healing spells are still linked. We still get our stupid Heal over time on our debuff(the one that does 4k hps and we have no aa's to help) The debuffs are still split.

    Maybe start campaigning next expansion. For some odd reason some people thought that we wanted a group heal over time. Thank god that didn't go through. Anyways, the dev's are taking even more mana from us with no way to regin it back. Be prepared to sit and med through several mobs this expansion.
  11. kizant Augur

    Wizards use this trick where we pick and choose when to use our AA nukes because they cost too much mana. Most try to use them during a burn when we get the most out of them and then stop. We may have double the crit damage of a druid during a raid burn but factoring in our longer re-use times and reduced base damage you'll probably get more out of them than us.

    And considering the change to Enhanced Maladies it makes sense that your DoT base damage wasn't increased too much this time around.
  12. Allayna Augur

    Also I'm assuming you linked base damages and base mana costs. Skews the numbers a bit.
  13. Dewey Augur

    I wish for more ports. More ports to more places. Also more places to bind to use TL to bind.

    kk thanks.
  14. Dagum Elder



    if the spell cost 22k mana, and the user has 250k mana as a pool. Then the user needs to have 11% of a mana pool just to cast the 1 spell. This is true even if the user has a gift of mana.

    Do you have a druid parse in which you'd like to share on mana vs damage?
  15. Rolaque Ancient

    My parse from Sunday night. I finished with about 25-29% mana, though had a bard swapped into the group at about 25% boss health. Essentially, mana usage was no more than pre-patch. I was managing just fine.

    Dec 1, 2019 - GMM 1 Rustbottom, Grinder of Gears in 771s, 242.6m @314683
    -- DMG: 242621294 -- DPS: 317983 -- Scaled: 314683 -- DoT: 168575077 -- DirDmg: 73977738
    -- 3dot-4nuke - additional AA nukes (Nature's line)
    Rolaque: spell casts (heals not shown)
    --- Cyclonic Roar Rk. III: 36
    --- Nature's Blistering Wrath Rk. III: 33
    --- Anabatic Roar Rk. III: 25
    --- Sunflame Rk. III: 12
    --- Dissident Winds: 11
    --- Season's Wrath VII: 8
    --- Horde of Polybiads Rk. III: 7
    --- Summer Sunflame Rk. III: 7
    --- Nature's Fire XXIV: 6
    --- Nature's Bolt XXIV: 5
    --- Nature's Frost XXIV: 5
  16. Stephen51 Augur

    To quantify I only play a druid as an alt, which seems to make a difference.

    The changes to the AA nukes are positive on paper, but in practice the lack of mana recovery makes the reality of playing worse.
    I would suggest reducing the lockout of the regenerative warder spell and/or increasing the mana recovered. Also introduce a bigger regenerative AA not linked to the spell lockout in line with shaman cannibalise.
  17. Rolaque Ancient

    The AA nukes don't act like spells, they don't trigger procs, nor do any mana reduction or focus affect them. Accordingly, they are not spells, except for the fact that they consume mana, they crit, and they can be resisted based on whether they are fire or cold or magic. In other words, DGB gets to have our tiny cupcake and eat it too.

    Bah humbug :(
  18. Petalonyx Augur

    What proportion of DPS are the AA nukes?

    Does the 6/5/5 AA nuke total represent a near optimum/maximum use of the AA nukes?

    Im asking bc they sometimes feel clunky and can cut into my actual casts if they snag or double cast on my druid box, and i want to know how much I'd be missing out on if i move them to lower priority.

    And, yes my druid is having more mana issues in group grinds now, as many have noted :(

    I kinda wish they were combined, either as a wave of nukes, or like our fire-ice combo nukes, with a lower cooldown (with commensurate dmg adjust).
  19. Rolaque Ancient

    The Nature's AA nukes did 1.3% of the total damage in that parse. That puts them in the useless, why bother, category for a raid parse where the bulk of the damage is coming from dots. I used them just to see how they would perform. The results are clear - the regular spell nukes did 23.8% of the total, and the spell procs did the remaining 5.4% (total 30.5% dd dps)

    In a group, or solo, mana conservation is paramount. The AA nukes use too much mana for limited results. Their advantage is that you can cast them in rapid succession. The practical situation is that they all won't hit for max because you won't usually have all the debuffs on the mob. So you're stuck using the fire nuke and maybe the magic, but not the cold.
    Waitwhat likes this.