Which of the following reduces incoming damage the most? Partially negated slow and cripple Or Druids attack debuffs?? Even partially negated I believe slow and cripple but friend swears Druid debuffs are more. Talking in group setting so base pop mobs, named and mission bosses. Parsed a little ourselves but we are behind the curve and had a lot of variance making it hard to tell. Thanks for the information.
What era? As waring implies, if the mob is 100% slowable then slow/cripple might be the better option. The druid debuffs used to draw a lot of aggro but I don't think they do as much now (anecdotal).
Sorry I wasn't more clear. CoV and ToV. Partially slowed meaning the middle option of mostly, partially or slightly to average out its mitigated impact. Lets say we are fighting 3 white con mobs in Temple of Veeshan zone CoV expansion. Would I take less incoming damage from the 3 if they are all partially slowed and crippled by a shaman? Or would I take less incoming damage if they were attack debuffed by a druid? Assumie you can only have one or the other for the purpose of our question.
It'd be hard to believe the slow from shaman, even mostly mitigated, would be beat by an attack debuff but I honestly don't know how anyone would easily be able to come to a conclusion. I believe the more ac your tank has would also skew the attack debuff parse due to the nature of attack and AC so it might partially benefit a tank with less AC more but I still find it hard to believe a slow wouldn't triumph in all situations.
What I was saying is when you see the message partially slowed, that can still vary from mob to mob/zone to zone which means your slow can have a different impact on dps depending on those factors.
Which of the many druid attack debuffs you mean? First off, how many do you need to land for full effectiveness? With slow, I believe usually the caster must reduce the magic resistance of the mob to get it to land? So, if so, that is two casts to get it to land. Versus the how many casts for druids? Next, usually, if you can't have slow and cripple and druid debuffs (which is normally the case except for raids), it would make more sense to say slow vs druid debuffs, I'm not sure why the cripple is mentioned at all. According to some old posts by SOE, they claimed landing three or four druid debuffs (not sure on the exact number) was the same as slow. I felt that was ridiculous, but since I never crunched the numbers I can only say that my anecdotal experience is that slow > all. Druid debuffs, other than the lowering of fire resist with our Blessing of Ro AA, are worthless except for raid named. By the time you land a few on the mob, they are half dead. You are better off either healing or damaging the mob. EDIT: I see as I was posting you mentioned it was shaman cripple you meant. I was thinking enchanter. In any case, take my advice and go with shaman. Druid debuffs are not worth it except for raids or lowering the fire resist on group mobs enough for fire spells to land.
Appreciate the feedback seems like this is more complicated then I expected. Or it really is closer than I had thought. The situation would be 3 CoV white con mobs in Temple of Veeshan. Our question is when the tank has the 3 locked down on him at once what then reduces the incoming damage he sees the most. 1). A shaman landing 75% slow that was partially mitigated + Turgurs's Diminishment, cripple, on all 3. or 2). A druid landing Glare of Ro on all 3.
here is a link : might help https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/shaman-slow-effectiveness-at-end-game.219037/
If you are doing CoV mobs, I'm going to assume the druid is level 115 with enough AAs to maximize the Blessing of Ro AA. This casts the highest rank of Clasp of Ro the druid has. Looking at Clasp of Ro Rk. II, which I assume is the most common, we get: [59286/5847] Clasp of Ro Rk. II Classes: DRU/111 Skill: Alteration Mana: 1465 Focus: Fire Beetle Eye Target: Single Range: 200' Resist: Fire -200 Reflectable: Yes Focusable: Yes Casting: 3s, Recast: 6s, Rest: 1.5s Duration: 10m+ (100 ticks), Dispelable: Yes 1: Cast: Ro's Reflection Beza VI (v374) 4: Decrease ATK by 107 6: Decrease AC by 10 (Raw=-141) 7: Decrease Fire Resist by 85 10: Decrease ATK by 169 12: Decrease AC by 8 (Raw=-100) Text: You are surrounded by blazing flames. Surrounds your target in dancing flames, lowering their attack value by 107, fire resistance by 85, and armor class by 141 for 10 minutes. This spell will also heal your target's target for 13875 hit points. The advantage of this is it is one cast of an AA, so no need to memorize the spell. It also reflects a heal upon the target's target. Frankly, if I'm a druid and the tank is getting slammed by three mobs, I would be just spamming heals on the tank and not taking the time to debuff mobs. If they are "locked down" and the druid has the time, then, yes, put this on all mobs. More for the fire resist lowering, though. Will this help fighting the mobs? Sure. If I had to choose between this and shaman slow/cripple? No contest, go with the shaman slow/cripple.
Shaman slow is extremely overrated by players. Not only is the impact heavily reduced, but player tank have a belt that procs a slow. The end results iirc is shaman slow is an 18% reduction in swings and belt slow is a 6% reduction. So we're talking about 12% improvement, which is substantial but not the overwhelming force it was in older EQ. Note that shaman slow also comes with a significant debuff component: 23512/13144] Turgur's Diminishment VII Classes: SHM/254 Skill: Melee Target: Single Range: 250' Resist: Magic -2000, No Sanctification Reflectable: Yes Focusable: Yes Casting: 0s Duration: 8m+ (80 ticks), Dispelable: No 1: Increase Disease Counter by 28 3: Decrease STR by 424 4: Decrease AC by 63 (Raw=-839) 5: Decrease DEX by 482 6: Decrease AGI by 482 7: Decrease Chance to Dual Wield by 20% Text: Your strength is diminished. Reduces strength, dexterity, and agility by 482 points, armor class by 839 points, and the ability to dual wield by 20%. That being said, i also doubt you'd be able to find a sweet spot in the ac vs atk Damage Bonus equation where druid debuff beats shaman slow. The real difference betweem druid and shaman in terms of group survivability is healing, where a shaman is has snuck some really good heals in over the last few years while the druid has heavily stagnated. A 2021 druid is a nuker first and healer second.
Druids can stack both fire (typically) and ice long debuff and dot/debuff lines: Flame Lick Ro's Fiery Sundering E'ci's Frosty Breath Fixation of Ro Ro's Illumination - OR Hoar Frost Gelid Moonbeam Ros' Fiery Sundering and Fixation of Ro get combined into one spell line Grasp of Ro at level 86. This becomes the AA Blessing of Ro. Ro's Illumination is short lived, ending with Sun's Corona at level 67. It's supplanted by Hoar Frost line at higher levels. So a druid who wants to stack this typically has to land a cold resist debuf to land this line. Once level 80, with Blessing of Ro AA, the long debuff stack looks like: Blessing of Ro (e.g. Clasp of Ro) E'ci's Frosty Breath (e.g. Icerend Breath ... helps land Hoar Frost next) Hoar Frost (e.g. Restless Frost) Only the two in bold decrease ATK and by over (265 + 306 = 571 for level 111+ Rnk I). Compare that to slow + crippling (counterbias) effects. Lowering ATK that much is probably like buffing your tank's mitigation AC by a similar amount.
Druid debuff has also stagnated. Their ATK and AC debuffs should probably be double or triple what they are now. Again compare shaman -424 STR (which is essentially ATK) plus other stuffs vs poor druid -571 ATK alone.
Way back in TSS time period there was much discussion about this on thesteelwarrior. The general consensus seemed to be something like this: Slow: You take less rounds. Obviously this is always good as you probably take less damage overall. Cripple+Druid attack debuffs: You are less likely to take a max round. Dice on the DI part of melee weights the dice more in your favor. Damage is less spikey. So they have similar but different benefits. Slow may lower your damage by more but the attack debuffs make you less likely to take a freak round or two for max damage and just have the tank explode.
STR makes for higher damage, right? At some point there must be diminishing returns. Is the effectiveness of -300 STR vastly different than -424 STR? I have no idea. On the other hand, I would think every point of ATK matters. Just thinking aloud...
Since we are talking about NPC STR, the general consensus is that there is no soft/hard cap. It's been over a decade since the STR formula was changed so that 1 STR = 1 ATK and is linear. So I believe they are equivalent for this discussion.